Lethal Attachments

Chapter 6-1

Chapter 6

Doyle

When he saw Kord’s plate loaded with bacon, sunny-side up eggs, a short stack of pancakes, and home fries, Doyle had to admit he was hungry. The sweet aroma of the food made his stomach growl. He called over the dark-haired waiter who’d taken Kord’s order and asked for a menu. The kid smiled at them, his teeth white enough to light up the place, then he snatched a menu from another table and gave it to Doyle.

“More coffee?” He batted his eyes at them when he asked and Doyle smiled back.

“Sure,” Kord said. “Keep it comin’.” Kord winked at the young waiter, who blushed as he turned to go.

“Don’t stare so hard. Your eyes may fall out of your head,” Doyle joked when he caught Kord ogling the waiter’s near-perfect ass as he walked away. The kid was wearing pants so tight, he might as well have been naked.

Kord laughed.

“You seem more relaxed,” Doyle said, delicately sounding out the man to see if he would go into more detail about what’d shaken him earlier that morning.

“Food’ll do that. I was hungry, dude. And this is perfect.” He gestured to the bacon. “Don’t just sit there slurping coffee. Have something. Oatmeal is for wusses. Forget your namby-pamby breakfast for a change and let loose.”

Doyle smiled and glanced at the menu. “I’m just glad you’re not as tense as when you met Brandon.”

Kord picked at his home fries but didn’t look at Doyle. “Sometimes I wish I’d never been chosen for undercover work. But back then, I never thought, I mean, I never expected I’d meet someone like you. I always thought I’d only have to worry about me. That if anyone came after me for my undercover work, I’d handle it. But if they hurt you…”

“If someone from your past finds you, then we’ll handle it. We will handle it. Together.”

Kord slowly raised his head and their eyes met. Doyle had never seen the big lug afraid of anything, yet what he thought he saw in Kord’s eyes was fear.

Doyle stretched out a hand and covered Kord’s hand. “We can handle this as long as we’re honest with each other, right?”

“I don’t want anything to—”

Just then the waiter returned, coffeepot in hand. He refilled both cups, set the pot down, then addressed Doyle.

“Ready? Have you decided?”

Doyle looked up at the swarthy Latin face, the young man’s deep brown eyes staring at him expectantly.

“I’ll have a toasted blueberry muffin with some jam and butter on the side.” Doyle smiled up at the kid, who smiled in return.

“Be right up.”

“You were about to say…” Doyle looked at Kord.

Kord put down his fork, swiped his mouth with his napkin, and looked into Doyle’s eyes. “I know we can handle things—if they ever find me…But if anything happens to you because of that, I could never forgive myself.”

“I know.” Doyle’s voice was soft. “But you said that Brandon isn’t someone from an old undercover case, right.”

“No.” Kord let out a breath. “No, he isn’t. But when I first saw him…” Kord paused. “I thought he was someone from a case more than ten years ago. A particularly bad case. People died. Some people went into witness protection. It was a mess.”

“And Brandon looks like someone from that case?”

“When I first saw him, I thought so. It took a minute but I realized that he wasn’t who I thought he was. And, of course he’d look more than ten years older by now. Brandon’s too young.”

“That’s what threw you off?”

“It brought up a lot of feelings about my undercover days. I should never have gotten into that.” Kord placed his big hands over Doyle’s hands and squeezed lightly.

“No one’s gonna find you and if they do, we’ll take care of it.”

“And we will. But it’s an old fear and sometimes it gets the best of me. Today was one of those days.”

“Your muffin,” said the waiter as he placed the dish carefully in front of Doyle. He stood expectantly at the table for a moment then turned to go. “I’ll be back with more coffee.”

“I think he likes visiting this table,” Kord said. “Either that or he can’t manage to carry a coffeepot and a muffin at the same time.”