Page 59 of Fixed Asset

“That’s not for now.” Pete brushed him off.

“Brother—”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t discuss it. I said not for now.”

I’d never heard Pete use such a harsh tone. Whatever it was, he seriously wasn’t ready to discuss it.

“Okay.” Fallon gave in. “Should I call Shep and get us an earlier flight?”

Pete sighed and came back to the man I was getting to know. “I was a dick. That wasn’t right. My apologies. I just . . . just give me until we’re home. I need to be on the mountain when I tell everyone. And Gavin needs to be there.”

Yes, Gavin. The last man on the team I hadn’t met.

Pete had explained that the men rotate out for missions so someone is always in San Diego to watch over the Dirty Plank. I wondered if Jack and I would rotate out—even though neither of us had anything to do with the bar.

“No worries.” Fallon quickly accepted Pete’s apology. “We’ll talk when we get home.”

Mason had been unusually quiet.

“What’s going on?” I knocked his knee with mine.

“Nothing. The last two days are just catching up with me.”

I didn’t think that was the truth. Mason seemed to be the type who could keep going until the job was done. But I wasn’t going to push.

Jack came up next to me and held out a bottle of water.

“Thanks.”

I cracked the top and had the bottle to my lips when Mason mumbled, “That’s it?”

Without lowering the bottle, I asked, “What?”

“I just gave you a bullshit blow-off.”

“I know.”

I chugged half the water and was recapping the bottle when Mason continued, “And that’s it? No wheedling, no snit because I don’t want to talk, no calling bullshit?”

Wordlessly, Jack moved away from me and Mason.

“Is that what you need?”

“Need?”

“To open up, say what you really mean,” I explained. “Do you need me to wheedle and nag until you tell me what’s on your mind? Or do you need me to give you space and time to learn to trust me, then when you’re ready, you’ll feel like you can tell me the truth instead of giving me some lame, bitch-ass ‘I’m tired’ when I know that if bullets started flying, you’d be wide awake and on your A game?”

When I was done, Mason was staring at me like I was a new breed of alien that had never been discovered and had been beamed down to Earth for him and him alone to discover. Either that, or he was staring at me like I was a pain in the ass who talked too much.

I wasn’t sure, because Mason’s expression didn’t give away much.

“I trust you.”

He didn’t.

I raised an eyebrow.

“I trust you enough,” he repeated with a variation.