Tripping on a Halo

“Brush it off,” Nate called after him. “We can’t all be blessed with raw sexual talent.”

“Says the guy who can’t close Benta Aldrete.” The ball rolled under a bush, and Declan moved into the push-up position and reached out, swiping at it. “Not that I want you to,” he called. As talented as Nate was at landing women, he was even more skilled at tossing them aside.

“Hey,” Nate called out. “Don’t talk shit about my future wife. We’re a work in progress. And getting back to you, you need to sort it out ASAP. I’m not having you mope through this weekend.”

Declan stood up, swinging his arm in the socket to loosen up the muscle. “What’s this weekend?”

Nate glared at him. “Come on. My birthday. The hunting camp. Beer. Steaks. Skeet.” He waited for Declan to respond, his face falling at the blank expression. “There’s no way you forgot this.”

“I didn’t forget it,” Declan lied, his mind riffling through all of the work he’d have to finish before they left. Normally, he’d enjoy a chance to get out in the woods and blow off some steam. But his mind was too twisted over Autumn and this project. Wasting a weekend on Nate’s stories and shooting … sounded like hell.

Nate got that look in his eye, the one that typically preceded a terrible idea. “Maybe you could invite your girl. Flex your masculinity some. Impress her.”

Your girl. He would wager a guess that Autumn wouldn’t be in love with that moniker. He squinted at Nate. “You want Autumn, the ‘crazy bitch’ as you’ve referred to her, to come with us on your birthday weekend?”

“Look.” Nate leaned forward. “You called her that too. I didn’t know—we didn’t know—that there were going to be sparks between you two.”

He started to argue that fact, but Nate had already given him three days’ worth of grief over the fact that he considered Declan to be smitten. That was the actual word he’d used—over-used—as he had tortured every detail of the night out of him. Well, not every detail. He was, despite all the evidence to the contrary, a gentleman.

He threw the ball toward the garage door, and mused over the idea of inviting Autumn to the camp. “It’d be awkward, the three of us.”

“You’re right.” Nate was as transparent as glass as he ‘pondered’ their dilemma and then ‘came up’ with a solution. “I could convince Benta to stay over for the weekend. It could be fun.”

“No,” Declan said flatly, catching the ball and slinging it back with more aggression than necessary. “I’d like to actually keep this client until we finish and are paid.”

“Dude. It’s my birthday. I don’t want to sit in the fucking woods and stare at you and your girlfriend all weekend.”

This is how people died. He turned to Nate, ready to shove that Gatorade bottle down his throat, and stopped at the wide grin on his face. The issue was, he was impossible to be mad at. It was the most infuriating quality about the guy, yet the one that saved their asses more times than anything. He pointed at Nate and struggled to keep his own smile off his face. “Listen to me when I say that you cannot fuck up this Benta Aldrete situation. Do you understand?”

Nate spread his arms in a ‘surrender’ gesture. “Never planned on it.”

Right. He never did. Declan turned back to the garage, swinging his arms and fighting against the knot of tension between his shoulder blades. Should he invite Autumn to the camp? It wasn’t likely she’d come. With her silence, and complete absence from his life, she had likely moved on from him altogether, and found another charity project to shower with care and protective actions. Inviting her would be the worst thing to do right now, and would reopen the door to let the crazy back in.

Only… he kind of liked her crazy. He wasn’t smitten. Nate was wrong about that, despite all of his knowing glances and I’ve known you for fifteen years bullshit. He wasn’t smitten, but he did want more of her. Was she mental? Probably. But if someone was going to be off-her-rocker about one thing, this was a pretty good flaw. It was like being overly neat—an affliction Nicola had stamped on him more times than he could count. Or overly loyal.

So, what if she did truly believe that she was tasked with protecting him? So what? It was kind of nice to have someone so utterly devoted to maintaining your safety and well-being. The way she had examined him outside that bar, such concern in her features… it had been sweet. Warm. Touching. Assuming she hadn’t moved on to someone else, it’d be nice to have that focus swung back in his direction.

But she’d never agree to go to the camp. It was too dangerous. Guns. Poison Ivy. Splinter possibilities everywhere. Some rare tick that caused sudden death.