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However, it was really bothering me, what his parents did.
Not only had they not come to see him after he was found alive, but now they’d gotten rid of his dog?
That was just the last straw.
I was going to have to find these people and give them a piece of my mind.
“Ready?” Riel asked.
I watched him come out of the room shirtless, and my breath hitched.
I’d seen him shirtless before, but that had been in a clinical setting.
That’d also been when I was very, very still firmly hooked up in the ‘this is my fiancée’s best friend’ category.
That line was blurring the longer and longer that Riel was a part of my life.
“Yes,” I nearly choked.
Riel’s eyes caught mine just before he pulled his shirt on over his head, the fabric breaking our eye contact.
And hey, at least when he caught me looking, I was staring at his eyes and not his abs.
Or other parts that I refused to admit that I was looking at.
Fifteen minutes later, we both arrived at the diner nearest the police station.
Riel was right.
We did end up eating outside, and I was thankful that I had shorts on at that point.
But it hadn’t been because we were sweaty that we’d found our way outside.
It’d been due in part to the fact that all the new members for the SWAT team were inside taking up every single available inch of space.
After placing our orders, we took the closest spot to the door and sat down.
Ember smiled at me the moment that I took my seat.
“How’s work?” she asked.
I rolled my shoulders.
“This is the first day off I’ve had in over nine days,” I told her. “I’m a quarter of the way through this school year, and I feel like I’m going to die.”
Ember laughed. “You’ve been going through school since you were a baby. Nothing has ever required you to work this much before, though. I’d imagine it’s always going to be like this.”
I scrunched up my nose in disgust.
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But, just sayin’, when I get to looking for a job, it’s definitely not going to be with Kilgore Memorial.”
“Sam’s kids and wife work at Good Shepherd in Longview,” Gabe put in his two cents. “But, like everywhere, there are just as many difficulties there as there are anywhere,” he told me, his intense eyes, so much like his son’s, making my heart ache.
My eyes flicked from his to Riel’s and back, studying the two men since they were sitting right next to each other.
It was eerie how similar they were.
Then again, it’d always been eerie when Luca and Malachi had stood next to each other, too.
Despite one being Italian and the other being half-Brazilian, it was just stunning to see the similarities.
They say that everyone has a twin in the world.
Malachi and Luca had definitely been each other’s twin.
Hell, just looking between Riel and Gabe right now, if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve definitely said that they were related.
They even had the same cowlick going on at the top of their heads.
And their beards were similarly shaped as well.
Not to mention their lips.
“Are you planning to stay here, or go back to live near your dad?” Ember asked, taking a sip of her sweet tea and looking at me with what looked like hope in her eyes.
That was a question that I’d thought a lot about over the last couple of months.
Did I want to stay here, where my house was, where I’d wanted to make my home with Luca? Or did I want to go home where my parents were? Where my sisters were growing up without me?
“I have no reason to worry about that right now,” I admitted. “I’ve thought about it, but each time I think I need to make a decision, I realize that I have over a year left to figure it out and stop thinking about it.”
Ember giggled.
“That’s understandable,” she said. “Luca’s our thinker. Always had everything planned out from the moment that he could plan ahead. From what he would do after high school, to where he wanted to live once he was out of the Navy for real.”
There was an awkward silence at the table as everyone became lost in their own thoughts for a long few seconds.
“So, what happened this morning that had you both arriving together?” Gabe asked, leaning back in his seat.
Riel grimaced and did the same.
Then he gave them a run-down of the previous night, followed by this morning’s activities.
“I’ll have to look into it more,” Gabe said, sounding intrigued. “You said it was your doctor’s brother that was shot?”
I nodded.
“He doesn’t suspect it was you?” Ember wondered.
I shook my head. “The thing is, there were about thirty people there that night who saw him. I honestly think he thought nobody would say a word. And he still hasn’t gotten in trouble by the hospital staff or anything. I mean, if it’d been anyone else, he would’ve been reprimanded and possibly fired. But he’s got his finger in so many pies that it’s nearly impossible for them to do anything about him. He’s head of the school board, he’s chief of staff at the hospital. The list goes on and on and on.”
