Page 74 of Remade

We walked over to?—

“Why are you limping?” he asked abruptly. “Did you get shot again?”

His voice was loud enough to get everyone’s attention, and I cursed internally and rubbed the back of my neck.

Coach cracked up and turned away from me, so I narrowed my eyes. He already knew, didn’t he? Hyatt had told him. Or Quinlan, or…whoever else. Nine operators had been present for my devastating loss.

“I feel like I’m about to hear something awesome,” Crew said.

Riggs was amused too, hiding his smirk in a beer bottle.

Fuckers.

“No, I didn’t get shot,” I muttered. “I got hurt by karma.”

“What?” Leighton looked up at me, puzzled.

I sighed, figuring I might as well get it over with. “I aced the whole fucking drill, and maybe I was a little cocky about it.”

“Alittle?” Coach laughed. “Quinlan called me on the way back and said you’d told everyone you could be their mentor for another round of recruit training.”

Well—fuck it! Some of those bastards were getting slow in their old age. Leighton calledmeold? Wait till he got to experience the fifty-plus crowd in the field. Hyatt and I had been grouped together with the operators who didn’t take on rougher assignments anymore because of a scheduling conflict, so I’d naturally performed much better than the rest. Hyatt had his own excuse for average scores. The Air Force ran in his blood.

“So, how did you get hurt?” Leighton asked, more amused now than anything.

Goddammit.

“I twisted my ankle on the way back when we stopped for gas,” I grumbled.

“Tell him the rest too,” Coach pressed.

I shot him a scowl. “Fine. We bought burgers after we filled up the tank, and when I was giving Paul shit, I tripped, twisted my ankle, and smashed my burger against the car door.”

As expected, everyone cracked up. In Leighton’s case—he was damn close. His eyes were brimming with laughter, and he was physically pinching his lips together to prevent sound from coming out.

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” I told him accusingly.

“This is what that looks like, baby,” he replied, failing to hold back the laughter another second.

Was he calling me baby now? Actually, I didn’t mind it, I decided right then and there. I liked it. Maybe it was the drinks that did it. We should change the topic and see what else he’d say when he was unfiltered.

No, but really, Let’s change the topic.

I looked around the terrace, and I soon spotted something leaning against the wall. “What’s that?”

The piece of wood had a red bow on it and everything.

Crew was down to chuckles, so he responded. “A gift for Coach.”

That made Coach react. “It ain’t a gift if you broke the first one.” He flicked me a glance. “It’s a countertop for my house in Italy.”

“First of all, I didn’t fucking break it,” Crew laughed. “I left a single cutting mark behind. Second of all, it’s not a house! You barely havewalls.”

“It’s a perfectly wonderful safehouse,” Coach barked back.

“Not a single window!” Crew went on. “In the living room—take one step too far and you fall into the lake. Rubble everywhere. No running water, no power?—”

“I swear I’ll throw you off the roof, kid,” Coach growled.

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