Page 108 of Cross & Crown
Ty’s voice stopped him.
“Hey Nick?”
Nick took a steadying breath and closed his eyes, putting
the phone to his ear again. “What?”
“I just . . . be careful, okay?”
Nick nodded, rol ing his eyes. “Got it.”
108
Nick hung up the phone before Ty could say more. He
was tired of dealing with that heartache for tonight. He slid
the phone into his pocket and glanced down the stairs with
a frown. JD had obviously come up here for something, and
Nick wasn’t buying the “I need air” excuse. He looked over
the railing into the lower deck of his boat. He knew Julian
was in one of the bunks, with Hagan keeping an eye on things
from up top until it was Nick’s watch.
He headed down the steps, listening intently, expecting
JD to have returned to the VIP cabin to sleep. He came up
short when he reached the bottom of the stairs and almost
bowled JD over.
“Sorry!” he whispered as he grabbed the man’s arm to
steady him. “What are you doing? Are you okay?”
JD nodded. “Yeah, I . . . I was just looking at your pictures.”
Nick glanced at the frames that lined the wal .
“How long were you a Marine?”
“Ten years,” Nick answered. JD was staring at the pictures,
his sharp eyes taking them in, studying them. Nick knew
every photo on the wal , but he rarely slowed to look at them
anymore. Most were of him in uniform, and almost every one
had Ty Grady in it. They had been best friends for so long, it
was almost impossible to find a shot of Nick without him.
