Page 20 of Fate's Crossing

“How’s the water, Lieutenant!”

“Hope those pants weren’t new!”

On and on they went until Nico did the only thing there was to do—took a bow.

“Get your ass back up here,” West hollered. “It’s lunchtime. I’m buying.”

“So, how did you like Boston?” Frank asked once their food had been set in front of them.

“It was . . .”—Nico tried to ignore the odd feeling of having his bare feet resting on the cold linoleum floor while his socks and boots dried off in the sun outside the diner—“Interesting.”

“That bad, huh?” Seth asked, ketchup bottle poised above his fries.

“No, it was good,” Nico amended. “Hard work. Stressful at times.”

“Sounds like my ex-wives,” Frank said.

“I’m sorry, did you say wives? Plural?”

When Frank held up three fingers with a grimace, Nico shook his head.

“Don’t ask,” West—burger in hand—advised from the opposite end of the table. “Unless you want to get drawn into an hour-long soap opera detailing the various ways women can hurt you.”

“She ripped out my heart and crushed it with her six-inch heel,” Frank threw back. “I’ll have you know I still carry a substantial amount of pain from my failed relationships, so I’d appreciate a little sensitivity.”

“Mm-hmm,” West hummed, not falling for it. “Remind me again which one that was, the virus writer or the hooker?”

“She was an escort,” Frank corrected. “And I can’t be expected to know the ins and outs of a person’s career after only knowing them for a day.”

“I think there were a lot more ins than outs with that one, Frank,” West replied dryly.

“You only knew her for a day?” Zoe balked, apparently as uninformed as Nico with this particular story.

Frank grinned. “Vegas.”

She scoffed. “Figures.”

After some more jaunty banter, Seth asked, “So, where are you from originally, Nico?”

Glad they finally seemed to be warming up enough to call him by his preferred name instead of his rank, Nico answered, “Brooklyn.”

Frank blinked. “No shit?”

“We spent a couple of years there when I was a kid, before settling permanently in Boston for my dad’s work.” Nico took a sip of soda before asking, “Zoe, didn’t I read in your file that you attended the academy in New York?”

The table went quiet. Awkward. Nico got the feeling he’d said something he shouldn’t have but couldn’t fathom what.

Zoe’s head whipped up. “Y-you read my file?”

“Of course,” Nico said with a frown. “I wanted to know who I’d be working with.”

Her face paled. “Oh. Uh, yeah, that’s right, I did.” She shifted in her seat. “Just didn’t work out.”

Nico watched her with new interest as she went back to her food. What was her story? From what he could glean from the incomplete documents in her file, she hadn’t been stationed in the Big Apple long before coming straight back to Mercy Cove. Whether it was with her tail between her legs or not, he couldn’t say. But he’d like to find out.

“What about you guys?” he asked. “You all locals?”

“Born and raised,” West said, adding with a smirk. “Some of us earlier than others.”

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