Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 88463 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88463 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 442(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
“Wait,” Aiden calls out, and I poke my head back into the kitchen. “I’m not coming for dinner tonight. Mac and I are gonna kill some zombies, so I’ll eat at the bunkhouse.”
“Does Dusty know?”
“Yeah, he’s cool with it,” Aiden says.
“Okay then. Have fun. Call me if you need me.”
“She’s such a mother hen,” I hear Aiden say as I walk through to the front door.
Of course I’m a mother hen.
He’s my boy.
Ryker and I have just settled back on the sofa, ready to watch a movie, when my phone rings with an incoming video call from Gideon.
He hasn’t called every day like he promised last week, but it’s been close.
“Hey, handsome,” I say as I answer and smile at him. Then I notice that he’s not sitting on a hospital bed. I recognize that couch. “Wow, are you home?”
“Yeah, I’m home. I’m doing outpatient PT now.”
“How are you feeling?” Ryker asks him, and I point the phone so we’re both in the picture.
“Like I got shot,” Gid replies. “I don’t want to talk about that. What’s happening there?”
So, for half an hour, we fill him in on Molly the donkey, Andy losing his ever-loving mind, and the fact that Aiden and I are moving here permanently.
“It’s never boring with you two,” Gid says with a sigh.
“You’d hate it if we were boring,” I tell him. “Will you ever tell us what happened?”
“When you get the security clearance you’d need to know the details, I’ll tell you.”
I roll my eyes. “Lame.”
“I think you just like to say ‘security clearance,’” Ryker says, pulling a laugh out of Gideon. “You like to sound cool.”
“I am cool,” Gid replies. “And I have the highest security clearance you can get, which makes me extra cool.”
I snort out a laugh.
“Have you ever won a Stanley Cup?” Ryker tosses back, and I roll my eyes.
“Have you ever protected a president?” Gideon volleys.
“I’ve got two of them,” Ry continues.
“You’re both giving me a headache. And if you pull your dicks out to compare the size, I’m out of here.”
Now we’re all laughing, and it feels so damn good.
We’re the Three Amigos.
These guys are my besties.
“Now that you’re out of the hospital, are you sure you won’t come home to rehab your leg?” I ask Gideon. “I know I’m annoying you because I’m asking you this all the time, but there are physical therapists here.”
A text from an unknown number flashes across the top of my screen, but I flick it away.
“I’ll stay here and work with the team I’ve started with,” he replies.
“I think you just don’t want to see me.” I pretend to start crying and wipe an imaginary tear from the corner of my eye. Gideon lets out a gusty sigh and rolls his eyes. “Don’t mind me and my feelings. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
“You’re a pain in my ass,” Gideon informs me.
“But you love me.” With no tears in sight, I wink at him and grin. “Seriously, take it easy. Don’t work that leg too hard. This is a marathon, not a sprint.”
“Ry?” Gideon says.
“Yeah, man.”
“Rein in your girl.”
My jaw drops, and then I glare at Gideon. “You did not just say that.”
He’s laughing again, and that makes me happy.
“I will cut off your balls and feed them to you.”
“You’ve always had a mean streak,” he says as he wipes the tears from his eyes from laughing so hard. “Okay, I’m headed to bed. Thought I’d check in and make sure you two are staying out of trouble.”
“We are.”
“We’re not.”
We say that at the same time, and Gid grins at us.
“Call me soon,” I tell him.
“Yes, boss.” He winks. “Love you guys.”
He hangs up, and I start to set the phone aside and then remember the text.
Expecting it to be something about my car’s warranty, I open it up and then freeze.
“Uh, Ry?”
“Yeah, babe.”
“What the fuck is this?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ryker
Willow turns her screen my way, and I frown, sure that I’m not seeing what my brain tells me I’m seeing.
“What is this?” she asks again, her voice full of hurt. Not anger. Hurt.
And that sets me on edge, because someone has hurt my girl.
“May I?” I hold my hand out for her phone, and she gives it to me. I don’t hide what I’m doing from her. I zoom in on the image.
It’s a photo of me with a girl named Darcy, the same one from that night in Seattle when Wills and Aiden were at my retirement party. The one that Willow said had been eyeing me all night. But this photo was taken a different night, months ago.
We’re in the same place, Darcy is in my lap, and my lips are on her neck.
“Who sent you this?”
“It’s an unknown number,” she says. I can hear the hurt growing in her voice, and it both pisses me off and makes my heart ache because I never want my girl to feel insecure. The fact that my past was thrown in her face like this makes me fucking feral. “Talk to me, Ry.”