Page 46 of Code Name: Atticus

“Two weeks. Maybe three.”

“What happened?”

“She thought the Air Force Academy meant I was going to be a pilot. When she found out I preferred intelligence work to flying, she lost interest.”

“Her loss, but I’m glad for it.”

“God, how old was I? Twenty?”

“Twenty-one. It was the summer before you graduated and were commissioned.”

Our food arrived, and I cut into my omelet, thinking about that summer. “You were different that year. When you came for graduation, I mean.”

“Different how?” she asked.

“More confident. You didn’t argue with everything Luke and I said just to prove a point. You actually seemed to listen occasionally.”

She raised her chin. “I always listened. I just also always had opinions.”

“Strong ones.”

“About important things. Like whether the designated hitter rule ruined baseball.”

“It did ruin baseball,” I agreed.

“See? We had similar opinions.” She smiled, breaking off a piece of toast to dip into her eggs. “What else do you remember about that summer?”

“Your parents had that Fourth of July party. Must have been two hundred people there.”

She nodded. “Closer to three hundred, and it got bigger every year.”

“And you helped her plan the whole thing, right?” I asked.

“Someone had to make sure the vegetarians had options beyond coleslaw.”

I rested my forearm on the table. “I remember you spent half the party in the kitchen, making sure everything ran smoothly.”

“And you spent half the party hiding from Mrs. Armentrout, who wanted to set you up with her daughter.”

I chuckled. “Christ, I’d forgotten about that. She cornered me by the garage and wouldn’t stop talking about how accomplished Jennifer was.”

“She was accomplished. Harvard law, if I remember correctly.”

“And boring as watching paint dry. I talked to her for ten minutes at your parents’ Christmas party once. She spent the entire time explaining the tax implications of charitable giving.”

“Some people find tax law fascinating.”

“Do you?” I teased.

“God, no. But I pretend to when I need to.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes, watching a seal surface near the dock. It looked around like it was checking for tourists with cameras, then disappeared again.

“Tell me something I don’t know about you,” Brenna said.

“Like what?”

“Something from before. When you and Luke were at the academy, or after. Something that isn’t about my brother or your job or any of that.”