Authors: Cat Johnson
Right when he was feeling happy and relaxed, the question was making his brain work too hard to calculate what day it was.
Brody decided it would be easier to go about this another way. “Hey, darlin’?”
“Yeah, sweetie?” The woman smiled extra wide as she sidled closer to him and rested her hand on his shoulder.
She should be extra sweet to him after the fistful of twenties he’d given her in the back room.
“What day is it?”
“You mean like the date?”
“No, not the date. The day of the week. Is today Friday?”
“Yeah, it’s Friday.” She laughed. “Where you been? Living in a hole or something?”
Rocky snorted at the truth of her statement.
Hole
was as good a description as any for where they’d been.
A bare bones training camp in Turkey. A hole. Same thing.
“Yup. Pretty much.” Brody raised his beer to her in a toast and answered her for both of them. “Thank you much for the clarification though. I appreciate it.”
As for the girl’s smart mouth and comment, since she’d used that mouth damn well in the back room, Brody figured he could forgive pretty much anything that came out of it now.
She sashayed away and Brody watched the sway of her hips until she was out of sight.
Shaking his head he blew out a breath. One time in the back wasn’t going to make up for the six-month long drought, but it was a start.
He turned back to Rocky. “So, apparently it is Friday.”
Rocky grinned as if he knew exactly what thoughts had caused the lag in Brody’s return to the conversation.
“Apparently. And as you said before, where the hell is everybody else? I don’t know a soul in here.”
The guys from his returning unit who had wives and girlfriends and kids would be with them. But Brody could only guess where his civilian friends were. “At the bar, maybe? Now that the guys are all pussy whipped, they can’t be going to strip clubs anymore or they’ll get shit from their women.”
“It’s a hell of a thing, getting put on lockdown just because you’re dating a girl. I mean no touching and no fucking other girls is understandable, but even looking is off limits?” Rocky shook his head. “You can keep that shit.”
Brody didn’t have much of an opinion on the matter since he didn’t have, and didn’t intend on getting, a girlfriend anytime soon.
He picked up his cell phone. “I’m gonna track those motherfuckers down and tell them to get their sorry asses over here.”
“Yeah. You do that.” Rocky nodded enthusiastically, his voice a bit louder than necessary to be heard over the music.
The beer had been flowing for a couple of hours now and Brody was starting to suspect they’d both be too drunk to drive anytime tonight.
Calling the guys to meet them would serve more than one purpose. Besides getting the guys out of the house on a Friday night, Chris could be the designated driver and save him and Rocky from having to take cabs home.
Brody sent out a group text figuring that was the most efficient. Besides, he was too lazy and bleary eyed to text them all individually. He sent the message off to Jon, Zane, Chris and Rick. At least one of them had to be around.
He put the phone on the table and eyed the action on the pole.
With his squeeze from the backroom now on stage performing, Brody felt the need to watch her gyrate. He was so engrossed it took him a few minutes to realize nobody had gotten back to him.
Frowning, Brody picked up the cell and looked at the readout to make sure. “What the hell?”
Rocky turned from watching the dancer. “What’s up?”
“Nobody texted me back.” Brody held up the blank screen of the phone as proof.
“Is there something going on we don’t know about?”
“Hell if I know. Maybe.” Brody lifted one shoulder.
The guys he’d texted were all civilians now but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be away on an operation of their own.
Since leaving the Navy, each in his own time and for his own reasons, they’d become private military contractors. All four men were now involved in some way with Jon’s brainchild, Guardian Angel Protection Services.
Maybe there was something happening at GAPS that Chris hadn’t told Brody about. Chris hadn’t known Brody would be home today, only that his unit was en route.
Chris would know as well as anyone that transit could take anywhere from days, to weeks, depending on weather and other shit.
Brody decided he’d try his old CO Grant Milton. Maybe he knew something. Hell, maybe he’d even come out and meet them for a beer.
Grant was married, but Brody had been away for half a damn year. The man’s wife had been married to a SEAL for long enough she should understand that sometimes guys needed to get together, just the guys.
