“I’m off,” Shiver said, standing and kissing each of her cheeks. “If you need anything…”
She nodded and saw Darrow was already near the door. “Thanks. Please say goodbye to your sister for me.”
“Well,” she began after Shiver had left. “I suppose it’s time for me to go too.”
“Where?”
“Manhattan, I guess,” she sighed.
“You don’t sound excited about the prospect.”
“You want the truth?”
Mantis nodded. “Always.”
“I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“You could come home with me.”
“To Darien?”
“Why not? How long has it been since you’ve seen my family? I know they’d love to see you.”
“Wouldn’t it be…uncomfortable?”
“You mean because you’re with Dutch now?”
She shrugged. “More that you and I aren’t together.”
“It’ll give us practice.”
Alegria laughed. “At what?”
“Being friends.”
Faced with going to a cold and empty apartment where she hadn’t spent more than a week in God knew how long, or going to visit Mantis’ family, whom she adored, her choice was easy to make.
“Sure, I’d love to go with you.”
Mantis’ smile made her toes curl. He was right about them needing practice being friends, given right now she wanted to fall into his arms and never leave.
—:—
Just because Alegria had agreed to go home with him didn’t mean anything between them had changed. He’d joked that it would give them practice being friends, but truthfully, he couldn’t stand the idea of saying goodbye to her so soon.
For the first time since he came back from Afghanistan, they’d had the kind of conversation they so often used to.
He understood her frustration as well as her concern. In the same position, Mantis doubted he’d be handling it as well as Alegria was, but that was the way it had always been.
There were plenty of times he’d teased her for being French, but he’d always meant it as a compliment. He wondered sometimes if he’d find the women he’d seen in France as captivating if he’d never met Alegria. It wasn’t that he was attracted to them in the same way he was to her—not even the slightest bit. Instead, he watched their mannerisms, their grace, the way they could turn a pout into the sexiest damn thing he’d ever seen, and then light up all those around them with their smile.
Alegria moved like a gazelle—thin, graceful, and quick. Her mind moved that way, as though it went from zero to sixty in a split second.
Unlike other French women he’d known, who picked at their food, his Flygirl had always had a hearty appetite, yet she stayed fit with a workout schedule that had often intimidated him and Dutch.
“Are you going to the gym today?” Dutch asked as they walked across the marble tiles of the Air Force Academy’s Terrazzo. Named for the checkerboard of marble strips that made up the area’s walkways, the large pavilion was surrounded by the main buildings in what was known as the cadet area.
As freshmen, or doolies, he and Dutch had had to run on those marble strips during passing periods, slinging their backups over one shoulder like all the fourth-class cadets were required to do. In the winter, the marble became slick, resulting in more than one cadet taking a tumble every day.