“Oh yeah, these two going after each other was definitely always going to happen,” Hedy says, winking at me as she hands Anders a set of tiny syringes.
He beams, adding them to the little metal case he always carries with him. She palms his cheek affectionately, and a little too familiarly for my taste.
“Do we know what went wrong with the op in Shreveport?” Anders asks, his face becoming serious.
Parker comes to the other side of the bed and leans in to kiss my temple. “Hey, you all right?”
I nod, and we both listen in on the conversation between Anders and Hedy, a rare window into the Wimberley operation.
Hedy pulls her fingers through her long, wavy hair and sighs heavily. The worried look doesn’t quite match the pronounced freckles across her lovely face. “I’ve had Jake and the Wonder Twins compare notes, and from what they can figure, we were operating on bad data from the beginning. We didn’t—and still don’t—know the scope of this thing.”
Anders looks surprised and mildly impressed. “Damn, you put Jake and the Wonder Twins together?”
She tilts her hand back and forth. “Ehhh, he dealt mostly with Elliot. Bernard is a little…muchfor most people.”
Anders grimaces, which is super curious. “Good call.”
“Yeah, well, we got overwhelmed in Shreveport, and they clearly have other resources, so that’ll be fun for us to chase down. All I know is that while we were waiting for the FBI to make their case, they were amassing a stockpile of goons and guns.”
“And Sikorskys, apparently. We didn’t hear that Black Hawk until it was right on top of us.”
Her hand goes to his face again, and I try not to picture what they must’ve looked like in bed together.
“I’m sorry about your parents’ place. We’ll handle the bodies and the debris.”
“Don’t forget about Millie and Dave. Toss anyone who wasn’t cooked to them.”
Hedy pulls out her phone and taps out a quick text to someone, chuckling to herself. “You got it. And hey, if you see Odd before I do, tell him to look at Edison’s prosthetic again—it got fucked after some fairly intense hand-to-hand combat, so he was in there, fighting one-legged again.”
“You know you’re not going to ever win that argument with him, right?”
“Oh, I know. I like the man way more than I should, but…ugh. There are days when I can’t tell if I want to fuck him or throttle him.”
Anders looks over at me and smiles while bowing his head. Yeah, I’m just gonna need to get on board with people knowing about us because he has no poker face. Like, at all.
I also search my memory for this Edison guy, and I know we’ve met briefly before. He’s a handsome redhead with a snarl that makes my expression look like Mr. Rogers.
They’re together?
Interesting.
I’m not saying that I’m relieved, I’m just saying that my blood pressure may have finally come back down to something approaching normal.
As their conversation trails off, I turn to our other surprise guest. “So, Park, what’re you doing here?”
She smiles and touches my nose. “I came to see you, silly. Wanted to make sure my friend was okay.”
The pleasure of being called someone’s friend is not one I’ve experienced a lot of in my life, and a warm feeling settles into my body.
“I can’t believe you drove all this way, but I’m all right. Better now.”
Her glare lacks heat, but the message is clear. “Omar, I’m going to need you to get on board with the fact that our friendship comes with snark and support in equal measure, m’kay? I don’t want to keep on explaining this.”
There are worse things, you know? I lean my head against her arm. “Got it. Thanks, friend.”
Everett walks into the room, and Parker walks up to him, her hand out. “You owe me five bucks.”
Everett strokes his gorgeous silver-and-black beard, eyes darting back and forth between me and Anders. “You assholes,” he says, reaching for his wallet.
