“Remember. The call to go wheels up could come at any time,” Bacon reminded Bryant before watching him drive away in a nifty BMW.
Either writing paid far better than Bacon had thought or the guy came from money. Not that he needed to get curious about Bryant’s background or the ex-husband he’d mentioned or anything like that.
Bacon rolled his shoulders as he turned back from the gate. He’d seldom been happier to see the base gates close. Man, it had been a long day. And it wasn’t done yet. Friday night, with none of them sure if they’d ship out before next week, so of course everyone wanted to go get a beer.
And if Bryant thought he was getting invited out with the rest of the team... Well, that wasn’t happening. Hanging with him all day had been bad enough.
He’d warned Bryant not to get too comfortable back at his hotel room—the notice to deploy often came in the middle of the night, and the higher-ups were certainly acting like it would be soon, senior chief lecturing guys to not get wasted or make stupid decisions as they’d been dismissed.
As he walked from the gate to the barracks, he tried not think about how damn distracting Bryant was proving to be. It wasn’t just that he was hot as fuck—Bacon worked around hot people all the time. But he was nice. Like relentlessly charming, even when Bacon had been a dick to him most of the morning. He’d been a tremendously good sport about the training exercise, not at all what Bacon had expected. He’d figured Bryant would argue with the recruits, try to take charge, end up hurting himself or one of them in the process, but he’d shown remarkable restraint and trust, and Bacon had been impressed.
They’d watched the recruits do several passes through the grinder, and Bryant had asked smart, savvy questions. And therein was the problem—if Bacon wasn’t careful, he was actually going to enjoy this assignment, which was a risk. He couldn’t let his guard down around the reporter. There was too much he couldn’t share.
“Bacon! Ready to go?” Curly popped his head out of his room as Bacon passed by. “Come on, man. Get changed.”
“Give me five.” He was giving Curly a ride to the bar, then letting his fiancée bring him back later. He switched into jeans and a brown T-shirt advertising a campground he’d volunteered at, and grabbed his wallet and keys.
“Okay, okay, let’s go,” he hollered at Curly’s door. His friend hurried out in a cloud of cloying aftershave, practically racing Bacon to the truck.
“What a day, am I right?” Curly groaned as he hefted himself up into the cab of Bacon’s Silverado. “What the fuck is the LT thinking, giving you babysitting duty? Fuck that shit.”
“I know.” Bacon didn’t waste any time pulling out. “Last thing we need is a reporter.”
“Especially one who’s...” Curly made a vague gesture with his hand as Bacon slowed for the security checkpoint.
“Old?” Bacon suggested dryly. He knew exactly what Curly meant, but he wasn’t going to make it easy on him.
“Well, that too,” Curly allowed. “But I’m just saying it’s a damn good thing he’s not the type of anyone on the team. We don’t need another monkey wrench in the works.”
“Uh. Hello. Pan guy over here, remember?” Bacon swerved around a slow-moving truck. He had no patience for plodding drivers.
“You’re right.” Curly sighed as they pulled into the crowded parking lot of their favorite bar. “I’m sorry. I’m being a jerk. I’m just frustrated because I hate this situation—us with a damn investigator poking his nose into our business and you not out there next to me.”
“It’s okay. Let’s get our beers. It’s been a long week.” They made their way into the bar, which was packed. Rachel and her friends had nabbed several tables on the back wall. Rooster and Bullets were already there, beers in hand, flirting with the women.
Curly had a kiss for Rachel, then headed for the bar. “Your first drink is on me, okay?”
“Sure. Thanks.” Bacon could take the peace offering for what it was. “Corona with lime.”
“I got you.” Curly clapped him on the shoulder. After Curly returned, Bacon sipped his beer and watched the action swirl around him. Curly and Rachel were talking wedding preparations. Bacon felt weirdly restless, and not in the about-to-be-called-out way either. Something soft inside him ached, a seldom-used muscle that was starting to wither from lack of use. What are you? A fucking poet now? Ditch the crowd and go get laid. You’re getting cranky, he lectured himself. He probably wouldn’t have to work too terribly hard to get somewhere with one of Rachel’s friends, but he’d leave those pickings to the other guys on his team. Rachel was something of a meddling matchmaker. He needed to kick his black mood, not make a lifetime commitment.
