Chapter 18

Logan chugged down half a bottle of some baby blue–colored shit sports drink that Jerry had promised him would rock his sports world. It tasted like cotton candy threw up in orange juice, but if it prevented calf cramps in the middle of a game, it’d be worth it.

He’d been back in D.C. for a week and a half. The ACSs wouldn’t accept jet lag, exhaustion, or even cramping from using his muscles in a different way as an excuse for poor play. When they got together for soccer—even their weekly pickup games, they all took it as seriously as that championship match they’d missed ten years ago in Italy. It didn’t function as an official stress reliever if you didn’t go balls to the wall. Hell, who was he kidding? It made it more fun, too.

Josh’s voice boomed across the Mall before Logan even saw him come around the Washington Monument. “This isn’t Mrs. Santino’s homeroom, Marsh. You don’t get extra credit for coming early.”

“Funny. That’s the same thing your last bed-warmer said about you, Hardwick.”

Josh grinned like a crazy person as he lofted his gym bag to land beside Logan on the sun-scorched grass. “Man, I’ve missed you. Really glad you’re back.”

“Me, too.”

“Almost as glad as I’ll be to score right between your legs at least three times this game.”

“Again, the very same thing your last skank said when she stopped by my room after leaving yours all unsatisfied.”

Josh dove at him. They wrestled on the grass, laughing too hard to get in any real jabs, until cold water gushed over their heads. Logan blinked, and saw Griffin haloed by the late afternoon sun above them.

“Save all that energy for the game. I want to legitimately kick your asses. Both of you. Not because you’re all worn out from wailing on each other.”

A desire to win was one thing. A bad attitude was another—and no way to play a game. That always ended up in a fight, an injury, or both. Logan got to his feet. “What crawled up your ass, Lieutenant?”

Griffin scrubbed his palm across his eyes. Sighed. Then whipped his Nats cap off to whack it against his thigh. “An ensign who skipped part of his pre-flight and almost ditched a seventeen-million-dollar rescue chopper into the Atlantic because he didn’t check his gas gauge.”

“Seriously?” Logan wasn’t scared of flying. But he had a healthy respect for just what it took to thumb your nose at gravity and stay in the air. If he was in charge of a plane, he’d damn well kick the tires, top off the gas tank, and test every single switch in the cockpit before taking off. Because there’s no shoulder to pull off onto at eight thousand feet. “Is he an idiot?”

“Or is he just horny?” Josh asked as he swiped at the mud on his knees. “Was there a hot female ensign on board? Was he pulling the old guess we’ve run out of gas so you might as well make out with me routine?”

Griff chucked his hat to the ground. And his shades. Which revealed blue eyes spitting more fire than should be legal this close to a national monument. “Yeah. That’s it. Fifty miles offshore in the middle of a training run in the middle of the day, my guy got a boner and figured stalling the helicopter was the best way to deal with it. Jesus H, Hardwick, can’t you ever be serious for like a minute?”

Josh’s normally easygoing smile morphed into a mirror image of Griff’s anger. Because that was the same thing his teachers used to say when he’d joke his way out of not knowing an answer…because his dyslexia kept him from reading the question. It was a sore spot for Josh, and one that Griff knew way better than to poke.

“Sure. How about I seriously shove that bad mood down your throat with my fist?”

“Cut him a break,” Riley ordered as he appeared at a dead run. Guess he’d seen the tension in them as soon as he left the Metro stop.

Josh didn’t back down an inch. Didn’t look away from Griff, either. Like they were a cobra and a mongoose, each waiting to see who blinked first. “Why? If he throws shit on me, I deserve to use a shovel to get it off.”

Panting, Riley said, “He’s going through withdrawal. He hasn’t been with Chloe in four days.”

Logan winced. Not smart. Never draw the attention of the angry predator toward yourself, dude. In all of his years of survival training, how had Riley not learned that?

Sure enough, Griff whirled on Riley, hands fisting at his sides. “What are you doing, Ness? Sneaking into my bedroom and doing a condom inventory every night? I know you’re way more than just borderline OCD, but that’s weird.”

“For the millionth time, caution and preparation are not the same as OCD. They’re good sense.” When a growl ripped out of Griff’s throat, Riley continued in one hell of a hurry. “I noticed your duty schedule on the fridge. Saw you’d swapped a couple of shifts and pulled a bunch of night shifts. No condom counting, I swear. You never get this upset about missing our scintillating company, so I figured lack of Chloe’s got you cranky.”

