by Kaye, Laura
Fine. I’ll be there around ten and I have the whole day off so I’m happy to help with anything you need. Want me to bring some groceries over?
He was well aware that it represented some seriously low expectations, but he was proud of himself for being able to say: Got it covered. See you then.
After that, Sean was back to a whole lotta nothing to do. He didn’t even have his bike to work on, which had been his usual go-to when idle hands threatened to leave him with too much time to think about the past and the long list of mistakes he’d made—and about how those mistakes had gotten others hurt. Too much time to think about why he was here when others weren’t—others who maybe deserved to survive more than he did.
Sean shook his head and forced the thoughts away. No. No way. He wasn’t gonna sit and spin on those kinds of thoughts. Not today, Satan.
There was at least one thing bike-related he could do, so he called his insurance company to determine the process for the claim regarding his bike. The good news was that the insurance company was available to send an adjuster to evaluate his bike’s condition this week. The bad news was that talking to his insurance agent was his idea of a good time these days.
For fuck’s sake.
Luckily, Mo texted a little before five to save him from boredom and overthinking. You up for chili dogs with me, Billy, and Shayna? I can swing by and pick you up.
Hell yes.
Mo was there by six, and they made it the short distance to Ben’s Chili Bowl fifteen minutes later. Billy and Shayna were inside and had grabbed them a table.
When she saw Sean, Shayna rose to her feet in an instant, her bright blue eyes filled with excitement to see him, and her arms reaching for a hug—before she stopped short. “Oh, I don’t know if I should hug you.”
“Yeah, o’course,” he managed, moved by her affection for him. And just a little uncomfortable as her arms came gently around him. Sean was weird about hugs, maybe because he’d rarely had them in his life. His mother had died when he was young enough that he didn’t have many first-hand memories of her. His father was an abusive asshole. While he’d had plenty of sex, a decade in the navy plus nearly five years of pulling every extra shift he could at the station hadn’t left him much time for relationships. So hugs just felt…weird to him. Foreign.
Soon their table was piled high with chili dogs, half smokes, and amazing fries. “How are you feeling?” Shayna asked him.
All eyes turned to him. “My chest is starting to feel a little better today. I can take deeper breaths easier, anyway.”
“That sounds like good news,” Mo said from where he sat beside Sean. “How long before you can get back to work?”
“Chief gave me four weeks of leave. I don’t know if I’ll need that long. A lot depends on my vision clearing up.” A feeling of dread stalked around in his chest. What if it didn’t? Jesus, he didn’t know what he’d do if it didn’t.
Billy glanced at the eye shield covering Sean’s injury. “When will you know more about your eye?”
His stomach tossed a little around the bites of chili dog in his gut. “I have an appointment with the specialist on Friday. They told me not to take the shield off before then, but it’s been fucking tempting.” It was true. He’d been itching to see if his vision was any clearer than it’d been the day he’d been discharged. So much depended on it.
“Shit,” Billy said. “I’ve got back-to-back meetings all day on Friday or I’d offer to go with you.”
Sean appreciated the thought. “Don’t worry about it, but thanks. What’s going on with you guys?” he asked, hoping to shift the attention off him and his damn injuries.
“Actually, that’s part of why I was hoping we could all get together tonight,” Mo said in his deep voice. “Because I have news.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s up, man?” Sean asked.
“I’ve decided I’m tired of jumping from contract gig to contract gig. A year here. Six months there. Always being in job-hunting mode. Never really putting down roots or feeling like I’m part of something meaningful.” Mo shook his head. Since he’d retired from the Army Rangers almost eight years before, he’d been working variously for the feds or defense contractors, but this past stretch of months he’d been seeming less satisfied with it.
Billy dunked his fries in ketchup. “We’ve talked about it many times. You know I feel you on all of that.”
Mo nodded. “I’m gonna open my own security services company. Personal security for individuals, executives, celebrities, and diplomats; secure transportation, security consulting, and private investigation. We’ll expand services as we bring on personnel. Guys coming out of the Spec Ops communities often face challenges in finding jobs that match their skill sets, so I’m prioritizing hiring veterans.” He laid a portfolio on the table and his gaze swung to Billy. “And I’m putting together a small group of partners to help me get this thing off the ground.”
Billy’s dark-eyed gaze lifted from the folder to Mo’s face. His brows went way up. “Partners.”
“Mmhmm. I was hoping you might be open to joining me.” He slid the papers closer. “So this is for you. Read it over. Think about it. No pressure.”
“This is seriously cool, Mo,” Sean said, grinning. “Congratulations. I can’t wait to see this come together for you.” They bumped fists.
“Thanks. I’m pretty fucking hyped about it.” Sean could tell, because Mo hadn’t seemed this relaxed in months.
“Billy?” Shayna said, peering at the sorta shell-shocked man sitting next to her.
He blinked and looked at her. She gave him a smile and a tiny nod. And that was all it took for Billy to turn back to Mo and say one word. “Yes.” He picked up the portfolio. “Of course, I’ll read it. But there’s not going to be anything in these pages that changes my answer. The rest we can work out.” The two men hadn’t served together, but they’d both been Army Rangers, so this didn’t surprise Sean at all.