In his pocket, his phone vibrated. Please don’t be base. Not ready to deploy. He needed that night to get his head on straight before shipping out. But no one else was scrambling for their phones, so his tension released as he glanced at the call screen. Lowe. His old teammate and a fabulous excuse to ditch the table.
“Gotta take this,” he yelled at Curly and headed to the parking lot where he could be heard.
“Bacon. You asshole,” Lowe said when he picked up, but he sounded more amused than put out.
“What’d I do?” He played dumb even though he had a pretty good idea.
“The director of the heart disease charity you ran the triathlon for just called my parents. Personally. Dude. That’s a ton of zeroes on that check in my sister’s name.” Lowe’s sister had received a heart transplant last year.
“I know a lot of people. You know how it goes. Five dollars here, twenty there. It all adds up. And it was an awesome race. Just missed medaling. Missed your slow ass yelling at me, though.”
“I know.” Lowe’s tone sobered. “I miss you guys too.”
“How’s civilian life treating you?” Bacon leaned against the building.
“Good. Got to accompany an oil company exec to Bahrain with...” Lowe drifted off. Bacon knew what he he’d been about to say and didn’t press him, waiting for Lowe to continue. Lowe was both working and living with Strauss, their former XO, but that information was on the serious down low to their old teammates. Not that that had stopped the rumors from flying, but Bacon was happy to give the two their much-deserved privacy. “Anyway, private security work is interesting. Miss you guys, though. Less need for explosives in the private sector. I’m still debating looking into bomb squad work, but this is good for now.”
“I’m glad.” Bacon’s throat was thick. He really was happy for his friend. And he personally didn’t care about when Lowe’d fallen in love with Strauss—it had never affected either of the men’s work, and he wasn’t going to ask for a timeline. What mattered was that they were both happy together in civilian life. But the navy might not see it the same way, and the two had to be cautious even now. Which was exactly why Bacon had to be wary of the reporter. He couldn’t allow fraternization allegations to jeopardize Lowe and Strauss’s newfound happiness.
Lowe chattered on a bit more about his private sector work, but then there was a low rumble of a voice in the background and he had to go, sounding not one bit sorry about the fast goodbye. Must be nice.
Yeah, he needed to get laid himself. He wasn’t usually this morose. Unbidden, an image of Spencer Bryant crept into his brain. Nope, nope, nope. But maybe he could scratch the itch the man had awakened. Head out to the Hillcrest bars, find an older man...
Buzz. His phone went off again. Still not the base, but his mother.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetheart. You still Stateside?” she asked.
“Yup. We’re heading out soon, but I’ll try to text you when we do.”
“I know it’s a Friday night, and all...” Her voice sounded more tentative than usual, so Bacon forced himself to take a deep breath, sound like the patient guy he was, and not the cranky bastard he’d been playing at all day.
“It’s okay, Mom. What do you need?”
“There’s something wrong with my toilet. It keeps running, but the landlord said he could have someone come on Monday—”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. We need to find you a new landlord. Make a list of anything else you need me to do while I’m there—lightbulbs? We might be gone awhile, so I want to do what I can tonight.”
“Thanks. I hate bothering you.”
“Don’t worry about it.” His mom had moved across the country to be near him. The least he could do was go give her a hand. Busting out of his funk could wait.
* * *
Spencer supposed that it being a Friday night he should go explore San Diego, maybe get tipsy and get laid. But this embedded assignment was the opportunity of a lifetime, and he was too old for bar crawling anyway. He took himself out for dinner in the hotel restaurant, passing what looked to be an anniversary party in one of the ballrooms. A giant gold number fifty hung at the front of the room. Fifty. Jeez. He and Greg had barely made it five years, and three of those were bicoastal separation with sporadic visits. They’d each been married to their work before they ever got together, and while he missed talking shop with Greg, he didn’t pine for the relationship itself. Relationships were work and required sacrifice, which he wasn’t particularly good at.
No, he was happier being a casual guy, dating here and there when he got tired enough of his right hand and eating alone, but otherwise keeping his independence. Greg had moved on, found an adorable preschool teacher to play house with, and Spencer was genuinely happy for him. In fact, he snapped a picture of the ballroom and texted it to Greg.
