Page 60 of Snow

She nodded and smiled. “Okay.”

Before he could tell her thank you, his phone buzzed. He looked at it lying on the table and grinned when he saw Jocelyn’s name. She was trying to FaceTime him.

He picked the phone up and hit accept. “Hey Joce!”

“Hey! I hope I’m not bothering you. Bear said you were in a place you could accept calls.”

“Yeah. No worries. What’s up?”

“I’m so sorry to call you out of nowhere, but I’m trying to get the headcount to the party planner for Amira’s birthday next month, and I need to lock it in by tomorrow. The whole thing’s at that trampoline park, and they need a final number, or they’ll bump us out of the time slot. I just need to know if you were coming.”

Snow laughed. “You’re really calling me to pin down a trampoline park reservation?”

“I am a woman on the edge, Snow. Don’t test me.”

He laughed again. “Yeah, I’ll be there. I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Okay. Good.”

Nova stood up and gathered their plates and cups. She caught his eye and tilted her head toward the kitchen before turning and carrying the dishes out, leaving him to his video call.

Jocelyn’s eyes narrowed. “Wait, a minute. Is someone with you?”

Snow chuckled. “What?”

“I just saw somebody walk behind you.”

He glanced toward the kitchen just as Nova came back out, then walked over to the ice cream machine. Christ, she could find the soft-serve machine faster than half my team could find an extraction point.

He looked back at the screen. “That was Nova.”

“Nova,” Jocelyn repeated the name slowly, and a slow grin spread across her face. “Is that the woman Bear and the guys were telling me about?”

Jesus fucking Christ! They could keep classified information locked down for decades, but tell one of them a teammate met a woman, and the entire team transformed into the Real Housewives of Naval Special Warfare.

“What exactly did Bear and the others tell you?”

“He just said you were working an op with somebody and that you were acting different.” She leaned closer to the camera, her eyebrows raised. “I’ve known that man long enough to know what different means.”

“It’s not like that,” he lied.

“Mm-hmm.”

“We’re working.” That wasn’t a lie.

“Mm-hmm,” she said again, grinning wider now. “So should I put a plus-one down for you for Amira’s party?”

He laughed, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “I don’t know.”

“Okay. Plus-one. Noted.” She was still grinning when Nova came back to the table and settled into her chair next to him with her cup of ice cream.

She was already working through the cup as she looked at something on her phone. She looked completely at ease.

Snow, on the other hand, was not at ease, watching her eat ice cream.

She slowly pulled the spoon from her mouth, her tongue catching a drop of ice cream on her lip, sweeping across it in one lazy, unhurried pass.

Stop staring.