In Rides Trouble (Black Knights Inc. #2)(39)

Okay. And that didn’t sound desperate or anything. Geez…

“I know it the same way I know every time you look at him you see him stomping on a wineglass while you stand under the chuppah.”

Huh?

“Um, Angel? I don’t know what a chuppah is, but I get the wineglass reference, and I don’t see him doing that…mainly because we’re not Jewish.” She mumbled the last bit.

“Fine, then you see white doves and orange blossoms. My point is you have happily-ever-after written all over your face.”

She swallowed, sinking farther into the sofa, wanting to just…disappear. “Do you think he knows?” she asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

“He’d be a blind man not to.”

“Aw, geez.” She threw a hand over her eyes, the beer she’d swallowed threatening to reverse directions. “This is a disaster.”

“Only if you let it become one.” He grabbed her hand, forcing her to face him. “You want my advice?”

Advice?

Hell, yeah. She needed all the advice she could get.

“Forget about it,” he told her. When she frowned, he added. “Forget about the kiss, forget about your girlish dreams, forget about him.”

“Yeah, well,” she blew out a breath of frustration, “that’s a little hard to do considering I work with the guy.”

“Okay, so use that.”

She lifted a brow.

“He’s your coworker, yes? It’s always bad luck to get involved with a coworker. Believe me, I know. And if that’s not enough to dissuade you, then simply remember he’s already in a relationship. Are you prepared to be the other woman? Because I wouldn’t have thought you were the type.”

“Of course I’m not. But it can’t be that serious, can it? This thing he’s got going with this woman up in Lincoln Park? I mean, he’s been seeing her for as long as I’ve known him. If it was something serious, he’d have proposed marriage by now, don’t you think?”

“Are you really that naive?”

She groaned and closed her eyes.

“I know how hard it is,” he squeezed her against his side, “to want someone you can’t have.”

She stared at the stark emotion on his face. “Who was she?” she asked quietly.

In answer, he simply shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Like hell. But Becky knew that was guy-speak for, “I don’t want to talk about it.” And she decided it was best not to press him on the issue.

Laying her head on his shoulder, they sat and drank in companionable silence for a long while before she finally snorted. “We’re a pair, aren’t we? A couple of lovesick fools…”

***

“So what’s up with the shoulder this time?” Shell asked him as they sat on the sofa in the living room, enjoying a second glass of Chardonnay and the little fire he’d lit in the fireplace—the fireplace he’d personally restored tile by tile.

Franklin had been bathed and put to bed, his little belly full of Frank’s favorite beef stroganoff.

It was all so very familiar, so very homey, his earlier tension began to dissolve. And with the anxiety of the past week melting away, the pain in his shoulder took center stage.

“Two words,” he told her, adjusting himself to try and relieve some of the ache, “it’s f*cked.”

“Surgery?” she asked, oblivious to his potty mouth after all these years.

“Uh-huh. No way around it if I want to keep doing my job.”

“It’ll be different this time,” she told him, patting his arm. “Now that you know you have an adverse reaction to general anesthesia, your anesthesiologist can keep a sharp eye on your levels.”

He grunted in reply. The thought of being put under after what’d happened last time scared the holy hell out of him. Give him RPG-toting terrorists or tweaked-out drug lords any day of the week over a masked man with a shiny needle.

“You will be okay,” she assured him, leaning over to smack a kiss on his cheek. “You haven’t survived everything you’ve been through just to have your lights blink out during a miniscule shoulder surgery.”

Lord, let her be right.

The last time he felt this scared was when he’d woken up after the surgery to have his tonsils removed to find out One: that he’d died on the table only to be revived, and Two: that the strain of almost losing a son had been too much for his father, who’d subsequently decided he wasn’t cut out to be a family man.

Robert Knight had left, bags in hand, that very afternoon.

“So who are you seeing?” she asked and, for a moment, he froze. Then he realized she was asking about his surgeon. Shell was in pharmaceutical sales and knew most of the doctors in the city.

“I have an appointment with Dr. Keller in the morning.”

“Good.” She nodded. “He’s the best. He’ll have you back in fighting form in no time.”

“Shit,” he laughed, “I wish that was true. I think my fighting form days are long gone. I’m getting old, Shell. Too old for this line of work.”

“You shut your mouth,” she harrumphed. “If you say you’re getting old, that means I’m getting old, and I absolutely refuse to believe it.”