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“Allergic?” Kostya asked sympathetically.
Gideon nodded. “Jada better not ever pull that kind of shit.”
“Just don’t piss her off,” Kostya advised.
Kostya and Gideon gave Ryker sorrowful looks. “Your poor girl didn’t know any better, did she?”
Ryker shook his head. “It never occurred to me. I’ve seen Charlie and Lawrence both get flowers at the restaurant. I was kind of like, ‘whatever floats your boat.’ But never in a million years did I think that Amy would get the godawful idea that sending me fucking roses at work would be a good idea.”
“And what’s more, you can’t hurt her feelings and tell her it was a bad idea and to not do it again…” Gideon said.
“Kostya, you’ve gotta get Lark to explain this to her. I’m begging you, man.”
“Leave my woman out of your love life,” Kostya growled. “The only way I’m willing to help you is to drive this bouquet to your house since you can’t bring it home on your bike. And if me saying that doesn’t spark any good ideas on how you can stop this from happening to you ever again…”
“I get what you’re saying, Kostya, but the guys at Amy’s restaurant who got flowers kept them there at the restaurant.”
“So explain how there is no place for you to put them, except in the break room and Gideon’s allergic. Then if she wants to send you flowers, she’ll send them to your home.”
“Or she’ll send you daisies,” Gideon chimed in.
“Fuck me.”
“Really? Really?” Gideon said. “After all the months of you bitching and whining, here you are with the girl, and you’re still bitching and whining?”
The corner of Ryker’s lip tipped up.
“I asked her to marry me. She said yes.”
“That is wonderful, Ryker!” Kostya said.
Gideon sneezed. Then sneezed again.
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Gideon smiled as his eyes watered.
Ryker rubbed the back of his neck. “I know, right?”
“How come you didn’t tell us sooner?” Gideon wanted to know.
“I’ve been trying to get ahold of my folks. They went camping and they’re out of reception. It just didn’t feel right telling anyone else until I told them.”
“Understood,” Gideon smiled, then sneezed.
“So anything good on the docket this afternoon?” Ryker asked Kostya.
“I was going to have you work with Landon on some of the tracking techniques you learned with Zed and Jase. I remembered the gauze on your boots in Turkey. Seems to me you picked up on things.”
“Yep, my time was not wasted.” Ryker grinned.
“But now that I see you need to take a deadly lifeform home that is single-handedly taking down a member of my team, I think I had better drive these roses home for you.”
“Have you read the card?” Gideon asked again.
“I’ll read it when I get home, you nosy bastard.” Ryker got up from his chair and then paused. “Speaking of nosy bastards, I want to poke my nose in where it doesn’t belong. There are a lot of rumors flying around about Commander Clark. I know you and Max can’t stomp them out as officers, but I sure would like to put a stranglehold on the goddamned bullshit flying around. Hell, there’s even something about how he got away on a manslaughter conviction for killing his brother. It’s all over the place.”
Ryker turned to Gideon. “And what the hell, Gideon? I know you know down to a gnat’s ass what the real story is, why aren’t you squashing all of these fucking rumors? And don’t tell me something like that brother-killing thing is true. I know better.”
“You saw in the debrief with Captain Hale that some higher-ups were looking to oust the commander for crossing a line, that was pretty clear, right?” Kostya asked.
