Oh. With a sigh, I reach for my phone. “Get the beers out of the fridge. I need a minute to program this damn software. And you better have a picture of Mik.”
The corners of Austin’s lips twitch into a half smile as he heads to the kitchen. The man’s gone and fallen in love. Wasn’t sure he had it in him. This should be good. I need some good. Or…at least some normal.
Thank God for the invention of text messaging and swipe keyboards. Programming Austin’s voiceprint and the proper spelling of Mik’s name would be a lot harder if I weren’t already an expert at typing one-handed.
A beer bottlethunksdown on the table, the sound faint, but enough that I look up when Austin takes his seat across from me.
What the hell do I say to him now?
He looks as uncertain as I feel, and we pull slices from the box, stare at them, and start in on the beer. I can’t—or won’t—do this conversation watching Austin’s words scroll across my lenses, so I take the glasses off, fold them carefully next to me, and lift my gaze.
“You disappeared on me, man. For eight fucking months.”
“I know.” He doesn’t look me in the eyes when he continues, “I thought I was helping. Keeping all of my bullshit far away from anyone it could hurt.”
“Did you ever think maybe the rest of us had bullshit we were dealing with too?” The pizza tastes like cardboard, but I haven’t eaten much today—or any day since the attack, so I down half a piece in two bites while I wait for Austin to get his head out of his ass and say something.
“I wasn’t going to be any help to anyone. Not as low as I was.”
My right hand curls into a fist, and I slam it down on the table before I realize what I’m doing. “Aslowas you were? I lost my goddamn arm, asshole. Most of my hearing. Want to know how I spend my days now? Chained to a desk while the other officers talk behind my back about howhelplessI am.”
Focusing on the bottle of beer, I raise my left arm and close the fingers around the neck. Austin watches, his shoulders relaxing when I manage a long swig.
“I’m not fucking helpless.”
“Never said you were.” He runs a hand through his hair, wincing slightly. “I screwed up. Epically. And I’m sorry.”
Nodding, I kill the rest of the slice of pizza, then look up to find him staring at me.
“Well?”
“What? If you said something while I wasn’t watching you…I missed it. And that’s a shitty thing to do.” This whole dinner was a mistake. Apology or not, there’s too much distance between us.
“It’s your turn,” he says.
I almost choke on my sip of beer. “My turn?”
“To apologize.”
He’s serious. Staring right at me with anI’m the boss and don’t you forget itlook.
“Why the hell would I do that?”
Austin pulls out his phone, scrolls for a moment, and slides the device across the table. My last email to him glows on the screen.
I owe you an apology.
Son of a bitch.
“You’re seriously going to hassle me aboutthat?” Sending the phone back to him with a little more force than necessary, I shake my head. “Fine. I’m sorry I went off on you after you left me to deal with all this shit on my own. Happy now?”
Sadness lingers in his eyes. “I made a fuck-ton of mistakes this past year. Ignored Trevor, Dani, everyone at Second Sight and Hidden Agenda—”
I’m not sure I hear him correctly and hold up my hand while I steal a quick glance at my phone to check the transcript. “Hidden Agenda?”
“Dax has a brother. Well, no. They’re not related. But the two of them…they’re family. Ryker runs Hidden Agenda, a Kandahar firm out in Seattle,” Austin explains.
Kandahar? What the hell? I’m tired of lipreading—it’s like trying to make sense of a textbook you’re staring at through a window screen—so I don the glasses and realize he’s talking about a K&R—kidnap and ransom—firm. Dax’s team really did program this software with everything I needed to know.
