CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Two months later
Luke O’Donlon and his wife Syd were having a baby shower.
Jim had gotten an invite to the party weeks ago, and he’d almost tossed it—the details of where and when, that is. He’d already bought into a group gift being given by SEAL Team Ten—they were rebuilding the side room on the O’Donlon’s tiny house, turning it into a combination nursery and playroom.
He was still close to the guys in the team, even though his active duty SEAL days were officially over.
He was doing okay. Mostly.
But as he looked again at that invitation that he’d stuck onto his refrigerator door with a magnet—its cartoon stork and bright letters informing him that the gathering was at the O’Donlon’s house on Saturday afternoon—he took out his phone and called Colleen Taylor.
She answered the way she always did—and he’d called her so often over the past few months that they’d become friends. She didn’t bother with a greeting. She just—boom—instantly jumped into the conversation. “You coming to the party this weekend?”
“Thinking about it,” he said. Colleen had told him a week ago that Ashley was planning to attend. Normally that meant he would stay away. “What do you think?”
“What do I think?” she asked. “Or what do I think Ashley will think, and oh my God, how did I end up back in middle school?”
“I’m trying to be careful,” he said. “Respectful. Un-asshole-ish.”
“I could send her a note. Will you hate it if Jim also attends a party given in honor of one of his best friends? Check the box: Yes, I’m heartless and cruel. No, of course not, I expect him to be there.”
“Mock me, I don’t care. Last thing I want is to make her think I’m stalking her, a la Brad.”
“Ooh, that reminds me,” she said. “Ash just had lunch with him, last Wednesday, I think.”
“She had lunch,” he repeated. “With Brad. Like, he called her and said, Let’s have lunch and she went…?”
“I… think he emailed her, but basically, yeah,” Colleen said.
“Should I be worried?” he asked. “Damnit, I’m worried.”
“Just come to the party,” she said. “Sit down next to her, and see what happens. If she stands up and walks away, well, then you’ll know.”
“Yeah, or maybe she’ll bring Brad as her date,” Jim said. Jesus, had he waited too long?
“You know that expression, snowball’s chance in hell?” Colleen said. “Those are the odds, in my opinion of course, of Ashley getting back with Brad. Just come to the party.”
“I don’t know anymore,” he admitted. “I hurt her really badly. I’ve been thinking about applying to law school in New York or maybe Boston…”
“With all due respect, Lieutenant, you’re a SEAL. I’m married to a SEAL. My brother’s a SEAL. I no doubt someday will give birth to a SEAL—and she’ll be more kickass than all of you combined. But my point here is that I know SEALs. You walked away from Ashley, because that’s what she wanted, but your plan was to walk completely around the world if necessary, so you could accidentally meet her again, at some point in the future. This phone call was to ask me if I thought that the future had finally arrived. But only Ashley can answer that. I can tell you this: If I were a good-looking Navy SEAL rocking a two-months-long beard, who’s also spent the last few months borrowing and reading every book on women’s issues and intersectional feminism on his teammate’s wife’s bookshelf—and it’s a big shelf…? I’d shine myself up, and go celebrate this happy occasion in your good friends’ lives, and while you’re there, smile at Ashley, and see if she smiles back. If she does, move a little closer—but not too close—and say Hey, how are you? I miss you. Then listen to whatever she tells you, and if it’s back off, then back off. Why do men find this so hard?”
“I’m a former SEAL,” he said.
“Oh, my God,” Colleen said. “That’s what you focus on…? Here’s a message from my unborn Navy SEAL daughter, Lieutenant: There’s no such thing as a former SEAL. You make it through BUD/S, you’re a SEAL forever, and you know that, so don’t be a baby. Come to the party. I’m hanging up now. Man.”
* * *
Ashley loved spending time with Colleen’s friends from SEAL Team Ten, but the baby shower for Lucky and Syd was a slight exception.
This was going to be a big party—usually Ashley hung out with Colleen and Bobby, and Colleen’s brother Wes and his wife Brittany, and Britt’s sister Melody and her husband Harlan, who had the ridiculous nickname, Cowboy.
But this time all of Team Ten, past and present, was there—including a high-ranking admiral the women all called Jake, but the men all called Sir.
Jim Slade was there, too.
