PJ gave him a raised brow when he joined them. Carmella ignored him totally as she tallied something up on her calculator, writing down numbers on an invoice and totaling it all out before handing it to PJ.

“That’s the current total for everything I’ve got so far this month. Look at it and make sure I haven’t missed anything and I’ll turn it around for you to have by this Friday,” Carmella told her.

“Appreciate it. You busy tonight?” PJ asked her.

“She has a dumpling date with her boyfriend,” Duke said.

PJ just gave him a look.

“I’ll call you later,” Carmella told her.

PJ left and Duke shut the door after her.

“Let’s just deal with this now,” Duke told Carmella. “Don’t say this is work. I don’t want this hanging over us all day.”

“Go on.”

“Did you see a friend today?”

She looked confused and then, then she looked really pissed off. “Really? This is what you think we need to deal with? I had lunch with my friend of seven years, Tracy.”

“Was Tracy there with Porkchop? Because I hear that’s who you were sitting with there.”

“Tracy wasn’t there with Porkchop. He is Porkchop. Do you think his mother named him that? His given name is Tracy. I’ve known him my entire adult life because he worked at Salazar when I did. He told me today that he and his girlfriend of four years are expecting a baby. They’re getting married after that. I told him about you. We had a lovely visit and I came back here with the lunch I said I’d bring you.”

Duke blew out a breath.

“Everywhere we go, I have to deal with women you know. Women, like Lori there, you banged awhile. Your flirting is like background noise. Even when I hate it, I accept it because that’s part of who you are. But I come back here to find a woman in your office with her hands on you, eating food when I’d just brought it back. Because I told you I would. And then you come in here and actually have the nerve to Sherlock Holmes me into confessing my secret affair in broad daylight in a teriyaki restaurant? That’s your take on what’s going on here? I’m the problem?”

He remembered what Asa had said while they were at Bumbershoot about keeping some space around himself when it came to other women. She’d been pissed that day and he’d known there was something up but then it had been the fight with her ex and all that mess and he’d allowed himself to blow that off.

And now he was paying the price because holy shit was he wrong and about to have to grovel like he never groveled before.

He hated being wrong. Hated being that guy who needed advice instead of seeing the issues himself.

“I pride myself on being good about people. Knowing how to read them. And I totally fail with you.”

She blinked, surprised.

“Isn’t it like part of the superhero lore? A blind spot?” she said at last.

A laugh bubbled up from his gut. “You keep surprising me. Over and over.”

“It’s why you keep coming back.”

“I’m an asshole.”

She shrugged. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

“I’m sorry I came at you that way with the Porkchop thing.”

“She’s the one who saw me with him, huh? You aren’t new at women, Duke. But wow, that was a newbie move, letting yourself get played by blondie.”

“Why did I think you’d be mad at me?” He chuckled.

“Oh, I am mad at you, Duke. And you are an asshole. I’m not cool with that touchy-feely stuff. And if I say I’m bringing you back food, eating some other woman’s food is going to piss me off.”

Duke was as surprised by her anger as she appeared to be. “You know how you said the other day that you didn’t know how to do this? Neither do I. I was trying to get her out of here before you got back. I was hungry. It seemed best to just combine the two and let her tell me why she’d come over. Which was to see if we had a job for her kid brother. Then you came in.”

“And you were eating traitor teriyaki.”

He fought back a smile with all his might. He knew without a doubt that she would not find it charming.

“To get her gone.”

“Yeah, you said that. Which means you were hiding it from me? Or you didn’t want me to see or know. Why?”

He paused. He hadn’t hidden it because he had any plans at all to do anything with Lori. Or anyone other than Carmella. But he had a girlfriend now so he’d known having a woman’s hand on your leg wasn’t okay.

“I would have taken her hand off. But you came in before I could. Nothing other than talking happened.”

“Not the point. I don’t think it did, by the way. If I did, we’d be done. Remember that trust thing? Cheating would be the end for me. I think I can deal with normal relationship fights. That’s what this is unless you want to fuck it up and say something stupid.”

“Can I smile yet? I mean, you’re really fucking cute right now and I just want to snuggle up all over you while begging your forgiveness.”

“No snuggling at work!”

“Maybe I thought I could handle it. Like let her talk to me and flirt a little and then she’d go and everything would be cool. Maybe I was pissy that I had to think about it at all.”

“Or maybe you like it when people need you. Which I can accept. And you can be proud of.”

“I don’t need people to need me.”