Page 88 of Remade

I chuckled around a mouthful of food.

“I promise, I didn’t forget, sweetie,” she assured.

“Ma, you want coffee?” I yelled.

She entered the kitchen a beat later and tsk’d at me. “I’m right here, honey. There’s no need to shatter my eardrums. And did you forget where your closet is?”

Well, fucking excuse me.

“I’m good on coffee, thank you.” She had two gifts for me that she dug out of her tote, and she walked over to us. “How are you, Leighton? You haven’t gotten tired of him yet, I hope?”

My boy laughed. “Not yet, ma’am.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” She extended the gifts to me, then ruffled my hair like I was fucking twelve, and she kissed me on the forehead. “Happy birthday, son. I hope we can celebrate you when you come back from your trip.”

“Thanks—yeah, definitely.” I pushed the soft package aside, knowing it was a boring sweater. “Did Kat call you yesterday? She asked us if we’d be home in August, and I said we’re heading to Washington.”

“She did call,” she replied with a nod. “She wondered when we’ll be getting wedding invitations from you two.”

Oh Christ.

“We’re in no fucking rush,” I told her. Damn, this box was difficult to open. I already knew the theme. She went through the attic every time we had our birthdays, and she gave us heirlooms and whatnot. Plus gift cards. We were definitely a gift card family. “We’re each other’s emergency contacts, and we’ve set up wills and everythin’.”

Leighton nodded for emphasis. We’d discussed it—we wouldn’t mind tying the knot down the road. Right now, we were happy with the way things were. Besides, Leighton was young—and my track record was shit. The day I popped the question, I wanted him to be more than ready. I wanted him to feel it was really time. Because if he said no for some reason, or said it was too soon…? That was gonna hurt, and it wasn’t the kind of pain we got off on.

“Romantic,” Ma noted dryly.

“We’re romantic like you wouldn’t believe,” I replied. “Did you see the birthday donut he gave me? I’m his unicorn, Ma. Hisunicorn.”

Leighton coughed to hide his laughter, and Ma just shook her head at us.

She didn’t get it.

Leighton Watts

Once we got to work, I gave my man a big kiss before we parted ways for a moment. I needed to get changed and run some errands within the building, and Bo had a briefing before our actual briefing.

In the locker room, I changed into a pair of jeans, a tee, and a hoodie.

Someone else came in too, and I smiled when I saw Tanner. “Hey, man.”

“Hey! You’re off today, huh?” He walked over and shed his sweater.

“Yeah.”

“Excited?”

I paused and thought about it. “Yes and no?” I chuckled. “Yes, because it’s my first official assignment. No, because I won’t get to do anything fun.”

Bo didn’t treat me unfairly one bit, nor was he here to do me any favors. So while he’d chosen me as the one junior operator on his crew, my job was going to suck. I was literally a guard dog for our pilot, and I’d be far away from any potential action.

“Dude, tell me about it,” he huffed. “I’m in training for my first op too, and my task is to go fetch a memory card from someone in an airport lounge in Mexico City.”

I shut my locker and furrowed my brow at him. “What kind of training do you need for that?”

He rolled his eyes. “Just a few days to profile the people involved and study the layout of the airport.”

Yeah, that made sense. Boring, but…this was our future for the first year or two. We had to get our feet wet with low-risk gigs.

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