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I cringed from his terrible lines, but apparently, his act worked on the pretty dark-haired woman who blushed and adjusted her posture to something far flirtier. “Tell me more.”
“In the parking lot.” I was fast running out of patience, even if the guy with terrible game saved Avery from his own stupidity by making the first move on the newly single lady. “You can swap digits out there, but right now, the lot of you need to leave. We’ll let production decide if any of you work again.”
“Hey!”
“No fair.”
“Take it up with your agency.” I didn’t let the protests faze me as I herded the three offenders out after Avery and the first guy.
It took a good hour to restore order completely: supervising cleanup, writing an incident report, urging the younger woman to get a restraining order against Mr. Dumb Ass, and making sure no one in the crowd of onlookers was injured.
“Wow. That was a mess. Literally.” Avery whistled low as we finally resumed our station by the entrance door. “And damn, you need a shower.”
“Tell it like it is.” I’d cleaned up the best I could, but I was still wearing a hell of a lot of pie and counting down until quitting time.
“We made a good team though.” He grinned at me.
“We did.” Laughing, I momentarily forgot about how sticky I was and instead breathed deeply, feeling more alive than I had in weeks.
“Damn, I liked being back in action.” Avery’s tone turned wistful.
“You miss it?” I already knew the answer.
“Only every single day.” He exhaled hard. “How about you?”
“It’s complicated.” I liked Avery fine, but I didn’t need to unpack all my shit on him, especially not when he was riding the high of having seen some action.
“I get that too. Still, I bet you were a badass in the field. You do take-charge well. Too bad they never assigned you to our team.”
“Thanks.” I appreciated the compliment because SEALs often didn’t respect their support personnel enough, even officers like I’d been. “And you were Coronado, right? I was mainly based out of Virginia. My fiancée—”
“Ex-fiancée,” Avery corrected with a laugh.
“Yes, my ex. She was the one with West Coast connections. I’m still learning my way around.” That sounded far more upbeat than the actuality. I had a stack of text messages from my mom wondering what the heck I was doing staying on the West Coast after Lacey and I split. I didn’t have the best answer other than that a return east would mean a lot of pressures I wasn’t sure I was ready for.
“That why you need dinner company on V-Day?” Avery’s tone turned thoughtful.
“Pretty much.”
“Well, I’m happy to do it. And hell, after you took a pie for me, I owe you a drink.”
“You do.” I kept my voice dry as bruschetta, not that Avery picked up on my suddenly crispy mood. Somehow, he’d managed to turn my offer of a night out into a favor he was doing for me, not the other way around. Whatever. This not-a-Valentine’s-date better come with a very real, very big drink.
Chapter Three
Avery
“Tell me what to wear,” I demanded, pinning my phone between my neck and shoulder as I opened my closet. My chest of drawers was full of nearly identical dark T-shirts, and my closet lacked dressier options. Maybe Venus had been right, and she did need a boyfriend upgrade because this one had zero fashion sense.
Now that I was out of the service, I had a shirt I wore when a tie was nonnegotiable and a couple of date-friendly pullovers because buttons were not my friend. But this wasn’t a date. Just two buddies getting dinner. On Valentines. Nothing weird about that. So not weird that I called my sister for fashion advice.
“Big date with Venus?” Megan asked, a rustling sound on her end of the line. She was likely also getting ready to go out, and I could easily picture the bed in her downtown high-rise condo strewn with options.
“Uh. No.” Already this call was turning out to be a bad idea. “I’m going out with a friend. Just a friend. But nice restaurant. The type of place you and Mom love.”
Megan and my mom were way more into the food scene than I was, especially when it came to trendy spots. I got all my good date ideas from Megan.
“Which one? Jaden and I are headed to Twig & Grass, a new place with fab reviews.”
“Oh, good for you.” More like, thank God, it wasn’t the same place. “This is Bon Repass. French Egyptian fusion.”
I’d done a double take when Malik had texted me the deets. I wasn’t sure I’d have a clue what to order, and a quick glance at reviews showed a place far trendier than my usual, with lots of pretty-but-tiny plates and lengthy item names and descriptions. Left to my own devices, my tastes were fairly simple, but I supposed I’d muddle through this.