He looked… tired. He’d grown a full beard in the months since she’d last seen him, and it was… a very good look for him. His hair was longer, too, but still looked freshly cut. He was wearing a colorful button-down short-sleeved shirt that fit well, hugging his broad shoulders and chest, and showing off both the muscles in his arms and his collection of tattoos. He still wore braces on both knees, but his shorts didn’t have multiple cargo pockets—they were khaki and tailored to fit. His transformation, however, didn’t quite make it all the way down to his feet. He had on flip-flops, of course, which was the SEAL footwear of choice when boots—or swim-fins—were not an option.
He was in the kitchen when Ashley arrived—he was taking something that smelled delicious out of the oven, but he glanced up and directly into her eyes and smiled, and she flashed both hot and cold as she froze.
“Out of the kitchen!” Wes scolded, going as far as to clap his hands at her. “Men only!”
“We’re in charge of food prep,” Bobby said.
“And serving, and cleaning up after,” Wes’s wife Britt added, taking Ashley by the arm and leading her back to the huge deck off the living room, where the party was being held. “As well as all diaper changes and child management. We usually share those duties, but every now and then we impose what we call the Goddess Rule. It’s partial payback for when the Team goes wheels up, and the spouses have to do it all. Of course, we’re not the ones getting shot at, so there’s that…”
Ashley glanced back to see that Jim’s tentative smile had faded, and now, as he gazed after her, before turning to the pan of food in his hands, he just looked tired.
But okay. She’d survived that. She hadn’t quite managed to say hello or even smile back at him, but first steps were good.
“Gifts go there,” Britt told her, pointing to a table just inside of the huge sliding glass doors, and Ash added hers to the large pile.
She’d gotten Syd a large stack of her own favorite romance novels, including the latest by Shirley Hailstock, Sarina Bowen, Alyssa Cole, and Alexis Hall. For the last few months of pregnancy, sleep could be elusive, and there was nothing quite as comforting as an old-school printed book.
Britt stepped outside and pointed to a cooler in the shade in the corner. “Beer, soda, wine is over there. Help yourself, and grab a seat.”
“Thanks,” Ashley said, waving to Colleen—and oh, Dunk was here, too. That was a little awkward, but he smiled and waved, too.
They were sitting beneath an array of colorful umbrellas with most of the other women and at least one other SEAL.
It was gorgeous out there. The big yard’s fence was bordered by a jungle of drought-resistant plants, many of which were blooming from the recent rains.
A series of grills were already fired up out in the yard, manned by more SEALs and surrounded by a large, portable play-pen, so the smaller kids couldn’t get too close. Ashley could smell both steaks and barbeque—when it came to food, Navy SEALs didn’t play around.
On the other side of the yard, Thomas King and Rio Rosetti were refereeing a group of the slightly older kids who were playing croquet. It was then, as Ashley took her wine and sat down in the empty seat next to Colleen, that she realized both of the SEALs sitting in that circle, under the umbrella, were holding babies. Dunk was. As was Dave—a young and relatively new member of Team Ten, who’d gone through BUD/S as one of the first openly gay service-members to be accepted into the program as a SEAL candidate. Not that there hadn’t been plenty of gay SEALs before him. But Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell had definitely made life harder for them. It was good that everyone could now live openly and honestly.
“I’m completely in love with her,” Dave said now, gazing down at the sleeping baby in his huge arms. He grinned. “Things you generally don’t hear me say. Along with Oh my God, I think maybe I want one. I mean, not tomorrow, or even next year, but someday…”
Dunk laughed—quietly because the baby he was holding was fast asleep, too. “You might feel differently after spending a little time with a baby who doesn’t sleep.”
“We had one of those,” Commander Catalanotto’s wife Veronica chimed in, in her crisp British accent. “We were lucky if we got two uninterrupted hours a night. That child was hungry. We threw the rules out the window and started him on rice cereal and he finally slept for four hours straight. That was the night we knew we’d survive.”
“Jake took paternity leave because the twins had colic.” Zoe had a story, too. “We’d take turns getting up in the night, which only worked in theory, because Jake can sleep through anything. So I’d wake up—when one of the babies cried, I couldn’t not hear him—and I’d nudge him and snarl It’s your night, and he’d stagger into the babies’ room. And one night he didn’t wake up all the way, but he got out of bed, and I’m lying there going The baby—I think it’s Sam, he’s still crying, and I finally sat up and turned on the light, and I saw that he’d opened the door to the walk-in closet, and he was just standing in there, like, I know I’m supposed to be doing something, but I’m not sure what…”
“I will never live that down,” Jake came up from his place at the grill and reached over to take and kiss Zoe’s hand as the entire group erupted in laughter. “When we celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary, Zoe’s gonna tell that story.”
