“Mm.” I pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth.
“I guess I don’t have to ask if you want us to be discreet around your coworkers…”
No, fuck that. Unless she… No. No, she didn’t want that either. I looked her in the eye and saw all the heat and affection I wanted to see. It mirrored what I felt, which was still bizarre. And new. It was new. So damn new.
“There’s plenty of things I hide,” I murmured. “I don’t want you to be one of them.”
“Oof… Operator Hyatt, that’s how you score with a girl.”
I chuckled and closed the last distance, kissing her briefly. “Can I take you out to lunch?”
She sighed and ran her fingers through the hair along the back of my neck. “That sounds lovely. I need to let Dad cool down for a few hours anyway.”
I inched back, wondering what she meant by that.
Her mouth twisted into a smirk. “I told him that I’m gonna look for a job in this area.”
Fucking really?
“He’s not seriously angry,” she was quick to add. “But he doesn’t wanna be apart from me right now.”
“Understandable.” I tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “How far apart do you live now? He’s north of Baltimore, right?”
“Yeah, roughly an hour north of me. Or you know, my old apartment. Dad put everything in storage.”
Which was another way of saying she might end up living closer to me as well.
“Smack-dab in the middle of a Navy town,” I pointed out. “That ain’t right, being surrounded by squids all day. You deserve better.”
She laughed softly and grabbed my hand, threading our fingers together. “Take me to lunch, pilot.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Happy to. I wanted to know more about her thoughts on working in this area. Because that wouldn’t be a wonderful commute if she stayed in Annapolis. Traffic was gonna suck royally every fucking day.
We walked out into the sun together, hand in hand, and I just didn’t know who the fuck I was anymore. Or who I was becoming. Because this was the opposite of what I was used to, and yet, it felt damn good. Not to mention, as easy as breathing.
“What’s good around here?” she asked.
I blew out a breath and glanced around. “Not a whole lot, except for a Cajun fusion place the next block over.” I pointed behind the Hillcroft building. “Gumbo and jambalaya rice bowls meet different kinds of spicy sausage from all over the world.”
“Oh, wow. That sounds like a place I wanna visit.”
It was settled, then.
I kept her close as we walked, and I didn’t let go of her hand. I needed to revel in the feeling a bit. Analyze it, maybe. Hand-holding—what a thing, when it was with a certain person. Therightperson? Time would tell, but…
I cleared my throat. “So, how’s the reunion going?”
She smiled to herself. “It’s kinda weird. One part of me is like…I wanna get on with my life and pretend the past six months didn’t happen.” She bumped her hip to my—well, lower than my hip. “Except for the last week, of course.”
I grinned.
She wasn’t done. “Dad isn’t what one would call a talker either, so it’s been easy to act like we’re just…I don’t know, out of town and sharing a hotel room. After he demanded I map out the entire stay in Afghanistan—timeline and all, everything about Noura and how I stayed safe—he tried to process things. He agreed that I should talk to a professional. He’s very frustrated with how things went at home—that the authorities refused to do anything, because, let’s face it, there’s nobody in Afghanistan to work things out with.” She paused. “He did mention that he’d started looking up private agencies before I managed to call him from that bazaar. He called the agents in charge every day. He was even ready to fly out himself. But…” She shrugged. “It’s easier said than done to even enter the country.”
True enough.
“I’m sorry—I’m rambling.”
“It’s fine.” I squeezed her hand. “I wanna know everything.”
