“Anyway,” he said. “I can’t tell you what it is, exactly, that I do.”

Oh boy.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“Missions are confidential. All of them.”

“Missions?”

He nodded.

Missions.

“Oh boy,” I whispered.

“It’s rarely dangerous,” he stated.

“All right,” I mumbled.

“Well, more accurately, occasionally it’s dangerous.”

I stared at him with my mouth open.

“I might be able to say it’s a bodyguard gig or…other, but not with any detail.”

I continued to stare at him.

He cleared his throat. “Getting to the point, I can go with you and they won’t know I went with you.”

“How would you do that?”

He grinned. “We like to use words like ‘covert,’ but mostly, I’d hide from a vantage that I could keep an eye on you.”

As I was still staring at him, somehow, I read that he was feeding me a line, being cute in order to get his way.

“Forgive me for saying this, but that doesn’t sound like the most comprehensive of plans.”

“I’m really good at hiding.”

I bet he was.

He wasn’t finished.

“And I have a gun in my truck.”

Oh boy.

“I’m also not a big fan of guns,” I shared.

“I’m not surprised,” he muttered.

“My brother has a particular skill with messing up his life, but I can’t believe he’d put me in any real danger.”

“How about you go in with backup anyway.”

“Danny—”

“Mag.”

“Mag—”

He leaned toward me and cut me off.

“This is the deal, Evan. No matter what, I’m gonna be at Storage and Such at eleven thirty. You kick me out of your place now, I’m also gonna put in a call that will mean I can read your texts and listen into any phone conversations so I can see or hear if you try to change plans, and then I’ll be there. So let’s just order pizza, eat it, get to know each other a little bit, then hit my place so I can bulk up on ammo and get a secondary weapon before we go out to Colfax and do this shit.”

I could not believe what I just heard.

And shockingly, what I couldn’t believe was not the part about ammo and secondary weapons.

“You would invade my privacy like that?”

“Yup,” he said without delay.

“That’s…that’s…” I turned to my side and got up on an elbow, keeping the ice to my head, “indescribably uncool.”

“From my perspective, I’m tryin’ to be a good guy. I’m offering to look out for you, help you out, make it so you don’t have to go it alone, so I think it’d be ‘indescribably uncool’ if you put me in a position to have to invade your privacy.”

“That’s a convenient twist,” I bit out.

His rather attractive brows shot up. “You have no qualms with goin’ to some storage place at eleven thirty at night?”

I was trying not to think about doing that.

In fact, I was focusing on this insane conversation in order not to think about doing that.

He read that in my face too, I knew it when he muttered, “Right.”

I glared at him.

Then I plopped to my back and closed my eyes, declaring, “I’m done talking to you. Like…for forever.”

“So, veggie for your side of the pizza?”

I hated veggie pizza.

Soggy onions?

Yuck.

“Sausage and pepperoni,” I mumbled.

He sounded amused when he noted, “Your silent treatment doesn’t last long.”

“I’m talking to the ceiling,” I told the ceiling.

“Is sixty bucks gonna fall outta the ceiling to pay for the pizza?”

Say what?

I opened my eyes and tipped my head to look at him again.

“What pizza costs sixty bucks?” I asked.

Grinning at me, he lifted his long, attractive forefinger upward and said, “The ceiling’s that way.”

I rolled my eyes and plopped again to my back.

“And we’re also getting boneless wings, cheesy bread and cannoli,” he informed me.

It was good we weren’t ever going to go on an actual date, or anything beyond that, because it was obvious if we did, I’d probably have to buy workout clothes.

One thing was certain, he didn’t simply consume protein shakes and unseasoned lean meats.

I heard a rustling, which I assumed was him getting out his phone.

“Evie,” he called.

When being forced to eat veggie pizza was not on the table, I was back to the silent treatment.

“Evie,” he called again.

Great eyelashes.

Great hair.

Great lips.

Great fingers.

And he had a great voice, especially when he said my name.

I let out an exasperated breath.

Fingers curled around my wrist, the ice was pulled away, and I had another close-up of his eyelashes because he was bent to my face.

Ugh.

“I know what she told you,” he said.

I forgot my silent treatment and asked, “Who?”

“Mac.”

I remembered my silent treatment.

“She told you that you needed to sort my shit.”

I stared into his eyes.

Was that blue even natural?

It was impossible!

“But all that shit you spewed about your family,” he went on, and I tensed, but he smiled. Wide and white. “Mac is no fool. This isn’t about you sorting my shit. It’s her setting me up to sort yours.”

This, I did not put past Lottie.

And thus, I decided, when I saw her again, Lottie would be getting my silent treatment.

Though, hopefully I’d be better at it by that time.

I wanted to be wrong, but I was pretty sure I growled.

That only made him grin even wider before he touched my nose with his finger (touched my nose!), put the ice back and disappeared from view.

I heard nothing until I heard his phone clatter on my coffee table.

He then said, “I got us cheesecake too.”

Gluh.

I had, until then, prided myself that I never, not ever, put on a pair of yoga pants.

But Athleta, here I come.

“Now, babe,” he continued, his voice fading in the direction of my kitchen, “you got any beer?”

Chapter Three

Storage and Such

Evie

I’d fallen asleep.

Not good.

But before that happened, Mag had done an about-face after he found I had beer (though I didn’t like to think of it as beer, as such, considering it was only technically beer seeing as it was ale) and brought us both opened bottles.

It was then, proving he could be a decent guy, or at least he could pretend to be one, he’d shared that on any normal first date that was going to last at least six hours, for some of it, we’d be engaged in activities that didn’t require us carrying on a conversation to get to know each other better.

I ignored his double entendre after he suggested we eat pizza while we watched a movie.