“Yeah.” Griff’s shoulders sagged. A second later, his whole body followed as he folded down to the ground. “People are trying to get in summer vacation with their kids before school starts. I thought it’d be no big deal to pull extra duty. But the way I miss Chloe—it’s crazy. Like half of me is empty. I’m so off balance I might as well be riding a unicycle, blindfolded.”

Griff’s words hit home. They landed right in the Brooke-shaped empty space Logan had been nursing since she’d left him early this morning. All of a whopping nine hours ago. If he could barely stand nine hours, how the hell had Griff survived four days? Empathy swamped him.

“Dude. This is nuts. You have to go be with your woman. Skip the game.”

Three heads snapped in unison toward him. “Soccer before sex, Logan. We made that rule years ago.”

“I made that rule.” Knox joined the group in head-to-toe highlighter-yellow gear. “I made it freshman year because Riley started dating Linda Antonelli. He missed three practices in a row trying to get to third base with her. Practices where he was supposed to teach me how to do a header without breaking my glasses.”

Riley pulled a handful of water bottles from his black bag and lined them up in the grass. “Believe it or not, putting the moves on Linda and her big boobs was a lot more fun than throwing a ball at your big head.”

“Regardless, we made the rule and it stands to this day. Logan, bring me up to speed. Why did they have to remind you of the rule?” Knox winked. “Is it the redhead again?”

Button-pusher. How’d he like it if Logan called Madison the Blonde from the Bush? “She’s got a name, Knox. You know her name. You’ve known her as long as you’ve known me.”

“Touchy.” Knox leaned in and sniffed at Logan’s shoulder. “Smells like love. Mixed with someone who left his deodorant on a mountainside in Kazakhstan.”

Logan elbowed him none too gently in the gut. “Get away from me. I’m not in love. Griff is. He’s hard up from four long days of being…well, hard up.”

“So?” Knox dug a matching highlighter-yellow ball from his bag and threw it at Griff. “Is Chloe getting on a plane for Thailand in the next two hours? Going in for brain surgery? Joining the navy?”

Griff’s return throw had some heat behind it. It thudded Knox in the chest hard enough to push an exhale out of him. “Over my dead body would she ever become a Squid.”

“Then soccer it is.” Knox backed up and started on some fancy solo footwork. He hadn’t lost his touch while Logan had been away. His headers were still weak, but he more than kept up with the rest of them on all the other aspects of the game. Pride furled in Logan’s chest. He’d helped with that. Taught him the basics. Drilled him until the skinny geek puked, and then did it some more.

“Stretch first,” Riley ordered, stealing the ball from Knox. “Nobody wants to pull a hammy. And remember, Knox, no headers from you. Doctor’s orders for another week post-concussion.”

Logan whipped back around. “You got your bell rung?”

“Yeah.” Knox rubbed the top of his head. “Fucking Australian military pricks who Griff had to babysit played dirty.”

Josh hinged forward to touch his toes. “The fuckers remembered us from La Sfida Internazionale. They wanted revenge.”

“For a clean beat from a decade ago? Talk about a bunch of sore losers.” Logan wished he’d been here for it, though. Wished he’d been here to back up his best friend. He’d have kicked and introduced his cleats to their shins to even the tables.

“They’re more sore now.” Griffin gave an evil grin. “Their captain made them grill dinner for the base, and clean up afterward. Let’s remember not to book them for a rematch in another ten years.”

Josh made a big deal of turning the pockets of his shorts inside out. “Yeah, I’ll just make a note of that with grass stains on lint.”

Okay, so he was still pissed at Griffin. But joking pissed, so he’d probably run it out of his system on the field. Just in case, though, Logan came up with a stall tactic to give Josh a little more time to iron out his wrinkled ego.

“Speaking of things to remember, you’d better make a note to be more careful about podcast topics.”

“Huh?” Josh scratched the back of his neck. “Why do we have to be careful?”

“Because apparently people we know end up listening to the show. No matter what we talk about.” And wasn’t that a kick in the balls?

“Logan, millions of people listen to it.” Griffin threw his hands up in the air. “Why do you think they want to video it?”

He had no fucking clue. “Because some stuffy number cruncher got high with someone in the marketing department and had a really bad idea?”

Knox held up a hand. “It’s a really good idea.”

“Or it could be,” Josh amended.

Riley butted in. “Maybe. It’s worth a shot, at any rate.”

Who were they trying so hard to convince—him or themselves?

