May Contain Wine (SWAT Generation 2.0 5)

That would suck.

I wasn’t fat, but I wasn’t skinny. I wasn’t pretty, but I wasn’t ugly. I wasn’t anything. I just was.

Which, I think, sucked even more. At least most people knew where they stood.

I didn’t.

I mean, I had a hot guy once. But he broke up with me.

So… what did that mean for me?

Because I sure the hell didn’t know.

Derek, another member of the SWAT team, walked over and poked me in the forehead.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

I batted his hand away and glared.

“I’d be doing a whole lot better if I wasn’t almost late for my flight,” I said, batting his hand away again when he tried to poke me once more.

See, a lot of us grew up together. Derek, Ares, Bourne, Boothe, Louis, Sammy, and a bunch of others? We were the SWAT kids. The kids of the original Kilgore SWAT team members.

We knew each other well, and just like he knew what to do to provoke me, I also knew what to do to annoy him.

Which was why I pulled the hairs on his arm when he tried to reach up and poke me again.

“Oww!” he whined.

I rolled my eyes.

The idea of this big, six-foot-two giant of a man whining was hilarious in and of itself.

“Why were y’all late?” I asked curiously.

With all of them being here together, there must’ve been a call of some kind.

I likely could’ve asked Louis and gotten an answer, but that would’ve meant that I needed to actually talk to him civilly, and I didn’t think I could handle that right now.

“We had a call about a man that was trying to set his building on fire,” he said. “He wouldn’t come out of his locked basement. We evacuated everyone and then tried to get in only to find out he didn’t have a basement. He was in the attic.”

I snorted.

“Louis was able to pull some sniper mojo and get the sprinklers to set off in the attic,” he continued. “He was all in a hurry to leave, though. He wasn’t purposefully late.”

I knew that he wasn’t.

Despite everything that had gone on with us, he was usually quite punctual and serious about donating blood to me.

“Where are you flying to?”

That was Hayes, Ares’ husband.

“Ares didn’t tell you?” I asked. “I thought I heard you were in the room when we were talking last night.”

Hayes grinned wickedly. “I was preoccupied.”

I rolled my eyes.

He was preoccupied with undressing Ares, which was the reason that she’d hung up with me.

“I’m going to Washington, D.C.,” I said.

“Why?”

I ignored Louis’ question and acted like I didn’t hear it.

“Why?” Hayes asked, repeating the question.

“I’m interviewing someone.” I shrugged.

“For your blog?” Derek asked, taking a seat on the side of my table.

I moved over to allow him more room and nodded.

“Yes. And my magazine,” I whispered.

He winked at me, knowing exactly why I’d whispered.

I didn’t want Louis to know that I still did my blog, or that I did my magazine.

That would just give him one more thing to talk to me about, and it was already hard enough to stand being in the same room with him.

I was still in love with him, that was for sure.

I’d spent the last few years trying my damnedest to forget him, and the only thing that I accomplished was thinking about him even more.

It sucked.

It sucked even more that Louis didn’t realize what his presence did to me.

Which meant that despite me trying to stay away from him, he didn’t try to stay away from me.

The blood finally hit the halfway point, and I picked up my phone to see where I was at with my flight.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw it was delayed for an hour.

Thank God.

I did not want to miss this flight. Because missing this flight meant that I would have to drive to Dallas. And driving always brought out the worst in me.

It was inevitable that I’d get sleepy. Then I’d have to stop. Then I’d be late.

Which was the story of my life.

“What’s in Washington, D.C. again?” Louis asked.

I blinked, surprised to see him standing at the end of my bench with his arms crossed over his chest.

He had a pink bandage on his arm, compressing the spot where he’d just donated blood.

But his eyes were all on me.

I pinched my lips together, not wanting to tell him why.

But then Hayes answered for me, unaware of the tension.

“She’s going to Washington, D.C. to interview a couple of Navy SEALs,” Hayes said. “My wife was talking about her blog this morning.”

I frowned hard at him. “If you knew where I was going, why did you ask?”

He flashed me a quick grin and jerked his head in Louis’ direction.

“Gotta watch out for my boy.”

Then he was gone, leaving me with ‘his boy.’

I stared at Hayes’ back as he left, then turned reluctantly to face Louis fully.