Chapter 34

It should be raining. Hell, it should be storming with how miserable Gabe felt, but Mother Nature had blessed the Capital with a gorgeous start to summer. The nice weather served as a stark contrast to his mood and, honestly, kinda pissed him off.

Yet here he stood, barefoot and shirtless, on his balcony, watching the sun drop below the city’s horizon, exactly as he had every other night for the past month. Reds, golds, and purples splashed across a sky so pale blue it was almost white—so hopeful, bright, and a little wild like one of Audrey’s paintings.

Like Audrey herself.

Gabe squeezed the balcony’s railing so hard his knuckles cracked. Called himself a thousand kinds of fool. He had to stop thinking about her. Had to stop standing out here every night, watching the sunset and pining for what could never be. Had to put her out of his mind and focus on what was important: the team and their training.

Yet, no matter how he tried, he couldn’t escape her. The scent of her seemed to linger on his skin like she’d branded herself in him. Her laughter echoed in the silence of his apartment. And God, her eyes—those bright green eyes were all he saw when he closed his own.

Every late-night meeting, every grueling training session with the team, even every quiet moment of solitude was overshadowed by thoughts of her. Of Audrey. Of the light she had brought into his life and the emptiness that had followed in her absence.

Jesus, leaving her had been his choice. The right choice. One he still stood by.

Chewing back a frustrated growl, he raked a hand through his short-cropped hair. He wanted to punch something, to unleash this tangled mess of emotions in the most visceral way. Instead, he stormed back into his apartment, snatched up an old shirt, and pulled it over his head. Grabbing a bottle of bourbon from the sideboard, he slammed down onto his worn-out couch and poured himself a generous serving.

He grimaced at the burn that failed to numb the raw ache in his chest. He was mad at Audrey for infiltrating his thoughts, mad at himself for letting her in. Above all else, he was mad that he was not with her.

Just as the sharpness of the bourbon began to dull his frustrations, his door vibrated with a series of rapid knocks. He made it halfway off his couch before a key rattled in the lock, and Quinn stepped inside.

“Hey,” Quinn said and held up a grocery bag. “Brought some Natty Boh.”

Gabe shook his head and dropped back into his seat as Quinn headed toward the kitchen with the beer. For a second there as the doorknob turned, he had this stupid notion that Audrey had come to Washington and…

Yeah. Completely stupid. He’d known Quinn was coming over, so why was he so damn disappointed to see him?

“I don’t feel like drinking,” Gabe said.

At the kitchen counter, Quinn paused halfway through opening a second bottle. “Is that not bourbon you’ve got there?” He nodded at the bottle on the coffee table.

Gabe grunted. “I don’t feel like sharing,” he clarified, scowling into his drink.

“Well, good thing I brought my own.” Quinn lifted his bottle in a mock salute before taking a hearty gulp. He popped the cap on the second bottle and tossed the cap and the bottle opener in the overflowing sink, then brought the two beers back to the living room. He held the second bottle out.

“And you look like you could use more than one drink. Have you slept since we left Colombia?”

“Of course I have.” Gabe snatched the bottle since Quinn was just stubborn enough to stand there, holding it out to him forever.

“Uh huh,” Quinn said and wandered around the room. “This place smells like a gym locker.”

“Haven’t done laundry.”

“Or dishes. Or shaved. Or showered.” He stopped beside the desk, littered with pizza boxes and empty bottles of beer and water. “Are you sick?”

“No.” Gabe thought he should be embarrassed by the state of his apartment but couldn’t find the motivation for even that. Maybe he was sick after all. He never used to have a problem motivating himself. “I’ve been busy.”

“Doing what, internet stalking?” Quinn said, spinning the computer monitor around.

Shit, he’d left Audrey’s website up on the screen.

“I’m checking up on a client.” He crossed to the desk in three strides and swatted Quinn’s hand away from the monitor. When he tried to close out of the site, he found he couldn’t do it. Again. Audrey’s face smiled out at him from the page, and he just… couldn’t. He switched off the monitor instead. “That’s all.”

“You miss her,” Quinn said. “You should go see her, talk to her. Who knows? Maybe she’ll even forgive you for being an ass.”

“Wait.” A sneaking suspicion crept through the fog of depression hanging over Gabe’s mind, and he narrowed his eyes on his best friend. “Is this an intervention?”

“No. But, c’mon, man.” Quinn encompassed the apartment with a sweep of his arm. “This isn’t you. What the hell?”

Gabe felt a muscle tick under his eye and loosened his clamped jaw. “Can we talk about something else? Like the reason you’re here.”

“Yeah, but you’re gonna listen to me first. I know it’s none of my fucking business, but I have to say this. I’ve known you for twelve years, and in all that time, I’d never have dreamed of calling you a coward. Until now.”

Gabe ground his teeth as the blow hit exactly where Quinn had calculated it to: his pride. He was not a coward. “Noted. Now, can we get to work? You wanted to talk to me about the team.”

Quinn took a long drink from his beer, then propped himself on the armof the couch. “That mission in Colombia could have gone much worse.”

“No shit.”

“We were undertrained, under-equipped. We put our team in danger.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” Gabe couldn’t keep the heat out of his tone. He had put his team in danger, all because he had wanted back into the action. “And I’ve been working around the clock to rectify those problems.”

“When you’re not moping,” Quinn muttered but then held up his hand. “Sorry. Low blow.”

Gabe let the jab slide. “I spoke with Tuc, and he essentially wrote us a blank check, so Harvard is having a field day upgrading our tech. We’ve already centralized everything and implemented some high-level encryption protocols to improve our security. And I think I’ve convinced Danny Giancarelli to help Marcus with some negotiation training for us.”

“That’s a start, but what about the manpower?” Quinn asked, his attention focused on the half-empty beer bottle in his hand. “We were stretched thin in Colombia.”

“I’ve been looking at dossiers.” He nodded toward the leaning tower of files on his desk. “So far, I’m not liking our options. “A lot of them have either aged out or come with too many complications.”

“We need a sniper.”

Hell, no. Gabe saw where this was going and frowned. “I know what you’re thinking, Q. Didn’t I already make that decision?”

“Yeah, but we need a sniper,” he repeated. “A good one, at that. Seth Harlan’s one of the best, and he wants on the team.”

“In that case, why stop with Seth?” Gabe grumbled, sarcasm heavy in his tone. “Let’s just start a goddamn sanctuary for washed-up operators and spies.”

“Gabe, man. We’re the washed-up operators.”

The words hit him like a punch to the gut.

He scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “I know, Q. I know.”

“Seth wants a second chance. If we don’t give it to him, who will?”

Second chance.

In a flash of understanding, Gabe suddenly knew how the sniper must feel. In fact, hadn’t he felt the same way only a month and a half ago as he stood in his parents’ house in his dress whites, dreading his future? HORNET had given him and all of the other guys another shot. What was stopping him from doing the same for Seth Harlan?

What the hell? Not like his team wasn’t a ragtag bunch already. Why not add a potentially traumatized sniper to the mix?

And, speaking of second chances, maybe Quinn was right about other things, too.

Gabe picked up his beer, drained it on one breath, and stood. “All right, go talk to Seth. But he’s going to be your responsibility, Q.” With that, he strode toward his bedroom. He needed a shower, a shave, and to pack a bag.

“Where are you going?” Quinn called.

Gabe stopped just outside his bedroom door and glanced back at his messy apartment, curling his lip in disgust with himself. Why the hell had he let it get this bad? “I’m not a coward.”

Quinn raised his bottle in salute. “Hooyah.”