“Can I ask you something personal?” I sat back against my headboard, elevating my knee likemy physical therapist had instructed.
“Um, sure.”
“How old are you?”
“How old are you?” she shot back.
I chuckled. “Twenty-eight.”
“I’ll be twenty-six this summer.”
I nodded, smiling to myself. “You know that I’m a former SEAL and I have a roommate and no pets, but I feel like I know nothing about you. Are you in school? Do you work?”
“Are you interrogating me, Connor James?” she asked, and despite her playful tone, I sensed her unease.
“No. Just trying to get to know you,” I said. “Besides, if I wanted to interrogate you, it would be much more effective in person.”
“So you could see my expression?” she asked.
“Something like that,” I mused as my imagination ran wild. I could imagine laying her on a bed and using my lips, my dick, to coax information from her like I’d extract orgasms from her willing body.
“Do you ever interrogate people as part of your job?”
“No.” It wasn’t the first time I’d been asked that question, but it was one of the only times I wasn’t annoyed by it. “Some guys do, but not me. But everyone is trained to resist interrogation.”
She sucked in a shaky breath. “I can’t…” She swallowed. “I can’t even imagine the courage it takes to do what you do.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Just doing my job.”
Though I’d been doing a shit job of it lately. Would Olivia admire me if she knew the truth? If she knew I’d beaten a man within an inch of his life? If she knew I was no better than my piece-of-shit father?
“So…my friend wants to know. Can you actually hold your breath for three minutes?”
I laughed, tucking my arm beneath my head as I lay back. Another popular question. “My personal record is two minutes and forty-nine seconds. I had one of the best times in my unit.”
“See? They need you.”
I arched an eyebrow at the conviction, the passion in her voice. If only it were that simple. I was confident my knee would recover. But would they let me return to the field?
“Yeah, well, it’s a little more complicated than that.” I was unwilling to say more. “But I appreciate your confidence.”
We were silent for a moment, but it wasn’t for lack of conversation. And it wasn’t awkward like I’d feared either. In fact, I was happy to stay on the phone, just knowing she was there.
“So…” I finally said. “You still haven’t answered my question. What do you do?”
“I, um, work in marketing for a publishing company.”
“That makes sense, considering your love of reading and books.” As did her offense to my initial email insulting reading.
“How long have you been doing that?”
“Since graduating college.”
I stared at the ceiling, wondering if she was being purposely evasive. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was the one with SERE training.
“Where’d you go to college?”
“Stanford.”
