“You and Hudson,” Lainey informed me with a wry grin as she lifted the cup to her mouth, as if she hadn’t just knocked the oxygen from my lungs with something as simple as pairing me up with Gray.
With a little shrug, she added, “The two of you both look like supermodel assassins. I’ve been calling y’all that since the time Asher tasked y’all with babysitting me.”
“And how can you hate Barbie?” Chloe interjected. “She’sBarbie. I mean, sure, the doll sets insanely unrealistic body image goals for girls, but she’s literal perfection, which meansyouare literal perfection.”
My brow furrowed in disbelief. “I hate Barbie because people have called me that throughout my life in an attempt to prove I didn’t belong,” I pointedly responded.
“Or because you literally look like the human version of Barbie,” she added with wide eyes, as if she wasn’t sure how I didn’t see it.
Except, I had a lifetime of memories that proved otherwise.
I tried shrugging off the arm that draped heavily over my shoulder, then jammed my elbow into the ribs of the SEAL beside me when he only curled his arm tighter. An action thathad unwanted memories with the same man rushing to the surface.
As if I needed the memories.
His crushing grip and forceful, almost punishing kiss—as unexpected as it had been unwelcomed—made my stomach churn whenever he’d been mentioned or I’d caught sight of him over the past week and a half. His overpowering cologne had continued haunting me, like he’d been around each corner, waiting to catch me off-guard again.
You would’ve thought laying him out and knocking him unconscious would’ve been warning enough to stay away from me. You would’ve thought knowing I could easily take him down would’ve comforted me, but the confident way he wrapped his arm around me then had an unfamiliar feeling weaving through my rage—something almost like panic.
And then he spoke, and all thoughts of what he might try again were abruptly replaced with every insecurity.
“See there, Ice Barbie? That’s what a woman looks like. Can you saywoman?” He cast a vicious smirk my way before nodding in the direction of the scantily clad women standing by the bar we’d just walked into. “Maybe they’ll give you tips on how to...”—he made a face that bordered on pity, but did nothing to cover his rage, as he gave me a once over—“well...not bethis.”
Gray appeared out of nowhere and threw the guy back a few feet before I had the chance to jam the heel of my palm into his throat. And while his familiar, comforting presence by my side was enough to keep the other SEAL from approaching me again, Gray’s attention drifted from me almost as soon as he acknowledged me.
And not an hour later, I watched Gray leave the bar with one of those same women.
“Everything Chloe said,” Lainey softly added, forcing away the memory as she gestured to Chloe with her cup. “But if you hate the Barbie reference, then you hate it. Doesn’t change that you’re easily the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in real life.”
“And there’s nothing about you that doesn’t sayfeminine,” Chloe added before tilting her head and amending, “Except maybe the boots. But I actually like them. It matches the assassin vibe.”
Lainey nodded in agreement.
From their expressions to the way they’d quickly rambled and agreed with each other, as if they’d had this conversation before, there wasn’t anything that made me think they were lying. Still, I didn’t believe them. A lifetime of trying to fit into a man’s world made it hard to. Over a decade of Gray looking everywhere but at me made it impossible to.
“Okay, but if I wanted to dress...differently?” I began hesitantly, making sure I didn’t give anything else away. “Look different?”
Chloe nodded as if she understood, but her voice still came out uncharacteristically soft and gentle when she said, “If you want to change your style because you’re tired of it, of course we’ll help you, but you should know first that you don’t need to.”
“Right,” Lainey whispered as her friend continued in a tone that was more like her usual bubbliness.
“I honestly had no idea until this conversation that you didn’t wear makeup. You do realize women wear makeup in an effort to look like you? And that’snatural?” Chloe dramatically dropped her head to the back of the couch, a laugh leaving her as if she couldn’t understand it.
“What’s brought this on?” Lainey asked as her own disbelieving laugh ended, her expression open as if she knew it was something so much more than just me wanting to change my style.
Instead of laying out the entire thing for them, I gave them the only truth I could. “I just want to stop looking like one of the guys.”
Lainey and Chloe shared a glance before they both burst into laughter, making my cheeks heat with embarrassment.
Lainey recovered first, but that could’ve been because a wave of nausea clearly swept over her from the way her hand went to her mouth and her face paled dramatically.
“You okay?” Chloe asked, quickly setting her cup on the coffee table and placing one foot on the floor as she reached for Lainey.
Lainey gave an unsteady nod before offering us a weary smile as she gestured for Chloe to respond to me.
After watching Lainey for a few seconds longer, Chloe sat back on the couch with a worried sigh, then gave me a pointed onceover. “You donotlook like one of the guys.”
I glanced at my workout outfit. “I was at the gym before my meeting with Briggs.”
