aside. There wasn’t time to get into that sticky subject. Not now, anyway. Later, when they were alone, he’d find out what the hell was going on with her.
“There’s no reason you should pay for the laptop,” Sarah said. “I can buy it. I’ve got plenty of cash on hand.”
Ignoring the offer, Tag turned to Dev. “Let me see that thing again.”
When his lieutenant commander passed it over, he studied it intently. After memorizing the brand and size, he gave it back and started scrolling through the Best Buy website. The laptop was an easy find. An HP Spectre instantly caught his eye. Good old American ingenuity, none of that foreign crap. A five-star customer rating. An ultra HD seventeen-inch touch screen. The newest, fastest processor, with 16 gigs of RAM and a terabyte hard drive. Thirty-two gigs of Optane—whatever the fuck that was. He grinned, anticipation rising. Damn, this baby was full of shiny new potential. He couldn’t wait to take her for a spin.
Tram crowded in next to him and peered over his shoulder. After a moment he whistled. “Nice.” He lifted his phone and angled it toward Tag. “You see the Omen? It’s got NVIDIA GeForce RTX.”
Tag glanced over and then scrolled down on his phone until he found the machine on Tram’s screen. Now that system was sweet. And barely eight hundred more. But then he frowned. “No rating yet.”
He weighed the lack of reviews against the extra speed and memory. What the hell—he clicked add to cart.
“I didn’t peg you for a gamer,” Dev said, squeezing in for a look himself.
Tag ignored the comment. There were plenty of activities he could use the laptop for other than gaming.
Devlin studied Tag’s cell. His eyebrows shot up. “We don’t need anything that fancy. We sure as hell don’t need top of the line, or something that costs three grand.”
“Twenty-seven,” Tag corrected absently.
“Twenty-seven? As in two thousand, seven hundred dollars?” Sarah’s voice rose incredulously, and she crowded in to get a look at his phone. “I take back my offer to pay for it.”
Tag ignored his instinctive response, which was to move closer to her and soak up her heat, her nearness. To breathe in that sweet, flowery scent drifting from her hair. Locking down his body’s instant, powerful reaction, he struggled to concentrate on the task at hand. Reaching into his back pocket, he yanked his wallet loose.
Devlin’s bark of laughter hit the air as Tag slipped his debit card free. “You dumbass. You forgot the adapter.”
Tag grimaced. That’s what happened when you lost focus. You forgot essential details, like fucking memory card adapters.
“Luckily, I’m here to take up that dumbass’s slack.” Tram grinned over his shoulder. “I’ve got one that will work in the cart.”
Devlin craned his neck to look over Tram’s shoulder. “Along with the Omen, I see.” He glanced over at Tag who was typing his credit card info into the sales form. “You two dumbasses realize we only need one laptop—right?”
When the comment was ignored, he scoffed and shrugged.
“I need your driver’s license.” Tag wiggled his fingers and Tram passed the plastic rectangle over. After he’d finished typing in the required information, he handed the license back to Tram. “We’re good to go. They’ll email with a pickup time.”
“Today?” Devlin demanded.
“Couple hours at most.” Tag stuffed his wallet back in his pocket and turned to Tram, who was typing the last of his information into his phone. “What did you get?”
Tram finished typing before answering. “Same as you. Plus the adapter.”
“Fucking copycat,” Tag sneered with a hard shove to his buddy’s shoulder.
“Since I found it first, you’d be the copycat,” Tram drawled with a hard shove back.
“If you two bananas are done posturing, I’ve got some calls to make.” Devlin pulled his wallet out and carefully wedged the memory card into the corner of the cash sleeve. He folded it up and stuck it back in his pocket. “I’ll hang onto this.” He pivoted and headed across the room. “Call when you have the laptop and adapter.” The door closed behind him with a loud bang.
Tag glanced over at Sarah, wondering how she was holding up. The gaze that held his eyes was warm, open, simmering with heat. For a second, he was transported back in time, to his Sarah of two years ago as she greeted him with hunger and thankfulness whenever he’d arrive on her doorstep.
Lucas glanced between Tag and Sarah. Whatever he saw cast an uncomfortable shadow over his face.