Page 95 of Finding His Redemption

Ghost paused with his fingers hovering over the keyboard, his pale eyes cutting sideways to meet X’s stare. “It’s not hard if you know what you’re looking for.”

“Jesus,” X muttered, and looked over at River. “If I bite it, delete my browser history, and I’ll return the favor. Deal?”

Ghost’s mouth quirked with something that might have been amusement. “Nothing’s ever deleted.”

X shuddered. “Remind me never to piss you off.”

“Too late for that,” Ghost said, already turning back to his screen. “You pissed me off Tuesday when you used all the hot water. Again.”

River snickered, and X raised his hands in surrender.

“I have a very thorough hygiene regimen. This,” he gestured to his face, “doesn’t happen by accident.”

“Then you ate the last piece of my good bacon,” Ghost muttered and tapped a few keys.

“It was communal bacon,” X protested.

Their phones all dinged at that moment, and Jax saw the message from Ghost. It was a screenshot of X’s search history, with every instance of “how to style hair like Jason Momoa” highlighted in red. There were other searches that had obviously been photoshopped in, like “how to be less annoying to roommates” and “why am I the ugliest one in the house?”

River guffawed.

Anson just shook his head and replaced his phone in his pocket without a word, but there was a slight curve to his lips.

Bear and Boone hadn’t even bothered to look.

Jonah shrugged. “Hey, gotta give it to you, X, Momoa does have great hair. But you could never pull it off.”

“Fuck off, Ken Doll,” X muttered and lunged for Ghost’s laptop, but Ghost merely shifted it out of reach, his expression unchanged.

“About that bacon?”

“Fine, fine,” X grumbled. “I’ll buy you a whole case of the shit tomorrow.”

“The good stuff. Thick cut, mesquite smoked.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

The tension Jax had been carrying for days, months—hell, years—drained out of his shoulders at the banter. His SEAL teammates used to do the same thing, making the unbearable bearable by turning it into something you could laugh about later.

Boone cleared his throat. “If you two are done with your domestic dispute, can we get back to the dead girl?”

The sky outside the windows went from orange to purple to pitch black as they went over all the details they knew about the murder. Ghost easily hacked into Bailee’s social media and tasked X and River with combing through it for anything of interest. Boone questioned Jax about the crime scene photos the sheriff had shown him, and he told them everything he could remember while Anson took notes. At one point, Jonah heated a tray of cornbread and passed it around. Nobody bothered with plates.

When Ghost finally spoke again, it was to announce he’d pulled Bailee’s text history. “She was talking to someone in town. A burner number, and she only had the heart emoji for his name,but when I ran the number, it pinged off a tower near the Rusty Spur.”

“Then that’s where we start,” Boone said.

Jonah nodded. “And I’ll stop in at the Griddle tomorrow morning. She worked there for years before Foster hired her. Someone there has gotta know something about her.”

“Careful of the sheriff,” Boone warned. “That’s his breakfast spot.”

Jonah tipped his chin toward Bear. “Bear’ll come along and watch my back, won’t you, big guy?”

Bear grumbled, but nodded.

X finished off his cornbread, dusted his hands, and sent Jax a grin. “Told you we got your back, ese.”

Jax looked around the room, and for the first time since leaving the SEALs, he felt like he might actually belong somewhere.