Into the Fire Read Free

one-piece. Somehow Izzy kept himself in his seat, fighting the urge to fall to his knees and weep with joy.
    “Excuse me,” she said, in a voice that was surprisingly husky and deep, yet still inspiringly musical.
    “We card here,” Kevin the bartender told her, his flat rudeness making Izzy bristle.
    “No,” she said. “I mean, I know. I’m not…I don’t…” She was flustered, but she took a deep breath and started again. “I’m looking for…for…a friend of mine? He’s a SEAL, with Team Sixteen…?”
    A
friend…
    But then ol’ Kev gave her a knowing look, clearly thinking the same thing Izzy was—that she was some ditched ex, looking for one last face-to-face with a guy who’d already left her in the dust—crazy-assed mofo that he had to have been to dump
her.
“You’ll have to wait for your
friend
outside. I don’t want any trouble in here.”
    She squared her shoulders, clearly preparing for battle, but Kevin dismissed her by turning away, and then, alleluia, Izzy found his voice. “What’s his name?” he asked. “Your friend.”
    She eyed him warily, and he gave her what he hoped was an “I don’t bite—too hard” smile.
    “I’m Izzy. I’m with Team Sixteen, too. So I probably know him. Your friend.”
    “Danny,” she said as hope dawned in her eyes, as she looked Izzy over more closely, no doubt realizing that he wasn’t just some fashion-challenged homeless man, taking a break from dumpster-diving. “Gillman?”
    “Gilligan?” Izzy said in surprise.
    And all of the trepidation in her eyes was completely replaced by shining relief. Having her look at him like that almost knocked him over. “You know him?” she asked, way too excited considering this was Gilligan they were talking about.
    Did Izzy know Dan Gillman? “Yeah,” Iz said. “Me and the fishboy, we’re…tight.” If tight meant locked in mortal combat at every possible opportunity.
    And okay, that was an exaggeration. He and Gillman got along just fine out in the real world, while on military ops. Gillman respected Izzy—but he didn’t like him, and he didn’t particularly want to hang with him during playtime. Out of nearly everyone in Team Sixteen, there was no one who appreciated Izzy
less
during R&R than Dan “Gilligan” Gillman. And that wasn’t an exaggeration.
    It was also a giant pain in the ass, since Izzy
was
tight with Jenk and Lopez, who were also Gillman’s two best friends in the team. More often than not, the four of them hung together. And despite Lopez and Jenk’s best efforts, Iz and Gillman had not yet learned how to get along. In fact, over the past year or so, their relationship, as it were, had gotten even more adversarial.
    The girl moved closer—a dream come true—slipping onto the stool next to him. “Do you know where Danny is? I kind of need to get in touch with him, like, right away…?”
    Up close, she was even more beautiful. She was also younger than Izzy’d first thought. The bartender had been right to try to card her—she wasn’t twenty-one. Probably more like twenty. She was wearing quite a bit of makeup, no doubt in an attempt to look older, which pretty much worked. But one thing that she couldn’t hide with eyeshadow and lipstick was the fact that she was both worried and enormously upset. And even a little scared.
    Ah, Gillman, Gillman, Gillman, you sly dog. For months, the fishboy had been pretending he was pining away over Sophia Ghaffari, an exotically beautiful, yet somewhat mature woman—light-years out of Gillman’s league—who worked at Tommy Paoletti’s personal security company, Troubleshooters Incorporated. Sure, Danny and Sophia had gone out to dinner a time or two, but nothing had ever come of it. At least not the orgasmatronic fireworks Gillman had been hoping for.
    All this time, for months now, Gillman had relentlessly been
Sophia this
-ing and
Sophia that
-ing until even Jay Lopez’s eyes had rolled back in his saintly head. And yet,