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“You know it,” he said, grinning. “You’d do the same.”
“I have my mother, so I don’t need to.” He rubbed his jaw. “But, yeah, if I needed to hire someone, I’d totally do a check on them.”
Lydia came over, smiling. “Hi, Mark.”
“You look pretty today, Lydia.”
And she did. She wore a teal dress and her strawberry-blond hair was down around her shoulders. She looked so much like her brother Steven that he involuntarily stiffened, because Mark wasn’t all that fond of him, either. All the dude ever did was stare at him like he was trying to steal Lauren from him. He didn’t steal people’s lovers. It wasn’t how he rolled—not to mention he didn’t want a girlfriend. But Steven would never believe that.
He was happier hating him on principle.
“Thank you,” Lydia said, her cheeks flushing with color. “Are you here with someone? A date? Your mother? Ginny?”
“Nah. I’m stag for the whole weekend.” He grinned. “It’s kind of nice to be alone. I don’t get that very often, between taking care of Ginny and my mother hovering, worrying about me.”
She reached out, grabbed his hand, and squeezed. “I get that all too well.”
“Hey.” Holt frowned and pushed his glasses back into place. “Are you calling me annoying?”
“Never, babe.” She patted his arm and winked at Mark. “Never.”
He leaned in, whispering something in her ear.
Her cheeks turned brighter red, and she smacked his chest, laughing. “Holt.”
As Mark watched the two of them, something in his chest hollowed out. There was such an easy comradery between them, such trust and love, apparent in everything they did.
Him and Tina, they never got to that point in their relationship.
He’d loved her, and she’d loved him, but they’d only lived together for a few months. The rest of their time had been spent on deployment, at war, or…dead.
For as long as he lived, he’d never forget the day he got that visit. He’d been covered in baby vomit, and Ginny had been screaming her head off because she was sick. He’d been juggling a crying baby, a bottle, and a dirty diaper when the doorbell rang. He’d hurried to it, thinking it was the pizza he’d ordered for dinner…but it had been two officers in Dress Blues. When he saw them standing on the porch through the front window, he hadn’t wanted to open the door. He just froze, holding Ginny in his arms, and dropped the diaper.
Because they were there to tell him his wife was dead.
And he didn’t want it to be real.
Holt waved at someone, smiling. “There’s Steven and Lauren. Once they get here, you guys can all head in together.”
Holt and Steven were in the wedding, so he’d agreed to sit with the ladies, since their men would be busy. Knowing Steven, he’d shoot him a warning glance before walking off. “Yeah, man, sure thing. Glad to have company.”
Steven and Holt were attached at the hip, which was ironic, considering Holt was marrying Steven’s little sister. Word was, news of their hooking up hadn’t gone over very well with Steven initially. He seemed to have warmed up to the idea since then, though.
“Sounds good.” Lydia waved. “Daisy’s with them. Have you met her before, Mark?”
“No,” he said, checking his phone absentmindedly. “Not yet.”
Daisy was a cop, and Lauren kept trying to convince him they would be the perfect match. He had no interest in dating a female cop. If he broke his ironclad rule and decided to actually date someone, it would be because he saw a possibility of himself wanting to spend the rest of his life with that person. With Ginny, he couldn’t afford to get sucked into anything else. It was either a one-night stand, or the possibility of forever.
There was no in between.
Since Ginny had already lost one mother to a dangerous job, he’d sworn to never date another woman who thrived from danger like that again. Yes, shit happened, and a meteor could fall from the sky and kill everyone. But why tempt fate more than necessary?
Why date a fucking cop?
“Well, you’re about to. You’ll like her. She’s cool,” Lydia said, smiling. “Something tells me the two of you could hit it off quite nicely, if you know what I mean.”
Here we go again.
