Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 695(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
“I think it’s fishy,” Harlow said.
“Could be fishy,” Raye said. “Could also just be that he does confidential stuff for work and he keeps his screen in a position no one sees it because of that.”
Could be.
Could not be.
I’d never had a job that required computer work. But if most of it was confidential, I would assume a boss wouldn’t want me doing it in a public space.
We all sat with that for a moment.
Raye broke that moment.
“Anyway,” she went on. “I got a text from Clarice. Arthur has the briefing on Knox’s family ready for us. We’re meeting at Headquarters tonight after the girls get off shift. Seven thirty.”
“I can’t,” I said.
“You can’t?” Raye queried.
“I’m having dinner with Brady.”
Raye rolled her eyes. “I thought you two were gonna stop that shit.”
“We are. It’s just friends, as it’s always been just friends.”
Kind of.
Actually, mostly, except the fake flirting/dating part.
“Right,” Raye scoffed.
“I think he just wants to debrief and move on from it,” I said. “Closure.”
“Whatever,” Raye mumbled, then suggested, “Wednesday.”
“No can do on that, too,” I was happy to say.
The longer I delayed, the more time I had to figure out how to get them to stand down.
We’d been successful on all our missions so far. Part of it, I liked to think, was that we were smart, intuitive chicks. Part of it, I worried, was dumb luck.
What I knew was, either way that swung (especially the second way), we wouldn’t stand a chance against John Wick.
“What’s on Wednesday?” Harlow asked.
“Dinner at Mom and Dad’s,” I told her.
“Okay, Thursday.”
Well, dang.
“I can’t do that either,” I said.
Raye was getting irritated, I could tell. “What do you have to do Thursday?”
“Well, uh…”
Both of them stared hard at me.
“Knox and I are going to have a chat.”
Harlow got all happy-face.
Raye got all hope-face.
“I’ve been popping around, making sure he’s fed and hasn’t fallen and can’t get up,” I admitted. Then said firmly, “As friends do.”
“You’ve been…popping around.” Raye drew the last two words out.
“What are you guys talking about?” Jessie came up to our huddle.
“Luna’s been popping to Knox’s house and taking care of him,” Harlow chirped.
Jessie swung to me. “Really?”
“We’re friends,” I stated.
“I’ll tell you what,” Jessie began. “If Eric gave me a hint of what we could be, then did…whatever, and took it away, expecting me to be his friend, no way in fuck I’d be nursing his ass after he got shot. Even if I did agree to be his friend.”
“Same with Cap,” Raye put in.
“Well, I’d probably look after Javi,” Harlow mumbled.
She totally would, and that was one of the reasons Harlow was so awesome.
“You aren’t me, and Cap and Eric aren’t Knox,” I said.
They went back to staring at me, now with worry.
“It’s okay,” I told them.
“What does he want to talk about?” Harlow asked a pertinent question.
Because…yeah.
What did he want to talk about?
“Right, so the road to us being functional friends hasn’t been smooth. As you know. We’ve been avoiding each other a lot.”
There were a variety of responses to that including verbal chuffs and eye rolls.
I kept at it.
“And I kinda got in his face yesterday because, clearly, I had a few things to get off my chest. So my guess is, he wants us to finally put all the crap behind us and figure things out so now that it’s all out there, we can all be one big happy posse without that mess dragging us down.”
Or at least that was my guess.
“And we’re making progress,” I told them. “He had breakfast waiting for me when I showed this morning to make sure he was good.”
They kept staring at me.
Then they stared at each other.
They went back to staring at me.
“What?” I asked.
“You went by this morning?” Harlow inquired.
I nodded.
Jessie opened her mouth.
“Nope,” Raye said, cutting her off.
Jessie shut her mouth.
“What?” I repeated.
“Girl, you need to figure your shit out,” Raye told me.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be you figuring your shit out,” Raye stated.
“It’s no big deal,” I asserted. “This is good. It wasn’t good before. But this is good. Sure, last night I shouted in his face. But we were all good this morning.”
Except for that whole “slept like a log” business.
And his smile.
And his bare chest.
And his comment about my ass.
Friends didn’t comment about friends’ asses.
I needed to make a note to share that with him during our talk.
“I think I needed to let it out,” I told them. “You know, with the shouting business. I feel better about it now.”
Was that a lie?
I wasn’t sure.
“She definitely needs to figure herself out,” Jessie muttered.
“Totes,” Harlow, watching me closely, agreed.
“You’ll see,” I stated.
“Right,” Raye said.
“Are you women ever gonna work!” Tex, who could not see us, but we’d learned he could sense us, especially when we weren’t working, boomed from the coffee cubby.