Now Mo was full-on grinning. “You’re in?”
“I’m in,” Billy said. They shook hands across the table, and then everyone was laughing and smiling.
“Damn, I’m glad to be able to say I was there from the start,” Sean said, truly happy for his friends. “And if you ever need a smoke-breathing hose dragger, I might consider hiring myself out. For the right price.” He winked.
Mo chuckled. “I’m sure we’ll have plenty of fires to put out, Riddick, but hopefully none of them will be of the actual-flame variety. We do, though, and you’re our man.”
“Boom. Done,” Sean said, hoping he would in fact get to return to his job. Unlike Mo, he already had his dream job, so long as his injury didn’t prevent him from meeting the vision requirements.
And, sonofabitch, that was entirely out of his hands.
But there was nothing he could do about that but wait. So, fine. In the meantime, he could get out of his head and celebrate something good happening to his friends, because it sometimes seemed in this world like good things didn’t happen often enough to good people. And he’d look forward to his movie marathon with Dani.
Yeah, he was looking forward to that a stupid lot.
Chapter Eight
Dani felt oddly nervous, and it was freaking ridiculous.
It was just that this was the first time she’d gone to Sean’s house on what was more or less a purely social call, and even though the basic purpose was to help him out and keep him company, his issues were no longer acute the way they’d been nearly a week before. It wasn’t that she wasn’t looking forward to watching movies with him, because she was. It was just that, as she approached his back door, she felt like less of a nurse and more of a friend.
Or whatever they were.
Even that offhand thought felt disingenuous after being thrown together after his accident.
She knocked. The door swung open.
Sean looked…so much better. That mischievous light was back in his eyes—well, the one not covered by the taped shield of cou
rse. His color was better. He stood taller, his big body filling almost the whole doorway.
Standing there in a pair of worn jeans and a white T-shirt that set off the tan on his muscular arms, he was back to being fucking hot. And he was well enough that she didn’t have to feel like a creeper for noticing.
“You comin’ in?” he asked, amusement in his tone.
“Uh, yeah, of course. Thanks.” She moved into his family room and watched as he closed the door behind her. “You look better.”
“Starting to feel human again. My chest actually looks worse, though.” He helpfully lifted his shirt to reveal that the bruising had in fact spread. But bruises often appeared worse before they got better.
For just a split second, Dani had this stray thought: Maybe it would feel even better if I licked it. The hard pads of his pecs. The ridges of his abdomen. For starters.
Ack. What the heck was wrong with her?
He dropped his shirt and continued as if she wasn’t standing there imagining seriously violating his personal space, to put it mildly. “But I’m not coughing quite as much and I can do more than I could.”
She nodded. “Good. That’s good.” Needing to look at something besides his climbable body—oh, great, Dani, first he’s lickable, now he’s climbable—she turned towards the couch and found that he’d laid out a spread on the coffee table. Popcorn, pretzels, cookies, drinks.
“Yeah, so, I got us some snacks,” he said, running a hand over his dark hair. Was he nervous? He sounded a little nervous. Or maybe she was projecting? Gah, what was even happening here? “Uh, but if there’s something else you might want—”
“No, this looks great, Sean. I would’ve helped you bring all this down, though. You have to be careful not to overdo it.”
“I didn’t. I promise. I saved the ice machine for you, if you don’t mind. But the rest was no problem.”
“Of course.” She dropped her purse onto the chair and grabbed a few pieces of cheese popcorn and a few pieces of caramel. “Do you ever eat these together?” she asked, popping one of each into her mouth. “It seems like it should be weird, but it’s really good.”
Sean blinked and then a slow smile grew on his face. “That’s how I eat them. I only put them in separate bowls for you.”
She grinned. “Great minds.”
“Right?” He nodded. “Also, you just called my mind great, for the record. I think we need to mark this occasion.”
Dani rolled her eyes. “Don’t make me change my opinion.”
He chuckled. She grinned. Gah why does this feel like a date?!
Luckily, things felt more normal by the time she got him hooked up to the ice machine and he queued up the movie. “‘Captain America’ is first.”
“Why is that?” she asked. “Since you mentioned having a spreadsheet and all.” She smirked at him, even though their text exchange the day before had made her smile. And then she’d purposely frowned because why was she smiling at texts from Sean Riddick? But then someone had caught her smiling and teased her about whether she had a secret sexting partner and that’d made her inexplicably blush. Damnit. And she wasn’t even normally a blusher!
“It occurs chronologically earliest, in the 1940s.”
“Okay. Just how many movies are there in this world?” She eyed his laptop sitting open on the end table.
Sean blanked his expression, like he was purposely suppressing a reaction. “Uh, it’s better if you just go with the flow here.”
“How many?”
“Really—”
“Five?”
He coughed on a piece of popcorn.
“Ten?”
Clearing his throat, he said, “It’s a robust universe, okay? Leave it at that.”
“Fifteen?” She’d originally asked out of curiosity, but now she was having fun trying to make him react. Which was why she launched a surprise attack in reaching across his lap to grab his computer. Her fingers had just grasped at the corner of it when Sean’s arms banded around her mid-section—one hand on her hip and the other wrapping under her and landing on her side—and pulled her back.
