served well to remind her of her last mistake. She wasn’t going to leap head-first into her next one.
No matter how hot and sweet and deceivingly perfect Brian was.
No man was perfect. No relationship was without problems. Not even the fake ones.
She’d just have to get through navigating a few bumps in the road of this one without Jen figuring it out. Namely, his message and texts she didn’t reply to but that kept coming anyway.
Damned stubborn SEAL.
She’d orchestrated a fake boyfriend to keep her life free and simple, and yet somehow he was causing her very real grief.
That pretty much settled it in her mind. Men were bad news. And she was better off without one.
TWENTY-SIX
A ten-mile run in full kit. It should have purged all thoughts of her from his brain. It didn’t.
Alicia had been ground in, stuck in his mind like sand on wet skin during BUD/S.
But unlike doing sugar cookies on the beach during Hell Week, which he’d gladly never do again, he couldn’t get enough of Alicia.
She continued to torture him with her silence and yet he was actively, willingly, going back for more.
“Hey. Liam,” he said between gasped breaths when he pulled up next to his teammate as they neared the end of the run.
“Yeah,” Liam replied, sounding just as breathless.
“You think you could . . . help me out . . . with something?” The fucking run was making it harder to ask for help than it normally would have been for Brian, who usually liked to keep things to himself. At least when it came to his love life.
“Sure. What?” Liam asked.
“I wanna . . . surprise Alicia . . . and sing a sea shanty to her. At McP’s. Would you . . . back me up?” Sometimes even loners needed back up. Particularly when probable public ridicule was involved.
At least, thank Christ, they’d reached the end of the damn run.
Liam slowed to a walk. Brian matched his pace.
He regretted doing that when Liam turned and, his face flushed and sweaty from exertion, flashed him a cocky grin. “You’re pulling out all the stops for this one, huh? I’ve never seen you like this with a woman. Alicia has you all twisted up. So tell me, what is it about her that won the heartbreaker’s heart?”
He couldn’t deny he was going all out for Alicia so he didn’t try.
Brian snorted. “Hell, if I know.”
But the truth was he did know, or at least suspected, part of the reason. What if he wanted Alicia so badly because she didn’t want him? And if that were true, what kind of shit man did that make him?
Although, there were all the many other things he loved about her that added to the attraction. Or perhaps obsession was a better word.
How she continuously surprised him in some ways, but was so predictable in others. How she loved her sister, even while being completely annoyed with her at the same time. How she had shelves overflowing with books and also a drawer stuffed full of sex toys.
He could spend a lifetime with her and never get bored.
And that thinking a word like lifetime hadn’t sent him straight to a rebound woman’s bed or the bottom of a bottle of booze proved something. Alicia was different.
Or, no, maybe he was different because of her.
How he felt about her was certainly different because Liam was right, he’d never acted like this over a woman before.
“So a serenade at McP’s, huh? Okay. I’m game. Which song did you have in mind?” Liam asked as they headed inside to the cages to dump off their gear.
“Well, I googled sea shanties—” he began.
“You googled?” Liam asked, staring at him through the cage’s wire.
“Yes. Why?” He dropped his pack and stripped off his sweaty shirt as the rest of the team started to filter in.
Liam lifted a shoulder. “Oh, nothing. I always do a thorough internet search before I get drunk and sing to the woman I love in a bar.”
The woman he loved . . . Liam’s words slapped Brian smack in the face, forcing him to consider, did he? Love her?
Fuck. He might. Which meant this plan to get her back had better frigging work.
“Anyway,” he continued. “I was thinking Rolling Down to Old Maui but we change the lyrics to be Old McP’s instead. What do you think? Is it stupid?”
Self-doubt assaulted him as he realized this might be the most ludicrous idea he’d ever had.
He was going to