Page 77 of Known By You
“Oh, watch out. Barbie’s got his mean face on,” Beast grumbled.
“Why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be at home with your woman?” I snapped.
He glowered. “She made me come.”
I instantly laughed at this, as did everyone else at the table.
“Not funny,” he growled.
“It’s actually amazing. I bet you’re driving her insane,” I said, beaming at my friend. His super badass wife hadn’t wanted to be doted on and wanted him to have some social interaction outside of work and home—for that, I’d always love Jess. She was trying to take care of him just like he was her.
“Maybe,” he admitted.
I moved to him and gave him a big old hug. Odds were fifty-fifty he’d shove me away, but something drove me to it. When his giant paws wrapped around me and squeezed just briefly, something in me settled.
He’d needed it, but I had, too.
“You okay?” he asked quietly, the rest of the table talking about something else.
“Yeah, I’m?—”
Liz stepped inside the pub and my heart leapt. She wore jeans, boots, and a waist-length puffy jacket. She pulled off a knit cap and a chilly breeze rustled the long, loose strands of hair around her face as someone came in behind her.
“Noted.”
Beast’s tone held something—amusement, based on the soft crinkles at his eyes. Apparently, trailing off mid-sentence when you see the girl you like is a bit of a hint.
“Yeah,” I said, knowing he’d get it. Confirming his observations, admitting my own feelings… really however he wanted to take it, he was likely right.
“I think we need a nickname for you,” Cookie suggested as Liz walked up to the table.
“Do they give nicknames where you are?” Doc asked.
She shrugged. “If I told you, I’d have to?—”
“Kill you.” Everyone echoed, then laughed.
While all of us had served in the EMU, Eddie and Liz served in an agency within the CIA. Where the missions we’d done were top secret and compartmentalized, often covert, much of what she did didn’t exist, nor did her unit. People had heard of the EMU. They knew we paired with the Tier 1 SEAL teams, and we were black ops. Her organization wasn’t like that, entirely clandestine.
So we all appreciated the joke, even though we all understood exactly where she came from. I wondered if that made being here in the civilian world easier. She didn’t have to pretend she worked for State in diplomacy or that she was an analyst for something. She could show up here and we knew she had skills.
So many skills…
“Well, do you want a nickname?” Bruce asked, more than willing to bestow one on her if she so desired, no doubt.
“I’m fine with going by name for now. Maybe something’ll come up that will inspire a good one.” She smiled, and then her eyes hooked into mine.
My stomach fell down a flightof stairs.
She wasn’t a smiley person. She didn’t toss out grins like currency like, well, me. These weren’t the keys to her interactions with people like they were mine, and yet when she did it, or maybe because she more rarely did it, she was devastating.
“Hey, so… you good to go?” I asked, not trying to pull every person at the table’s attention, but successfully doing just that.
Her brows lifted just a touch, but she responded right away. “Let me go say hi to the girls and then yes, sure.” She slipped past us and moved to the table where Jo, Dove, Catherine, Nikki, and Winnie stood.
“Very subtle, man,” Cookie said, snickering.
“You better hope she doesn’t mind you announcing that to everyone,” Doc said.
