Girl Gone Viral (Modern Love #2)(17)

Jas expected the photo to be from a previous year, but the girl looked the same, if more resigned, as a foil-wrapped square. “I thought her Halloween costume was the Tootsie Roll.”

“Oh, that’s for trick-or-treating. We’re having a party, too, to celebrate her second Halloween. I can’t pick one look, so I got her a bunch of different outfits and took photos.” Dean flipped through the photos. “Here she is as peas, and a piggy, and a roll of pennies, and a dinosaur, and a—”

“Can I see the dinosaur?” Harris, Dean’s cousin, interrupted from across the table.

“Sure thing.” Dean passed him the phone.

Harris didn’t glance at the device. Instead, he tucked it into the inside of his jacket. “Thanks.”

Jas coughed to hide his sudden laugh.

“Hey!” Dean glared at his cousin.

“No one wants to see your kid dressed up like food and animals, cousin.”

“Jas was interested.”

“No, he wasn’t. He’s new, so you were taking advantage of his politeness to make him suffer through a slideshow of your kid’s every move.”

Jas was grateful neither man seemed to want his input at all. Dean growled at Harris and placed his hands on the table, rising slightly out of his chair. “Give me my phone back.”

Harris smirked, unconcerned. The two Black men had the undeniable stamp of family about them, similarities in their face and build, both clearly athletes—or former athletes, since Dean had retired a couple years ago and Harris was on his last season. Their comfortable squabbling held the ring of near-brothers. “Come and get it, green bean.”

Dean slammed his big fist on the table. “Veganism is good for the environment and your body!”

Samson walked back to the table at that exact instant, holding another round of drinks. “Guys, simmer down, drinks are here.”

Dean bared his teeth. “He took my phone.”

“He was over-dadding.” Harris rolled his eyes.

“You try having your heart walking around outside your body, Harris.”

Samson placed the tray in front of them. Jas grabbed his Coke. Since he was driving, he hadn’t wanted to drink.

“Harris, give him back his phone. Dean, your mother-in-law came all the way from the Valley to stay the night with Miley so you can have a break, remember? Enjoy the time off,” Samson said.

Harris and Dean both grumbled, but Harris handed back the phone and Dean subsided in his chair. “I didn’t even get to show you her as a bag of potatoes,” he grumbled.

Harris opened his mouth, but Samson cut off whatever teasing remark he had locked and loaded. “Harris, that woman at the bar was checking you out.”

Harris’s attention was immediately diverted. He straightened and puffed out his chest, then casually glanced over his shoulder. “Holy shit, she’s hot. Be right back, guys.”

Dean shook his head as his cousin left. “Was she really checking him out?”

Samson grinned. “She glanced this way a few times while I was getting the drinks. I suppose she could have been checking any of you out.” He shrugged. “If she’s not interested, Harris will come back or find someone who is.”

“Samson’s been running interference between Harris and me since we were in college,” Dean informed Jas.

A pang of . . . something hit Jas, and he had no idea what it was, but it was sharp. Wistfulness, maybe? Over their obviously deep, long-running bonds?

“Sorry we’ve talked your ear off, Jas. Haven’t let you get a word in edgewise.” Dean’s smile was friendly. “Tell us about yourself. What’s your story?”

What was his story? “I’m in security. I work for Rhiannon’s roommate.”

“Security work sounds so cool. Like Jack Ryan.”

“Jack Ryan was CIA,” Samson said.

“Well, who was a famous bodyguard, then?”

“The guy from The Bodyguard?” Samson suggested.

Dean shook his head. “Don’t know that one. Still sounds glamorous.”

“It’s not really. You spend a lot of your time hoping nothing happens.” Only once had something happened to Katrina, and that memory still gave Jas nightmares. “I do mostly cyber-security now. It’s basically a desk job.” His degree was in computers. It had taken a little self-study to get back to them, but he genuinely enjoyed designing digital lockboxes for information.

“Let me have my illusions. My life is pretty boring, all playdates and poop.” Dean took a sip of his beer, and Jas eyed him warily, hoping he wouldn’t go more into detail on that poop thing.

Luckily, or unluckily, depending on how one viewed his next question, Dean didn’t go the poop route. “How’d you get into that line of work?”

Jas gave the bare bones explanation. “I was in the military until I was about twenty-five, and medically discharged. I called up an old family friend to ask if he had any jobs available. He needed someone to head his security.” Family friend was simplifying Hardeep’s complicated relationship with the Singhs. Hardeep’s grandfather had started a farm in NorCal with Jas’s great-grandfather, and then bounced to go back to India. Jas’s grandfather was still salty over that old slight.

Dean raised his eyebrows. “Military, huh? Army?”