“So you think Destiny dumped you,” Ben prompted, his tone full of authority.
He might as well get this over with. It was his big mouth that prompted this little intervention. He should have just stuck to the shadows like he was good at and go home and be miserable instead of having to talk about his feelings. The last thing he wanted to do was talk.
“Tiny!” Ben wasn’t fucking around.
“Destiny stopped talking to me four days ago.” There was no immediate response to his statement.
“Do you suspect something happened to her?” Heath asked. Olivia, his girlfriend had almost been kidnapped from her ex.
“No, I see her on base and I’ve seen her car come and go. She’s fine, she just won’t talk to me. I’ve tried calling, texting, but she won’t answer me.” He scrubbed the back of his head in frustration. The unknown was killing him. If she was angry, he didn’t know why.
“What happened four days ago?”
“She got interviewed by Aaron, Abigail and Cora. Then she came over to my place for dinner. She asked about what she should bring to the barbeque, and I told her she didn’t have to go. She left after that.”
Six men groaned at the same time while rolling their eyes.
“That’s your problem, numbnuts,” Liam said colorfully.
“I don’t understand.”
“No one knew of her existence until that day. She got invited to the barbeque and then you told her basically not to come,” Liam explained slowly as if talking to a child.
“I didn’t want her to feel pressured to go,” Mike tried defending. A flash of sad green eyes came to mind. Destiny’s devastated look when he told her it wouldn’t be fun for her and that spending the day in bed would be better.
Now hearing what Liam, said he could see where he went wrong. “She thinks I’m still trying to keep her a secret.”
“Yeah, women don’t like being treated like a dirty secret.” Thank you, Liam, for rubbing salt on the wound.
“That hadn’t been my intention.”
Ben clapped him on the shoulder. If it was meant to console him, he was failing. It just made him feel like shit. No wonder Destiny didn’t want to talk to him. He’d been telling her about the barbeques for months but never invited her because he didn’t want the hundreds of questions from the women. He’d only been protecting himself and hadn’t thought about Destiny’s feelings on the matter.
She had warned him about men using her in the past. Men only wanting her for her connections and wealth. And while he hadn’t wanted any of those things, she probably felt he was using her. Stringing her along until they made love then he made the idiotic decision to tell her not to bother going to the barbeque. No wonder she had looked like he had crushed her.
“Whether we mean to or not, we’ve all done stupid things with the women we love. I hurt Hannah when I didn’t think we belonged in the same social class,” Ben admitted softly. His hard tone was softer now. He was in friend mode instead of leader.
“I hurt Cora when I broke up with her over keeping June a secret.” Yeah, that had been a dick move. June was great. A spunky young woman who had been sequestered in her house until Cora met her. Liam had always felt guilty over her condition that had caused a double amputation of her legs because he wouldn’t pick her up from a party. She’d gotten a lift from a friend who had been drinking and crashed the car. But now she was in Las Vegas undergoing a procedure to have prosthetics put on so she could walk again.
She didn’t want anyone to see her until she was walking again. She had a long road to recovery, but they knew she would pull through. She was like a little sister to them all.
“I thought Abigail was a guy,” Aaron added with a grin, finally looking up from his computer. Mike was convinced that thing was glued to his hands when they weren’t on a mission.
“I wouldn’t really say that compares to the current situation, but thanks for sharing, buddy.” Ben was right. Aaron thinking Abigail was a guy because she’d been a computer whiz and blocked his access into FBI files didn’t compare to treating the woman he loved like a secret.
Ben looked back at Mike. “All we’re saying is we’ve all done some dumb shit with the women we love. You’re just the next guy.” Mike didn’t bother making a comment about love. He did love Destiny. The fact these guys knew that after only one of them meeting her once said a lot. For their team, when they found the one for them, they just knew. Some of them fought it, but the end result was the same. Their women were just as fierce as their men.
“Thanks, that makes me feel so much better.” His sarcasm was thick enough to cut glass.
“Then stop being a shit about it and fix it.” Ben’s tone was taking on that authoritative tone again. It was getting annoying.
Mike shot out of his seat, but he didn’t make a move toward Ben. He knew better. Ben may be shorter than him, but he had a mean right hook that would even knock his big ass out. That was the last thing he wanted. Liam was a good fighter, but Ben fought dirty. “I just told you she won’t see me,” he gritted through his teeth. His fists clenched at his sides. Mike really wanted to punch something right now. Anything that would help alleviate some of this tension. Help ease the ache in his chest. God, it felt like his heart was ripping right out of it. The sad part was that it was all his fault. He caused this.
Ben didn’t look intimidated at all. In fact he smirked at Mike’s show of temper, looking him dead in the eye. That made him want to punch the little shit in his face that much more. If only Ben wasn’t a worthy opponent who gave as well as he took. “We’ve been on hundreds of missions together. Many of which we shouldn’t have ever come home from, but your ingenuity saved our asses more times than I can count. I’ve seen you sneak into enemy territory as if you were one with the landscape. You can jerry rig an explosive in the dark with only a match and pen for tools. Are you trying to tell me you, a Delta Force Operative, can’t see a woman?”
Well, when he put it that way. He had been considering breaking into her house, but that had been a last resort. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
“We may get knocked down,” Ben said, starting their motto.