Don’t you have an anniversary this week? You and Justin need to start planning now. You’ll have to wheel me in, of course.
The reply came a few minutes later after he’d been seated at a side table in the restaurant.
Ha. Yup. Three down, forty-seven to go. Heard through the grapevine that you got a plum assignment.
Spencer ordered himself a glass of a nice white burgundy to have with his order of pasta with a cream sauce. The wine was a bit of an indulgence, as was the pasta, but he knew he could get called back to base at any time, and he wanted to make sure he had a meal that would last awhile if that was the case.
After quickly ordering an arrangement of the same sort of daisies Greg and Justin had had at their wedding to be sent to their DC home, he texted Greg back.
Yup. Embedded. Can’t say exactly where, but this should be a hell of a story.
And it should. And that’s what he had to focus on, not his intriguing handler, not the weird team dynamics, nor the impression that they did not seem to want him there at all. He had to look beyond that, find the heart of the story that would grip readers. It was what he was good at—finding the human side of his assignments—but this time, he was also motivated by Harry’s suicide.
They don’t see us. No one cares, Harry had texted him. But Spencer had been out chasing a story, hadn’t checked his phone until it was too late. Maybe nothing he could have said would have made a difference, but Harry had been upset that while Spencer’s book hit the bestseller charts, there was still no push in Washington to make real changes for veterans and enlisted personnel. Spencer was determined that his next story would lead to greater public awareness of military issues, give him a platform from which he could work to honor Harry’s life. Maybe by showing the inner workings of a spec ops team, he could help people to value the spec ops veterans in need of assistance. That was the plan at least.
He didn’t linger over his meal and wine, instead heading back up to the hotel room, intent to bury himself in his research for the rest of the night. But as he was opening the room, his phone alarm chimed. Oh right. He needed to call Oscar, especially if he was going to be gone a few weeks.
His old mentor answered on the first ring. “Spencer! I saw your email. You finally got permission to embed?”
“I did. How are you? Been wondering if you had a good week.”
“Not bad. The chemo nurses really are the best. There’s this cute young one, I simply must have you meet him.”
“I don’t need you playing wingman.” Spencer laughed. Oscar was the one who’d originally introduced him to Greg. He didn’t need another round of heartache from overzealous matchmaking, even if he did like the vision of the eighty-something Oscar ogling his care providers. Showed he still had some spunk left. “Save him for yourself.”
“Ha. That ship has long sailed, my friend. These days I’d rather work on my memoir with my limited energy. I’ll just live vicariously through you and your Bachelor-of-the-Year exploits.”
“I never should have let them run that feature,” Spencer groaned. “And how is the memoir coming? I’m going to be busy the next few weeks, but I can look at some chapters—”
Oscar scoffed. “I’d sooner have you see me in one of those ridiculous hospital gowns, ass hanging out. You’ll read it when I’m done.”
“Okay, okay. But tell me you’re not going to talk about my first assignment.”
“How could I not talk about my new A&E writer, whose first review got hate mail? I saved some of those, you know?”
“It was a terrible production of The Nutcracker. It deserved the review.”
“I know. And I’m still glad I didn’t listen to those theater owners who wanted your young head.” Oscar laughed fondly. “I hear you’re following in my footsteps, spoke to the paper’s latest group of interns. Managed to give them words of wisdom and not corrupt their budding journalistic minds. Quite the honor.”
“I’m enjoying mentoring far more than I thought I would,” Spencer admitted. “Some of these kids have real promise. I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ve done when I’m back.”
“Well, when you’re back in Los Angeles next, stop by. I’ve got a nice Pinot Gris I’ve been saving for you.”
“I will. You take care until then.” They ended the call with promises to talk soon. And Spencer hoped they would. He wasn’t ready to lose Oscar to his cancer, not yet. He’d been almost a second parent and was far warmer than Spencer’s art dealer father. And far more fun to talk to.
Spencer worked on his notes for several hours, using a bad straight-to-streaming drama as background noise. He must have dozed off at some point, because next thing he knew, he was blinking awake and his phone was vibrating across the nightstand. As soon as he saw the detailed message from base with instructions to report, he was wide awake, adrenaline surging. Go time.