She heard Dominic yell at her over his shoulder, “Not bad, is it, Blondie?” She laughed in reply, feeling her body relax further. She felt like Kate Winslet in Titanic when she stood on the bow of the ship with her arms in the air. She laughed again and figured that Dominic must think she was losing her mind. She didn’t care, though; she wanted to revel in the moment. All too soon, the bike slowed and pulled into a parking space next to the boardwalk. Dominic set the bike back on the stand and cut the engine. She held on to his shoulder as he helped her climb from the bike before getting off himself. “I thought we’d grab a sandwich and eat outside since it’s such a nice evening.” Normally, she would have listed all the reasons that she would rather eat indoors in the cool air-conditioning, but what the hell? She was turning over a new leaf, and after riding a motorcycle, surely eating a hot dog outside would be tame in comparison.

“Sounds good,” she agreed, and followed him to the small café on the corner. They walked in the door and she fought the urge to suggest an indoor table. Dominic was more comfortable outside and she was just along for the ride, literally. As her eyes scrolled over the menu on the wall behind the counter, she suddenly clapped her hands in excitement before grabbing Dominic’s arm. “Funnel cake! Oh, please, can I have that instead of real food?” Dominic started chuckling and Ava’s cheeks colored when she realized that the few people in the café were smiling at her childlike enthusiasm for the sugary treat.

“Blondie, you get whatever you want. You’re a bike-riding badass now. Break a few more rules and have dessert first.” Dominic ordered two foot-long hot dogs for himself and the funnel cake for her. He also ordered them both Coke, which made her cringe slightly. She usually stuck to diet drinks, but that seemed silly when she was eating a fried treat with no doubt thousands of calories in it. She wondered idly how many calories riding a motorcycle burned off. Surely anxiety raises your heart rate.

Dominic balanced their food on a tray while she ran ahead and opened the door for them. Soon, they were settled at a table on the boardwalk. She had to admit that the sound of the waves breaking against the shore beside them was better than listening to the chatter indoors. Maybe Dominic was onto something. After taking her first bite of the fluffy, fried cake loaded with powdered sugar, she wiped her lips and looked at the man across the table from her. It seemed strange to be sharing a meal with him, since they had never really done it before. She had eaten with him, Mac, and Gage, but that was hardly the one-on-one they were having now. “So, you like Gwen, huh?” she blurted out before thinking better of it.

He lifted an eyebrow, looking surprised at the personal question for a moment before shrugging. She thought he was going to let the subject drop, but after a long sip of his drink, he finally answered, “Gwen and I are neighbors. I saw her first, I guess you could say. I didn’t even know she worked for Danvers until Mac started dating her.”

She gave him a sympathetic look, recognizing a kindred soul. “So you waited around too long and someone else moved in on your girl? Yeah, I can relate to that. I mean . . . not the moving-in-on-the-girl part, since obviously no one moved in on my girl . . . um, not that I have a girl, but . . .”

Dominic laughed, holding his hand up to stop her fumbling explanation. “I get it, Blondie. Yeah, we do have some things in common, although you kind of dropped the ball in a much bigger way than I did. Hell, I had just seen Gwen around our apartment complex and thought about asking her out. Honey, Mac has worshipped the ground you walk on for years. He was so messed up over you when we were in Afghanistan, I’m surprised he didn’t get his ass blown off.” In a gentler voice, he continued. “I get that you had some bad shit that happened to you and you’ve been hurting over it, but time waits for no man or woman, Blondie, and it looks like you’re starting to see that. Hell, I am as well.”

He saw her look of surprise when he mentioned her past, and he covered her hand briefly with his. “Declan, Mac, Gage, and I are brothers in every way that counts. There are few secrets between us. We lived in too-close quarters for many years for that. Secrets get you killed over there. I don’t know all the details, but I know someone hurt you, and I’m sorry as hell about that. I really am. I know that the kind of emotional baggage that normal people never experience even in their worst dreams does something to you. It changes everything you are. Believe me, I know that. We all do. It makes me hesitate to do something seemingly easy and normal like ask a woman out who I’m really attracted to. It makes you afraid to show the man who loves you that you feel the same way and it makes Mac afraid of ending up alone. We all have the pieces we need to make something good happen in our lives. We’re just fucking up with putting the puzzle together correctly.”

Ava sat staring at Dominic, shocked by the almost poetic way that he spoke. He seemed to give new meaning to the saying ”still waters run deep.” She found herself responding to his speech by wanting to do one of two things: cry her eyes out until she was a blubbering mess or blurt out some deep, dark secret just to see what his take on it was. “All your reports were wrong; I haven’t dated anyone or been with a man since that night.”

She studied Dominic’s almost comical reaction as the hot dog he was holding froze on the way to his mouth. “Come again.” He blinked as if he had misunderstood her statement. Shit, maybe this confession isn’t such a good idea.

“I picked men up in bars periodically and paid them to come home with me for a while. I knew that Mac kept a tail on me to . . . watch over me, and I didn’t want him to know that I’m not normal.”

Dominic set his hot dog back down without taking a bite and leaned forward on the table, looking stunned. “What did these men do who came home with you, then? Some of them were there all night.”

Ava looked down, rubbing her finger in circles on the tabletop. God, this had gotten embarrassing. Admitting how messed up she was to a macho man like Dominic was almost impossible, but there was no way he would let it go now. He looked determined to get some answers. “Well . . . I told them all I was trying to make my boyfriend jealous and offered them a couple hundred bucks to come home with me for a while. We, um . . . played video games, Monopoly, or sometimes they fell asleep and I just let them stay on the couch until morning. I also locked my bedroom door, though,” she rushed to assure him.