I looked up at Kev, bewildered, and swallowed hard. “But if he really cared, why didn’t he tell me? When he came the other night, he was asking questions about Venezuela, about a missing Horn…”
“He didn’t say anything to you about your personal relationship?” Grandfather asked skeptically. “Because things seemed fairly tense between you.”
“He maybe suggested he wanted to see me,” I admitted, “but not in a loving kind of way.” My breath caught remembering the sound of Riggs’s voice. Come home with me tonight. “At least, I didn’t think it was,” I whispered.
“Probably because you kept asking him to leave,” Grandfather suggested. “Even the most stalwart of young lovers might quake in his boots if the object of his affections told him to leave the premises.”
I winced. I had done that. And told him I’d give back his knife.
“I know it’s tempting to think it’s not love because it happened so fast,” Tucker admitted softly.
“Just like it was tempting to think it wasn’t love for us because it happened so slow.” Dunn pulled Tucker against his side. “But your heart knows, Carter. I mean, you fine folks can logic the crap out of it all the day long, but at the end of the day, you’re the heart doctor, man. What’s your instinct telling you?”
“It’s telling me… maybe you guys are right,” I admitted in a small voice. “I really want you to be.”
“Hells to the yeah!” Dunn jumped up with a fist in the air. Then he cleared his throat and sat back down. “Sorry. Got a little excited there. It’s my first successful intervention since Tuck had us join the Beautification Corps. Ava didn’t think I could handle it. But I did.”
“You did.” Tucker patted Dunn’s knee, his grin wide. “I think we need to celebrate that. And also devise a plan for how Carter’s gonna grovel. Ava would say we need prosecco.”
“No prosecco, but we have some wine left from the other night.” Kev jumped up. “Pretty sure it’s the bottle Riggs brought, which is kinda fitting, huh?” He disappeared into the living room and came back with an armful of glasses, a corkscrew, and a green bottle.
“Seriously? It’s only nine thirty in the morning,” I pointed out. “Besides which, Riggs is leaving later today for his training. Maybe I could just go—”
“All the more reason to be prepared so you don’t waste a minute,” Tuck reasoned.
Dunn snorted.
I sighed impatiently. I missed Riggs. As I scrolled through the Horn’s chat, rereading the conversations, I wished he was with me. Wished I could touch him. Smell him. Kiss him the way I’d wanted to the night he’d come looking for me…
But maybe they were right. I’d screwed things up badly on my own, and I wasn’t quite sure how to fix it.
Kev set his armload down. “We need to get Carter a whole groveling schematic. Shock and awe. Riggs won’t know what hit him.”
“Flowers,” Grandfather suggested as Kev opened the wine. “Maybe a new knife to replace the one he gave you.”
“Always turns Tucker up sweet when I offer to sit by him and pretend to help him do crosswords,” Dunn offered. “But I don’t know if Riggs is much of a crossword guy.”
“How does Tucker make it up to you when he screws up?” I was genuinely curious.
“Ah.” Dunn leaned back in the sofa, a huge grin splitting his face. “That’s a little move we like to call—”
“Dunn Johnson, don’t you dare—”
“—the apolojizz.” Dunn wiggled his eyebrows and gave a happy sigh, pulling Tucker down against him. “Tuck can’t screw up often enough, as far as I’m concerned.”
Tucker gave a pained groan and covered his face with his hands. “Just to be clear, there will be many crossword puzzles in your future,” he informed his husband.
Dunn didn’t seem particularly perturbed.
Grandfather frowned. “The apolo—? Oh! Ohhhh. Yes, I see.” Grandfather’s eyes twinkled as he took a sip from the glass Kev handed him. “I was quite a fan of that in my day too.”
“Ew.” Kev shuddered as he passed a glass to Tucker after Dunn declined any wine. “I did not need to know that.”
I heartily agreed.
“Uh… speaking of things we didn’t need to know about our relatives… Kev Rogers, what’s this convo down here about?” I demanded. I’d scrolled past the whole convo from the plane and gotten to some kind of insult-lobbing between Kev and Hux. “When Hux says he wants you to suck his greenberries, does he mean—”
Kev snatched the device with his free hand and stuffed it in his pocket. “That’s… it’s… just a couple of gamers being gamers,” he stammered. “Trash talking. You know how it is. Rude, vile things. I’m, ah… I’m sorry you had to witness that, Carter. I hadn’t realized it was on the group chat.”
Hmm. I’d assumed it was just trash talking, and I’d mostly been trying to give Kev shit, but the way he blushed and stammered—the way he suggested that he and Hux had a private chat—made me wonder.