this progresses. I also didn’t miss her legs, but from here on out you’re gonna refrain from staring at them.”
“Damn.” Matt chuckled.
Matt settled back in the chair and stared. The silence stretched until I finally broke it.
“Not sure there’s anything left to say.”
“You go months, lots of months working your shit through. We give you the space you need and only talk about what happened when you bring it up. We all get it. We all respect it. You get yourself straight and in the process, swear to God you get a personality transplant and go from a scowling, standoffish ass to…not friendly per se, but tolerant of other people. I see you smiling and sometimes I even hear you laugh. You become this well-adjusted civvy when I was worried you’d be the next Unabomber. Which brings me to the part about women. You don’t say anything, no one asks, but you turned into Carter—a monk who turns down every hot chick who approaches. Suddenly that’s changed and you have a woman.”
Matt had a flare for drama. Though the part about Carter being a monk was true. When we were on the teams together Carter Lenox had never, not once, touched a woman in all the years we served together. No one got it until he brought Delaney to Virginia Beach and introduced us to her. He’d been in love with her since they were kids and had been in a committed-non-relationship that Carter had refused to commit to, yet secretly had. The situation would’ve been tragic and fucked-up if they hadn’t ended up getting married and started popping out kids.
But me not having sex in months didn’t constitute monk status. Though my dick was beginning to disagree with my newfound dislike of meaningless sex.
“Unabomber? Seriously?”
“That’s what you’re gonna focus on?”
“What else do you want me to focus on? You’re right, I needed time to get my shit together. I didn’t suddenly become anything, I adjusted. Adapted. And I did that because I had you and the team at my back. And I didn’t take a vow of celibacy. I was sick to death of the nothing I felt. It was too fucking easy, I was tired of easy. I was tired of rolling out of some woman’s place who I didn’t know, was never gonna know, and had no desire to get to know. I didn’t want a love match but fucking hell, I want to at least want the woman beyond fucking her.”
“You didn’t want love?”
“Not tracking.”
“You said, didn’t. Not that you don’t want love. Does that mean—”
“I don’t know what the hell it means,” I cut him off. “Didn’t. Don’t. Fuck if I know.”
Matt’s face broke out into a full-fledged smile and I braced. It was a damn good thing I had.
“Holy shit. You’re in love with Shiloh Kent.”
There was nothing to say to that. Nowhere to go. If I denied it, Matt would call me out. If I confirmed, he’d hammer me with more questions I didn’t want to answer.
So I said nothing.
Matt didn’t have the same problem. “Company party’s next weekend. You bringing her?”
That idea made me laugh. Short of cuffing Shiloh, physically carrying her to my truck, and committing felony kidnapping, there was very little chance I’d get her to a TC party.
But it was going to be fun trying.
Trying.
Fuck. I hated that word. But when it came to Shiloh, I had a feeling failure, regrouping, learning, trying again, and improvising were in my future. Failure wasn’t so bad as long as in the end, I got what I wanted. I’d take my knocks.
8
I was pacing my kitchen. I was not armed. I’d decided against this—the temptation to shoot Luke in his ass was too great. I’d likely have to answer uncomfortable questions when I took Luke to the hospital with a GSW to his buttock. It would serve him right but I liked my job and might get fired for a bad firearm discharge. My captain was pretty cool, but not that cool and he was still watching me like a hawk, worried about my state of mind, and shooting a man in his ass because he’d pissed me off would only confirm my captain’s suspicions.
I needed a break. That was what he thought. I was of a different mind and didn’t want any downtime that would lead to me dwelling.
But surprisingly, I’d only had one nightmare in the last five days.
And I’d successfully avoided my brothers’ phone calls. Unfortunately, that was due