They stood in awkward silence for a moment. She could only deal with one issue at a time. She was on birth control and it wasn’t the right time to ovulate. No point in worrying about it. She turned around.
“Des?”
“Yeah?” she half turned back.Please don’t make this more awkward.
Mike stood up fixing his pants before he looked up at her bashfully. “Will you go to the barbeque with me Saturday?”
It was so cute how uncertain he looked right then standing there looking down at his feet, afraid of her rejection. “I’d love to.”
Mike beamed like she’d just handed him the moon.
“I need to clean up and change.”
“What’s the point when you’re just going to get dirty again?” Mike closed the distance between them, scooped her in his arms, and carried her to her room.
Yeah, what was the point? She had every intention of getting very, very dirty.
Chapter 28
Mike scrubbed his eyes trying to rub the tiredness out of them and bring the report in front of him back into focus. Making up with Destiny had been exhausting, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything. Except maybe getting more than three hours of sleep. He didn’t remember most of his run this morning. It was possible he slept while jogging at some point. He thought about going back to Destiny’s after his run, but he didn’t have a change of clothes and she needed some sleep.
“Mike, you with us?” Ben asked, holding up the briefing they were going over and glaring at him. They were going over what intel they had on the attack the other day. There still weren’t any suspects, but it looked like the perp struck again at another base two states over.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“Since this is only the second base they’ve hit, we don’t have a pattern as of yet other than they are attacking smaller bases with less security. The second base was an Air Force base, so it’s not just one branch they are striking.”
“Has anyone been able to tell what intel they are stealing or if they are even getting anything?” Mike asked. He knew he couldn’t ask Destiny. Everything in that building was all classified.
“Not as of yet. Everyone in the building was told to up their security in case someone tries again as well as recheck their work. Whoever it is, is good.”
“Bastard,” Aaron mumbled not at all happy about that.
He and Abigail were some of the top computer people they had around base. If they couldn’t figure out who was doing it and what they were taking, that didn’t bode well for them.
“We’ll get ’em,” Ben assured him, placing a hand on Aaron’s shoulder before turning back to the rest of them sitting around the meeting table. “Warnings have already gone out to all the other bases. All we can do now is wait to see if they’ll strike again as we plan for our next mission.”
“Any chance there is more than one hacker?” Carter asked. “To strike two days later two states over is ballsy, but to break onto a base and steal intel, that takes recon.”
“Anything is possible at this point unfortunately. Hopefully now that all the bases of all the branches are on the lookout, we can catch ’em sooner rather than later. That’s all for now. I’m meeting Colonel Jones here shortly for details on our next mission. Dismissed.” He nodded, signaling the meeting was over, but everyone stayed. Now that they weren’t in mission mode, they could all relax.
“What’s with you?” Ben asked Mike pointedly.
“Just tired.”
“Well, you’re less cranky than yesterday, so that’s good.”
Mike looked down at his feet so Ben didn’t see his cheeks burning. “Destiny and I made up,” he mumbled.
“Ah.” One syllable but held so much meaning. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together. He heard the snickers around the table. The guys loved to give him a hard time since he didn’t have a rep with the ladies like most of them did.
“Speaking of Destiny, I got the info you wanted,” Aaron piped up saving him from further embarrassment. The guys could rib each other, but he didn’t like his own sex life to be under scrutiny.
“Are you doing a background check on her?” Liam asked. “Dude, so uncool.”
“Someone tried killing her.” That got everyone’s attention. “An SUV jumped a curb and came right at her.”
“Fuck,” Liam spat. “And you watched this?”
