Page 34 of Made for You
“You okay?” Tristan’s question came as he set down a full pint, then notched his chin toward the other beer on the table—mine, evidently.
After a swig of the golden ale, I swallowed hard. “Yeah. I’m good.” With a glance over my shoulder back toward Nikki, I mentally slapped myself.Get a grip, man.“Just making sure Nik got to her girls.”
The answering silence made me turn to Tristan in time to see his brow pop up. “Nik?”
Clearing my throat, I ignored the question. What would I say? Nicknames were part of the way we did things. They became signals and monikers that held reputation. But simply shortening her name wasn’t anickname, it was a sign of affection. And I wasn’t about to attempt protesting against the fact that I felt affection for Nikki Hastings, because I did.
“Is he pretending he doesn’t want to sit in my spot?” Kenny asked as he slid onto a stool between me and Tristan.
“Why would I want your spot?” I asked, finally facing him.
He snickered. “Because you can’t keep your eyes off the table at your six, and if you were sitting here, it’d be a lot easier to stare.”
I ignored him but narrowed my eyes at Tristan, who tucked his grin into his pint glass. “You can both shut it. She’s my neighbor, and we’re becoming friends.”
“You and the new admin?” Jess asked as she slipped onto the stool opposite Kenny right as Adam brought a tray with a pitcher and a bunch of pint glasses. “Oo, thanks Doc.”
With an exaggerated sigh, I gave her a look she had to recognize. As one of the best female operators and now one of our best Saint Security employees, she had to know this one well.
“We’re friends.”
The chorus of “Sure”and “Uh-huh” and Tristan’s traitorous silence had me sliding off the stool. “You know what? Time for another round. I’ll go get it.”
No one said anything, the conspicuous presence of Adam and that full pitcher pointing a flashing red arrow at my nonsense claim, but I wasn’t going to acknowledge that.
Grumbling under my breath, I made my way to the bar and forbade myself to glance toward Nikki’s table. I didn’t need to tempt myself with another look at her—that auburn hair and her casual, appealing outfit. No reason for it to call to me, but it did becauseshewore it.
As Kieran pulled our beers and Gem shook a Boston shaker for her patrons down the line, I marveled at my response to the newest Silverton resident.
I’d never been like this with anyone else. The only thing that held my attention—with a constant buzz in my mind, as though it held my hand and always lingered on the tip of my tongue—was work. My active-duty time had consumed me, and I’d let it, welcoming the enveloping stress and demand of a job that instantly became my whole life.
Not until I’d realized how bad the situation was with Mom and Kiley did I begin to come down from the perpetual high of being the best, the literal answer to some of our nation’s more complex scenarios. And once I did, the guilt set in—the reality that I’d been so consumed with work, I hadn’t noticed my own mother’s decline, my sister’s father becoming more erratic, and my sister struggling in her own ways.
I’d never had more clarity than the moment when Kiley looked at me and said, “Boo, I’m scared.” And I’d never felt more violence course through me, which was saying something for a man who’d spent much of his life ridding the world of terrorists.
By the time Kieran had filled a tray of drinks, I’d grown restless, the pull toward Nikki almost unbearable. It’d taken every bit of willpower to give her space to learn her job and not constantly check on her and take her lunch and show up on Rosie’s doorstep to ask how she was feeling about things at the end of each day.
At least, I recognized this wouldn’t be the right move. Smothering her wouldn’t endear me to her. Perhaps the worst part of all this was that I shouldn’t want it, and yet, I did to a bone-deep degree. I wanted her to like me, to need to be around me the way I seemed to require proximity to her, and I wanted her towantme.
I’d been wanted before. I’d had women make that clear.
I had never been so desperate to have one particular woman want me, nor had I felt this unbearable desire for one person—body, yes, but mind, too. Maybe it was her genius—maybe I was one of those idiots who found big brains irresistible. Perhaps it centered on her honesty, that stark willingness to tell me the truth even if it made the moment uncomfortable. She wouldn’t compromise her opinion or the truth just to make someone feel better, and I found that eminently appealing. I couldn’t fault myself because she had everything I wanted and never realized could be packaged together in a way that didn’t just appeal to me, itdemandedof me.
It demanded my attention, my time, my concern, my care.
Goodness, I was tired of the way it all chased around me, never letting me rest from thoughts of her.
And yet.
As much as I protested, I kind of relished it, too. Because even though I didn’t know why I’d decided to latch onto this woman at a time so patently bad, it felt like… something.
“You get waylaid by the pirates?” Kenny asked as he snatched a beer from the tray I set down.
“The pirates?” Jess asked.
Tristan tipped his chin toward the bar, where Kieran and Gem were serving up drinks at a rapid clip, each hand busy with its given task.
“Oh—wow. Yeah. I see it.”
