Trey nodded. “I’ll be in the truck.”
Half an hour later, after saying his goodbyes to the Sniper 1 Security team, Brantley walked into the hotel room he was sharing with Reese. The digs weren’t fancy, but it certainly wasn’t the worst place he’d ever stayed. The rooms were clean, the furniture updated sometime in the last decade, plus they had a continental breakfast and a small bar that opened a few hours each night. Since it was cheap and convenient, they’d become frequent guests.
When he heard the shower running, Brantley set his phone down on the dresser and considered joining the man. He knew just how to relax Reese and a shower would be a bonus.
Brantley was tugging off his shirt when his cell phone buzzed. He tossed the shirt to the bed, then glanced down to read the text only to realize it wasn’t his phone that was making the noise.
Reese’s phone was plugged into the charger, the face lit up with a text message from—
Brantley’s chest squeezed when he saw Madison Adorite’s name on the screen.
He knew it was wrong to pry, but that didn’t stop him from picking up the phone and reading the message she’d sent:Tonight works for me. I’d love to have dinner with you. See you at seven.
What the fuck?
He set down the phone, looked at the closed bathroom door, took a deep breath, and willed the tightness in his chest to abate.
Before he could conjure up the energy to confront Reese about it, Brantley changed his mind. He grabbed his shirt, yanked it on over his head.
When he heard the shower turn off, he grabbed his cell phone and slipped out of the room. It was safe to say he needed that breather. Maybe he’d misread the message. Surely the man he lived with, the man he loved, was not going on a date with his ex-girlfriend. It had to be a mistake.
Please, God, let it be a fucking mistake.
Chapter Twenty-One
After drying his body and wrapping thetowel securely around his hips, Reese grabbed a smaller one and ran it over his hair as he stepped out of the bathroom and into the compact, single room. He glanced around, almost certain he’d heard Brantley come in.
No one was there.
Frowning, he walked over to his phone, glanced at the screen.
There was a single message notification.
Madison, probably. She was the only person he expected to hear from, and that was because he’d texted her on the way back from the training center, a knee-jerk reaction to that damn panic attack. One he clearly hadn’t thought through well. Even as he’d been typing it, Reese knew it was wrong, but his frustrations and embarrassment had pushed him to do it anyway.
Trepidation filled him, but he tapped the screen to pull up the message. Sure enough. Madison had accepted his offer of dinner.
With a sigh, Reese sat down on the edge of the bed. What the fuck was wrong with him? What the hell had made him text her? He had absolutely nothing to say to Madison, knew that having dinner with her would result in mixed signals, and absolutely nothing that would help him resolve his own issues.
For the past few months, ever since Madison had texted him the first time, Reese had been on the fence about talking to her. It wasn’t like he was looking for closure. They’d gone their separate ways after Reese had been stupid enough to propose to a woman he hadn’t really been in love with. He suspected she had turned him down because she knew that, but they’d never bothered to have a conversation about it. In fact, they hadn’t spoken since, other than the continuing chat thread. But those exchanges had been short and uneventful, exactly the way Reese had intended.
Another heavy sigh escaped as Reese stood, carrying the towel back to the bathroom and tossing it on the sink. He glanced at his image in the mirror, let his eyes slide over his bare chest, his abdomen. He paused briefly on the old scars he’d acquired over the years, most of them during his time as a POW. While they were familiar … while he could remember each and every one of them with vivid and painful clarity, Reese wasn’t sure he recognized anything else about the man staring back at him. He certainly wasn’t the same man he’d been a year ago, back when he’d met Brantley Walker and his entire life had changed.
And he’d be damned if that wasn’t the problem. The man he’d been … where the fuck had he gone? How the hell had he changed so drastically in such a short period of time? Those were just some of the many questions he’d been pondering for months now. The ones that were weighing him down, making him crazy, keeping him up at night.
Reese had gone from being single, dating women, and living alone. Sure, his apartment had been shitty and small, but it’d been his. He’d had a decent job managing Walker Demolition, a ton of friends who he’d wanted to spend time with. Now he was in a relationship with aman, living with that man, not to mention working with him, too. He had a phenomenal job with the Off the Books Task Force, plus a dog he’d come to love more than anything. And yeah, he still had a ton of friends, but the only person he cared to spend time with was Brantley.
Looking at it rationally, Reese didn’t see a problem, but something felt off. Something felt … different. Too different. As though he was missing something, but he didn’t know what.
Still standing at the mirror, he took a moment to run a comb over his hair. It was a little longer on top than he liked, but he hadn’t bothered to grab the clippers before they left, so he was stuck with it.
Reese ditched the towel around his hips, snagged a pair of boxer briefs. He pulled them on, then retrieved jeans and a T-shirt from the tiny closet. Socks and boots came next. Once he was dressed, he grabbed his cell phone from the dresser, picked up Brantley’s truck keys. Even holding them made him feel guilty about where he was about to go, who he was about to see. But he was committed, and Reese wasn’t going to back down now. This was the path he’d chosen, and he needed to follow through so he could find the answers he was so desperately searching for.
He snagged the key card from the dresser, then he left. He opted for the elevator rather than march down the long, narrow hall to the stairs. The ride down took all of a second, then he was nodding at the night clerk on his way past the check-in desk and out into the twilight.
No sooner did he step outside than he saw Brantley strolling toward him.
“Hey,” Reese greeted, realizing even his voice sounded guilty.
