But just barely.
When I first went to war, she was in elementary school.
My phone chirps again.
A: Stop thinking so hard about it
S: Oh, I’m hard all right
A: That’s better. Just a booty call. Don’t worry, k?
But I am worried, in a way I’ve never been about a woman before. I need to blow something up to clear my mind. I swing by The Horus Group offices to see if anyone wants to hit a range with me. Cole and Jason are out, but their receptionist points me toward Wilson’s office.
“It would be good to get him out, he’s been locked in there for like thirty hours,” she whispers.
“I have not,” he calls out, and I’m still laughing when I prop myself against the door frame of his office.
I stop when I see what he’s doing. On the six monitors in front of me are different camera angles inside a home. The occupants are home, and…busy. “Wow, man.”
He glances over his shoulder. “Ah. Sorry. You can wait out there if you want.”
“What the hell…who are you watching?” On the screen there were four people having sex. And one person was watching, curled up on a couch against the wall. There was something about her that was familiar. Long red hair, pale skin… “Is that…?”
He jams his finger against the keyboard and all the windows flip to his desktop. “Never mind.”
“I don’t want to know, do I?”
He shrugs. “We do crazy things for love, man.”
“Speaking of crazy, I’m in the mood to shoot, you interested?”
“Sure.”
We’re all members of an indoor range below an office building on K Street. Officially, there aren’t any indoor ranges in the District of Columbia. Unofficially, this one is close and convenient and very protective of its members’ privacy.
Only the Secret Service has a better deal, and that’s because their ammo is free.
Sometimes we get creative, but today I just want to unload my Browning High-Power a few hundred times. Wilson surprises me by pulling out a light Ruger SR22.
“Doing some plinking?” I ask as he shoots me the finger.
“It’s a gift,” he mutters.
“For the redhead?” It’s still bugging me how familiar she looked.
“Forget you saw her.”
“Deal.” I don’t need to worry about his woman problems. I’ve got my own. “You wrapped up in her?”
“Yeah. It’s complicated.”
“Isn’t it always?”
He blinks at me. “Is it?”
“Has been for me.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never…done this before.”
I don’t think he’s talking about stalking a woman and sending her a gun. For Wilson Carter, that’s probably a textbook definition of romance right there.
“I have. f*ck
ed up my entire life. I’m pretty adamant about not doing it again.”
“That why we’re shooting today?”
I shrug. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“Who is she?”
I could tell him.
“Nobody needs to know, right?”
“This is our secret.”
No, I couldn’t. “Someone I met at Georgetown.”
“A student?”
“Yeah.”
He gives me a look that says everything I’ve been thinking. I’m fifteen years past the point of dating co-eds. But one in particular has dragged me back into the land of flirting and teasing and hook-ups just for fun.
No drama, no worries.
“She’s good for me,” I finally say, loading my pistol. “Now let’s see how many paper bad guys we can kill.”
—thirteen—
Alison
Scott didn’t come over last night.
That should be fine, because I promised him—and myself—that we were just having fun. No expectations.
But I’m still bummed.
So when my phone vibrates at my feet, ten minutes into my Research Methods class, I try to ignore it.
I try hard.
I last twenty seconds, tops, before I drop my pen and lean over to “pick it up,” sneaking a glance at my phone in the process.
S: Sorry I went radio silent yesterday. Something came up. Heading to New York for a few days.
I stare at the screen, considering my options for responding. Really, there’s only one thing to say.
A: No prob. Travel safe. Text when back.
My instructor’s voice jerks me back to the class. “Ms. Reid, does whoever you’re texting have something to share on this subject matter?”
I shove my phone in my bag, my cheeks flaming red as I straighten up. “I’m sorry, Professor. It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t. And what assessment issues do you see in this particular example?”
I blink at the white board. Shit. In front of me, Corey clears his throat and taps on his notebook. In big, block letters, he’s written objectives=measurement=assessment. A wave of relief rolls over me.
“They could correlate more closely to the objectives. It’s not necessarily a fair measurement tool.”