“You know it,” she said, smiling back at him.
A loud clatter from the kitchen made the conversation stop. “Everyone all right in there?” Syd called.
“Guess what, Syd,” Luke called back. “Great news! When the party’s over, Space and I are gonna clean the interior of the fridge and wash the kitchen floor. Hoo-yah!”
“Hoo-yah, indeed!” she called back as she rolled her eyes. “There’s a shelf on the door that’s broken. It’s rigged with duct tape, but it’s got a weight limit, and someone always fails to read the memo. This year, apparently, it’s Spaceman.”
As everyone again laughed, Colleen took the opportunity to lean in and quietly ask, “You okay?”
“Yeah, do I not look okay?” Ashley whispered back.
“You poured yourself a very large glass of wine.”
Oh, crap, she had. “I didn’t even really want any.”
Colleen held out her own plastic “glass,” and Ashley gratefully poured half into it, realizing that Col was still whispering to her. “…look great.”
Oh, God. “Yeah, he really does, doesn’t he?”
“You either didn’t or can’t hear me,” Colleen said. “I said you look great.”
“Oh,” Ashley said. “Thanks. Oh, God. Maybe I should leave. I mean, I had an entire plan figured out, but…”
“Don’t you dare,” Colleen said.
“So I’ve been banished from the kitchen,” Jim Slade announced.
Ashley looked up to see him coming out onto the deck. His words were aimed at Sydney. “Anything out here you want me to break…?”
There was more laughter, but Colleen stood up since there were no empty chairs. “Here, Space, you can sit here.”
Jim looked from her to Ashley. “Oh. Don’t I… need to hold a baby to sit out here?”
“I’ll go find you one,” Colleen said.
“Oh, good,” Jim said. “Can you bring me an owner’s manual first, because I’ve never held one and I’m the guy who just broke the freaking refrigerator, so…”
“You’ve seriously never held a baby?” Brittany asked Jim.
“Don’t look at me,” Dave said. “I’m not giving up mine. He can find his own baby.”
“Mine,” Dunk announced, “has just filled his diaper, but even I am not cruel enough to hand him to a newbie like Spaceman Slade. I could use a little assistance, however, both in standing up and getting this monster, I mean sweet angel to the nearest toxic waste removal area, because oh my Jesus God…”
“I got this,” Jake said, taking the still sleeping baby from Dunk’s arms. “Dear God, you weren’t kidding… Come on, Senior. I’ll show you how it’s done.”
“Is it okay if I, um…” Jim was still standing and he pointed to the seat that Colleen had vacated as Ashley realized he was asking her if he could sit.
“Of course,” she said. “Yes.” As he stepped closer, she realized… “Your toenails are very pink.”
“Yes,” he said. “They are. Neon, I believe it’s called. Joe and Veronica’s daughter was offering mani-pedis, and the twins wanted their nails done, but they got into an argument, because some kid at school told one of them that boys couldn’t or shouldn’t, so I said Boys, get in line behind me. And then I said, Yo, Veronica’s Mini-Me, I’ll take the neon pink, please. I feel it will work best with both my outfit and skin tone.”
Ashley laughed as her heart lurched. He was still so… Jim. Which made sense. Just because she’d kept her distance for the past few months didn’t mean that he’d stopped being funny and smart. “You were very right.”
“Damn straight. I recently watched the new season of Queer Eye,” he admitted. “I’ve been spending a lot of time resting my knees.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been studying for the LSATs, and getting ready to apply to law school—my top choice is here in San Diego, of course and… I’ve also been talking to the team over at JAG. Nobody’s made any promises, but we all know I want to stay in the Navy.” He smiled wryly. “And not just because I already have the uniforms.”
“That’s great that you figured that out,” Ashley told him, and her heart lurched again as their gazes caught and held and his smile faded.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’m getting there, you know. I just keep telling myself progress, not perfection.” He cleared his throat. “Hey, how’re Kenneth and Clark?”
“Kenneth’s great. Completely recovered. Back to eating donuts and drinking beer,” she said. “The big twist is that Clark’s so completely in love with Kenneth’s sister Louise, that he’s gone gluten-free. She has celiac, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” Jim said. “Wow. Clark still wanna be a SEAL?”
