do.”
Nodding, he dropped his arms from around her and went to her closet where his shirt hung. As he reached for it, he saw his uniform suit coat and slacks hanging beside it, and the cargo shorts and shirt he’d worn yesterday stuffed in her dirty clothes hamper. It felt so…domestic. Like when he’d been married.
He shoved his arms into the sleeves and started buttoning the freshly dry-cleaned shirt, remembering how he’d liked sharing a bedroom with a woman. Having her things around, mixed with his. Liked the feeling of lives joined, of a shared future. Then he thought about returning to his empty apartment tonight after Alex went to work. Alone.
“Hey, we don’t have to go.” Alex’s hands slid around his waist from behind.
“No.” He turned and hugged her. “It’ll be fun to get out. We’ll grab something to eat after.”
The movie was an action-packed shoot ’em up— Alex’s choice—and Mitch discovered she took on violent tendencies while watching that kind of movie. He tried to hold her hand, but she wasn’t going for any of that sappy stuff. She kept gripping his forearm and digging her nails in, and worse, she was a popcorn-hogger.
And he loved it. It was so…Hughes. All he could do was grin, and then take her out for a burger and sit back and watch as she built herself a Dagwood with plenty of mustard and onion rings, and he didn’t even want to know what all she had inside that bun.
“Want a bite?” She offered the monstrosity across the table to him.
“Uh, no. Thanks.” He leaned back, hands up as if to ward off evil.
“Wimp.” She shook her head and pursed her lips just before she dug in.
“I think the only professional personnel equipped to handle that thing is HAZMAT.”
“Ha-ha.” She chewed and swallowed. “Neil used to say I had a cast-iron stomach.”
“Who’s Neil?” Probably one of her brothers. He made a mental note to ask about her family’s names.
“The guy I was dating in D.C.”
Mitch froze with his fajita halfway to his mouth. “You’re kidding, right? Neil, the SEAL?” He threw an arm across the back of the booth and hooted.
“Hey, don’t laugh. He’s a decorated hero.”
“That may be, but the poor guy should’ve chosen a different branch of the military.” He snickered. “Or changed his name.”
Alex glared at him, but he could tell she was trying not to smile. She finally broke and chuckled. “I shouldn’t laugh, he’s a sweet guy.”
Mitch didn’t like the way her expression went all soft when she talked about him. “What’d he get a medal for?”
“Remember a few years back when those pirates captured that freighter ship off the coast of Yemen?” He grunted.
“And the president ordered those sharpshooter SEALs to take them out?”
“And Neil-the-SEAL made the shot?” Great. His rival was a freakin’ hero. “He must get lots of tail off that story.”
“As a matter of fact, the only way I found out was through his friend. Neil doesn’t talk about it.”
Fantastic. A modest, sweet hero. “It’s a wonder you didn’t marry Mr. Perfect right then and there.”
“I know. His father is a United States senator. His mother is on the boards of several charitable foundations. So what the heck am I doing here with you?” Her eyes widened in mock exasperation and she smirked just before she took another huge bite of her hamburger.
She was trying to laugh this off, but Mitch couldn’t help but wonder, seriously, what was she doing here with him? His stomach cramped up. Another freakin’ senator’s son?
He hated that he’d told Alex about his background. She hadn’t judged him at the time, but compared to a guy with such a distinguished family? And besides, she didn’t know all the details.
He’d never forget the look in Luanne’s eyes after he’d told her about the horror of his childhood, certain that she wouldn’t judge him. And then seeing the disgust mixed with pity whenever she looked at him after that.
“Mitch,” Alex recalled his attention back to the here and now. “You know I was just kidding, right? If I wanted to be with Neil, I would be.”
He lifted a shoulder, shrugged it off. “Hell, yeah. Just think, I might have had to call you Mrs. Neil-the-SEAL.”
She put a pickle on the edge of a fork and catapulted the thing across the table at him.
He ducked and it missed. “Starting a food fight, Hughes? I can’t take you anywhere.”
Too soon he was kissing her goodbye as she stood at the door of