“No Ben coming?”
Cal shook his head looking over his menu at Sarah. “No. He’s got work. Plus he’s not happy about this anyway. I let him know I’d probably be late tonight and he almost grunted at me.”
The pair of them were sitting at a local diner. The lunch rush had already come and gone so their table for six wasn’t getting surrounded by other people. Though the two of them sitting together did make the table seem bigger and far emptier. They’d been visited by a waitress twice now but aside from water they were holding off on things as much as they could. Though a mutual growl five minutes ago did make them both laugh.
Sarah made a face. “Trouble with you two?”
“Just a bit. Turns out having a hyper powerful alien being hunting your husband can make things a little tense.”
She nodded and set the menu down looking at him. “Having Jack and Marco being on the team is a blessing and a curse.”
“Yeah. They’re in the club but something can happen to them just the same,” Cal sighed with a frown that was sorry but knowing in the same way. “He’s just worried and I can’t blame him.”
“We’re all worried,” she said glancing at her phone. It was locked at the moment but her eyes kept glancing toward it in case either of her men messaged her. Flipping it over she forced herself to look away from it, “You know after the thing at the airport none of us even wanted to leave the house today?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. If Marco hadn’t called it for us we may have kept fighting and even died.” She stared at the ground looking at her glass of water. “I don’t want to say we got lucky but I feel like we did.”
“After getting attacked like you did I can’t blame you,” he rubbed his arms. “I almost didn’t go into work either. First Kat then you guys. Ben’s been scared that I’m going to be next.”
“Do you think Ley is right?”
“About what?”
“Being stronger together.”
“Maybe. I know a few times last year when it was the five of us working together I felt like we could do anything. Even after what happened with Jack, Marco made me believe it again. And then Jack came back and we saved the world.”
“Yeah but this is different. These guys are different. I can’t even word it,” Sarah frowned hard. “I know you never met any of them so it’s hard to explain. But the two of them, especially Hawks. They weren’t like us.”
“What does that mean?”
She frowned harder, “I think Hawks, enjoyed causing chaos. Hell, he showed up crashing into our Uber’s car and killing who knows how many people in the explosion. And he was laughing when it happened. I think that’s what scaes me more than anything else.”
Cal shuddered casting his gaze toward the red and white checkered table. “I never really think about it but we got lucky.”
“Lucky?”
“That none of us were bad people. Like Seth was a bit of a jerk but that was it. We all wanted to go the distance and try and save people because we had others we were going to protect. And we extended that to the world. But could you imagine if we didn’t have that. Or even worse if we actively hated people?”
Sarah stared at him as the pieces connected and she looked straight at the ground, “If one of us had been a thief, or a gangster, or just a straight up serial killer.”
“Yeah.”
“I wouldn’t be shocked if Hawks was,” she said and sighed. Reaching back, she tied her hair up into a pony tail, throwing it over her shoulder. “But I have no read-on Vixen. And I didn’t even meet the other guy.”
Cal sighed and ran his fingers across the table and then just laughed, “We’re being all this doom and gloom right now. And we just came by to eat lunch and relax the six of us.”
Sarah started laughing too, “Put it that way it sounds silly. Jeez where are they?”
Flipping her phone over she saw a few messages from her men, back and forths. She flipped through them slowly laughing at one and rolling her eyes at another but sighing a content smile. Cal stared at her and found himself grinning as well. “I know that look.”
She glanced at him and nodded, “The pair of them are on their way. Just arguing about who’s paying for who. We have a rotating rule of who pays per meal. And they’re just being dumb back and forth. But they’re my boys.”
“How you three make it work I’ll never know,” Cal checked his phone and he saw a text from Ben. It was just a picture of a pink sword on a computer with the caption, ‘New background idea. Should I go for it?’
“I don’t know, you guys have been an inspiration for the three of us,” she slid her phone away and then leaned back hearing the door open with a classic bell ring. “And there’s the other couple.”
Cal looked over his shoulder and waved to Kat and Seth. Kathryn waved back and Seth just did a little head nod and they both slid into spots to the side of Cal leaving two spots open for the last piece of their team near Sarah.
“We miss anything good?” Kathryn asked.
“Nothing really. Just deep and brooding conversation,” Cal and waving his hand in front of his face. “Nothing really fun.”
“Isn’t that why we’re meeting in the first place?” Seth picked up a menu unfolding it slowly and traced his fingers down the menu. “Well that and food. I missed breakfast.”
“Hey don’t start without us!”
They looked over as Jack stumbled in with Marco behind him, clapping him on the back lightly. Shoving him forward he laughed and Marco grinned back at him and then they looked at Sarah. She saw the pair of them looking at her and her face heated up with the width of her smile. They finally came over and sat down on either side of her.
“So the gangs all here,” Marco said.
“Hell yeah,” Jack said and raised his arms up high. “So let’s eat. I’m starving.”
The Harlequin Library 