“What do you think you’re doing, woman?”
His arms were so freaking strong, and God his hands were big where they held her tight. One arm brushed the underside of her breast and the other gripped her hip, and both were freaking arousing. “I was seeing how many movies there are. And this hold is unfair because I can’t fight you off without hurting you.”
Grinning, he held her tighter, forcing her to brace her hands on his thigh. “Yes, be very careful, Daniela. I’m super fragile over here. You wouldn’t want to hurt me.”
She glared at him.
But he was grinning like an idiot. And his good humor was freaking appealing. Which she was sure had nothing to do with the way he was holding her and how close their bodies were. It would be such a little thing to turn into him, to straddle him, and to make this day about something entirely else…
“You want to punch me right now, don’t you?”
“Very much.” She bit the words out more sternly than she’d intended, mostly because she was so thrown off guard by the direction of her own thoughts. If only her brain didn’t know how freaking good this man was at scratching an itch.
He winked at her. “Good. You’re channeling some serious Peggy Carter right now. That’s perfect. That fighting spirit will put you in good stead for ‘Captain America’.”
“Who’s Peggy Carter?”
Sean let her go, and she sat back in her own spot. “That question kills me. Literally, I might die sitting here. So let’s get started and you’ll see. Also, if you cross the demilitarized zone again”—he indicated the space in between them—“I won’t be held responsible for my actions.” He arched a brow. One that held a hint of something beyond humor.
It held a promise.
Dani was almost tempted to test it. Consequences be damned.
Instead, she rolled her eyes, but the gesture was a lie. She was neither annoyed nor unaffected. Oh, no, the heat in her body indicated she was very much affected by the good-guy, playful, nerdy, super-hero-loving version of Sean Riddick. The one who was also freaking hot. And the one who’d laid out snacks and compiled a spreadsheet. For her.
Looking away, she grabbed some popcorn. What was going on with her today? The other day, she’d felt guilty for having slept leaning against Sean. Now today, she was half ready to attack him. She was all over the place.
And it wasn’t the only thing her emotions were all over the place about, either. July third was seven days away. And the closer it got to the anniversary of Anthony’s death, the more her emotions seemed to be riding a roller coaster. One moment, she’d feel the grief of his loss into her very bones. Then in another, she’d move from grief to feeling sorry for herself, not just for his loss, but for not having someone to share life with. Even though she didn’t want that. Not anymore. And then she’d feel mad at herself for the whole mess of it.
Finally, the movie started.
Eyes on the big TV, she whispered, “How many movies are there?”
“Sshh,” he whispered. She bit back a smile.
This movie wasn’t funny like ‘Deadpool’, but she was enjoying it well enough. And then there was this scene where the main character, Steve Rogers, jumped on top of what he thought was a live grenade to protect everyone else, while they all tried to hide or run. It raised the hair on her arms, because she’d seen that kind of maybe-stupid-but-definitely-selfless courage more than once while she was deployed. And it made the movie immediately relatable to her on a visceral level.
Now, she was hooked.
It definitely did not hurt that once Steve received the super-soldier serum, he turned into a six-foot-tall god with ripped muscles and mad fighting skills.
Hmm, like someone else I know. Though Sean was taller than six feet…
Seriously not helping yourself here, Dani.
Right.
Then there was Peggy Ca
rter, a resistance fighter and soldier who fought alongside Captain America. She was a badass. And Sean had compared Dani to this character, which now struck her as sorta flattering. Proving that Dani was all the way ridiculous.
But then came the end. “Wait. What?” Dani said, peering over at Sean. “This is sad! This isn’t okay with me.”
Sean nodded. “I know. Just wait until ‘Infinity War’. But did you like it?”
“Yeah.” She looked back to the screen as the end credits rolled. “It was really good, actually. But I’m feeling a little emotional about that ending over here.”
“The next movie will make that better. I promise.”
Which was how she and Sean ended up sitting on his couch all day, eating a crap-ton of popcorn, pausing only to heat up a lasagna for dinner that Sean’s station chief had dropped off for him, and now found themselves starting their fourth movie.
Dani was having fun.
Like, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d just hung out like this. No agenda. No rushing around. Just hanging out and relaxing with a friend.
She lived her whole life around the idea of Keep Fucking Going—but shouldn’t that be about more than just clocking in and doing a job? However important that job might be? Life wasn’t just about making a paycheck or even making a contribution, it was about finding joy along the way. About finding connection and meaning. All of a sudden, Dani wasn’t sure she’d been doing a great job at the living part of life. The thoughts sat uncomfortably on her shoulders.
As ‘Ironman 2’ began, Dani found it hard to concentrate, and finally peered over at Sean. “So…which superhero are you? Like, I’d happily be either Peggy or Captain Marvel. Are you Captain America or Ironman?” She grabbed a handful of popcorn.
He closed his eyes. “Just give me a second. I’m picturing you in a superhero costume over here. Mmm.”
She slugged him in the biceps, probably hurting her knuckles more than his stupid muscular arm. “Shut up.”
