Chapter 17

Smith appeared in the kitchen, hair still wet from his shower, face set to contemplative.

"You good?" I asked as I flipped the grilled cheese I was making for Nebraska and finished by waving the spatula in the direction of his food. "Yours are on the plate."

"I was coming in here to ask you that."

By the time I looked up from the pan, Smith had already stuffed his face with grilled cheese. "Who hooked us up with real cheese?" he asked around a mouthful.

"Probably Ivy. Kira's idea of cheese is that block of soft yellowish shit she melts."

Smith nodded and took another bite.

I went back to the pan.

"Silence. That's telling," he taunted.

I would much rather talk about Kira's fake cheese preference than try to put what I was feeling into words.

"I'm not pissed at Zane," I told him. "If he kept Black a secret he had his reasons."

"Agreed. But that's not what I'm talking about and you know it."

Fucking Smith.

He never let shit go.

"There's nothing to say," I evaded.

"That's bullshit."

I dumped the sandwich on a plate and gave Smith my full attention.

"What do you want me to say? She confuses the fuck out of me. I don't trust her yet I can't stop myself from wanting to get close. Her attitude drives me around the bend. She's smart as fuck yet dangerously vulnerable and I can't stop myself from wanting to shield her from all the shit swirling around her. Part of me wants to tie her ass up and take her away from all of this and not let her free until you and the team take out Maddon. The other part of me wants to watch her take him down. She impresses me and pisses me off, both of those at the same time. The way she shuts down makes me insane but when she opens up and gives me a glimpse of the real her I want to protect her with my life. I've never met a woman I wanted to run from, yet when she said something about parting ways my gut clenched to the point of pain. So with all of that, brother, I'm at a loss. There's nothing to say because there's nothing to be done."

"Nothing to be done?"

"Did you miss the part about me not trusting her or about how crazy she makes me?"

Smith's response was to smile.

I shook my head thankful the conversation was over and grabbed Nebraska's plate.

"I didn't miss shit, brother. Certainly not the part about her driving you crazy. Your problem is you're ignoring the important parts."

It was official. I was seriously fucking over riddles. From vague answers from Nebraska to Zane acting like a shifty bastard. Now that the big secret was out I'd hoped the ambiguity would no longer be a factor. However, it would seem it was Smith's turn.

"And what are the important parts?"

"Maybe she drives you crazy because you're crazy about her."

"Yeah, Smith, she's crazy, she drives me crazy, and I'm crazy for liking it. That's too much crazy."

The idiot just smiled.

"You know another word for crazy?" he pressed.

I knew a lot of other words for crazy but the two I would use at that very moment were—this conversation. That's what was crazy. I was participating in this insane conversation. And not only that but my participation was encouraging Smith to continue.

When I didn't answer in hopes he'd lose interest he answered his own question.

"Passion."

Yep.

He was crazy, too.

"And when that shit finally explodes all over the place, you'll get it."

"Get what?" I stupidly asked.

"The reason she drives you crazy. The reason why you took one look at her and agreed to help Charlie even though you had no clue what you were agreeing to. I wasn't there, but the way Theo tells it, you were all-in at first sight. However, I was there when you found out I'd seen her in Brazil. I was also there when Zane kicked her out of the office and I was there when you got back and I was there in your living room when Charlie admitted he'd kept Anna a secret from her. And finally, I've been with you and her the last few days. I haven't missed a single reaction you've had to her because there's no way to miss them. You're so wrapped up in her you can't see straight, which means it's going to take you being knocked on your ass for you wake the fuck up and open your eyes. In the meantime you have one objective—keep that trap of yours shut and don't say something stupid you can't take back."

That was the second time he'd given me that warning. The second time he looked sucker-punched while giving it. I knew the story, we all did, but that didn't mean Smith liked talking about it or about her. As a matter of fact I'd only ever heard him say her name once. After that he'd referred to her as ‘she' or ‘her.' Which in my opinion meant he wasn't over what she said to him.

"Brother—"

"We're not talking about her."

He spat the word ‘her' like it tasted foul.

Nope. Not over her.

"Maybe we should."

