Page 23 of The Marine

What was I thinking?

It’s all these fucking weddings. They’re like a virus. Infiltrating our brains.

I drop my bag on the floor of my office and reach behind me to tug my sweatshirt off. Then run a hand over my dirty, short hair.

“How’d it go?” Josh asks, leaning on the door of my office.

“You know how it went. Target eliminated. Bye-bye, bad guy.” I tell him as I remove my T-shirt and scrub it over my face and down over my six pack.

God, I need a shower.

For the past four days, I’ve been out of the country on a black ops job which will pay the rent on our office building for the next twenty years.

“You good, though?” he presses.

I know what he’s asking.

Josh used to do a lot more of this kind of work, but since marrying Cassy, he’s been asking me to pick up the slack.

In all honesty, I could’ve done without all the fucking sand through my things, but the distraction sounded like a good idea.

Shooting bad guys and getting away from Briar's glaring rejection? Hell yes!

So that’s what I did. But it didn’t work. I thought about Briar the majority of the time.

Okay, maybe not while I was crawling through tunnels or when I took the kill shot. But the rest of the time, she was like a sticker on a windshield.

Impossible to ignore.

I can’t get her out of my life right now, and the truth is, I don’t want to get rid of her.

The bigger truth is that I also can’t have her, and that’s what I’m trying to deal with. She works for, and is friends with, Savannah, who is marrying one of my best friends.

Every day I wonder if she will turn up at the office.

Every day, I look for reasons to head to Savannah’s premises to check on the team or the security system.

Every day, I wonder if today will be the day she forgives me.

While also knowing she won’t.

She believes I killed her father, and while he was a monster, he was still her dad. More importantly, her mother would never allow it.

So I’ll take on more operative jobs if it means I get some distraction from this insanity.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You know Marines always take care of business.” I smirk, glancing over at him as I pull out a fresh, black, button-down shirt from my closet.

“With your hand.” Josh snorts and walks out.

I roll my eyes and laugh. Inter-military banter is part of our everyday life here at BHS. We get in a dig whenever possible.

But there isn’t a man alive I respect more than that Navy SEAL.

“Hey,” I call out and Josh turns back. “If you want to permanently reduce time in the field, let’s get a few of the other guys prepped to step in. I can’t keep up withallthe operations we have coming in, and it doesn’t make sense financially to be rejecting them.”

Josh nods for a long moment.

“Yeah, I know you’ve been picking up the slack and I appreciate it. I’m­...” His voice trails off and I frown.

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