“Then stop. Holding onto the past is like swallowing poison. It eats you up inside. You have to let it go.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It’s not. I know that. You just make a choice every day—every moment if you have to—to move past it and stop letting it control you. You’re giving this thing too much of yourself, Angie. Is it worth the cost in hours of your life that you’re giving it? Or could you be doing something else with your time?”
She could feel her jaw drop a little. “I never thought of it that way.”
“You should. Think of your life like a bank account. Everything you give your time to requires you to make a withdrawal. When you have a choice, choose the things that make you happy and fulfill you, not the things that make you anxious or sad.”
“Wow. Okay, so do you have a psychology degree or something? Because that is some heavy shit right there.”
He laughed. “No psych degree. Just the school of life. A psychologist might be horrified by what I just said. I don’t know. But it works for me.”
The coffee pot dinged and Angie stood. “I’m going to start thinking of it like that too. I know it’s not a quick cure or anything, but I’m an accountant. Anything that uses bank withdrawals kind of trips my trigger.”
He laughed.
“Cream and sugar? Black?” she asked.
“Black. Can I help?”
“No, you just sit there. I’ll get it.”
She returned with the coffee. This time she sat on the couch. They weren’t touching, weren’t even close, but it felt like a victory anyway. He smiled, and her heart skipped a beat. She smiled back.
He gently tapped his coffee cup to hers. “To new beginnings.”
“New beginnings,” she echoed.
Colt’s phone dinged with a text the next morning at the range. He felt it go off but finished his shots before having a look.
Angie: I had fun last night. Thanks for dinner.
Colt: Me too. Thanks for coffee after.
Angie: I like what you said. It made a lot of sense. I’m working on filling the bank account, not depleting it.
Colt: I’m glad. You deserve to be happy.
Angie: I think so too. I’m determined to get there. Think you might want to get dinner again sometime?
Colt: Just tell me when.
Angie: Okay, I will. Gotta get back to work right now.
Colt: I’ll call you later.
Angie: Great!
Jace wandered over, pocketing his phone. He arched an eyebrow.
“So you went out with Angie.”
Colt knew better than to be surprised. Angie would have told Maddy. Maddy told Jace.
“Yep. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Me? I don’t care one way or the other. But Maddy does, and she’s thrilled. She thinks Angie’s been existing rather than living, and she wants to see her happy.”
Colt frowned. “That’s putting a lot on me, don’t you think? I like her—a lot—but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be the one to make her happy in the end.”
“I hear you, man. Maddy knows that deep down, but I think right now she just wants to believe it’s possible. I think, aside from all the stuff with Walls and Calypso, Angie hasn’t really taken any chances since she broke up with Dan. Maddy said she’s gone out with a couple of men, but nothing serious.”
“What do you know about this Dan guy?”
“Not much. They were together three years, but he turned out to be a serial cheater and Angie dumped him. That was around two years ago, right about the time she started working as an accountant. She’d worked her ass off to get her accounting degree and save money for their future together, but then it all fell apart. She hasn’t had a relationship since. Or that’s what Maddy tells me.”
“Can you blame her?”
“Nope.”
“How does Maddy know I’m not a serial cheater?” He wasn’t, but he wanted to know why she had such faith in him.
Jace shrugged. “She doesn’t. But she knows if you hurt her friend, I know how to dispose of the body when she murders you.”
Colt snorted. “Point taken. But Jace, we had dinner together. We went to her place for coffee—actual coffee, nothing more. I’m not ordering wedding invitations or booking venues, okay? It was dinner and coffee. We may have dinner again. I’m not promising anything, other than I won’t deliberately hurt her.”
“I know.” Jace smiled a wolfish smile. “Just be sure you stick to that promise. Disposing of bodies is messy business. Plus I’d have a lot of explaining to do when Ian never heard from you again.”
Colt shook his head as he put his weapons back into his range bag. “I thought domesticity would mellow you. Wrong.”
Jace’s eyes glittered for a second. “Domesticity doesn’t mellow guys like us, Colt. It only makes us fiercer and more protective of the ones we love.”
Angie finished up the account she was working on, then went to the break room to get coffee. Liam was there, pouring a cup for himself. He looked up when she walked in.
“You’re looking rather perky today. Did you have a hot date last night?”
Angie couldn’t help but smile. “Actually, I did.”
“Whoa, really? Tell Uncle Liam all about it.”
Angie grabbed the coffee pot with a laugh. “There’s not much to tell. It’s someone I know and I finally asked him out.” There was a lot more to it than that, but she didn’t want to go into details about her push-pull with Colt over the past few months.
“Anybody I know?”
“You don’t know him. He works with my best friend’s fiancé.”
“An FBI guy.”
“Yes.” Neither Jace nor Colt were FBI, but it was a convenient way to describe what they did. She’d taken to calling Jace an FBI guy in conversation because it was easier than the truth. Which she still didn’t really know, but based on her experience he was more of a spy than a cop. A spy for hire, she thought, which made him a mercenary.
“How’s it going with
