Joke's on You (SWAT Generation 2.0 6)

Those intense chocolate orbs made me shiver every single time they landed on me.

Like right now.

I felt a tingle race up my spine, and I had the intense urge to get up and throw myself into his arms.

I didn’t.

Barely.

Luckily, the squeals of a lot of little girls pointing at the two black-clad figures had me blinking out of my Booth stupor.

I watched, hopefully blankly, as the two large men walked up to the itty bitty table I was currently sitting at.

Even for me, it was small.

So the moment that they sat down, I had to cover my mouth and close my eyes to keep my humor at bay.

“It’s tight,” Booth admitted.

“That’s what she said,” Bourne murmured underneath his breath.

There was a long, silent pause. Then I couldn’t stop it. I laughed.

“God.” I shook my head, switching my eyes from one man to the other. “That’s really not appropriate, and I shouldn’t laugh…”

I left the last part hanging because that’s when I started to laugh again.

Something on his shirt caught my eye, and I saw six ragged holes in his uniform shirt.

I frowned.

But before I could get a closer look, he shifted Asa so that he was covering the majority of whatever had caught my eye.

“You already ate, Bud?” Booth asked, eyes staring at me warily.

“Yes.” Asa didn’t bother to lie. “And I’m not all that hungry. My sandwich was good. They cut my crusts off perfectly.”

I covered my mouth with my hand to keep the giggle inside.

Booth’s brown eyes found mine and he rolled them.

I’d been hearing for a while that Booth didn’t cut Asa’s crusts off correctly.

If there was even a little bit of darker brown where a crust had once been, then he didn’t like it.

There had to be absolutely zero crust, meaning that you practically had to cut into the ‘good bread’ to get away from the ‘bad.’

Booth didn’t bother to try to make the effort. Delanie, Bourne, and I did.

Which was why Asa never let him forget it.

“Well,” Booth said. “I guess I’ll just have to enjoy this pizza on my own. How’s it going?” Booth asked, his eyes on me.

Asa reached forward for the rest of his sandwich, and I absently pushed it over toward him, along with his drink and his cookie.

“Good,” I said. “I got a call from Delanie asking me to bring this one lunch. So I closed my shop up early and headed out. Did you forget to bring your lunch today?”

That question was directed at Asa, who continued to eat his peanut butter and jelly sandwich even though there was now pizza in front of him.

“I ate my sandwich,” he admitted. “For breakfast. Daddy said we couldn’t stop at your shop because there were too many fu—” Booth placed his hand over Asa’s mouth before he could finish what was inevitably going to be a bad word.

Bourne started to chuckle as he opened the box of pizza.

I started to salivate.

God, I loved Moe’s pizza.

The only problem was that it was only open for lunchtime, and nine times out of ten, by the time that I had time to eat it, they were closed.

“You gonna eat any of that pizza, Bud?” Bourne asked. “Or you gonna be boring and stay with the PB&J like always?”

Asa took another bite of his sandwich in answer.

“You have eight minutes, children!” a teacher bellowed from the front of the room.

Most of the kids were almost done with their food, but there were some, like Asa, that were still eating.

There was a mad scramble to finish before time was up.

“I’m gonna finish this. Then I’m gonna eat two pieces,” Asa announced.

I watched as he slowly took another bite.

“Not like that you’re not,” I told him. “You better hustle up and stop eating like a bird, or you’re gonna have to go back to class.”

“Daddy will just take me home,” Asa promised.

My brows went up.

“Not today, I can’t, bud,” Booth announced as he bit into a slice of pizza, effortlessly maneuvering it around Asa’s head. “I have to go back to work. But I’m on track to still pick you up.”

Asa sighed.

“Okay, so I’ll only finish this,” Asa grumbled.

He did finish that, and a half of his cookie, before they announced that it was time to go back to class.

Gym.

Gross.

I would’ve totally puked my guts up if I’d had to eat and then immediately gone to gym.

“Love you, Daddy,” Asa said, throwing his arm around Booth’s shoulder. “Bye, Aunt Dillan. Uncle Bourne.”

Then, without any other words, he was gone, leaving his mess behind.

Bourne picked up another piece of pizza as he got up, picking up Asa’s trash as he went.

He did save the cookie, though, popping it into his mouth on the way back from the trash can.

I rolled my eyes and stood up, gathering my purse and keys.