“What is this, an interrogation?”The questions just kept coming at him at rapid-fire speed.
“Why are you getting so defensive?”Barry asked, crossing his arms over his chest and scowling at him, reminding Carson of his CO from training when he’d been cross with him.
“Why are you so inquisitive?”he fired back.“I don’t seem to recall anyone caring about Luke dating Shay or Greg and Zoe.So why me?”
“We did care.We protect each other’s backs, but given what happened on your last date, we have concerns.”
“Well, everything was fine and is fine with us.We are already planning another outing.”Now that he’d told them, they could drop the issue.
“Couldn’t have been that bad then,” Rob mused, looking around at the other guys.
“She does want to see him again,” Jack commented, almost in shock as if the thought were foreign.
“Or he could be lying about things going well.”Barry and Greg were mumbling between the two of them.
“Hey!”Carson took offense to that.Really to all of them talking around him like he wasn’t there.
“Oh, you know what we should do?”Jack snapped his fingers, looking like an idea had come to him.
When Jack suggested something, you never knew what he was going to say.Something ingenious or something really bad.“Drop the issue and move on to more important matters?”Carson suggested.
“We should stage a stakeout.”
“Yes,” Rob agreed.“We’ll have cameras and a microphone on you at all times.”
“We can get you an earpiece, and I can tell you what to say,” Jack added helpfully.
“Why would I want that?”It was onething having an earpiece while on an op.A date was not the setting.
“Because you’ll mess this up, no doubt.Women like to be wooed.I’ll have eyes and ears on you the whole time.We’ll get you into score town, buddy.”Jack held his hand up for Carson to high-five.Carson ignored the hand.
“I don’t need help in that department.”Not that it was something on his radar at the moment.
“When was the last time you went heels to Jesus?”
“What?”
“Wallpapered the closet.”
“Are you speaking English?”Nothing he was saying made any sense.
“Sex,” Drew supplied.“He’s asking whenwas the last time you got laid.”How he knewthat, Carson didn’t know orwant to know.
“That is none of your business,” he growled, ready to be done with this conversation and get to work.
“So it’s been a while,” Jack responded, taking his lack of answer as an answer.
He was not going to dignify that with a response even if that statement was accurate.He had been busy and was sensitive about people seeing his scars.Allie was the first woman he’d allowed to see them, and it had been an unconscious action of him to do it.
“We are done talking about this.No cameras.No earpiece.End of discussion.”
“Please?”Jack stuck out his bottom lip, looking completely pathetic, but Carson wasn’t going to budge.
“No,” he snapped, finally at the end of his rope.
“Alright, that’s enough.”Luke stepped in as if sensing the tension now growing.“Leave him be.Let’s meet at the war table in five.”The guys dispersed, finally leaving Carson alone in peace.
He glanced at his phone, and a small indiscreet smile came over his face.He had a text from Allie.He didn’t know why it excited him so.They talked every day.She was becoming a good friend.
