She stood up reluctantly. To Trevor, she suggested lightly, “Come over and be social with the team. Maybe do like Jojo suggested and let your hair down a little. He is right; you do seem tense.”

He opened his mouth, clearly intending to say no. Her heart dropped all the way to her feet in disappointment, and she mentally drop-kicked her stupid feelings as far away as she could punt them.

A little voice in the back of her head whispered that she was an idiot for harboring a secret crush on him. It was hopeless. He would never see her as anything other than one of the guys. At best, he might one day see her as a little sister. But nothing more.

Axel stepped around her and threw one of his massively muscled arms across Trevor’s shoulders, dragging him off his bar stool by brute force and rumbling, “Nobody likes a party pooper, man.”

Sympathy for Trevor stabbed her. It wasn’t like anybody ever successfully said no to Axe. He would just pick you up and make you do what he wanted you to. She followed the two men as Axel cheerfully marched Trevor toward the opposite side of the saloon and the big booth Leo Lipinski and Lily Van Dyke were already sitting in.

Leo was the only married guy on the team, although his wife was still living in California and showed no signs of moving across the country to join him any time soon, here in North Carolina.

Lily was the other woman on the team and a great kid. An ex-gymnast, Lily was the smallest, quickest, and most agile of the three women Cal had chosen to be the first female SEALs. She came across as a sweet little thing, but she had steel in her.

Axel shoved Trevor at one of the bench seats, and the Brit staggered forward before regaining his balance. Anna shook her head. Trevor was six-feet of pure muscle, and Axe tossed him around like a rag doll. That guy was an ox. But he was their ox.

Axel gestured at her to slide into the banquette seat after Trevor, and she gulped.

They were colleagues. Just friends. She could do this. Keep it casual. Professional. Do not notice Trevor’s muscular thigh only inches from hers or the way heat poured off of him to envelop her in the tight quarters of the booth.

Axel sat down, casually knocking her across the sticky vinyl and mashing her entire left side against the furnace that was Trevor. Hello, sailor.

“Sorry,” she muttered in his general direction.

“No help for it,” he replied dryly. “Axel’s a mastiff who thinks he’s a Chihuahua.”

Jojo barked at Axel in a high-pitched yap from across the table. Axel wadded a napkin and threw it at Jojo, who snagged the paper missile neatly out of mid-air and sent it back at the bigger man.