Page 14 of Battle Scars

“Yeah,” Manny replies, and I can almost hear the smile in his voice.

“Are you a good cook?” Eli asks.

“Uh… maybe?”

“No, maybe about it”—Manny nods to Eli—“with an ass like that, she’s a good cook.”

“Uh…”

“Don’t worry. It’s a good ass,” he explains.

“Manny,” Gabe bites out. “She’s a client.”

“As you say, hermano.”

“I’m just… I’m just gonna go,” I stammer, and then bolt into the house to make dinner before any of them can tell me otherwise.

I run upstairs and change into a pair of jogging shorts and a tank top. I put off showering until after dinner when they’re all out of my house and I can relax. I pad back downstairs on bare feet and pull open the refrigerator door. I have chicken and broccoli and there’s probably a carb in the pantry, although I don’t indulge in them too often.

I pull out both and set them down on the island countertop. Keeping the door open with my hip, I reach back in for a bottle of wine and set that on the countertop too. I season the chicken with my usual go-tos—salt, pepper, garlic, and paprika—and put it in a pan to roast with a little avocado oil while I wash and chop the broccoli, filling the bottom of the double boiler to steam the vegetables.

When both are set for a minute, I rifle through the pantry and find a couple of packages of instant cheesy rice. I don’t know how they got there because I sure didn’t buy them, but Bobby or Dad could have brought them over sometime. I follow the directions and set them to cook.

The guys still aren’t back from “getting the lay of the land” as they called it, and I’m growing more and more nervous by the second. I’ve been eyeing the bottle of wine like it’s Fluffy, the three-headed dog from Harry Potter.

Finally, I sigh and give in, grabbing the corkscrew from the drawer. Only the bottle isn’t ready to give up the goods. I twist the screw into the cork, but when I push the little arms down, they’re stuck. They won’t budge at all. What the hell?

Obviously, it’s time to buy one of those automatic push button wine openers. I’m rich enough. Why am I still using the piece of shit I bought for $2.99 approximately eighty-seven years ago?

I wedge the bottle between my thighs for leverage and try to force the little arms down, but still… nothing.

And then it happens, I lose my grip on the bottle. It slips from between my legs and flies up over my head. It’s going to break a window, which will really impress the stick in the mud security experts, but it happened so fast I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

When I don’t hear a crash, I turn around.

Gabe’s standing just inside the door from the garage, holding my bottle of wine. Manny and Eli stand behind him, smiling outright at this point with their eyes wide.

The best way to save face is to turn back to my dinner prep and flip the chicken.

“Adrienne?” Gabe’s smooth voice calls out from behind me.

“Yes?” I answer with my voice shaky, not bothering to turn around again.

“We’re working, not drinking,” he chastises me for the eighty-seventh time.

“I didn’t say I was sharing,” I mutter. “The cork is stuck.”

Eli reaches out to where Gabe still holds it over his shoulder and pushes the little arms down with no problem. Fantastic.

“Well, I loosened it for you,” I say like a petulant child as I walk around the island and snatch the bottle from his hand. “Dinner will be ready in about five minutes.”

And then I drink straight from the bottle. No glass.

“Not sure it’s a good idea to get hammered when someone wants you dead either,” Gabe points out.

“I think if there ever was a time to get hammered, it’s when you learn someone wants you dead and you find your house swarming with G.I. Joes.”

“Fair enough,” Manny says as the guys move about my kitchen, taking over the dinner prep, pulling plates from the cupboards. Someone even hands me a glass to go with my wine.