BAB 17

Pino shifted. Not much. Maybe an inch, but Zaki did the same and suddenly his face was right there and.

"I better get bedding on the bed. It's not good to lay on it bare." Zaki hopped up off the bed like he'd been burned. "And it's late. You probably need sleep."

Not here was the heavily implied message there. Pino heaved himself off the bed. So much for that. And hell, if they kept having these weird bonding moments followed by Zaki freak-outs, Pino was in for a long-ass year.

Three long days of training, capped off with a four-hour monster-mash test of endurance and skills, and Zaki was so fucking grateful to be home that he sat a minute in his truck in the driveway, letting the stress roll off him, relieved that Pino little beater car was nowhere to be seen. Zaki totally wasn't fit for human consumption right then.

He'd been paired with Cobb and Harper along with Rodriguez for the monster mash, competing against the other guys on the team. Thank God Cobb hadn't been in one of his moods, but still Zaki hadn't wanted to test him. He'd beaten feet to get the hell out of there the second they were dismissed.

He'd spent the whole competition just waiting for Harper to say something to Cobb about his new roommate and all hell to break loose. But Harper had been strangely subdued and uber-deferential to the senior chief, leading Zaki to wonder if maybe the senior chief had said something to him. God, what a clusterfuck. All he needed was the senior chief thinking he needed protecting. He was just as tough as anyone else on the team. And they'd come in a very respectable second in the competition, working together to run through the obstacle course carrying a two-hundred-pound dummy before assembling a radio. That part Zaki was good at, and damn proud of it.

Proud but tired as fuck. He hauled himself out of the truck, unlocked the front door and bent to unlace his boots and kick off his socks. He hadn't slept much the past three days of training, and while the other guys were getting their Friday beers and anticipating getting their weekend swerve on, all Zaki was anticipating was a chance to go to bed early. Early as in before Pino got back. Tomorrow they'd already arranged via text to do some major work in the kitchen, and if Zaki was going to be up for a whole day of close proximity to Pino, he needed some rest.

But first, food. He straightened, intending to head to the kitchen, but did a double take at the state of the living room. Gone was the mangy shag carpeting, revealing nicely swept hardwoods in need of refinishing. All the tack strips around the perimeter of the room had been removed as well. In the center of the room, the large, faded and stained blue couch from the senior chief had been covered with a black slipcover and looked almost respectable opposite the newly assembled IKEA entertainment center with Pino TV and all his gaming equipment. Pino had put a small throw rug between the couch and the TV, a brightly colored nubbly number that Zaki would have expected in a bathroom, but which added a certain whimsy to the otherwise bare room.

It reminded Zaki of the mail-order purchases his grandmother had been fond of, cluttering her house with colorful doodads and stacks of mail.

Mail. Hell, he'd forgotten to grab that on his way in. No way was he putting his boots back on just to step out onto the little porch. He opened the front door, musing about how he bet Pino would have liked Grandma and.

Swish. Fuck it all to hell, the bigger of the two cats snuck between his legs, barreling toward freedom.

"Gizmo!" Zaki yelled, like the cat was going to slow down at the sound of his name. Sure enough, he just kept right on going, off the porch and into the front yard. Hell. No time to grab his boots now. He couldn't let the cat out into a strange neighborhood. Pino would kill him if anything happened to the cat. He darted after him, prickly dried grass and plants stabbing at the soles of his bare feet. Gizmo paused to dig in front of a cactus and Zaki almost had him.

"Motherfucker." A particularly sharp rock dug into his foot right at the same time the cat bolted. Zaki had no choice but to follow suit, chasing him into the neighbor's yard. He hadn't met the neighbors yet but didn't have time to worry about that as the cat was sprinting through their yard, past some plastic kid toys and a basketball hoop, around the back and through an unlocked gate, totally trespassing.

Gizmo skirted the edge of a small pool. Fuck. The last thing Zaki needed was Pino cat to drown on his watch.

"What the hell?" An angry man with a potbelly stormed onto the patio.

"I'm your neighbor. Trying to get my cat back." Zaki spoke quickly, grateful that his physical conditioning meant he wasn't out of breath after the chase. Hoping the guy wasn't about to get violent or call the cops, he gestured at the cat, who was hunkering under a bush.

"Well, hurry up and get it then." The guy glared at him. Not the best possible first meeting. Zaki rushed over to the cat for Pete sake, he'd done a two-mile swim and six-mile run earlier, he should be able to capture one pesky feline. But no, the cat slid right through his grasp. He was a big cat too some kind of Maine Coon Pino had said and had to weigh close to twenty-five pounds, but hell if he wasn't a slippery bastard.

"No more sleeping in my bed," Zaki yelled, before he remembered that he had an audience.

The guy rolled his eyes. "Shut the damn gate after you," he said as Gizmo scampered over the fence, back into Zaki backyard.