Page 8 of Never the Same

“Let’s talk about something else, okay?” Audrey placed her hand on Alex’s forearm, a quiet directive to back down.

I looked around them, realizing we had company. All the more reason to do what Audrey had suggested and drop it. “Trevor’s here with Eden.” I folded my arms over my chest as I watched Chase with his father. He was showing off Ranger as if Trevor hadn’t met my dog a dozen times before.

Trevor and Chase’s aunt, Eden, lived in our neighborhood as well. She was pregnant, so she was bunking with her brother for now. The father of her baby was rotting in a CIA black site half a world away, which meant she’d be raising her daughter with the support of her brother and the rest of us. We were basically the tactical version of a modern-day Brady Bunch.

Thankfully, my team had been lucky enough to snatch up new-construction homes in the neighborhood around the same time. It definitely made things easier when it was time to spin up.

With Trevor still having that operator itch after retiring from twenty years in the navy, we gave him room to scratch it. He worked with Delta Shield as part of what would eventually be a three-man attachment unit once we recruited two more veterans to replace the new hires who had barely lasted three weeks. Truth was, we probably didn’t need to hire anyone else. Trevor more than pulled his weight, and despite the fact he outranked us all when he retired, he never minded deferring to Delta One.

Trevor stopped petting my dog and removed a ball from his pocket as if somehow knowing this meet and greet was bound to happen. He offered it to Chase to throw.

Seeing the two of them together had me wondering what it would’ve been like to have a normal childhood. You know, with a dad who pitched a baseball instead of threatening to break a bat across your back for spilling milk. Maybe if I’d had a dad like Trevor, or a stepfather like Alex, I wouldn’t have—

“How are you feeling after Panama?” Alex asked Trevor as he joined us, effectively drawing my head from my dark past.

“Ready to spin up again if the opportunity presents itself.” Trevor scratched the side of his neck where he had three crosses tattooed.

“Maybe if you had someone to come home to, then you wouldn’t be so eager to spin up all the time.” Audrey nudged her ex-husband in the side, and Trevor glared at her. “That goes for you too,” she added, eyes sharp on me now.

“I have Ranger. He has his sister,” I shot back defensively. “We do have someone to come home to.”

Audrey waved the back of her hand my way without making contact. “Not what I meant and you know it.”

“You gotta tell your wife to knock it off with the dating stuff,” Trevor grumbled, a laugh catching in his throat.

Somehow, Alex managed to get along with Audrey’s ex, which I supposed was for the best since Trevor was very much in his son’s life. It was almost inspiring to see how they all co-parented.

Alex faked zipping his lips and shook his head.

“Yeah, I know where your loyalty lies.” Trevor smirked. “As it should.” He looked over at his sister standing off to the side of us, a phone to her ear.

“She okay?” Audrey asked.

“Talking to our mom. She calls every five minutes to check on her. Surprised she hasn’t tried to move in with me, too.”

“Give it time, she just . . .” Audrey let her words trail off at the steady whup-whup-whup of rotors breaking through the late-summer air.

Wrong airspace, and the wrong altitude.

Ranger stopped running after the ball Chase had tossed, ears alert. He let out a howl, eyes fixed on the sky.

The all-black unmarked chopper came in fast. Muscle memory took over, and I started to go for my Glock, forgetting I didn’t have it on me.

Thankfully, it wasn’t needed anyway. A group text arrived from Secretary of Defense Chandler letting us know we had incoming. A friendly. A.k.a. don’t shoot.

“Maybe it’s your best friend making a grand entrance like she’s been known to do, and she gave Chandler a heads-up about it,” I remarked as the helo hovered outside the park boundary, searching for a clear spot to land.

Audrey gestured for Chase to come over to us. “It shouldn’t be Hollis.” Friendly or not, she quietly pulled Chase between her and Alex, and Ranger parked himself in front of Chase. “She’s with a guy in Italy, or so she said.”

A guy? Before she’d bailed after kicking back a few drinks with me on Saturday, she mentioned she had to go out of town on Tuesday, but she left out the location and the with-a-dude part.

I set a hand atop my chest as my heart tried to break free. What. The. Actual. Hell? Why did that response feel like . . . jealousy? I was practically allergic to her. That’s how I acted around her, especially whenever she broke into my house. She made my skin itch. Crawl. Eyes burn. All of it.

My fingers curled into my palms as I tried to settle down the raging beats happening beneath my rib cage, but I couldn’t shake the image of Hollis in Italy with some rich dick Casanova. Probably an Italian. Born and raised there, and I was only third-generation Italian, so that didn’t count if she wanted to be with—

I had to put the brakes on those thoughts. Pronto.

Nope, I should be happy for her. She could finally leave me the hell alone if she connected with someone. He was probably in her league of absurdly rich, too.