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Ivan grinned and took another sip of beer. “Shut up.”
“Dude, tell me I’m wrong,” Cole countered. “I don’t know why you’re trying to act like you aren’t attracted to her.”
“That’s not what I’m doing. In fact—”
Cole sat back in his chair. “Then what are you doing, Ivan?” He interrupted. “I’ve seen her. The woman is seriously working the hotness factor. Plus, she’s warm, funny and for whatever reason likes you. You scowl all the time, have no sense of humor and no love life. Why all that drives women out of their panties, I’ll never know.”
Ivan glanced over at his brother. “Wait…how do you know she likes me?”
Cole shook his head. “You’re pathetic.”
“What?”
“How is it you can hear a grenade pin being pulled from twenty clicks away, you’re a weapon unto yourself, an expert strategist, and can speak not one, but several languages in addition to English, but something as rudimentary as a woman who can’t keep her eyes off you goes poof…right over your head?”
“Okay, it’s not twenty clicks, and you have two seconds to answer the question,” Ivan warned.
Cole took a pull on the beer he had been given. “In that whole list of stuff, that’s all you got out of it?”
Ivan stared at him.
Cole shook his head. “It’s how she looks at you when she thinks nobody is looking, Ivan. She hangs on your every word, and the most telling sign was when you arrived late the other night and she thought you weren’t coming. She looked like someone had kicked her puppy.”
Ivan took a breath, then said, “Earlier this afternoon, we almost kissed.”
Cole leaned back in his chair with a shocked but satisfied grin. “Tell me everything.”
Ivan filled his brother in on his day and the connection he felt with Tiffany. Cole listened intently. When Ivan was finished, Cole said, “So what’s with the long face?”
“It’s…complicated.”
“What is? Call her up, take her on a proper date and get this thing going. What am I missing?”
Ivan frowned. “Debra.”
Cole let out an expletive. “I told you to take care of that situation, but you didn’t listen. Now you have to clear the air with Tiffany, and you know how that’s going to go.”
“I know,” Ivan replied. “I’m not sure she’s going to understand.”
“To be honest, big brother, I don’t understand why she’s still in your life. Cut her loose, and be done with it.”
“Debra and I were over a long time ago. She made her choice, and I respected it. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t have much of a choice, did I? She picked Brian to spend her life with, and I’ve been dealing with that decision ever since.”
“But you haven’t let go.”
Ivan’s expression darkened. “You know I don’t have feelings for her anymore.”
“What I know, big brother, is that you’re in a complicated mess because you’re too damn noble to extricate yourself from it. While I can, though I don’t understand it, appreciate your dedication to friends, promises and what you consider your obligations, I’m at a loss to understand how you’re going to get Tiffany to understand this mess you’re in—or to be okay with it.?
?
Ivan swirled the beer around in his mug. “I know.”
Cole held up his beer in a toast. “Here’s to things working out the way you want.”
Ivan raised his mug, and then downed his beer. “It will. Failure’s not an option.”
Chapter 7
