Page 20 of Garrison's Creed

I fell in love with him… And again. And again…

Well, that was enough to drown him in memories. They’d been on the same page from day one. How he waited so long to kiss her, he had no idea. She was an adorable brat when they were neighbors, always wanting to play with him and Roman. No tea parties for that girl. She wanted in on cops and robbers. Maybe he should have seen the CIA coming.

He laughed about prom. Every high school dance, he’d taken someone other than the girl he wanted. Except for one time, when Nicola’s date came down with the chicken pox. Homecoming his senior year. Yeah, he’d been Homecoming King too, and dancing with Nicola in front of the school had been the best moment of his high school career. Not the state championship winning touchdown. Not any other single memory.

He didn’t care that he’d ditched the Homecoming Queen two seconds intotheirdance. He had eyes for one girl, and since he was her stand-in-date for the night, Cash had used it to his advantage.

Yeah, he needed Roman to beat his face in tomorrow. Maybe that would knock out all these shitty memories.

CHAPTER SIX

Nicola needed new clothes and a pair of shoes. Cash’s shirt and sweats made her finger-tapping, mind-spinning anxious. They smelled like him. It was as if the ghost of boyfriends past wrapped its emotional arms around her and hugged her all night long. The morning was a long time coming, but now she faced dawn. Time to go.

Glancing in the mirror and deciding her makeup was a lost cause, she scrubbed it off in the bathroom. Still not better. A shower was the better option. Using all the shampoo and body wash in the travel-sized containers she found, she did her best to clean up. With a quick towel dry of her hair, she put her clothes back on, and was off, limping toward the kitchen.

Raucous male voices bled down the hall until she rounded the corner. Their conversation faltered as she entered.

She smiled. “Morning, boys. I’m praying Roman still knows how to make a killer cup of coffee.”

There. She’d addressed the elephant in the room.Her very presence.She was still the evil, abandoning sister, but she was also still Nicola. And just that easy, they went back to bitching about something from the sports page. She watched the dynamic: Cash spoke to Rocco. Roman spoke to Rocco. Rocco spoke to everyone.

Maybe it was one hundred and eighty degrees from easy, but at least they fronted well.

Roman eyed her arm. “Where’s your sling?”

Nicola tried to straighten her bandaged elbow but flinched at the tenderness. “Don’t need it.”

“You’re Super Woman?”

She shrugged. “Can I borrow that phone again?”

Cash didn’t look at her. “Yup. But same drill as before.”

“That’s fine.”

“Someone will get it for you after breakfast, unless you need it now.”

Someonewasn’t lost on her. He certainly wasn’t volunteering. “No, that’s fine.”

Half a dozen types of protein bars, individually wrapped cookies, and crackers served as breakfast, spread across the granite countertop. Tasty and typical as a gas station buffet. She grabbed a bar and a cup of coffee, taking a scalding sip.

Nope. Not made by Roman or Cash. It was military mud, and she assumed Rocco had joined up and been discharged just like the other two. “Delicious.” She smiled.

Rocco smiled.

No one else smiled.

After she’d added about a pound of sugar and powdered creamer, the coffee was bearable. Caffeine was a requirement to function. She did what she had to do and downed the sludge. “Yeah, I’ll be downstairs. Let me know when I can use that phone.”

Rocco smiled again. At least he was of the friendly variety. A half hour later, she’d had her Rocco-supervised phone call, and an hour after that, she still needed to kill thirty minutes until a CIA extraction team arrived to bring her in for debriefing.

Finding nothing better to do, she hobbled up the stairs. The guys were kicked back watching the television.

“I’m leaving soon. Just wanted to say bye. Maybe see if I can call you later? We can hook up and do lunch. Catch up. Something.”

Roman stood and turned to face her. “Shit, yeah. Whenever you want to, I’m there.”

“What the hell happened to you, Roman?” Her eyes widened at the sight of her brother.

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