“You want to clue me in?” Angel asked from beside him. Angel had barely had time to say hello to Rusty before the little brunette nurse Rusty’s father thought was cute as a button had shooed them from the room.
Ace frowned over at him. “What do you mean? Rusty’s getting a sponge bath, and the nurse—”
“No,” Angel cut him off. “Not that. This.” He waved a hand, indicating Ace’s length.
Ace glanced down at his shirt and jeans, wondering if he’d spilled tea on himself. Nope. “Sorry.” He shook his head. “You lost me.”
“You realize if you were to look up the word ‘melancholy’ in the dictionary, you would find your sad sack of a mug next to it.”
Angel’s words made the tea sour in his mouth. He didn’t want to talk about how these last few weeks, sitting beside Rusty’s hospital bed and watching Rusty fight his way to health, had solidified his feelings for the guy. He didn’t want to talk about how many times he’d compared this time in the hospital with last time in the hospital—here and now he was wanted; back then he hadn’t been. He didn’t want to talk about how much he’d come to adore Gary and Sylvia Parker. And he certainly didn’t want to talk about Rusty’s release at the end of the week, or that Gary and Sylvia planned to take Rusty home to Pittsburgh to convalesce, or that after Rusty was well, he intended to return to his cod-fishing business in Dover freakin’ England. Half a freakin’ world away.
“You’re one to talk,” he told Angel. “You’ve been walking around with a hangdog expression ever since we got back from Moldova. Have you heard from Sonya?”
Angel glared at him, his expression clearly saying he knew Ace’s turn-the-tables game. Still he said, “She asked for space and time. I have been respecting her wishes.”
“Mmm.” Ace nodded. “I know all about respecting another person’s wishes.”
There were a couple of times when it would have been so easy to drop Rusty’s parents a clue. But outing someone was a big no-no, even if keeping your mouth shut meant giving up any chance you had at being with them.
Ace took another sip of tea, hoping it would lubricate the lump that had inexplicably taken up residence in his throat. He mused aloud, “Have you ever heard the phrase What starts in chaos ends in chaos?”
Angel slid him a considering look. “No.”
Ace shrugged. “I can’t help but think that’s how it is with Rusty and me. We met each other in the middle of a life-and-death situation.”
Angel cocked his head. “So you think you two were doomed from the start?”
“Something like that.”
“Bullshit.”
Ace sighed, wanting to believe Angel but not quite getting there. “Then what about you and Sonya? You guys came together on a crazy mission to catch that synagogue bomber and look how that all turned out.”
“Sonya and I are far from over.” A muscle ticked in Angel’s square jaw. The man was a handsome sonofagun, no doubt about it. If not for that whole straight thing—oh, yeah, and if Ace weren’t head over heels for a certain redhead—Angel would’ve been just his type. Strong, brave, and stubborn.
Why do I always go for the stubborn ones?
“It’s been over a month,” he pointed out, “and you haven’t called her or gone to see her or—”
“She needed time to shine. This was her victory.”
Ace harrumphed. “You got a point there. Her and Zhao Longwei have been having a field day disseminating the Intel she scored. Don’t think I’ve ever seen so many arrests. And all the people inside government organizations? Holy demented shit! It’s mind-boggling. No wonder Grafton was able to fly under the radar for so long. I think he had spies inside every Intelligence agency and policing community in the world.”
“So the headlines would have us believe,” Angel agreed.
“And Grafton? You heard anything about him?”
“Sucked down some CIA-rendition rabbit hole, no doubt.”
Ace blew out a windy breath. “Wherever he is, I hope it’s cold and dark.”
“You and me both.”
“It’s weird. We were after him for so long, all our efforts on finding him and bringing him down, and now that it’s happened, it feels sort of…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Anticlimactic.”
So many of the Knights already had plans in the works for how they’d spend the rest of their lives. Ghost and Ali were staying in Chi-Town—where they’d probably make a gazillion more babies. Ali loved her job as a kindergarten teacher at the Latin School of Chicago, and Ghost was considering a position with the Chicago Police Department as a weapons instructor and shooting specialist.
Boss and Becky had decided to keep running the custom bike business, of course. Becky wouldn’t have it any other way. Honestly, neither would Boss. The man loved the shop and his ace mechanic of a wife so much that as long as she was happy, he was happy.
