They hadn’t managed to grab more than one or two minutes alone all day with Noah and Rowe always hovering close by. A couple of stolen kisses in the bathroom were not going to hold him for much longer. Later…later they would steal a moment alone.
And he’d just see how slowly he let Hollis take things then.
“No!” Rowe barked. “None of that kissy-face, sexy-eye shit. I feel like a goddamn chaperone.”
Ian rolled his eyes and turned back to the sink to rinse the plate under the running water before placing it in the dishwasher.
“Then don’t be such a cockblock. Ian’s an adult,” Hollis snapped. He reached out and squeezed Ian’s hip before returning to the kitchen table. He slipped into the metal folding chair next to Rowe, unfolding his long legs in front of him.
“I never said he wasn’t an adult,” Rowe countered. “It’s just that Ian’s like a little brother to me and I don’t want to imagine the kinds of things that you two are planning to sneak off to do. It’s bad enough I had to listen to it last night.”
“Well, I could tell you so you don’t have to imagine,” Ian called over. Noah, unfortunately, had been taking a drink at the time of Ian’s comment and proceeded to spray his iced tea across the table before coughing.
“He’s spent entirely too much time around Snow,” Rowe mumbled.
Hollis fell back laughing while Rowe thumped Noah on the back, trying to get him breathing again. When Noah finally caught his breath, he started laughing as well.
“Nice, Ian.”
Ian strolled over and laid his arm across Rowe’s shoulders. “You’re not a prude.”
“Definitely not a prude,” Noah confirmed a bit breathlessly.
“Shut up. You’re not helping,” Rowe growled, but Noah merely smirked at him as he grabbed a napkin to clean up the mess he’d made with his iced tea.
“You know, now that you’re playing for the other team,” Hollis drawled, scratching his jaw pensively, “we could swap stories. Give some pointers.”
“Fuck you!”
“Are you sure you’re doing it right?” Ian teased.
“Oh yeah…he’s doing it all kinds of right,” Noah practically purred.
Rowe opened his mouth, but the words were instantly halted by the sound of his chiming phone. “Thank fucking God,” he muttered as he shifted in his seat to pull his cell phone from the back pocket of his jeans. He glanced at the number as it flashed across the screen for a second before answering it and putting it on speaker. “What do you got for me, Gidget?”
Ian tensed at the mention of Gidget. This was the call they’d been waiting for all day. Rowe had given her twenty-four hours to dig and run search programs through mounds of data before reporting in. His hand tightened on Rowe’s shoulder and he unconsciously leaned a little closer to his friend. He jumped a little when Hollis’s long fingers brushed against his before taking his hand.
“I’ve got Quinn with me,” Gidget announced, her usual cheerful voice more serious than Ian had ever heard it. He was glad she and Rowe had patched things up. He liked her and he’d understood why she’d helped the twins. Hell, she’d kept them from doing worse damage. Ian was sure he would have done the same if he’d thought Jagger had a child of his. The mere thought made his stomach churn like he’d eaten bad fish.
“Hey boss,” Quinn chimed in. Ian had met the other hacker only once, but he’d seemed a nice enough guy. He’d been working for Ward Security for less than a year, but Rowe had bragged about the man’s skills on more than one occasion.
Rowe placed his phone in the center of the table so everyone could hear the hackers’ responses. “Tell me you got something, guys.”
There was a long silence where Ian’s stomach knotted up. This couldn’t be good.
“Boss…what the fuck!” Quinn started. “I mean the Gidge and I love a challenge, but fucking colors? Do you know how many references over the past fifteen years there have been to a color? Millions of references. And not everything we’ve gotten our hands on has been digitized, so we’ve had to search some shit by hand.”
Hollis groaned. He released Ian and put both elbows on the table in front of him before dropping his head into his big hands. Ian couldn’t blame him for his frustration, but the color thing had been a long shot. Stepping away from Rowe, Ian smoothed his hands across Hollis’s shoulders, pressing down to try to ease some of the tension tightening the muscles.
“You’ve got nothin’?” Hollis demanded, his words slightly muffled by his hands.
“We didn’t say that,” Gidget snapped.
Hollis dropped his hand and glared at Rowe. “Your people aren’t making any sense.”
“Quit being a tease,” Noah said before another argument could start. “Give us something. We’re in the middle of nowhere and Rowe needs to shoot something soon.”