It wasn’t? What did it look like?
Thrown off-balance in more ways than one, I stumbled hard against Riggs’s broad chest with an “Oof.”
“Dr. Rogers is feeling weak and shaky. See? “ Riggs grabbed me by the shoulders to simultaneously haul me upright and push me away from him. “I was going to carry him in.”
Carry me in? I shot him a look. Dr. Rogers? I mean, I didn’t expect him to kiss me in front of his teammates, obviously, but were we not even supposed to be friends?
“Ohhhh,” Hux said, his face breaking into a relieved grin. “Shit, man, I thought for a minute this was you and the Grindr hookup all over again.”
Riggs stiffened and glared at Hux. “Huxley,” he said in a warning tone.
Grindr hookup? What Grindr hookup? I frowned at Riggs, but he didn’t look at me.
Hux didn’t seem to notice the laser beams pointed in his direction. He set his hands on his hips, and his eyes danced around the plane, taking in the fixtures. His expression soured when he looked at the control panel, like it had done him a personal injustice. “Just sayin’, hooking up with a dude while on your last mission was what got you into this mess! If you’d hooked up with yet another guy, Champ would castrate you,” he said cheerfully. “And then the entire population of cute-but-helpless twinks in eastern Tennessee would go into mourning and—”
“Huxley!” Riggs gritted out at the same moment I said, “Excuse me?”
Neither of them noticed that I was directing my comment to Riggs.
Hux straightened his posture and swallowed convulsively. “Ah, crap. Sorry again, Dr. Rogers. I’m not usually so unprofessional. They don’t let me out of my computer lab much.”
“It’s fine.” I summoned a small, insincere smile and moved my arms over my chest, hugging myself. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I mean, you’re clearly not the kind of guy Riggs would hook up with,” Hux went on, trying to make things better and instead making them infinitely worse. “You’re not a twink, for one thing. And he likes ’em pretty and a little stupid, anyway.” His eyes widened at his own words. “Uh. I mean. I mean, not that you’re not pretty. You’re gorgeous! Just that you’re, ah, clearly not stupid?” He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “God.”
“And now we see why you don’t get out of the lab much,” Riggs said in a hard voice.
I forced a chuckle, because what else could I do? I was realizing I had the capacity to be a whole lot stupider than Huxley gave me credit for.
Here I was, giant cartoon hearts pulsing in my eyes as I imagined a sparkly unicorn future where Riggs and I… what? Settled down in the Thicket? One blue-blooded cardiologist and one former military brat turned professional badass, with a white picket fence, and a spot in the Thicket Holiday Parade of Homes, and a standing Tuesday date at the Tavern?
There was zero chance Riggs would want that future. Heck, I wasn’t sure I did.
Thank God I hadn’t said anything about making this permanent. Thank sweet tiny baby Jesus that we’d been repeatedly interrupted before I could make myself any more of a fool than I already was.
Hux clapped his hands together once. “So. Shall we?” He made a sweeping gesture toward the door of the plane like a game show hostess. “I promise, Champ’s plane has way better accommodations than this, Dr. Rogers.” He leaned toward me and whispered confidingly, “There are couches. And snacks. Plenty of room for all of us, plus you and Mr. Nutter.”
“Mr. Nutter?”
“Er, yes?” Hux frowned. “Buck Nutter? The software developer you rescued.”
I closed my eyes as understanding crashed down. And I’d thought I felt foolish before? Good gravy. Now that the adrenaline was fading, the puzzle pieces were assembling themselves before my very eyes, and the picture they formed was more mortifying with every second that passed.
“The magic seed man,” I said, purposely not looking at Riggs. “Who was also being held prisoner by the cartel. The man whose leg I stitched up. He’s Buck Nutter, Amos’s great-nephew.”
All of which Riggs had known. None of which Riggs had shared with me, even when I asked him point-blank.
Because I was not his friend, let alone his lover. I was his principal.
His job.
Just another guy he’d hooked up with while on a mission. A way to pass the time while he was away from all the twinks in Licking Thicket.
“Uh.” Hux looked from me to Riggs and back, unsure what he was missing. “Yes?”
“Got it. Thanks for explaining that, Hux. Well, let’s climb aboard, then. I could use a snack.” I smiled mechanically. “And a couch.”
“You go first, Hux.” Riggs’s voice sounded more like a croak. “I’ll follow with C—Dr. Rogers.”
“M’kay.” He shrugged.
“Actually, no. Thank you anyway, Riggs, but I’m feeling much steadier, and I can’t stand to spend another minute in this plane.”