“Groaning, bella,” he clarified with a snicker, elbowing one of his table-mates. “It means groaning.” He reached for his cup of coffee and took a sip to hide his grin.
“Ah,” Tabitha answered with a straight face. “Then youarecorrect.”
Again with the elbow nudges.
“Iwasactually battling quite the massive beast. It was gargantuan.” She let her eyes go round. “It required a long, hot, and sweaty engagement. But not to worry, I was eventually able to subdue it after a large number of body-to-body clashes.”
Pietro inhaled his coffee the wrong way and started coughing, which had the rest of the table in hysterics.
Yup.She’d done that.
They all looked at her with approval.
She knew how to fit in with the guys.
Spencer chose that moment to show up, took one look at the convulsed table, rolled his eyes, and huffed. “You guys have been grilling Tabitha, haven’t you?”
Shit-eating grins turned a little sheepish, and a few of the guys managed to get up and slink away with their now finished plates. But Pietro, who’d regained his voice, wasn’t running.
“Ah, my friend. We were just marveling at how fresh Tabitha looks this morning. She has, how do you say it, a sated air about her that tells us her night went well.”
“You are so full of shit, Pietro,” Spencer responded, grabbing the man’s tray and pulling it toward him to snag a handful of bacon which he stuffed in his mouth. “You just wish you were me. But that was never going to happen. The lady chose exactly the right man to get the job done.”
Burn.
The two remaining sailors snickered at Pietro then smartly took their leave.
“Are you okay?” Spencer asked Tabitha. “These guys haven’t been over-raunch-ing, have they?”
Tabitha snickered. “Nice play on the word ‘over-reaching’,” she praised. “And no. They were giving me some shit, but I think it’s only because they’re jealous. We made what we were doing sound like so much fun, they couldn’t sleep, and they all have blue-balls this morning.”
“Hey,” Pietro lamented humorously. “I resemble that remark.”
Tabitha loved the banter, but she had questions for Spencer that needed answers. “Okay. Enough of that. How did your meeting go with the captain?”
“He pretty much already knew that I wasn’t into signing a new contract, so it didn’t come as a surprise to him that I’m leaving.”
Pietro nodded sadly. “We will miss you, my friend.”
“Hey,” Spencer pinned him with a stare. “I told you, whenever you feel like it, you can come visit me in Maine and see if you like it enough to stay.”
Clearly the two had spoken about keeping in contact.
“I might even have a job opportunity for you,” Spencer added cryptically.
Pietro’s brows raised. “Are you going to fill me in on that offer, or leave me hanging?”
Spencer snagged a piece of the man’s toast. “How about I keep you in the loop via texts, and let you know if the idea I have for my civilian-life pans out. If it does,thenI’ll give you details and you can make your decision.”
“I will hold you to that,” Pietro said, slapping Spencer’s hand away as he went for the last of bacon. He stood up. “For now, get your own food, then tell the lovely lady what she wants to know. I can see she’s pieno di domande.”
“Full of questions,” Spencer translated as Pietro walked away. “And I’ll have answers in one second, after I grab a plate. Somebody,” he winked, “depleted all my energy last night.”
It took only a minute for Spencer to return, and by that time, Tabitha was about to burst.
“Tell me what the captain said was going to happen,” she wheedled.
Spencer complied instantly. “First, as we discussed at, like, three in the morning…”
