Page 97 of Missing

I was pretty sure I blushed when I smiled. The curse of being a redhead.If I’m lucky, it isn’t visible under my tan.

We talkedfor a few more minutes while we waited for the pizza to arrive. After a year in Weatherford, these guys were no longer just colleagues, they were friends.

We cracked open another round of beer after cleaning up—Meg would kill us if she came home to a messy kitchen—then sat down to play.

You’d think we wouldn’t want to spend hours playing violent video games given our histories, but we found it relaxing. And we weren’t killing humans, we were killing aliens who were hell bent on destroying humans.

During one particularly chaotic scene I unleashed hell and obliterated a room full of aliens.

“Damn, Sharpe, you cleared that room faster than you proposed to Beth,” AJ said, his voice laced with respect and humor.

“Maybe next time you could slow down and let the rest of us have some fun,” Jamie added.

“We can’t wait for you Jamie, you’re as slow at killing the enemy as you are at proposing to Emily.” AJ was on a roll. He was the resident SSI funny man, and now the only eligible bachelor.

“Only compared to Doug.” Jamie defended himself.

“And Jack,” I added. He’d proposed to Meg three months after meeting her. “If I remember correctly, Jack blurted out his proposal too,” I said, trying to turn the focus away from me.

“But I didn’t do it in an ice cream shop.”

Touché. He’d proposed here, last New Year’s Eve. Jamie, AJ, and I had been here, but it was still, more or less, a private proposal.

Jamie had a lop-sided grin on his face, a family trait he shared with John and Jack.Does Jaden have it too?

“Who would have thought Doug would get engaged before you?” AJ asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice as he egged Jamie on.

“Yeah, about that…” Jamie’s grin spread into a toothy smile.

We didn’t bother acting like we didn’t know what he’d just implied. We demanded to know when, and asked if he had anything romantic planned.

“Well, I thought about blurting it out in an ice cream shop, but Doug beat me to it.”

More laughing and clinking of beer bottles. If you’d told me six months ago I’d be laughing at jokes made at my expense after a humiliating experience, I would have called you crazy.But here I am, doing just that.

“I’m taking her out next Friday.”

“So, if she says yes,” Jamie blanched at AJ’s use of the word if, “you’ll be engaged before the Hallo-”

“Dude, don’t listen to him. You have nothing to worry about, she’ll say yes.” Jack put Jamie at ease.

The color returned to Jamie’s face.

Figuring Jamie was as uncomfortable being the center of attention as I was, I said, “Let’s go kill some aliens.”

Chapter 49

Beth

Ileft Chase in John’s capable hands; grateful he’d volunteered to be my regular babysitter for Craft nights. It’d save me the hassle, and money, of hiring a babysitter every month.

At first it surprised me he didn’t want to hang out with the guys, but he said he wasn’t a video game kind of guy, adding, “They’ll have more fun without their boss hanging around.”

Another benefit of John watching Chase was quality stand-in father time. John and Chase both loved their monthly dedicated time together, and it was good for Chase to have one-on-one time with a strong male role model.

Soon he’ll have one full time. Though Chase would still want time with his Uncle John. He worshiped the ground John walked on.

Wanting some time to talk before the others arrived, Mary and I met half an hour before Craft and Booze was scheduled to start. You’d think working together every day would be enough for us, but we were never really alone, and our conversations were prone to interruptions. Not wanting to be overheard, I’d been pretty reserved the last few days when talking to Mary at work.

---