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Holy. Shit.
This—this!—was why I’d refused to acknowledge, even to myself, how smart and kind and gorgeous and talented Kevin Rogers was. This was the subconscious reason I’d been desperately trying to shore up my defenses with lies about how spoiled and lazy and annoying he was. Because, just like when the spring rains came back in Pennsylvania and weakened the soil, once I’d really admitted to myself just how gorgeous and handsome and good Kev was, once I let myself acknowledge how badly I wanted him, it had triggered a catastrophic landslide that slid my feelings from cautious tolerance, straight past amicable friendship, and down into the pit of utterly infatuated lust.
I was so very screwed.
“We’re the same age, Huxley,” Champ said hotly. “Anyway. If you’re done, we’re gonna go over the specifics of this operation—”
“Operation Horn Hunt.” Elvo smacked his hands together.
Jordan shook their head. “I told you, we are not calling it that.”
“I like it,” Kev said. He shot me a look, like he expected me to deliver my usual line—the one about his opinion not counting because he wasn’t part of the team—but I couldn’t make myself.
I was tongue-tied and sweaty. Overwhelmed when I really needed to focus on the op.
The differences between Kev and me were very, very real. He was still an incredibly wealthy socialite with a trust fund, and I was a former Marine who couldn’t afford his apartment without a roommate.
He came from a long line of doctors and philanthropists who supported LGBTQ organizations, while my dad had never gone a day without grease under his fingernails and had blamed the bad influence of books and computers for the fact that his son hadn’t turned out to be a straight, all-American jock.
He had a ton of friends and family who loved and supported him, and I had… well, the people in this room, and that was it.
A guy like that would never want a guy like me… but that didn’t make me want him any less.
“Okay, so to recap for those who weren’t in the last meeting—” Champ nodded to Yolanda and Sasha, who’d seated themselves on the floor by Riggs without me even noticing their presence, for fuck’s sake. “We’re planning the best way to get the twelve missing cartel-linked Horns.”
“And we’re gonna turn it over to the alphabet agencies and hope that mutually assured destruction is enough of an incentive for them. If they want us to keep quiet about their rogue agents, they need to keep quiet about HOG’s involvement,” Sasha finished, nodding his head. “Yeah, I read the report.”
“And we’re further hoping,” Yolanda continued, “that if we get the data from the Horns, they can use it to track the movement of drugs and money, to find other players involved in their distribution chain or patterns in the movement of drugs or money. Maybe they’ll find specific, actionable information about a big shipment or transaction they could bust in person.”
“Exactly,” Champ agreed. “Okay, so we’re all on the same page.”
Riggs raised his palms to the ceiling and pumped. “Mission Hornapalooza begins.”
Jordan shook their head again and this time added a groan. “Riggsy, no. That’s worse than Operation Horn Hunt.”
Kev raised his hand like he was in third grade, which was both ridiculous… and ridiculously adorable. When Champ nodded, Kev fixed his glasses before saying, “Uh. Just to say, you guys, getting Horns off dangerous men isn’t going to be a walk in the park. Even with all your expertise, it’s gonna be hard.”
Elvo opened his mouth to say something, but Champ jabbed a finger at him from across the room. “Say one word about Operation Hard Horns, Elvo. Just one,” Champ warned, “and watch what happens.”
Elvo shut his mouth with a clack and muttered something that sounded like, “No fun.”
Champ made a satisfied noise, but his face went tight as he turned back to Kev. “We know. That’s why we’re gonna start with the easy ones and work our way up.” His gaze flicked around to each of us. “Assuming there are some easy ones. What’ve we got?”
Elvo pointed to his whiteboard, where he’d listed the name of each suspected cartel operative. “Hux dug up more info on each of these guys, and I ordered them based on my best guess about ease of access. This doesn’t necessarily correspond to the order we should go after them in—we’ll need to figure that out separately, based on their proximity to each other, our team resources, et cetera—but it’s a good jumping-off point. M’kay.” He tapped the top line. “Horn Number One is a low-level aviation tech in Haiti. He should be easy to distract in a busy cargo hangar. Horn Two spends a lot of time in a dance club in Miami. He should be an easy mark also.”
He continued down the list, pointing out what we knew about each target and our best chance of gaining access to their Horns. When he got to Horns Six and Seven, he sighed. “These next two are the ones who are expected in Vegas for the Conqueror’s Tournament. If our research is right, their data will be critical. They’re much bigger players in this distribution chain than the aviation tech in Haiti or the dock worker in Houston.”