“Either way, we need to vote on it.” Griff motioned them into forming a loose circle. “We were just waiting for you to come back so we could move forward. If we’re going to establish a fund to support seat-belt usage on school buses, there’s a lot of paperwork to set in motion.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “No.”

“That’s your vote?”

Logan pushed his arms out to the sides to give himself some space to breathe in. To think in. To just be in the moment. That’s all.

“No, I’m not voting. Not right now. I can’t handle thinking about anything long term. About committing to anything or anyone. I’ve got enough pressure in that area already. Like a fucking choke-chain-around-my-neck sort of pressure.”

He’d filled them in on his dad’s ridiculous request-slash-promotion-slash-threat. That hung over his head. And after last night, he realized that his relationship with Brooke came with the responsibility of not letting them go too far. Not getting so serious that she’d think he was another in her long line of douche-bag exes. Trouble was, Logan had a feeling they’d already passed that point of no return. So now what was he supposed to do?

No, he couldn’t deal with the filming and the extra money and the seat-belt issue. Just…no.

Knox cracked his knuckles. “We can table it for today, but we’ve got to make a decision one way or the other soon. It’s a window of opportunity, but it won’t stay open indefinitely.”

“Fine,” he said tersely.

“Not fine.” Griffin held up his hands in a time-out gesture. “We can hold off voting. We can screw the podcast entirely, if it comes to that. But you can’t just ignore that your dad wants you to drop anchor, Logan. You have to figure your shit out about staying. Or not. Pretty much right the fuck now.”

There were rituals to Logan’s coming back to the United States. A trip to the D.C. Chophouse for steak. A full day with his butt attached to the couch, wallowing in every sports channel on cable. The first soccer game with the guys. Nowhere in there was a ritual that included Make Logan feel three inches tall.

The fact that Griff’s comments did make him feel shitty probably meant they were totally on point. Which just pissed Logan off more. “Don’t ride me about this, G-man. You’re not a career counselor. Or a shrink.”

“We’re blood brothers. That outranks everything and everyone. And makes my opinion a hell of a lot more important.”

All true.

Logan looked up at the shining white spear of the Washington Monument. Over at the familiar redbrick castle of the Smithsonian. The enormous rectangle with the distinctly sixties-era look that was the Museum of American History. All touchstones of living here. All sights he drank in like water as soon as he got back. They were every bit as much home as the brown duvet on his bed—and the ACSs.

He got used to flying solo when he was at a disaster site. No real contact with people who mattered. That made it hard for him to open back up when he was with his friends. Even though being able to rely on them, turn to them, was the foundation of his world.

Was this why he hadn’t opened up yet to Brooke about this thing with his father? Because he was out of practice?

That was bullshit. Talking to her about everything else under the sun made him feel better. It only took the common sense of a mosquito to see that talking to her about his dad would probably make him feel better, too.

Logan gave Griff a lazy salute. “You’re right.”

“I usually am. But this feels too easy.”

“I’m serious. You are right. I do need to deal with this mess at the Foundation. I have been sticking my head in the sand, hoping it would magically go away. Not anymore. I’m going to bite the bullet and figure it all out.” Just saying it, knowing he’d talk to Brooke about it on their next date, took a little of the weight he’d been lugging around off his shoulders. “Not today, though. Today we kick the ball around, trash-talk each other, and try to leave the field in one piece.”

“Good enough.”

Josh bent his front leg into a deep Achilles stretch. “So…back to Logan’s helpful note on choosing a podcast topic.”

Logan appreciated the bailout from a conversation he was definitely over. “Yeah, a helpful note about topics would’ve been great. Or, you know, a heads-up that I had to choose one.”

“Where would the fun have been in that?” Knox smirked.

“Asshole.”

“Scaredy-cat.”

Logan felt better already from the familiar exchange. “Really? That’s the best you’ve got?”

“I’m saving the good insults for the first time you blow an on-goal kick.” Knox did a hard, high practice kick in the air.

“You’ll be holding that in for a long time, then. Here’s the thing—you and Griff are involved. Involved with good women. I’ll assume they’re probably sensible, not too high maintenance, or you wouldn’t be with them. But women nonetheless. Which means they can get their panties in a twist without our even knowing why. So its CYA time. We can’t discuss anything that’ll come back to bite us in the ass.”

Griffin dismissed his suggestion with a quick shake of his head. “Impossible. We talk about sex and relationships. Everything could come back to bite us. For God’s sake, our first podcast was on Chloe’s virginity.”

“Her what?”

