Page 114 of Good Enough

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Waters gave him a single nod, and Demon grunted as he went around the side of the cabin to find a position to watch from.

Steel stepped up to one stair from the top of the porch and handed him a duffle bag. “You might want to open that first before giving it to her. Cherry threw some party favors in there. Might not be good if she saw that first.”

“Shit,” Waters muttered. “Can’t you people stay out of this?”

“Nope,” his friend said with a slight grin. Then Steel jumped to the ground and went in the opposite direction of Demon to find another overwatch position.

Waters took the duffle bag inside, locked the door, and rearmed the system. He placed the duffle bag on the counter. Opening it, he removed the extra package from the top of the bag with the sticky note on it that said, “Remind her!” and then a smiley face that was winking at him. “Good grief. Sex doesn’t solve all problems,” he murmured.

He stopped in mid-zipping of the bag. What the fuck? Since when did he spout shit like that, even just to himself? Perhaps his Navy buddies had been right with his name. Way too sensitive for a guy.

Putting the bag at the foot of the stairs, then throwing the box in the downstairs bathroom in the back of a drawer, he headed to the kitchen.

Five steps out the door, he turned around and came back to open the box and tore three condoms off the strip, placing them in his cargo pocket.

Power of positive thinking? Obsessive Planning Tendencies for contingencies, right?

He shook his head. Time to go see what food was around so he could make Kai dinner.

Kai. Not Kubrick.

She’s not a client, and she hasn’t been for a long time.

He had taken the duffle bag upstairs and found her asleep in the open-air guest room. He would have preferred her to have picked the primary bedroom since it could be closed off, but somehow, he knew that she had found that too uncomfortable, given how things had ended between them. After placing the bag on the dresser where she’d be sure to see it, he took the quilt from the rocking chair in the corner and unfurled it, laying it over her sleeping figure. Gently, so as not to wake her, he brushed his lips to her temple, then left as silently as he had arrived.

He stood for a long while at the living room windows, looking out over the valley at the orange groves. While this upcoming conversation with Kai about their relationship was littered with minefields, he would navigate it as best he could. In all honesty, he had no idea how she was going to respond, but he did know that if she shut him down, he wasn’t going to give up. She was worth the fight. How it would all work out between her job, his job, and God was the bigger issue. The team treated the whole situation like he was making way more of the situation than it was, but Waters wasn’t so sure that was true.

The sun had set by the time he heard Kai moving around and then the running water of the shower. Waters had just finished taking the baked chicken and oven-roasted potatoes out of the oven when he heard the creaky stair he’d learned to avoid as a teen when he or Sarah were sneaking out. He turned around to see her two steps from the bottom, with damp hair and clean clothes. Cherry had packed the duffle filled with Kai’s go-to wardrobe—leggings and baggy shirts—including the oversized, long-sleeved Dodgers T-shirt she was currently wearing. He couldn’t help but grin. “Well, that should make you feel a little more comfortable.”

Kai gave a small smile. “Something smells good.”

“I’m no master chef, but it’s comfort food. Come, sit down.”

He watched her sit down at the table, clearly noticing he had put the two settings next to each other on a corner instead of across from one another. He put the baking dish on the table and went to the refrigerator for water while she helped herself. “It’s filtered water,” he said as he set down the pitcher.

“I’m not that much of a snob that I won’t drink tap water,” she joked.

“Ewww. But I am. Yuck.” That got a laugh out of her. “Sleep okay?”

She nodded. “Yes, I feel a little better. I don’t even remember lying down, actually. You were right about the crash.”

He nodded. “Some of the best sleep I ever had was in the Navy after missions went to hell.”

They ate in silence for a while. He could tell she was trying to figure out how to have the conversation she wanted to have with him, so he let her grind her gears to figure it out. He knew from their time together that she needed the processing time.

Weird how much alike we are that way.

Uncomfortably, she cleared her throat and put her fork down. It reminded him of the day in the diner when she first let on that she thought she wasn’t on his level.

Think it’s more the other way around. I don’t deserve her. Then again, I don’t have her again. Yet. Hopefully.

“So, who showed up?”

He wiped his mouth with his napkin and took a sip of his water. “Demon and Steel.” He caught the slight grimace. “Something wrong?”

“I’m just surprised Demon agreed to be here. He’s not the happiest with you.”