Gray’s glance to Aidan said he was baffled but not delegating much brainpower to the situation. “Given all we have on our plate,” he said, “I’ve filed this under the Ain’t Broke column.”
“Okay, yes, I get a paycheck,” Kenna said. “But no one lets me do jackshit. I wanted to drive the big Cat and Gray nixed that. I wanted to teach mountain biking. He nixed that too.”
“You wanted to teach the biking team how to navigate Killer Alley, a triple diamond run,” Gray said.
“I’m not some fragile little flower, you know,” she said. Maybe yelled. “I used to snowboard at neck-breaking speeds off cliffs for a living.”
Aidan slid a look to Gray. “I’m sure we could find you something more … challenging to do.”
“That’s just it!” she burst out, standing, tossing up her hands. “I don’t want you to ‘find’ me something. I want a real job, not one my brothers give me with a pat on my head.”
Gray had been steadily shoving food into his mouth this whole time, but when Aidan gave him a level look, he sighed and swallowed his mouthful. “We can give you a real job. A job without head pats.”
Aidan nodded.
“Too late,” Kenna said crisply. “I’m applying at all of our competition. You’ll have to steal me back if you want me.” She shut the laptop and walked out.
Aidan looked at Gray. “You’re going to find something good for her, right? Before she really gets another job?”
“Hmphl,” Gray said around a bite of Aidan’s leftover pizza.
“That was my breakfast.”
“Pizza for breakfast’ll make you fat,” Gray said, mouth full. “And you’re single. You can’t go fat until you’re married.” Gray stuffed in another huge bite. “I’m just saving you from yourself, man.”
“Well done.” Aidan shoved Gray away from the fridge and bent to peer into the depths himself. He was so hungry he could eat a horse. “Hey, you ate Hud’s pizza too. He’s going to kill you.”
Uncharacteristically, Gray shrugged instead of launching into his usual “I can kick both your asses at the same time with my hands tied behind my back” speech.
Aidan narrowed his eyes. “What’s up with you?”
Gray shrugged again and opened Aidan’s last soda.
“Listen, I’m gonna need you to spit it out because I’ve gotta date with my bed—and you better not have been a dumbass and let anyone into it again.”
Gray just shook his head.
That he didn’t hit back on the dumbass comment had Aidan straightening from the fridge to look at him. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to ask you again and you’re going to answer me with the CliffsNotes version, you got me? What’s wrong?”
“She’s undercover trying to bring down a gang of boat smugglers.”
“Who, the Black Widow?”
“Penny.” Gray threw the now empty can of soda across the room, where it landed with perfect precision—not—in the window sill above the sink, knocking over the dead flowers someone had brought Hudson on his birthday a month ago.
Aidan let out a slow breath and kept his piehole shut. He was no idiot.
“Did you hear me?” Gray asked.
“Yeah, I heard you. So did the people in China. Look, you knew she wanted to work in insurance fraud investigations before you married her. You can’t be mad at her for that.”
“I’m not mad at her for being who she is. I’m mad at myself for not being okay with it. You remember last year when she went after those bank fraud idiots and they shot her?”
“Yeah, and they’re rotting in prison for it.”
“And Penny’s still got the bullet wound scar in her shoulder.” Gray’s phone vibrated a text. He read it, shook his head, and stood. “She’s on her way home with McDonald’s. It’s a truce breakfast.”
“I love McDonald’s breakfasts,” Aidan said. “I should’ve married her.”
“Mine.” Gray headed to the door. “Go find your own woman. How hard can it be? I even let one into your bed for you.”
“Yeah, well, she was the wrong one.”
Gray stopped short and turned to stare at him.
Shit.
“Wrong woman?” his brother repeated. “So who’s the right woman?”
“There isn’t one. Get out.”
But Gray had become an unmovable mountain, staring at him, doing the Kincaid mind meld thing. “Kylie?” he asked. “From dispatch?”
“No,” Aidan said.
“Yeah, good thing. She’s hot, but she laughs weird. Lori in rentals?”
“No,” Aidan said, annoyed but also trying to keep his shit together because giving his brothers, any single one of them, more information than strictly necessary was like giving intel to the enemy. “Drop it.”
“Yeah, right,” Gray said. “Lily?”
Aidan did his best not to react, but he couldn’t still his mind. He still remembered every second of dancing with her beneath a half moon that long-ago summer festival. He remembered kissing her … falling for her.
Then how she’d left the mountain without looking back, forgetting about him with shocking, heartbreaking ease.
Now she was back. And she’d kissed him like maybe she hadn’t forgotten him after all …
Which was really fucking with him. “I said drop it.”
Gray grinned. “Yeah. It’s Lily.”