Quadruple Duty

Sammara’s legs were perfect, especially her thighs. And tonight her hair was teased out, her eyeliner flared up at the corners to make her look even more devious and cat-like than she actually was.

But it was her smile that did me in. Or should I say, did us in… because this wasn’t about me anymore, it was about all of us.

“So tell me about Briggs,” she said, running a delicate finger along the rim of her wine glass. “What’s he like?”

Dakota’s grin, which had been plastered across his face all night, just sort of dropped away. The two of us looked at each other in silence for a moment, before my buddy finally attempted an answer.

“Briggs, huh? Well Briggs… Briggs is…”

“Intense,” I jumped in.

Dakota nodded quickly. “Yes, definitely. Intense is the exactly right word.”

Sammara laughed. Goddamn it, she looked even more beautiful doing that.

“More so than Ryan?”

Ryan again. I wished like hell he could’ve made it tonight. But while he was gone, maybe I could repair the rift between them.

“Ryan’s intensity is different,” I replied. “He’s just looking out for us in his own way. Please don’t take offense.”

“Oh, I haven’t.”

“Briggs is… well… he’s intense in other ways.”

“Dark ways,” Dakota added.

Sammara giggled and tipped her glass back. She was three drinks in and was feeling no pain. “Oh I don’t know,” she said. “In all the photos I’ve seen? He’s cute.”

Cute. Briggs. I almost choked on my steak.

“He looks pretty harmless. To me, anyway.”

Again, Dakota and I exchanged glances. He looked mortified.

“Well maybe not harmless,” Sammara corrected, “but definitely sweet. He has an honest face. The look of someone with a big heart.”

I wasn’t sure about his heart, but Briggs was definitely honest, and brutally so. She’d nailed that part at least.

“Alright,” she smirked. “Out with it. Why the silence? Why the secret glances?”

I hesitated again, so Dakota tried taking over.

“Look, he’s a great guy,” he explained. “No question about it. And you’re going to totally love him, just like we do.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“No problem,” Dakota said hastily. “It’s just that… well…”

“It’s just that his job is probably the most complicated,” I finished for him. “Of all three of us.”

Dakota pushed his potatoes around with his fork. I could tell the more we didn’t say about our friend, the more Sammara wanted to know. Or rather, needed to know.

“Briggs is on assignment more than any of us,” I went on. “He does top secret stuff. Takes missions that others refuse. They use him in a pinch because they know when they go to him, whatever it is is going

to get done.”

“Sounds like my kind of man,” Sammara said approvingly.