Page 41 of Forged By Sacrifice

Dani and I hadn’t talked much while I’d been at sea. The cell signal was pretty much impossible unless I was in port, and Truck and I hadn’t spent much time in port.

Dani perched on the arm of the couch.

“How do you two know each other?”

“Ava,” Georgie said just as I said, “Eli.”

“Oohhhh,” Dani said, and she gave me a wicked smile because I had told her about the dark-haired woman I’d kissed and left behind. Damn sisters. Nosing into everything. Dani started laughing. “This is really funny.”

The more she laughed, the more it loosened the knots in my stomach. You couldn’t not laugh with Dani. She had a great laugh. And she was laughing so hard that she had to wipe at her tears. I couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped, and when I looked over at Georgie, she started to smile, too.

“Your smiles,” Georgie finally said over all of our laughter.

“What?” Dani asked.

“Your smiles are so similar. I kept trying to figure out who your smile reminded me of. It’s the same as Mac’s.”

“People used to think we were twins,” Dani said. “And I’m not sure I can get used to you calling him Mac.”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to consider him a Robbie.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “This is really preposterous.”

“Preposterous or unbelievable?” Dani asked.

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

Georgie finally rose from the seat she’d taken on the stairs, picked up her water bottle, and went to the kitchen where I could hear her filling it. Dani was watching me, and I pulled on my poker face—the one that had me earning lots of dollars against my academy and Navy buddies. It was harder to have a poker face with people who’d known you your whole life, but I tried.

I sat back down on the couch, and Dani joined me. This time, she left more space between us than had been there before. I could see how Georgie had mistaken me for a boyfriend, with Dani’s head on my shoulder. I wasn’t ashamed of being close with any of my family. Being a hugger was yet another thing, like my cussing, that I was going to have to filter out of my personality, though. I didn’t want to be on the secret list women in the government passed around D.C. The list that said: “Stay away from that guy.”

Georgie came back in and paused behind the couch, both hands surrounding her water bottle, squeezing. “What’s this?” she asked, waving toward the TV.

“Good Will Hunting. You’ve never seen it?” Dani asked.

Georgie shook her head.

“That’s almost a sin,” I said.

“It’s an incredibly romantic movie,” Dani told her.

“It’s not. It’s an underdog story,” I objected.

“With a great romance.”

“And Robin Williams.”

“Do you want to watch it with us?” Dani asked her. I could feel Georgie’s eyes on the back of my head. I didn’t want to chance looking at her, because Dani was still analyzing the air between us.

“Nah. I’m going to hit the hay. One of the professors caught me studying at the library, and he asked if I wanted to come by tomorrow and get a head start on some of the case studies.”

I snorted. I bet he did.

“What?”

Now, I couldn’t not look at her. I turned sideways, looking up. Her hands were still clutching the water bottle like it might be a lifeline, but her face was still. Her poker face was good but not quite as good as mine.

“You realize he was hitting on you, right?”

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