Best Friends Don't Kiss(21)
“Is now the time I should disclose that I’m close friends with someone on the board?” Milo Ives offers with a little smirk on his lips, pulling me from my trip down memory lane.
It takes a minute for his words to sink in, but when they do, I furrow my brow. “Wait… Do you mean NASA’s Candidate Selection Board?”
“Yep.” He nods. “You know, the board that has the final say in who gets into the program.”
“Milo, you motherfluffer,” Thatch says through a chuckle. “How did I not know this?”
It’s Milo’s turn to laugh. “Considering NASA is one of my company’s contracts and we’ve just recently revamped all their security servers, I think you should have assumed I probably knew a few people on the inside.”
“So, what are you saying exactly?” I ask, and I kind of hate that hope is already blooming in my chest.
“I’m saying that you have every reason to be optimistic.”
“Yeah?” My phone vibrates in my jacket pocket, and I’m half tempted to pull it out and check it. But I ignore the urge and focus on the important conversation at hand.
“Oh, c’mon, Ives!” Cap chimes in and slams his hand onto the table. “Why are you beating around the fucking bush with this shit? Just spit it out.”
Quincy laughs. “You are slow-rolling him a bit, Ives.”
Milo just rolls his eyes. “Because we’re talking about NASA, and everything in NASA is fucking classified.”
“You suck, dude,” Thatch retorts. “You suck big donkey dick right now.”
“I second that,” Cap agrees. “And this is exactly why we need to bring book club back. No doubt, we’d get Ives to crack under pressure if we were still having our regular meetings.”
“Fluffing right!” Thatch exclaims, but Wes is quick to cut them both off.
“No!” he shouts. “No more fucking book club.”
“Book club?” Trevor asks and glances around the table in confusion. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Something that never needs to be brought up again,” Wes retorts.
“We’re talking about a book club that was started by Cap for the sole purpose of getting himself laid,” Trent Turner explains through an amused laugh.
Cap waggles his brows. “It worked, by the way.”
“Yeah,” Kline Brooks chimes in with a knowing smile. “It worked so well that you ended up marrying her.”
“So, maybe I’m a little slow on the uptake, but what on earth does a book club have to do with getting laid?” I can’t stop myself from asking, and Theo Cruz bursts into laughter.
“Cap had us reading romance novels so he could use the ideas from the books to win over his now-wife.”
“My gorgeous Ruby,” Cap adds with a soft smile. “The best fucking woman on the planet.”
“Wait…you guys are being serious?” Trev questions, a smile already making itself known on his face. “This isn’t a joke?”
“No,” Wes grumbles. “And let the record show, it was the worst experience of my life.”
“You’re so full of shit,” Thatch retorts. “You loved it.”
Wes rolls his eyes. “I loved our poker nights. Not that fucking book club.”
“Speaking of poker nights,” Thatch comments and looks pointedly at Kline. “You know you’re not allowed to cancel on poker night. Ever. Yet you have for the past two weeks. What’s the story, Klinehole?”
“Oh, I don’t know. My job. My wife. My girls. You know, important life shit.”
“Pfft. Yeah, right, Special K. Pretty sure you were just getting tired of ole Thatcher here handing your ass to you every week.”
“Or maybe he was getting tired of hearing ole Thatcher talk in third person like an idiot,” Harrison suggests, and Thatch scratches the side of his face with his middle finger.
“Shut up, Harry. I think we all know you wouldn’t have been able to win the heart of the Raquel Weaver without the knowledge you gained from book club.”
“It still boggles my mind that he’s married to her,” Cap mutters. “Like, of all the fucking people in the world, one of Hollywood’s most famous actresses chose this schmuck.”
“What can I say? I got real fucking lucky.” Harrison just shrugs, laughs, and takes a sip from his bourbon.
When my phone vibrates in my suit pocket again and again and again, I find myself tuning out the conversation and pulling out my phone to find several more texts from Ava.
The first message? Check out these guys and tell me what you think of them. They seem nice, right?
Six screenshots of TapNext profiles of guys with names like Brian and Frank and Abe follow.
Frankie boy is shirtless in his profile pic, Abe’s bio talks about how much he loves his cat, and Brian, well, fuck…his goddamn collar is popped, and he spends three paragraphs talking about his boat. Is she serious when she says she thinks they look nice?
Me: Do you really want to date a guy named Brian?
She responds right away.
Ava: What’s wrong with the name Brian?
Me: It’s a boring name, Ace. Not to mention, all the Brians I’ve ever known have been the friend in the group that no one really wants to be friends with. There’s got to be some sort of reason for that. Plus, he’s crazy about boats, and you won’t even go in the water at your parents’ lake house.