AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And an archeologist who can’t dig?”
Max cringed, his face twisting up. “Shit. You better hope you’ve got tenure somewhere already, or at least a lot of research done so you can keep publishing books. Otherwise, you’re screwed.”
“Is that your master plan? When you tire of digging in the dirt, you want to teach?”
A low groan left Max, and he forced himself to push his nearly empty plate away from him. While he talked to Ed, he’d mindlessly shoveled the food in, not paying attention to the fact that he was full. Now he was about to explode.
He leaned on the bed and turned his head to smile at Ed. “How old do you think I am?” he demanded with a grin.
Ed squinted at him, his face wrinkling up. Max braced, expecting to hear something in the midtwenties. People always pegged him to be much younger than he was. Usually, he could turn the underestimation to his advantage, but he didn’t want Ed staring at him as if he were some kid.
“I don’t know. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Probably not forty yet.”
“Thirty-eight!” Max squawked, bolting upright. He slammed his fist into Ed’s meaty shoulder, but the man laughed. He probably didn’t even feel it. “Who the hell are you saying looks thirty-eight? There’s no way I look that old!”
“I’m teasing! I’m teasing!” Ed cackled as Max continued to hit him.
“Thirty-eight, my sweet ass,” Max mumbled under his breath as he leaned back again with a huff. He folded his arms across his chest and glared at the wall.
Ed placed his empty plate aside and turned toward Max, resting his elbow on the mattress. “You don’t look thirty-eight. You’re maybe thirty, which puts you six years younger than me.”
“Pft.”
It was hard not grinning like an idiot. Ed was good. He probably knew his actual age. Thirty-eight was a horrible tease, while thirty was a soothing balm on his ego. Thirty was less than his real age but close enough to sound believable. The man was smooth. No denying it.
“I’m thirty-two,” Max admitted, unbending a little. His arms fell slack in his lap. “Which is still way too early to be planning my retirement from the field. But yeah, in twenty years, I probably wouldn’t mind slowing down, buying a house near a university, and teaching a bunch of know-it-all whippersnappers.” He shrugged. “Though I’ll admit that I don’t know what comes next.”
“What do you mean? You’re not going to keep digging in Egypt?”
“Digging what?” Max swallowed against the sudden tightening in his throat and ignored the roll of his stomach. It wasn’t heartache so much as a low-level but growing sense of panic and dread. “A lot of us pour all our work and research into a single thing. Most can spend a lifetime chasing that discovery. Early on, I was lucky. I’m close to finding my lifetime pursuit, and I don’t know what I’ll move on to next. I don’t have my next theory lined up. If I find the Tomb of Kazemde and it doesn’t naturally lead to a new mystery, it’s likely that I could be stuck teaching or aiding other archeologists on their quests until I come up with something new.”
“That sounds…bad.”
“Not bad. Just boring.” He huffed and forced a smile. “But no more talk about that bullshit and talking about me. I’m boring and weird.”
“I don’t think you’re boring. You might be weird, but I work with a lot of weird people, so I don’t notice that anymore.” Max snorted with laughter and almost choked when Ed added, “I enjoy listening to you talk. It’s interesting. Every time you open your mouth, I learn something fascinating about you or archeology or even history.”
Oh fuck, he was going to blush. He was too old to blush.
He waved his hands at Ed, no longer able to meet his gaze. “No more about me. Talk about you. I want to talk about you. How did you get into this mercenary thing? I thought you said you were in the military. A SEAL, right?”
From the corner of his eye, he could see Ed smirk at him, but he thankfully dropped it. “It’s kind of a long story of getting from there to here, but I can give you some highlights. I joined the military out of high school mostly because of my size and because I wanted to help people. My parents were worried that a big Black man walking around would just get himself shot for being any place at any time. They honestly thought I was less likely to be shot in a war zone.”
Max opened his mouth, but nothing came out other than some incoherent noises. A thousand words were caught in his throat behind a ball of rage. And the worst of it was that there was a kind of logic to what his parents believed. It was atrocious.
