“Good, good,” Aldo said, playing it cool. The first person to find out he was in love with Gloria Parker was not going to be Luke. “Diller’s in prison for a long-ass time. Gloria and I are…seeing each other.” He was a gentleman after all. Plus it would be plain mean to tell Luke about his explosive sex life while his friend had nothing but miles of desert and his hand.

“So, how’s everything else going?” Luke asked. It was bro code for “how’s life with only one leg?”

“Oh, you know. Living the dream. Sleeping in a real bed, taking hot showers, sleeping late on Sundays.” He could stick it to Luke just a little.

Luke sighed. “I can’t wait to come home.”

“You better make it quick. I saw Linc chatting up Harper at the bar the other night.”

“What?” Luke’s general dislike of Lincoln Reed was still alive and well.

Aldo chuckled. “Relax. I’m just messing with you.”

“You’re such an ass. Why are we friends again?”

“Because no one else will put up with your surly ass.”

“Right. I forgot.”

Aldo ignored the steady stream of emails pouring into his inbox as clients around the tri-county region started panicking at the start of their business day. “Given any more thought to retirement?” he asked. Aldo knew the idea would be more tempting at this stage of deployment: close enough to home to taste his mama’s apple pie and his girlfriend’s sweet mouth.

“Yeah,” Luke nodded. “I’m thinking about it a lot. We’ll see how things go when I get home. Talk it over with Harper.”

Luke Garrison wanted to talk his future plans over with a woman. It was about fucking time. Maybe Luke didn’t realize it, but Aldo could see the truth written plainly on his friend’s face. Luke was in love with Harper. And that also was about fucking time.

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