Page 69 of Love at First Rep

This last week with Rafe had been one of the best of his life. It thrilled him to have Rafe around again. He felt happy for the first time in years, and he’d do anything to keep him, even though everything in his brain told him he was missing something. Something important.

Garrett was a nervous wreck by the time Josh opened the door. The wide smile on Josh’s face dropped.

“Dude, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

Garrett released a stuttered breath. “I’m honestly not sure. I’m hoping Riley can help me figure it out.”

“Come here,” Josh said before he yanked Garrett forward, wrapping his arms around him in a big bear hug and muttering into his shoulder. “We’re here for you, okay? No matter what, we’re here for you.”

The hug did wonders to settle Garrett’s racing heart. He spotted a concerned Riley over Josh’s shoulder.

“Everything go okay?” Riley asked.

“Yeah, I have the drive.” Garrett muttered as Josh released him.

“Come on, I’ll help you figure out what’s on it.”

Garrett followed Riley as he led the way to his and Josh’s office, Josh following closely behind.

After pulling the portable hard drive out of his pocket and handing it to Riley, Garrett grabbed a seat in Josh’s desk chair. Josh stood nearby, a hand on Riley’s shoulder as Riley got to work plugging in the drive and bringing it up on his desktop.

“Do you really think this might connect to whoever killed my parents?” Josh asked.

Garrett gave him a sympathetic smile. Riley must have filled Josh in on some of the details of the case.

“I don’t know yet, but hopefully we can find out.”

“Fingers crossed. Ya know, Rafe might be hiding something, but the one thing I’m sure about is that he cares about you.” Josh had a knack for reading people’s emotions. “No matter what else is going on with him, it has nothing to do with his feelings for you. He looks at you like he’d take a bullet for you. And in your line of work, I’m guessing that’s not an exaggeration.”

Garrett exhaled a shaky breath, his gaze dropping to his hands. “I hope you’re right.”

“He always is. It’s creepy,” Riley said, and Garrett brought his gaze back to the desktop to watch Riley scan through the files pulled from McHugh’s computer. “It’s all boring bureaucratic shit, but the titles could be fake or he could have something buried in—”

Riley’s pause had Garrett’s spine stiffening.

“What is it?”

“There’s an encrypted file in here. It’s labeled BFS.” He turned to Garrett. “Do you want me to decrypt it?”

“Do it,” Garrett said with a nod.

Riley turned back to his computer and opened the file, or, at least, he tried to.

A bunch of windows and streaming code appeared on multiple monitors, and Riley typed furiously. Garrett couldn’t have understood it if he tried.

“Shit,” Riley gasped after a few minutes of working. He continued typing and clicking as he talked. “This is more than just military-grade encryption. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

All of Riley’s screens suddenly went black and a bright green cursor blinked on his monitors. Letters slowly appeared, as if someone was typing a message in real time.

Bad Riley. You’re out of your league here. Back out now before you or Josh get hurt.

“What the fuck?” Garrett whispered.

The screens came back to life but everything on the drive was gone. They all stared at the empty file box.

Riley spun in his chair to face Garrett while reaching out to grab Josh’s hand, Josh holding it in both of his.

“What do we do now?” Riley asked, his voice breathless.