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“You’re that bad, huh?” She was smiling, too.
“About ten times worse than you’re imagining.”
“I guess that explains the expression that crosses your face whenever I’ve called you Lurch.”
No, it didn’t, but he wasn’t ready to discuss that it had everything to do with her being special to him and the handle being used by everyone.
“And you don’t like hon, honey, and honey bear,” Nyx continued. “What do you think of love bug?”
There was amusement dancing in her eyes despite her serious demeanor and Case enjoyed her teasing him. “That’s another no from me,” he said.
“I’ll have to keep trying.”
The exchange got him thinking. He called her Fireball and never asked what she thought of it. What if she hated it, but was just ignoring it instead of telling him? “Since we’re discussing nicknames, are you okay with Fireball?”
Her lips curved. “I like Fireball. It’s much, much better than the other nickname I have.”
Other nickname? He suddenly felt territorial. “What other nickname?”
“The one my brother uses. Damn, I hate it. If I tell him that, though, he’ll double down and never use anything else.”
Her brother. Case could breathe again. “What does your brother call you?” She hesitated. “I promise, I will never use it. I’ll always call you Fireball.”
Nyx grimaced. “My brother calls me Pickle.”
“Pickle?” He felt like a cement truck had just hit him. Pickle wasn’t exactly a common nickname, but?—
“Pickle. When I was little, I couldn’t say Dylan, and I called him Dill. He started calling me Pickle in response.” She grinned. “As he likes to tell me, payback is a bitch.”
“Dylan? His handle wouldn’t be D-Ro, would it?”
She nodded, sobering. It was enough to make realization dawn.
“How long have you known?” he asked, and it was a struggle to keep the anger out of his voice. To her credit, she didn’t pretend to misunderstand the question.
“I recognized you in the suite at Vargas’s hacienda when you told me your nickname. Dylan showed me a picture once. He and three friends in front of some sort of light armored vehicle—Ollie, Mick, and his best buddy, Lurch.”
He knew which picture that was. The four of them had been assigned to the same Special Forces unit until Case had moved over to covert ops. Ollie, Mick, and D-Ro were still on that team. She’d known who he was. She fucking knew he was in Special Forces.
And she hadn’t said a damned word.
That was when her attitude had changed, he realized. In the bathroom in Vargas’s suite. Before that, she’d trusted him to a point, but not completely. After that conversation, she’d followed his orders, run things by him, and looked to him to lead.
Because she fucking knew who he was.
Pickle. He’d heard a million anecdotes about her. He hadn’t believed half of what D-Ro said, but now that he knew Nyx, he realized his buddy hadn’t been exaggerating. She was a handful.
How many stories had she heard about him?
He was an idiot, thinking they had a connection. Believing that she trusted him because of who he was. It had nothing to do with him. She trusted him because he was her brother’s friend. Because he was Special Forces.
He was an even bigger fool for believing Nyx was different. That she wouldn’t lie to him, not even by omission. He never learned.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me who you were?”
The apology on her face turned to anger. “Maybe because we were being held hostage, and you told me you couldn’t be sure you got all the microphones.” She stood and faced off with him. “What the fuck was I supposed to do? If you missed a bug and I say something, then your cover is destroyed, you’re in danger, your team is in danger, and the op is blown to hell. So you tell me, should I have gushed, oh, thank God, you’re Dylan’s bestie, save me Special Forces Sergeant Lurch?”
“You could have said, hey, I’m Pickle. Did you think of that?”