“I don’t drink before I dance,” she explained. “Because, if I don’t keep drinking, alcohol makes me sluggish. And if I keep doing it, it makes me drunk.”
That earned her a smile. “You don’t have to explain it, Pepper. I’m not the I’m-drinking-so-everyone-has-to-imbibe guy.”
“Cool,” she murmured, shoved spoons in all the food that needed them and handed him a plate.
They loaded up then hiked their asses onto stools at her island.
“Did you successfully put the Tabernacle of the True Light under surveillance?” she asked.
He swallowed the food he’d stuffed into his mouth and answered, “Something like that.”
She nodded, then went on, “I’m sensing from the financial information you’ve gathered, you have ways and means. So are you also hacking their communications?”
“Considering what we’ve found so far, Hawk’s putting this situation on the agenda for tomorrow’s team meeting,” he told her instead of answering in the affirmative, which was the honest answer. “Wanna come?”
She perked up on her stool. “Can I?”
He grinned at her. “No.”
She faked a frown that was hilarious.
Then she got serious. “Is Hawk really doing that?”
“Yeah, he really is.”
“Okay, then I’m feeling weird about this.”
He got serious too, and asked, “Why?”
“I don’t know. But your time is worth money. I sense it’s worth a lot of it. And Hawk needs some coming in to pay out what his men earn. Not them doing a bunch of stuff for some broad that isn’t being reimbursed.”
That was when Auggie got very serious.
“If you’re suggesting I get Elvira to invoice you, don’t. One, Elvira would never do that. This is in the family. Her fingers might melt on the keyboard if she tried to type out a bill for you. And I’ll repeat, this is in the family. So Hawk would never ask her to do that.”
Elvira was their office manager, and he did not lie about what might happen if she attempted to ask someone close to the crew to pay for their services. Though, her fingers wouldn’t melt, she’d just make her thoughts known on the matter and refuse to do it.
But Hawk would never allow it.
“This is our first date, Auggie,” she said quietly. “And it’s at my kitchen counter, and in a couple of hours, I have to end it to go to work. I’m hardly in the family.”
He put his fork down and grabbed his egg roll, but before biting into it, he said, “Then you don’t get the concept of family.”
He was concentrating on chewing his food, but when he caught sight of her expression, he concentrated on her.
“Babe,” he said, but it was a question.
She read his question and answered, “That’s maybe the coolest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Right, it was a risk. So far, it seemed anytime they got too close in proximity, things got out of hand.
And he was hungry, and she eventually had to get to work.
Still, he took that risk, leaned into her and touched his mouth to hers.
He liked the expression on her face when he pulled away a lot better than the one she had when he’d been going in.
He grabbed his beer and took a slug.
“Speaking of family, I’m going to call my brother and tell him about Mom,” she announced.
Swallowing was difficult, because he was surprised she’d already made this decision.
But he did it and focused on her. “Yeah?”
She nodded, but now she didn’t look so hot.
She’d made the decision, but she wasn’t at one with it.
“This is too deep for Chinese at your kitchen island,” he said. “But some insight without diving into the full story, I don’t get on great with my mom. I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you we have lingering bad history. I shared a little of it with you. I still would want to know if anything was wrong with her. If she had trouble financially. If someone was causing her problems. And definitely if she was ill.”
She nodded and picked up a rangoon, shoving it in the sweet-and-sour sauce.
“Do you want me to spend some time watching him?” he offered.
Her gaze came to him. “Sorry?”
“Life sucks, Pepper. The shit I found out about your brother paints a pretty dark picture. But neither of us know what was behind any of it.”
“Beating his wife?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’m not defending him. But at my urging, you’re about to open a door that was pretty seriously closed. I’d feel more comfortable having a better handle on the man he is today before you call him and open that door. Even to share about your mom. There are other ways he can find out, and it won’t involve you.”
He did not share it would involve him, or a member of the team.
Just not her.
“Auggie, if you do your job, ferret out and then take down a ring of dirty cops, uncover whatever nasty is happening at my family’s church, and put time into finding out what kind of man my brother is today, when will you find time to date me? And equally importantly, be at Juno’s school to build Thanksgiving sets?”