Thankfully, the way he understood it, being twitterpated was a passing phase. Once the mating instinct was satisfied, both parties were free to go their separate ways.Let’s hope…
“So, what’s up?” Leo asked Olivia, folding his arms over the back of the captain’s chair Wolf was currently occupying.
“Apparently the A-Team…uh…” She shook her head. “That’s what Morales and I were calling the apprehension team.”
“You guys sure go for the obvious when it comes to code names, don’t you?” Wolf snorted, causing Olivia to pull a face.
“This isn’t anofficial”—she made the quote marks with her fingers—“operation. So, we figured the simpler we kept things, the better.” Wolf opened his mouth, but she was quick to cut him off. “And, yes. I know this has since turned into a shitstorm of complexity, but I swear to you it started out as nothing much more than a Sunday picnic.”
Bran glanced at the faces around him, reading the varying levels of disbelief. Once again the word “clusterfuck” whispered through his head.
“Anyway,” she continued, choosing to ignore their cynical expressions, “apparently they hit something in the water, and it bent the hell out of the propeller on one of their two outboard engines. They have an extra prop with them, but it’ll take some time to switch out the old for the new.”
“And in the meantime?” he asked. “Do we go dead in the water or do we carry on to…thepackage?” He couldn’t help but stress the last two words, especially when doing so caused Olivia’s whole face to flatten.
“That’s up to you guys,” she said after she’d tried to light his eyebrows on fire with her gaze alone.
“Pros and cons, men?” Leo asked, and the question was so familiar that Bran experienced a strong sense of nostalgia. That’s how Leo had begun the planning for each and every op they’d ever run. And it was just one more reason why Leo had been perfect for the job of commanding officer. It took an incredibly intelligent and thoughtful man to be humble enough to know he didn’t always have the right answer and to solicit as many opinions as he could before making any decision.
Of course, Bran would never tell Leo how much he admired him.Where’s the fun in that?
“If those tangos are still on site,” Wolf began, “it’d be better to wait for the…ah…A-Team.” One corner of Wolf’s mouth twitched and Bran slapped him a high five. Olivia rolled her eyes.
“True.” Leo nodded, running a hand over his beard—if you considered the current trend to maintain what amounted to a slightly longer than a five-o’clock shadow an actualbeard. “But if they’renoton site, if they went down with their boat, we could be twiddlin’ our dicks out here for hours for no good reason.”
Bran opened his mouth to take a swing at the dick-twiddling softball Leo had lobbed his way. But Leo beat him to the punch by flicking him a look that promised untold misery should one word of what had happened belowdecks escape his lips. Bran wisely clamped his teeth together.
“Or we could always alter course and go pick up the contractors,” Wolf suggested, adjusting the throttle when a larger-than-normal wave causedWayfarer-Ito list slightly. “But if they get that propeller repaired in the meantime, we’ll have wasted a lot of time and fuel.”
Fuel.The way Wolf spat out the word almost made it sound dirty. And, in a way, it was. Because even though that half a million dollars Olivia was paying them for this gig would go a long way in helping them search for theSantaCristina, every dime—which translated into every drop of fuel—still counted.
“I vote we keep heading toward the package,” Mason said. “We can always stop a few miles out and glass the area to see if there are any un-fuckin’-friendlies floating thereabouts. If there are,thenwe can pull back and wait for the contractors to arrive.”
“Bran?” Leo asked. “Thoughts?”
“You know me, LT.” He shrugged. “I like it best when we do things Han-style, so I say we keep on keeping on.”
“Han-style?” Olivia asked.
“You know, Han Solo? So, solo?”
She lifted a brow.
“Oh, for shit’s sake. You really need to get a subscription to HBO or Netflix. It loses itsoomphwhen I have to explain it.”
“Olivia?” Leo turned to her, or more like he’d never turnedawayfrom her. “Which side of the argument are you comin’ in on?”
“Well, of courseIwant to go retrieve those chemicals as quickly as possible,” she admitted. “So I vote for doing it”—she turned to smile at Bran—“Han-style.”
He slow-winked at her.
“Something in your eye, Brando?” Leo asked. And even if his best friend hadn’t used his full name, the warning in Leo’s tone was clear.She’s mine, it said.So, ix-nay on the irting-flay.
Bran sighed.Twitterpated. Totally, completely, annoyingly twitterpated…
Chapter Eight
1:43 p.m.…