The atmosphere in the kitchen changed. I couldn't say it went subzero but it sure as fuck got frosty.

"Sure," he mock-agreed. "As soon as you pull your head out of your ass about Nebraska we'll talk."

With that, he nabbed his plate with two more sandwiches on it and brushed past me.

"One more thing," I called out. "In Brazil, what was she like?"

The fucker turned and smirked.

"Didn't talk to her. Watched a guard let her into the prison. Just walked right in like she owned the place. The guard peeled off so I followed her. She found her target, moved in behind him, and sliced his throat. Clean and methodical. She didn't make a peep, didn't flinch, didn't delay making her exit. In and out and that was it—she was gone."

Smith didn't say it but he didn't have to. Not only because I knew him well but also because he didn't hide it—he was impressed.

Wet work was a far cry from taking out a target from a distance. It was up close and personal and took a certain disposition to stomach it.

"So, good call making sandwiches. I wouldn't make her anything that requires utensils until after the two of you have worked your shit out."

With another smile he took his plate into the bedroom he'd claimed and shut the door behind him. It took a minute for me to get my shit together enough to move. My contemplation had nothing to do with my teammate's concern for my safety and everything to do with his warning.

Sometimes you have to go with a gut feeling when all your intel is showing you something different.

My gut was telling me not to let her get away.

My gut was telling me I needed an explosion to happen so I could break though.

I just hoped that breakthrough didn't break her.

On that thought, I walked down across the poor excuse for a living room to the door.

The door that separated me from the woman who drove me crazy.

I didn't bother knocking.

My excuse—I was pleading insanity.

As soon as the door opened, Nebraska whirled and pinned me with a semi-dirty look.

"Why am I not surprised?" she asked.

"That I couldn't allow your only source of nutritional intake to be a sugar snack?" I quipped. I held out the plate as an offering.

Her gaze dropped to the plate. Mine dropped to her bare legs that unfortunately were not on offer. They were bare because she only wore a t-shirt that barely covered her underwear. And suddenly I really wanted to know if she was wearing another pair of ugly-assed cotton undies or if she'd switched to something…who the hell was I kidding? Ugly or not I didn't give the first fuck about her underwear. They could be lime green with toucans on them and I'd still want to peel them off—with my teeth.

"You made me dinner?"

She no longer sounded combative but instead perplexed. And since she hadn't stopped staring at the plate I'd say perplexed was an understatement.

"Not sure grilled cheese is considered dinner once you're over the age of five, but yeah, I made you something to eat."

Finally her eyes lifted and I wasn't sure how I'd missed it. She wasn't beautiful, she was fucking gorgeous. It wasn't just one of her attributes that made her physically attractive, it was Nebraska as a whole. Mind, body, soul—she was nothing short of stunning.

Nebraska wasn't a woman you won. You had to earn her love and trust. She'd put a man through his paces, she'd make it difficult, she'd fight and slice you to shreds, and take you to task before she found you worthy.

I'd once won a woman, I'd never earned one. I'd never had to work to prove I was good enough. I'd never found a woman who was worth the effort, worth the pain and struggle.

Correction: I'd never found a woman worth the effort until Nebraska.

I had a feeling Smith was wrong. There wouldn't be an explosion; but one way or another the woman was going to annihilate me. And the fuck of it was she wouldn't do it on purpose. She'd break me like she was right then with the look of shock on her pretty face—over a sandwich.

"Nebraska—"

"You made me a sandwich?" she whispered.

Yep.

The woman was killing me.

"Baby—"

"I've been a pain in your ass and you made me dinner."

This wasn't about her being a pain in the ass or about dinner.

"Never," she went on whispering.

When she didn't go on I prompted, "Never what?"

She shook her head so hard her hair shook with her movements.

"Nothing."

"Don't do that," I gritted out.

"Do what?"

"Give me something then take it away."

She blinked then asked, "What'd I give you?"

"You, Nebraska. You keep giving me bits and pieces of you then you take them away."

Her eyes slowly lowered and her head tipped forward.

Yeah, she was going to destroy me.

And it wouldn't be words that shredded me, it would be the knowledge no one had ever loved this woman the way she deserved.