“More than ever,” Ashley said. “He’s been impressing me a lot lately. I think he might actually do it. I connected him with Kathy Gordon, the chief—my recruiter friend…? After he graduates, I think he’s going to join the Navy—as an officer, if you can believe that.”
“I can,” Jim said. “Absolutely.”
“Oh,” Ashley said, “this is funny. I finally had lunch with Brad. My ex?”
“Oh, I remember Brad. Yes.”
“I called him a few days after I got back from camp,” Ash said. “I was done hiding… I called my father, too. I just… pretended I was in command, and I was.” She’d told her dad, pretty much pointblank, that she loved him, but she didn’t want to live in his cutthroat corporate world. I know my world is imperfect, but at least here, I have hope for something better…
“So, how’s Brad, um, doing?” Jim asked.
“He’s… great,” she told him. “He was out of the country when I first called and… anyway, he eventually called me back and he wanted to meet, so I figured why not and… Turns out he’s engaged. He’s getting married. That’s why he showed up, you know, knocking on my door, freaking me out…? He wanted to tell me that, face-to-face.”
Jim looked at her. “And… give you a chance to say, Oh, Brad, please don’t…?”
“Maybe there was a bit of that in there, too,” she said. “There was a certain stench of creepiness to that lunch, but I was like, Congratulations!” She did jazz hands and Jim laughed. “And I do hope that he’s happy…” She looked at him. “I hope you’re happy, too. You seem… well.”
Jim nodded. “I’m not sure I’d call it happy, but I’m… doing okay. Yeah. You also look… well.”
“I am,” she said. “Thanks.”
But now he was shaking his head. “Yeah, I’m sorry, the word that came out of my mouth was well, when what I really meant was amazing. You look amazing, and seeing you, and talking to you again is… fucking amazing. I’m sorry if that’s too, um, much, or, God, I don’t know…”
Ashley interrupted him. “That was also my definition, when I said you looked well. I meant fucking amazing, too.”
She’d stunned him. Whatever he was expecting her to say, it wasn’t that. And now when he met and held her gaze, he was that same man who’d bared his soul to her in Florida. But right now, he couldn’t do more than whisper, “Ash…?” It was a question, as if he couldn’t quite believe what she’d just said.
So she cleared her throat and clarified. It was, after all, her plan. “I was wondering if you’d maybe want to go out and get… coffee… with me… sometime.”
“Oh, thank God!” he said, and for a half a second, she was convinced he was going to cry. But he ran both hands down his face and took a deep breath, and said, “Yes. Please. How about dinner instead? Tonight? Or you know, drive to Vegas, marry me…?”
She laughed.
“Too soon?”
“Yes,” Ashley said. “How about coffee, tomorrow?”
Jim nodded. “Coffee tomorrow works.”
“I need to take this slowly,” she told him.
“I get it,” he said. “I do. What I did was… really shitty. It was inexcusable. And I’m so grateful to have a second chance to show you that… I’m not that guy, that… frightened boy. I’m better than that—or at least I know that I can be. And I… I’m looking forward to letting you have a chance to… get to know me.”
Ashley’s heart was in her throat. “I really want you… to get to know me, too.”
“I would like that very much,” he said. “Although I’m pretty sure I knew enough the very first time we talked. I was just too scared and… stupid to know it. I’ve been working on that, while I was, you know, giving you some space. I’m still working on a lot of things, trying to carve out another option for myself besides manipulative asshole, lying asshole, or idiotic asshole. I think I’m finally getting somewhere with desperate-for-enlightenment-and-desperately-in-love-with-you bonehead.”
She laughed her surprise. Desperately in love…
But Jim wasn’t done. “I’m so freaking imperfect, Ashley,” he told her quietly. “But over the past few months, I’ve learned that I can do this. I can live with the loss of this thing that I love—being a SEAL. Letting it go and moving on. It’s still hard, and some days really suck, but… I’ve been having glimpses of… new purpose and… pride. And I know that I can even… keep going… without you. If I have to. I hope I don’t have to. God knows, I don’t deserve a second chance, and I’ll do my best not to screw it up. But I’m pretty sure I’ll make mistakes. More mistakes. I mean, that’s kinda how I roll. But here’s something I know for sure: my life will be so much better with you in it. And I’ll work harder than I’ve ever worked in my life, to learn how to be the partner you deserve.”
