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“Hmm?” he asked, the noise muffled by his half-full mouth.
“Don’t be a dick. You’ve been avoiding me since Saturday,” Pike said, no ire in his voice. “Look, man, if you didn’t want me to touch her again, you should’ve said something. I would’ve backed off. You just had to say the word.”
Foster set his sandwich down, the bite he’d taken turning to sawdust in his mouth. “That wasn’t my place. I don’t have any say over her. You touched her, she didn’t tell you no. That’s that.”
“Right. So if I go home today and head over to her place for a little afternoon delight, you’re totally cool with that.”
His fist clenched around his soda, nearly busting the disposable cup. “Do it and I’ll fucking castrate you.”
Pike’s loud laugh echoed from the speaker. “Man, I love it when I’m right.”
Foster grunted. “That’s because it’s so rare, it’s worthy of celebration.”
“Touché. So have you called her?”
“I checked in with her yesterday just to make sure she was okay.”
He sniffed. “Checked on her? What the fuck? Because sex with you is so earth-shattering she needed a follow-up?”
Foster grabbed the phone to take it off speaker and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “No. Because Cela was a virgin.”
“What? A . . .” Pike’s words trailed off like the term virgin was so foreign, he couldn’t even speak it aloud. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah. I didn’t realize it until it was too late.”
“Jesus.” Foster could picture Pike shaking his head in disbelief. “That chick’s fucking brave. Losing your virginity in a three-way? That’s a rock-star move right there.”
Foster tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling, trying not to think of Cela walking into that bathroom with Pike. He couldn’t get the image out of his head. He’d stood there and done nothing even when she’d looked back at him with question marks in her eyes. What an asshole. Instead of stepping up and telling her he didn’t want her to go, he’d let his ego win. He’d wanted her to turn down Pike, to come to him on her own volition.
“So are you going to take her out again?”
He wanted to. God, did he want to. If nothing else than to give her the night she should’ve had for her first time. “There’s no point. You know I don’t date vanilla girls.”
“She didn’t seem all that vanilla this weekend,” Pike lobbed back.
“And she’s leaving in a few weeks.”
“Yeah, the leaving part kind of sucks,” he said, his tone resigned. “But are you just going to ignore what happened? I mean, you took the chick’s virginity, man. Shouldn’t there be some sort of something after that? A debriefing or whatever.”
Foster snorted. “A debriefing?”
“What? I don’t know the fucking term for it. But walking away and pretending it didn’t happen is a dick move. Even I know that much.” A car door slammed in the background and the connection got fuzzy with the wind. “If you’re not going to say something to her . . .”
“I’ll take care of it,” Foster said, cutting him off, irritated that Pike was pointing out everything that had been driving Foster crazy over the past two days. Like he didn’t know it was a shit move that he’d barely managed a few sentences when he’d called to check on Cela the next day, or that he’d changed the time of his run this morning so he wouldn’t bump into her.
There was a swift rap on his door. Lindy stuck her head inside. “Sorry to interrupt but there’s an Agent Long from the FBI on the line for you.”
Foster’s grip on his phone tightened, that familiar sick feeling at the mention of a call from the FBI eclipsing his ruminating. Foster only talked to Agent Long about once a year and usually it was to get a no-news update. But Foster had just talked to him a month ago, and the man never called him. “Pike, I’ve gotta go. Important call.”
He hit the Off button and nodded at Lindy. “Put him through.”
A few seconds later, Foster picked up his office phone. “Agent Long, what’s happened?”
Long didn’t waste time with greetings or niceties. “We may have a lead.”
The breath gusted from Foster’s chest. How long had it been since he’d heard those words? The case had been cold for so long he’d doubted he’d ever hear them again. “What kind of lead?”
“It’s not much. But a guard overheard some jailhouse talk this weekend, a name was dropped, a nickname, and some details that seemed to fit the case. The years would work out.” He cleared his throat, and there was the sound of shuffling papers. “We’re going to go in and question the guy, see if we can get him to give us more. But I wanted to give you a heads-up.”
