of friends, you still couldn’t tell me what to do.”
“Evie, nothing good can happen at a Storage and Such at eleven thirty at night.”
He was undoubtedly not wrong.
But as gorgeous as he was, I suddenly did not see him.
I saw my brother, his manner, heard his voice.
And I knew, even though I really, really (really) did not want to, my brother was a fuckup, but he was my brother.
Which meant I was going to Storage and Such that night.
“Evie,” he whispered.
I focused on him and saw clear as day written on his face that he’d somehow read my mind.
“I’m going with you,” he declared.
Oh no he wasn’t.
“You can’t. They said come alone,” I pointed out.
“Do you know what I do?” he asked.
“You’re a commando.”
His lips quirked.
And.
Dayum.
How had I not yet noticed his lips?
Also, why did God want to punish me so much that I was now, when I’d decided he and I weren’t happening, noticing his lips?
Lips that were better than his eyelashes.
Better than his hair!
“I’m not a commando,” he told me.
I was oddly disappointed in receiving this knowledge.
“As such,” he finished.
I perked up.
“What I do…” He moved his head on his neck in a strange way that had me captivated, before he shared, “This is like, sixth or seventh date stuff. Maybe ninth or tenth.”
Oh boy.
I sensed a girl could be highly addicted to Daniel “Mag” Magnusson by the sixth or seventh date.
Definitely the ninth or tenth.
By that time, she’d put up with anything.
“Anyway,” he said. “I can’t tell you what it is, exactly, that I do.”
Oh boy.
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Missions are confidential. All of them.”
“Missions?”
He nodded.
Missions.
“Oh boy,” I whispered.
“It’s rarely dangerous,” he stated.
“All right,” I mumbled.
“Well, more accurately, occasionally it’s dangerous.”
I stared at him with my mouth open.
“I might be able to say it’s a bodyguard gig or…other, but not with any detail.”
I continued to stare at him.
He cleared his throat. “Getting to the point, I can go with you and they won’t know I went with you.”
“How would you do that?”
He grinned. “We like to use words like ‘covert,’ but mostly, I’d hide from a vantage that I could keep an eye on you.”
As I was still staring at him, somehow, I read that he was feeding me a line, being cute in order to get his way.
“Forgive me for saying this, but that doesn’t sound like the most comprehensive of plans.”
“I’m really good at hiding.”
I bet he was.
He wasn’t finished.
“And I have a gun in my truck.”
Oh boy.
“I’m also not a big fan of guns,” I shared.
“I’m not surprised,” he muttered.
“My brother has a particular skill with messing up his life, but I can’t believe he’d put me in any real danger.”
“How about you go in with backup anyway.”
“Danny—”
“Mag.”
“Mag—”
He leaned toward me and cut me off.
“This is the deal, Evan. No matter what, I’m gonna be at Storage and Such at eleven thirty. You kick me out of your place now, I’m also gonna put in a call that will mean I can read your texts and listen into any phone conversations so I can see or hear if you try to change plans, and then I’ll be there. So let’s just order pizza, eat it, get to know each other a little bit, then hit my place so I can bulk up on ammo and get a secondary weapon before we go out to Colfax and do this shit.”
I could not believe what I just heard.
And shockingly, what I couldn’t believe was not the part about ammo and secondary weapons.
“You would invade my privacy like that?”
“Yup,” he said without delay.
“That’s…that’s…” I turned to my side and got up on an elbow, keeping the ice to my head, “indescribably uncool.”
“From my perspective, I’m tryin’ to be a good guy. I’m offering to look out for you, help you out, make it so you don’t have to go it alone, so I think it’d be ‘indescribably uncool’ if you put me in a position to have to invade your privacy.”
“That’s a convenient twist,” I bit out.
His rather attractive brows shot up. “You have no qualms with goin’ to some storage place at eleven thirty at night?”
I was trying not to think about doing that.
In fact, I was focusing on this insane conversation in order not to think about doing that.
He read that in my face too, I knew it when he muttered, “Right.”
I glared at him.
Then I plopped to my back and closed my eyes, declaring, “I’m done talking to you. Like…for forever.”