He sat back in his seat. “And… that was probably too much. Too heavy. I mean, coffee. That’s more, How’s Clark, although we did that. Or maybe, Hey, what’s new with you? I’ve been trying, but I still can’t pull a baseball cap out of my ass.”
Ashley laughed. And she couldn’t resist. It wasn’t exactly taking it slowly, but she leaned in and kissed him, and she could taste his surprise. But, as if he knew just how badly and impetuously she was blowing up her own clearly set boundaries, he didn’t push it. He didn’t pull her in close, or deepen the kiss in any way. He just softly and sweetly kissed her back.
“Oh, thank God,” she heard Colleen say.
Ash felt herself blushing as she finally sat back, but then she saw that Jim had tears in his eyes—and he didn’t try to hide it. He just looked at her with such hope and yes, love.
“Marry me,” he whispered.
“Still too soon,” she whispered back, but she couldn’t hide her smile.
And then Brittany was there, baby in her arms. “This one’s mine. His name is Rob—he was named after his favorite uncle, Bobby, and he’s five months old. So even you probably can’t break him, Space, but I’m gonna hang close just in case. You need to support his head—not as much as if he were a newborn, but you can kind of pretend…”
Jim held out his arms and Britt gently nestled her sleepy-eyed son against his chest and he looked down at the baby, who yawned and then smiled as he reached for Jim’s nose.
Jim laughed with delight. “He likes me! Holy—”
“No,” Britt said flatly.
“Moly,” Jim adapted, looking from Britt to Ashley and smiling. “Look at me, capable of learning all kinds of new things.”
Ashley smiled. And as she sat back and listened as the SEALs and their spouses gave Jim a lively and laughter-filled crash course in Baby 101, she realized that, for the first time in a long time, she felt grounded. And when Jim turned to her and smiled, when she gazed back into his eyes, she felt as if she’d finally come home.
Coffee, she reminded herself, but she knew that love wasn’t possible without taking a risk, without trusting and hoping and sometimes being wrong and getting hurt. And she wanted love, she wanted home—she wanted Jim.
But she wanted the real Jim—all of him, not the Jim she thought she’d figured out and knew. And it was going to take a lifetime of learning to truly get to know him.
As Britt finally took Rob back from Jim, as the party rolled on around them, Ashley turned to find him smiling at her. Again.
“So,” Ash said. “Everyone here calls you Space…?”
Jim laughed. “I seriously haven’t told you about my ridiculous nickname…?”
She shook her head.
“Okay. Wow. Space is short for Spaceman, and I’m going to tell you the real story—the embarrassing one. Cause, you know, the fake story is that I was into NASA as a kid, and I figured I’d enter the space program, become an astronaut by being a SEAL first. Because some guys do that. But that’s not why they call me Spaceman.”
“It’s not?”
“Nope. I had a oxygen tank malfunction during one of my first HAHO jumps. That’s when we jump out of an airplane at a high altitude—so high that we need oxygen masks to breathe, or we’ll die. My main tank failed and I got hypoxia, which is, you know, lack of oxygen, and it made me hallucinate. And I started talking to Houston and Ground Control because I thought I was in outer space. And the senior chief—it was Randy Duncan, by the way—he’s shouting at me to switch to my backup tank. And it wasn’t until he, well, he joined me in my little fantasy and he called me Spaceman Slade, that I somehow managed to switch tanks. But he couldn’t be sure that I’d really done it, because I was, you know, orbiting whatever Class-M planet I thought I was orbiting, so he kept me talking, all the way to the ground. Because hypoxia basically goes hallucination, unconsciousness, death. And if I could talk, I was still conscious. And apparently Spaceman Slade had some things to say about boldly going, before the oxygen started working and reality kicked back in.”
Ashley had to laugh. “How is that an embarrassing story? You almost died, but you managed to save yourself. With Dunk’s help, thank you so much, Dunk.”
“Yeah, well, I could’ve done it more quietly. Saved myself the ridiculous nickname.”
“I think, as far as nicknames go, Spaceman’s… pretty sexy.”
Jim looked at her and didn’t say anything although it was very clear that he wanted to. Ashley just waited, and when he finally did speak, he said, “Coffee.”
“Coffee,” she agreed. “And maybe dinner… next week?”
“I would love that.” He nodded. “Okay, Ashley DeWitt. Embarrassing stories. I want to hear ’em all. It’s your turn. Go.”
Ashley laughed. “I’ve got way too many.”
Jim’s smile took her breath away. “I’ve got plenty of time.”