Page 88 of Slash & Burn

“I am.”

He moved past me toward the door, giving me one more look before he pulled it open. “Good.”

AJ and Coop were waiting for me in the lobby.

“Drinks?” AJ asked, his expression as flat as it always was, but he was frowning more intentionally than normal under his beard.

“Yeah,” I sighed, even though it was barely noon.

The little pub around the corner, Shammy’s, was used to us, though not typically among the lunch crowd. Still, they gave us our table in the back corner, which helped us hide.

“I can’t believe it,” Coop said, picking up his seltzer. He was one of the few among us who didn’t drink, but always came out to the bar anyway. “Can you imagine running someone over?”

AJ shook his head, scowling at him. “No. And I don’t want to. Jesus.”

Coop sat back, deciding smartly to keep whatever else he might have wanted to say about Daly’s situation to himself.

“You both good to meet with these Providence guys?” I asked, taking a sip of my beer. “We’ll keep it informal to stay away from the regulations, but I don’t want to wait until the official start of camp. Let’s see if we can get a read on them early.”

“I’m around,” AJ said, drinking his beer without looking at either of us.

“Same,” Cooper added, leaning his elbows on the table. “Should we do it one on one or just bring them all in at once.”

I considered our choices. It wasn’t an ideal situation no matter how you looked at it, but it felt like we’d get a better sense on them all at once. “Let’s do the lot of them at the same time. See how well they handle the pressure looking the guys in the eye who want the same thing they do.”

AJ opened his mouth to say something, but stopped short when my phone lit up on the table with Jill’s name.

Jill: Hope everything is going okay down there. Lexi was full of stories on the ride home. You have some explaining to do . . .

I laughed, my mind filling with options for what my little sister might have thought prudent to share in my absence. If I knew Lexi there was no way I wasn’t going to be embarrassed.

“Who’s Jill?” Cooper asked, his eyebrows up when he saw me laughing.

I ignored him to type back.

Grady: Things are not great. But I’m glad you got home okay. Please forget everything she told you immediately

“She’s someone,” Cooper answered his own question, his curiosity morphing into a stupid smirk.

“Yeah, she is.”

“From back home?” AJ asked, giving me a sideways glance I didn’t appreciate.

“Yes. Why?”

He gave me a lazy half-shrug. “Bad timing if you ask me.”

I hadn’t asked him, and I didn’t care what he thought. But his comment irritated me. “What’s your problem, McCaffrey?”

Cooper’s expression was lit up with entirely too much amusement for this and he almost laughed out loud when my phone lit up again.

Jill: I wish I could forget. No one wants images like these in their head. Sorry it’s not going better. Feel free to slip under the covers here when you get back, I’ll help make it better

Blushing typically wasn’t my thing, but it wasn’t everyday my non-girlfriend—whatever she was—sent me an invitation like that. I put my phone down, unable to try and come up with an appropriate response with these two watching me.

AJ was shaking his head.

“What’s your fucking problem?”

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