“That’s what I thought.” He lifted his beer in a mock toast. “Kayla Cafferty. The woman who turned Ben Garrison into a man who does school assemblies. I’d like to send her a fruit basket.”
“Please shut up.”
“PTA meetings? Chaperoning field trips?” He was ticking items off on his fingers. “Book fairs? Are you going to be one of those dads who builds sets for the school play?”
“Fuck off.”
“Just trying to understand the trajectory here.” He let the silence settle for a beat. Then his expression shifted, the teasing still there but carrying an edge now. “So what’s the real play with her? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re putting in a whole lot of effort to get a single mom into bed. I mean, she’s hot and all, but that’s a lot of work for some pus?—”
“Stop talking.”
My voice dropped into a register that had nothing to do with banter. Low, flat, stripped of everything except the warning underneath it. The same voice I’d used exactly twice in Afghanistan, both times right before things went very wrong for the person who didn’t listen.
The kitchen went still.
Donovan’s grin didn’t fade. It died. He looked at me, and I watched him realize that the man standing across thekitchen from him was not the same man who’d been trading jokes thirty seconds ago.
I hadn’t moved. Hadn’t raised my voice. Hadn’t done anything except let him see what was behind the door he’d just tried to open.
“Don’t talk about her like that.” Quiet. Final.
Jolly had lifted his head from his bed in the living room, ears forward, body tense. Reading the room the way he read every room—looking for the threat.
Donovan set his beer on the counter. Slowly. “I was out of line.”
“You were joking. I know that.” I did fucking know it. Damn it. We’d joked like this for years. I couldn’t pinpoint why my hands were clenched into fists right now.
“Still out of line.” He meant it. I could hear it. Whatever he’d been expecting when he’d pushed that button, this wasn’t it. “I’m sorry.”
The silence sat between us for a few seconds. Heavy.
“It’s not like anything,” I said. “We’re neighbors. We’re figuring things out.”
“Ben.” His voice was careful now, picking through terrain he knew was mined. “I have seen you take fire, get blown up, and walk through situations that would break most people, and not once have I seen your face do what it just did. Over a joke.” He held my gaze. “Whatever this is, it’s past thefiguring-things-outstage, whether you’ve caught up to that yet or not.”
I didn’t have an answer. He was right, and the fact that he was right sat in my chest like something I wasn’t ready to look at directly.
He picked his beer back up. Took a long sip. The gesture was deliberate—unhurried, casual, signaling that we were moving past it.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’m glad.”
“You’re glad.”
“You’ve spent seven years caring about exactly two things. Jolly and the job. In that order.” He shrugged. “Nice to see a third thing make the list.”
“We haven’t— I haven’t— It’s not—” I ran my hand through my hair. Jesus fucking Christ. Someone just shoot me. “Can we just fucking work now?”
“Please. I’m going to have to start charging you by the hour otherwise.”
Jolly put his head back down on his paws. Satisfied that the humans had sorted themselves out. Tail thumped once.
We moved to the dining room. The suspect photos still covered the wall under the harsh overhead light, and looking at those faces in neat rows never got easier.
“The dealer from the second raid,” I said. “Useless?”
“Completely.” Donovan pulled up a chair and straddled it backward, arms folded across the top. “Kid had been working for his supplier less than a week. Didn’t know the supplier’s real name, didn’t know where the product came from, didn’t know anyone up the chain. He was a warm body behind a table.”
“And the two buyers?”
