Page 21 of Passion and Payback

“Yeah.”

“Depended on the day and how much work I had to do the next day. Sometimes, it was bad. Sometimes, it was okay. It didn’t become okay until I woke up one day and realized I’d slept through opening the café.”

“Oh shit.”

“Double, oh shit. They had to call in Brooke because they knew she had a key. So, guess who was waiting for me when I got downstairs?”

I remembered Brooke. Unbeknownst to Hunter, I had taken quite a shine to her and her to me. The first thing that struck me was how red her thick, shoulder-length hair was and the way her smile somehow emphasized the freckles across her nose and cheeks. It didn’t take long to realize that under all her smiles and lighthearted jokes was a woman who was not afraid to tell someone the truth if they needed to hear it, and she could give some boot camp hardasses a run for their money. And I learned after the first time we’d slept together she was very good at keeping things quiet.

“Wow,” I said as I poured enough whiskey to fill the highball glasses I found halfway. “And just how much did you endure?”

“Oh, I accepted every bit of chewing out she gave me,” Hunter said in a wry voice. “I knew I’d been screwing up for a while, but that was the worst. Even when she dragged me up here to show me the state of the apartment and point out the empty bottles in the trash, I just took it.”

“Well, from what I remember, she wasn’t a woman to screw around when things were serious,” I said, tucking the bottle away and adding ice to his and the metal balls to mine. “And had quite the mouth when she was pissed off.”

“True,” he said with a chuckle. “Was she like that when you were alone with her?”

I paused to process that as I carried the glasses over. “Interesting. I thought we were good about keeping that quiet.”

He gave me a smirk over his food. “Oh, you guys weren’t obvious. It wasn’t like you went around eye fucking each other. But I know you really well, and although she’d only worked for me for half a year at that point, I knew her pretty well. You two were watching each other every time you were around. That and you acted different around her.”

“Different, how?”

“I don’t know how to explain it. I knew you were always aware of the people around you. I used to call it paranoia, but now,” he said, gesturing to the thin air as if to encompass everything that had happened, “I know it was just alertness you couldn’t let go of.”

“Pretty sure that’s close to the definition of paranoid.”

“Point is, you paid attention to her in a different way. It didn’t feel wary like it did with other people. It was…attentive.”

“Ah.”

“That and you looked down her shirt every time you two talked.”

“Amazing.”

My dry tone made him laugh. “Sorry! It stuck out because even when we were supposed to be hormone-driven teenagers, I rarely caught you checking anyone out. You always seemed to know when I was having a touch of the lust for someone.”

“Probably because you were always having a ‘touch’ of lust,” I snorted, taking a drink of the whiskey and grunting in appreciation. That bottle had definitely cost more than I’d ever spent on liquor.

Hunter had always had a taste for the finer things in life, which had been the focus of derision from many people, including his parents. It was probably a tale as old as time. People at the bottom thought those who aspired to be higher were snotty, arrogant, or just idiots. I’d been called an idiot for signing up for the service, but everything else had been heaped on Hunter, both to his face and behind his back.

It was more than a little stupid. What was wrong with trying to do better for yourself and your loved ones? It wasn’t as if Hunter had rubbed the nose of everyone around him because he wanted better than a roach-filled apartment smelling of mold. He had found a life that let him live comfortably and be happy…until life came along and decided, much like our classmates, thathe had been living the good life for too long and had forgotten his place.

Life was cruel, but I still thought people were crueler.

“For the record, I didn’t care,” he told me. “Figured you were keeping it quiet because you didn’t want me to know you were sleeping with one of my employees. Which, by the way, isn’t against the rules.”

“Well, that was part of the reason,” I admitted, taking another sip. It would probably take more than one glass for me to feel more than a buzz. Sometimes, my only real entertainment on deployment was my buddies and whatever drinks we kept out of command’s sight. They tended to overlook it so long as you were smart enough not to make a big show of it, and we got pretty good at keeping a lid on our alcoholic secret.

“What was the other reason?” he wondered.

It always felt weird for him to know when I was getting laid. I’d known it was a holdover for my true feelings for him and that Hunter had never tried to dictate who I slept with. It just felt weird for the guy I was intensely attracted to, theonlyguy I’d ever had feelings for, to know what I was doing in the bedroom.

But like every other time that thought had occurred to me, I pushed it aside and buried it. “You know me, Hunt, I don’t exactly announce what I do privately with other people.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said with a chuckle, pushing the food away and closing the container to take a drink. Which I wasn’t going to protest over. He’d eaten over half of the food. “I know. I used to think you weren’t interested in any back then. Then I found out you were, and I remember being upset.”

“Why?” I asked him, getting up to gather everything to throw away or, in his food’s case, put in the fridge.

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