Page 36 of Digit's Deflection
“All right, all right. Give the poor man a break,” Knight eventually says, making sure his voice carries over the noise. “Get your asses outta here and leave Maverick to grill him in peace. We can get the skinny on the mysterious Liora-Jane Adams we’ve only just met another time.”
“Who says that’s who she is?” I ask lamely.
“Yeah, whatever, bro. We’re on to you,” Scooter says, chiming in with his five cents.
“Didn’t your team leader issue you an instruction to go home?” I ask him.
On another wave of laughter, the guys call out their goodnights, leaving just Maverick, his teammates, and me in the room. Summoning up the courage to look at Mav now that my team are no longer there to give me an excuse to avoid answering his question.
“It is her, isn’t it?” His shrewd, assessing eyes give me nowhere to hide, and I figure what the hell. He and Sheri are going to find out sooner or later, since I have no intention of letting Liora go again now that I’ve actually found her. Or she’s found me. Either way.
“Yeah. It’s her.”
“How?” he asks.
“You won’t believe how.”
“Maybe not, but I’m still all ears.”
Looking at the rest of his team, I shake my head. Turning to him, I lower my voice. “Yeah, and so are they.” I tip my head, ever so slightly, in the direction of the other six men. “Not exactly a topic I want to have a public discussion about.”
He looks around me to find all eyes trained on the two of us, ears expectantly perked. “Gotcha. We can chat over dinner then.”
“Sure. And I know just the place.”
“Excellent. Then I’m just going to chat with the guys, and we can head on out.”
While he talks to his teammates, I go back to checking messages.
Her first voice message is a quick one to let me know she’s arrived at home, both she and the ‘Stang unscathed. The second one is to let me know she arrived at work incident free. I can’t help but laugh at the way she’s worded the two voice messages.
Next, I read the two texts from her.
Liora: Hey. I’m not sure I ever got a chance to say thank you for breakfast this morning, with you needing to leave so abruptly. So, thanks. It was amazing.
Again, she has me smiling. Especially recalling how much I enjoyed this morning. The next one, sent only an hour ago, has me feeling a little guilty.
Liora: Me again. I thought I’d have heard from you by now. Is everything ok? Please let me know you’re ok?
Me: Sorry, princess. It’s been a long ass day. There’s been some interesting developments – I can’t say more. Apologies. But I should, hopefully, be seeing you in a short while.
“You ready?” Maverick asks.
“Yep. Just got to call for a ride and we can be on our way.”
“Where’s your bike? Or the Mustang?”
“Liora and I were having breakfast at this little coffee shop this morning when I got pulled in. Didn’t have time to drop her off and get back to base in time, so I told her to take the car,” I say, while typing info into the app for collection.
That fucking eyebrow about crawls right over the top of his head, he quirks it so hard. “You let someone else – a woman someone else at that – drive your car?”
“Oh shut up. Let’s go. We can wait outside. Ride shouldn’t be too long.”
To accomplish two things at once, I have our ride drop us at the club. It gives me an opportunity to see Li and to have dinner in a private, pretty quiet space. Giovonne dips his head, reaching to open the door he guards.
“Good evening, Master Treven. Worked late tonight, I see.”
“Hey, Giovonne. You doing all right?”
