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“You got a new roommate?” Sean asked, taking a sip of his beer.
Billy rolled his eyes. “She’s not a roommate. She’s a house guest. A temporary one.”
Sean’s dark eyes went almost comically wide. “Wait, your roommate is a woman?”
“An adventurous woman…”
Billy gritted his teeth against the memory of Shay’s teasing voice in his ear and Sean’s interest. Because the guy could be as relentless as a dog with a bone when he saw the chance to get under someone’s skin. Most of the time it was funny and good-natured, unless he happened upon an actual exposed nerve. Which, goddamnit, Shayna was tonight for some reason.
“Thanks a fucking lot, Mo. She’s not my roommate. She’s new to DC and
needed a place to stay until she can find her own apartment.”
Wearing a shit-eating grin on his face, Mo slid out of the booth, hand to his ear. “Is that them calling our number? I’ll get it.”
“She single?” Sean asked.
Billy glared. He felt himself do it. He didn’t mean to do it; it was just instinctual. And he knew the second he did it that he’d done something akin to waving a red flag at a bull. “Don’t even think about it, Riddick.”
Interest slid into the other man’s eyes—interest in busting Billy’s balls, that was. “So she is single. You warning me off because you’re interested then?”
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
“No, I’m warning you off because all you want is another fire station groupie to stretch your nozzle.”
“Dude, you stretch the pipe, not the nozzle.” Sean smirked again—it was pretty much his face’s primary setting.
“What the hell conversation am I walking in on?” Mo said, placing two heavily laden trays of food on the table.
“Just trying to teach Parrish to talk like a firefighter,” Sean said, grabbing for his half smoke and fries.
Billy took a big bite of his chili dog, glad that the food made it impossible to continue the conversation.
Though he should’ve known that wouldn’t stop Sean, who dunked two French fries into the ketchup before pointing them at him. “Since when did you want a roommate, anyway?”
“I didn’t want a roommate. Buddy asked me to help out his sister for a few weeks and I agreed. Simple as.”
“How old is she?” Sean asked.
Billy gave him a look. “Twenty-six. And if you’d stop taking shifts during club meetings, you’d know all this shit already.”
Sean shrugged. “The job’s the job.” They ate in silence for a few precious seconds, and then he said. “What’s her name?”
“Jesus fucknugget!” Billy bit out.
“Jesus…fucknugget?” Sean blinked and looked at Mo, who was about three seconds away from busting a gut.
“That’s a new one,” Mo said, chuckling around a bite of his half smoke.
Which, of course, was when Billy realized he’d used the ridiculous curse that Shayna had thrown at him that very first night. When he’d seen her naked.
“Whatever,” Billy said, somehow not getting away from her even though he’d left the house. What the hell was that about, anyway? “Her name’s Shayna Curtis. She’s got a new job as a staff photographer at the Washington Gazette. I’ve known her since she was a teenager, though it’s not like I know her all that well. And that’s everything there is to know. Okay?”
Although, even as he uttered the words, some part of him felt like he knew her better than his description let on…
But Billy couldn’t really think about that when the debate on whether to keep digging was plain on Sean’s face.
“Working on any interesting cases?” Mo said, throwing Billy a lifeline out of the conversation.
