Kev opened his mouth to say something—probably something I really wanted to hear, like how he was feeling about last night and this morning—but at just that moment, a sleek, black sedan pulled up.
“He’s here,” I said into the team comms.
Kev murmured, “He’s alone. I wonder where his accomplice is.” He pulled his tablet onto his lap and began tapping and swiping. “Wait, what if there’s another van around here with that guy in it doing surveillance on us?”
“Shit,” I said, sitting up straighter. He was right. We needed eyes on Vince’s motel buddy, the other guy from the DEA. “Can you look for traces of anyone in the security system?”
“On it.”
We worked together for several minutes until Kev pulled out his phone and made a call. “Hi, I was hoping to be connected to room 114. Thanks.”
I glanced over at him. “Calling the motel. Jesus.” Simple, yet effective.
“I’m looking for Linda…” he said, taking on a much heavier Southern accent than I’d ever heard from him. “Oh, are you sure? She’s not there? She gave me this room number and said… okay, sorry to bother you.”
He hung up the phone and grinned at me, which made my stomach tumble. “We know someone is in that room. Now all we need to do is hack the hotel Wi-Fi and make sure he’s not snooping on our op.”
“Can’t say I mind working with an evil genius,” I admitted with a chuckle.
We both went to work on the countersurveillance efforts while also keeping an eye on the cameras and mics inside Bunny’s residence.
Vince wasn’t happy to see Champ and Quinn at brunch, that much was clear. But I was happy to see that Quinn was able to give Vince an icy nod and smile, looking exactly like a man who’d been hoodwinked into brunch with his boyfriend’s ex… and not like a man confronting his would-be kidnapper.
“Quinn’s holding it together,” I said almost proudly. “He’s strong.”
“It’s all those years he spent smiling at bridezillas and never telling them what he really thought about their Twilight-themed weddings.” He laughed.
“Uh-huh. Almost like his differences make him a benefit to the family?” I teased.
Kev blushed again and got very busy fine-tuning the zoom on the camera feed. But after a moment, he shot back, “So how come you’re not complaining that Quinn needs training?”
“Because Quinn’s not my… uh.” I muttered a curse under my breath. “Because Quinn’s not getting involved as often as you are. And it’s not really training so much as… experience. Not being thrown in the deep end, where you’re feeling responsible for mission-critical intel. You need to work up to things.”
“Unlike you, a natural-born badass.”
I snorted. “Yeah, no. Back in high school, I was so thin I was practically transparent, and I had my nose in a Dungeons and Dragons book any moment that I wasn’t gaming.”
I felt Kev’s gaze on the side of my face before he broke off with a head shake. “No. Don’t believe you.”
I laughed. Part of me wished we were anywhere but here so I could give him my full attention and hear all his stories. But another part of me loved every minute of sharing this small space with him, of sitting together with the tense atmosphere of an op surrounding us.
“It’s true. I didn’t bulk up until I joined the Marines. My dad was this big, physical guy—he was a Marine too—and he wanted me to play football, so I tried, but my football career lasted one whole game. Couldn’t throw, couldn’t catch.” I shook my head. “In the end, one of the guys on the team pretended to be my friend, then got me in trouble with the coach, just so I’d get kicked off.”
Kev pushed his glasses up and slid his chair back angrily, like he was ready to go out and hunt Marc down. “What the hell? That’s terrible.”
I pulled his chair back beside mine. “Don’t you worry. Karma is real. Last I heard, Marc Pine got flagged for multiple IRS audits.”
“Multiple tax audits?”
“Mmm. Isn’t it weird how glitchy some systems can get?” I asked innocently.
Kev laughed delightedly, and the sound warmed me all the way through. At least momentarily.
“And what does your dad say when he sees you now?” Kev demanded. “You glowed up.”
“Oh, um.” I scratched my head. “Well. He died last summer. No, don’t get that face,” I said quickly. “We weren’t close. We just had nothing in common, really. Messed me up for a while there because I spent a lot of time regretting that we hadn’t had a chance to become close. You know?”
Kev nodded, his eyes warm with understanding, and I realized that he really did know what that might feel like, maybe better than anyone. We were more alike than I would have thought possible.