The other guys hooted while a look of extreme discomfort settled on Griff’s face. The same one he always wore when he tried to hold in a fart. “It’s a long story. We’ll save it for later. Over Scotch. Lots of it. The point is, it sounds like you screwed things up with Brooke.”

Griff could redirect all he wanted. But no way was the sun setting tonight without Logan getting the full details out of him on his virgin almost-fiancée. “Yeah. Big time. Even though I didn’t mean to. I took pains not to use her name. Or any identifying features.”

“Not calling her ‘the redhead’ doesn’t mean people can’t put one and one together when they see you as a couple,” Josh said. Then he frowned. Which rarely happened. “Shit. I didn’t realize you guys were so serious. Sorry.”

Riley nodded his agreement. “We should’ve headed you off.”

“Yeah—now that you’re actually in the same time zone, you’ve gotta keep us up-to-date. Hell, you haven’t latched onto a woman for more than a couple of weeks since college, right? How were we supposed to know?”

“Great. There’s next week’s podcast topic. How talking to your friends can fix foot-in-mouth disease.”

They all laughed. Riley said, “See? You’re a natural at this.”

Knox balanced the ball on the top of his foot and then switched it off to the other one. “All kidding aside, Logan, you need to make it up to Brooke. Well, we all do, but the majority of it has to come from you.”

“Nah. We’re fine now. We talked it over.”

Griffin winced. Sucked in a sharp breath. “You may have put the pin back in the grenade, but the thing’s still sitting there on the bed.”

That made zero sense. Logan reached behind to grab his ankle for a thigh stretch. “I apologized. She accepted. Then I gave her an orgasm. Two, actually. Shouldn’t that be enough?”

His friends laughed. They laughed hard. So hard they bent over, hugging their bellies. Hard enough that tourists walking by lugging gift bags from the Museum of American History stopped to watch.

Finally, Knox caught his breath enough to talk. “Dude, you aren’t in the middle of no-where-i-stan anymore. A worthwhile apology means dropping some serious cash, time, or both.”

“You’re telling me a bunch of flowers are better than an orgasm?” This coming from the guy who used to drop hundreds of dollars on couture shoes to give his one-night stands when he didn’t call them back.

The thing about being friends with a multimillionaire? It meant Knox tended to fall back on using money as a solution. Logan’s day-to-day life was mostly full of people with zero money—or any material possessions—making gestures to communicate their feelings. And a double orgasm sure seemed to him like one hell of a gesture.

“I assume—if you’re even coming close to treating Brooke right—you’re giving her the orgasms every time you see her,” Josh said. “Which means they aren’t special. In terms of an apology, anyway.”

Huh. That did sort of make sense. Yeah, he could bring Brooke a bouquet. With another orgasm on the side.

“You’ve got to bring the romance,” Griff said flatly.

Logan had this one in the bag. “I took her to Screen on the Green,” he said smugly.

Knox blew a raspberry. One wet enough to spray Riley, who made a production out of wiping his face with the hem of his NTSB tee. “Which means you sat on the ground surrounded by literally thousands of other sweaty people. Do I need to explain romance to you?”

“Please. I taught you everything you know.”

“It’s like you gave me the starter pack of Legos. Which I then built into the Death Star, Hogwarts, and the one-hundred-three-story Empire State Building with my own expansion packs.”

Riley straight-armed Knox out of the circle. “Dude. Dig deep. Be original. Don’t listen to Knox. Don’t search the Web for ideas. Think of something that’ll matter to Brooke.”

Yeah. His friends were right on the money. As usual. Logan dipped his head in acknowledgment. “I’ll come up with something to make her all warm and fuzzy on the inside.”

“You know what’d make me all warm and fuzzy?” Josh ran backward onto their makeshift field, tossing the ball from hand to hand. “Scoring two goals past Logan, and one past G-man. And then having Riley pay for dinner while Knox springs for Johnnie Walker Black.”

“Keep dreaming, Josh. You haven’t scored on me in a month,” Griff scoffed as they all jogged into position.

Logan fell into the comfortable banter. “I hear Josh hasn’t scored on anyone in a month.”

That earned him a glare. “What do you know, Marsh? You haven’t even been in the country a month.”

“No kidding. You’ve been failing so epically at hookups that word even spread all the way to Kazakhstan.”

Josh flipped him the middle finger. “Screw you.”

“Nah.” Laughing so hard he could barely get the words out, Logan said, “I’m not going to be the one to break your no-sex streak.” And then he raced down the Mall with the ball.

Yeah.

It was good to be home.

For as long as it lasted.