Alan
“He was staring at her boobs!” I groused as I stabbed the beautifully prepared steak my brother had made for dinner.
“Is that what you were so upset about?” Lainey asked from across the dining-room table in Adam’s rental. It was right next door to Brian’s place, where I was staying.
“Yes! Like, what the hell—he’s some friend of her parents from church and he’s leering at her.”
Adam grinned. “I don’t know… Lain said you were doing some leering of your own.”
“That’s different!” I snapped.
He laughed out loud when he asked, “Why’s that?”
“Yeah,” Lainey chimed in with a shit-eating grin. “Why’s that, Mr. ‘I’m-not-going-to-do-anything-that-makes-her-uncomfortable’?”
I felt my eyes go wide, and I dropped my fork with a clatter.
“Do you think I made her uncomfortable?”
Aw, hell. That was the last thing I wanted to do.
Lainey shook her head. “No, I’m just teasing you. I think she thought you were just being nice. Like I’m sure she thought Kevin was being.”
I glowered at her.
“Bullshit. Even I could tell she didn’t want to get in the car with him.”
“Okay, yeah. And I’m not gonna lie, I would have insisted you go look for her if she hadn’t texted within ten minutes after leaving to tell me she’d made it home.”
“Exactly. I’m kind of offended you even put me in the same category as that dude.”
“That’s fair. But you did say you weren’t going to ask her out, yet I’m pretty sure if you’d been the one to take her home, that wouldn’t have been the case.”
“Lainey,” I replied with a smirk as I examined the piece of steak on my fork like it was a work of art. “Unlike some of the other males in this town”—I shot my brother a look to make my point—“if I’m interested in a woman, I’m going to go after her.”
She set her silverware down and leaned back in her chair with a deadpan expression, unimpressed with my theatrics.
“I’m going on the record right now I think that’s a mistake. Of all the women in this town to go slow with, it’s her.” She picked up her fork and loaded it up with a bite, pausing to add, “And I swear to god, if she quits because of you—you’llbe the one in my kitchen baking cinnamon rolls. Got it?”
That wasn’t going to happen.
I wasn’t some clown who didn’t know how to read people. While officially I was a homebuilder, and a damn successful one at that, off the record, I was a military contractor doing counterintelligence for the government.
I considered it my penance. Survivor’s guilt of not one, but two, attacks overseas lived rent-free in my heart. I’d made it home when my fellow Marines—and close friends—didn’t while we were protecting our country. I owed it to their memory to continue our mission, even if it wasn’t in uniform.
And, I wasn’t a saint—it helped that the pay was outstanding.
Very few people knew that I still worked for the government.
Except, Lainey knew; it’s how I helped save her life. She should cut me some slack.
If Jessica wasn’t interested, I’d back the fuck off.
“Got it.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jessica
