Page 66 of Ready or Not

I ignore him and focus on the road, letting him stew on my meaning.

“Warm and fuzzy?” Holt snorts. “That’s not a feeling.”

My head shakes at the roof of the truck. Can a grown-ass man really make it to thirty years old without experiencing love?

This is Holt.

Of course, he did.

“Okay, and when you think about Vale, how do you feel?”

“Protective?”

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. “That warm, fuzzy feeling is affection. Maybe it’s not love yet, but it’s the basis of the emotion that grows into it. It’s a fondness for the other person. A giddy excitement to see or talk to them. How the fuck is Mercy better adjusted than you are?”

Holt laughs. “Fuck if I know.”

“You bit her. You obviously wanted a future with her,” I say, carefully choosing my words.

“We’re a match. You know how rare that shit is,” Holt grunts. “We hear it all our lives, how you’ll never be as happy and fulfilled in life as you will be with your scent match.”

My head tilts, and I quirk an eyebrow. He better not have bonded Vale just because they’re a scent match.

“Oh, fuck you,” he growls. “Don’t look at me like that. She’s sweet and smells nice. I don’t know. I never wanted to share, but it’s the little things. Like seeing how she lights up when one of you guys walk into a room. Or how she held you in place with a short finger, then believed our word when we said we had no idea about Garza. The way she smiles at Mercy when he says something that would annoy literally any other woman…” He sighs heavily. “I want her to look at me like that, and my impulses didn’t want to risk letting her get away while I figure out how to make that happen.”

“Oh my God,” I snort. “You’re so fucked.”

“I’m trying to make her like me, but I don’t want her busting out I love you just because she didn’t want me to feel left out. It’s a process. We are in the process, okay?”

I laugh even harder. “So incredibly fucking fucked.”

We finally make it home in the middle of the night. There was a traffic pileup that delayed us for an extra three or four hours that was spent exclusively listening to Holt lament the whole love situation.

Mercy is in his office when we get in, and we stop to debrief him on everything that happened in Boston. I had a very real urge to murder both Mercy and Garza when Vale’s fear pulsed in the bond. Holt and I both assumed Mercy’s family was to blame. Although, it only took a few additional seconds for it to become clear it was a far more dire situation than family drama.

Holt tosses himself down on Mercy’s couch. He immediately twists around, sniffing the material. He eventually ends up on all fours, smelling the cushions.

“What the bloody hell are you doing?” Mercy asks with wide eyes.

“Why does your couch smell like sex with Vale? You said she was asleep!” Holt shoves himself up and aims for the door.

“She is. She fell asleep watching a movie between me and Garza. Once she was out, I came down to get a bit more work done.”

Holt continues out with a wave over his shoulder that makes me snort.

“He’s all out of whack. Vale said she loved us before hanging up earlier, and he’s been having a meltdown for the last seven hours.” I plant myself in one of the chairs across from Mercy’s desk.

“I imagine that did turn his world upside down. The man’s never had a girlfriend that lasted longer than a month.” Mercy laughs. “I must confess, she also told me, but it sounds like I had a much better reaction.”

“I had to explain what love feels like, and I’m sure I fucked it up.” I shrug. “It’s one of those things you have to feel to experience.”

“Truer words…” Mercy says distractedly as he flips open a folder. “Right, fill me in. Who is running the show in Boston?”

I spend the next half an hour relaying which teams were assigned to what sections of the city and which were given special tasks.

I yank my hair out of the tie it’s been up in and redo it. “We did get one piece of info from an informant that might be useful. Apparently, back when all that shit was going down between the Andretti brothers and Ranger’s family, there was a woman living with the oldest Andretti brother.”

Mercy’s eyebrows rise.