“Oh really?” Huxley asks. “What branch of service?”

Ryot’s pinky brushes up toward my underwear line, and I clamp my teeth over my lip, suppressing a moan.

“Air Force,” he answers for me. “She’s been all around the country. Illinois, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio, and Arizona, which is where we met.”

Can’t believe he remembered all those states. I can barely keep up with where I’ve been.

“Ah, so you have experience moving,” JP asks. “So this move must have been easy?”

Ryot’s pinky is now stroking along the seam of my thong, not even bothering to be covert. My body is turning into a raging inferno, billowing heat in the pit of my stomach and then shooting through my veins. What the fuck is he doing? I thought he’d stop this after the last time.

“It was actually the hardest,” I answer before Ryot can. And when I feel his gaze, I decide to light him up the way he’s lighting me up, but for him . . . it will be different. “I was happy in Chicago, settled. You should have seen our house. Gorgeous. Once a mid-century modern near Lake Michigan, I spent time renovating it to keep the architecture of the era but add a modern twist. We had these expansive windows in the living room that allowed a brilliant amount of light in, even on Chicago’s gloomiest days. Mature oak trees surrounded our parcel, almost making it feel like we were living in a forest in the middle of the city. But you know, duty calls, right? Ryot was presented with an opportunity he couldn’t possibly refuse and took advantage of it, and here we are.” I gesture toward the coastal-style house that we’re now living in. It’s beautiful, but it barely has any personality, and that just adds to the depression of our move.

JP exchanges glances with Huxley and then says, “Yeah, but hopefully, this is the last move for you.”

“Chicago should have been the last one,” I say just as Ryot squeezes my thigh, clearly not happy with my answers, but oh well. You got us in this mess, so you deal with it. I smile at the men, take a bite of my pizza, and chew.

I’m sure I’ll hear about this later.

We spend the rest of the dinner eating our pizza, chatting about California and The Jock Report—of course, because that’s all I ever hear about. The freaking Jock Report, the numbers on it, how it’s the number-one trending app in the world, how it’s already changed the world of sports . . . blah, blah, blah.

During the praise for my husband and his magnificent idea carried out by the genius expertise of his brother, Ryot scoots his chair closer to mine, drapes his arm over the back, and every so often, he twirls my hair around his finger like he used to do to steady my nerves. Probably trying to keep me simmering so I don’t make another offhand comment about moving.