Logan
Probably my favorite thing about working the annual film festival in Palm Springs for the past few years was the fact that I got to work alongside my old SEAL buddies. Of course, we were all busy for the most part, but we did all share the same love of hitting the gym, early mornings, to get a workout in before starting our days.
“I heard you scored a gig with royalty, King?” I was first to bring up the shoptalk.
Roman “King” Abbott had finished his last mission, took an extended vacation and then jumped at any body-guarding assignment that he could. Like pushing our bodies to the limit each morning, it was not easy to walk away from duties we had been trained for even though our missions were often brutal.
“It’s only temporary. Some Brit princess is touring a few states and they needed extra detail. There’s a bunch of protocol involved.” He shouldn’t have trouble following those since he was born to semi-royal British parents. That was how he had earned his nickname King.
“Are they going to train you to lift your pinky finger for tea or is that something you remember from your childhood?” Barlow “Fin” Sheffield asked with a laugh, ducking a sweaty towel flung in his direction along with a middle-finger salute.
King, not one that liked being on the spot, directed the conversation away from his background. “Did you hear Fin’s leaving us to open his own bar and grill in some hip artsy area? Leaving San Diego behind.”
“Is that true? You’re not returning to the festival next year?” I asked, working through my last set of reps with a curling bar.
I couldn’t imagine Fin—nicknamed after his mad kicking skills, I swear he didn’t need aquatic fins to propel himself through the water—not being part of the festival. He was the one that had hooked us up with body-guarding assignments through his buddy who had taken over a security company from his longtime pal, Sutton, who was in charge of the film festival’s security detail.
“Nope. This is it. And after yesterday having to run off a bunch of obnoxious teenagers on skateboards messing with equipment set up for the festival, I’m done. Put a fork in me.” There was laughter mixed with annoyance in his voice and he reminded me of when I took my last skateboard ride.
My mother warned me throughout my youthful years. “Stay off those damn skateboards. You’re gonna break something one of these days. They can ruin your life.” She was thrilled to hear my swim coach announce that anything that could potentially break an arm or leg was off-limits. For years she received peace of mind.
That is until she received a phone call from the emergency room of a hospital since she was listed as my in-case-of-emergency person. And though I was happy to see her at my side while I suffered in pain awaiting surgery, she was the last person I wanted to hear what had happened to me. No one wanted to hear those dreaded words, “I told you so,” after your buddies clued your mother in on how the accident occurred.
“You should’ve seen him. He looked amazing flying down the hill.”
“Yeah! I didn’t think he still had it in him… No helmet. Fearless.”
They were so not helping me and I wished I could get the words out to tell them to shut the hell up. Instead, I was just begging for pain meds as I laid there with two messed up wrists. One was dangling and the other looked fairly normal besides swelling and scrapes—both throbbed. I figured they were broken when surgery was mentioned the minute an x-ray guy snapped some films.
My mother was right. My skateboarding accident was a real life changer that had me more worried about telling my SEAL team than my mother that I was going to be out of commission. More like I was out of commission permanently since I was forced to retire earlier than I had planned with both of my wrists broken; one worse than the other and one needed to be in a cast for a year.
To say that I was devastated was an understatement. I had always dreamed of being a SEAL. I worked my ass off for years. Passed underwater training, deployment training and came back alive after three really crazy missions relatively unscratched. Then like an idiot I broke both of my wrists bombing down a hillside on a skateboard with buddies while on leave. I guess I should’ve been thankful I didn’t hit my head.
I could still hear Wolf—a fellow SEAL that I looked up to—chewing my ass out for being such a dumbass after he razzed me along with his team guys when I stopped by a bar known as SEAL hangout. Guys often stopped in to check up on each other since we never knew who was going where and we liked to see that we returned in one piece. Unfortunately, that didn’t always happen. Some didn’t return with an ounce of air in their lungs while others returned injured.
Tex, one that lost a leg on a mission, gave me the most shit, surprisingly enough. Surprisingly I say, because he was rarely in San Diego since his home base was Norfolk. “Sharks don’t ride skateboards. Surf is your friend, not asphalt.” He had so many analogies that went with my nickname.
“At least you protected your face. Smart guy. You were already ugly enough without scars to your mug.” Dude, who had lost a portion of his hand dealing with explosives and was still a bad ass explosives expert in the game, kidded me.
Out of the game, I convalesced and then got back to the gym to get in shape again once I received clearance. Working out is where I reconnected with Fin who had retired after serving his country to his best ability for as long as his body could hold up. Having him hand me a business card for a security company in Palm Springs gave me purpose again since I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with myself.
That’s pretty much how I found myself in the desert annually for the film festival. It was pretty quiet for the most part, cupcake work: Keep fans from getting too close. Make sure celebrities aren’t followed back to their hotels. Keep them safe, out of harm’s way. No real threats—people just wanted selfies with the stars and their autographs.
However, things were a bit different for me since I was to provide private detail twenty-four-seven. Assignment: Protecting Maya Bexley.