Page 9 of Mensa's Match

“Like I said, we’d have been friends regardless.”

I nodded once. “I appreciate that. Nobody’s ever been as understanding as you, so thank you.”

She swallowed a sip of tea. “You’re welcome. Now that we have that out of the way, you’re coming to karaoke tonight.”

“No, I’m not. The farther away I am from Mensa, the better off everyone will be. We can’t stand each other, and for good reason.”

“You don’t mean that. I’ve seen how you look at him.”

I smiled. “Sure, with suspicion and scrutiny.”

Riley laughed. “Yeah, if that’s what you want to call checking someone out.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t check him out. He’s not my type physically, and we’re definitely wrong for each other morally.”

“Morally?” she asked, her tone bordering on disbelief.

“No offense, I know he’s your cousin, but I doubt he has any morals. Or, no, that isn’t fair. His sense of right and wrong are the very opposite of mine.”

Riley stared at me for a beat. “Nothing’s ever black and white with him, that’s for sure.”

“I see shades of gray too, Riles.”

She tipped her head, a questioning expression on her face. “If that’s true, then the two of you are more alike than you think.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. Once you tell Finn, the brothers are going to agree with Mensa. Keeping me out will be their priority.”

“But you aren’t working any more.”

I twisted my hands up. “Yeah, but the brothers won’t care. And something’s got to give soon. I need to figure out what the hell I’m doing. I definitely don’t have time for dancing around a man like Mensa.”

The breeze from the Gulf tickled the back of my neck before I set off on my jog. Part of me couldn’t believe that I routinely came tothe public beach access to torture myself this way. Even though I’d been on my high school track team, I didn’t like running; I’d done the shot-put. But training at Quantico had been no joke – mentally and physically – I didn’t like running, but I quickly learned that a long run was the one time I could zone out the noise of the outside world.

I needed to zone out in the worst way because I had a ton of big decisions in front of me. After a few stretches, I wandered to the sidewalk that lined Beach Boulevard, and jogged.

It didn’t take long for my mind to clear so I could focus on the decisions I needed to make.

If I took over Aunt Nadia’s shop, I’d have to pack up my place in Jackson and move down here. I wondered if running Hard Pressed would be fulfilling enough.

If I still wanted a job within law enforcement, I needed to figure out what that looked like. Did I want to work with the Biloxi PD? Did I want to put out feelers for a job in the private sector?

I couldn’t ignore one of the biggest reasons I had resigned.

It sounded cliché, but my clock was ticking and I felt like I’d been married to my job, which wouldn’t have been fair to my future family. It wasn’t that field agents couldn’t have families. Most of them did. It was that I didn’t want that for my day-to-day life. By the flip side, I didn’t want my life to revolve around being a mom. There wasn’t anything wrong with that; I just needed to have an identity along with being a mom.

Being this aimless was new to me.

Another voice in my head asked if it was a waste of my education to settle for running Aunt Nadia’s shop? Considering that I’d majored in business (in case I didn’t get into the FBI academy), my education would actually help me. Not to mention keeping her shop in the family would be its own kind of achievement.

My breathing had become more labored as I hit my stride. Running along the Gulf of Mexico was so much better than running almost anywhere else.

It struck me that what I’d spouted off to Mensa at lunch had been true. I really loved it here. It was one-part tourist town, mixed with one-part Southern small town, and a dash of suburbia creeping in, depending on where you were in Biloxi.

The only downsides were that it wasn’t that close to Mom and Dad in Baltimore, and Wyatt would likely put in for an office transfer at some point. Then where did that leave me?

If I decided to go into the private sector or local law enforcement, my biggest fear was in the backlash of this situation. Dating a co-worker was very unusual for me, but I had thought that Ben and I had clicked. We weren’t the first two agents to connect – and it didn’t violate Bureau policies, either.

But I’d never expected Ben to throw me under the bus like he did.

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