Page 45 of Love at First Rep

Josh continued, “And yours have been screaming about Rafe. You think he’s hiding something? Is that why you’re here?”

Garrett’s eyes widened. “What the fuck? How’d you know that?”

“I’m telling you, man. Empath powers,” Riley said as he gazed at Josh fondly.

Garrett had to shake his head to get this conversation back on track.

“Riley, remember how you hacked into my captain’s database?”

Guilt crossed Riley’s face. He winced as he answered, “Uh, yeah. I’m still sorry about that.”

Garrett shook his head. “Don’t be. I need you to do it again and let me snoop around inside.”

Riley’s eyes widened, and Josh grinned.

“To the battlestation!” Josh shouted and darted out of the room toward the hallway leading to their bedrooms. Riley chuckled as he followed, Garrett in his wake.

As they wandered down the hallway, Garrett spotted Josh hanging a sign on one of the doors. When he reached it, he read it aloud and wondered whether he should laugh with them or at them. “Do not enter: Super secret spy stuff in progress.”

Riley smiled and turned to Garrett, then shrugged.

“It makes Josh smile, and I really like doing that.”

These guys were so cute, Garrett couldn’t stand it.

They all walked into the room, and Garrett scrutinized the sweet setup. They had two computer stations, one way more intense than the other. He figured the simpler one belonged to Josh, and Riley’s setup helped him with all of his so-called hacktivism that Garrett pretended he didn’t know about. He dug into it once, worried about how many laws Riley had broken over the years, but he’d done a lot of good and mostly helped expose bad people and bad situations, so Garrett turned a blind eye.

Riley turned off his cellphone and took a seat at the desk that housed multiple monitors and a bunch of other equipment Garrett couldn’t possibly identify.

“Riley, aren’t you forgetting something?” Josh asked after Riley turned on his screens.

“But Garrett’s here.”

“And? It gets you in the zone.”

Riley sighed and reached into one of the side drawers of his desk, pulling out… a Batman mask?

He put it on his head and got to work, his eyes on the screen as he muttered, “Not a word, Garrett.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” he said as he tried to stifle his laughter.

“It’ll only take me a few minutes to get back in since I… since I did it before,” Riley said, guilty as fuck.

“I don’t wanna know, man,” Garrett said and Riley nodded, the clacking of his keyboard and the whir of his computers the only noises in the room.

“I’m gonna make an early lunch while you guys work,” Josh said before planting a kiss on Riley’s mask and heading back toward the kitchen.

It took a couple minutes for Riley to speak again.

“Okay, I’m in. You said you wanted Captain McHugh’s stuff specifically, right?”

“How much are you able to access, exactly?”

Riley turned to Garrett, worry on his face.

“Depends. Do I have immunity?”

Garrett rolled his eyes. “Yeah, none of this ever happened. Just tell me what you can get into.”