Since texting hadn’t worked out too well for him so far tonight, Brody decided to try to call. Over the din of the music pumping out of the sound system in time to the female strutting on the stage, he listened to the ringing on the line, before he heard Grant’s voice.
“Brody.”
“Hey, Grant.”
“Haven’t heard your voice in a while . . . and what is that God awful noise in the background?”
Brody laughed. “I think it’s a Miley Cyrus song actually. I’m at the strip club.”
“So you’re home. Chris didn’t mention it last time I talked to him.”
“I am home and he didn’t mention it because he didn’t know. We just hit the tarmac a few hours ago.”
“Well, welcome back. Sounds like you went right to celebrating your homecoming, so that’s good. Don’t waste any time, do you?”
“Nope. That’s one of the reasons I’m calling you. I thought some of the guys might want to meet us. I texted pretty much all of them and got no reply. You have any idea where they’re at?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t know if you were in transit. GAPS got called out on a mission.”
“A mission? All four of them?”
“Actually, just three of them. I think Rick’s away with that actress girlfriend of his. He’s running her security now that she’s working on a new movie up in New York.”
New York? Brody frowned, not sure he’d heard Grant right over the pumping bass. “Wait, what about Rick’s job here in Virginia at the nuclear plant?”
“He gave notice and quit that job.”
“When?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Let me think. Almost a month ago now, I guess it was. I know he was talking about putting in his two weeks’ notice when I saw him at the party at the new GAPS office.”
What the hell
? Brody couldn’t keep up with the shit Grant had dumped on him in just the past minute and he could only put a small part of the blame for that on the booze. It seemed as if everything had changed.
“What new GAPS office?”
“Jon finally gave in to Zane’s bitching, bit the bullet and spent some of the company’s money. They’re renting a space for GAPS to work out of now. Man, you have been out of touch.”
“I’ve been a little busy, but yeah, it sounds like I missed out on quite a bit.” Brody shook his head at all that Grant had revealed. “So why don’t you meet me and Rocky here and catch us up on things?”
Grant hesitated for long enough that Brody braced himself for the eventual excuse. His wife wouldn’t like it or some version of a lie to cover that truth.
“All right. The club out the back gate?”
“Yup. That’s the one.” Shocked Grant was actually going to come, Brody managed to answer.
“I’ll see you in a few.”
“A’ight. See you.” Brody cut the call and glanced up at Rocky. “Grant’s coming.”
“You’re old CO?” Rocky asked. He’d joined the team after Grant had already moved into a training position.
“Yeah. I’m kinda shocked. He’d come out with us all the time when he was single but he hasn’t made a habit of coming here since he got married a couple of years ago.”
Rocky wobbled his head. “Maybe there’s trouble in paradise.”
Brody drew in a breath and let it out. Everything else had changed since he’d been gone, so why wouldn’t Grant’s marriage have as well?
Apparently GAPS had gone from holding meetings around Jon or Rick’s dining room table, to renting legit office space.
Rick had quit his job and was dating and traveling with
an Academy Award winning actress who also happened to be the sexiest woman alive, at least according to one magazine last year.
Chris was going to have some explaining to do when he got back from wherever the hell he’d gone off to on this three-man GAPS mission.
He could have at least let Brody know what was happening. Then again, Brody hadn’t been all that diligent about phoning home.
He’d try to call home at least once a month to keep his momma and grandmother happy, and Chris when he had a chance, but more often than not calls home fell by the wayside.
In Brody’s defense, he had been a little busy . . . and that was exactly the problem. It was too easy to let this job consume all else in life.
His schedule had been grueling over the past six months. Sometimes it was just easier to not have to put on a happy face for the folks back home. They wouldn’t understand. Not like the guys who he was there with.
Brody realized that if he didn’t watch himself the time could come when he’d have nothing but the job left. Then when his end came, whenever that might be, his entire legacy from a lifetime of fighting bad guys all over the globe would fit inside a cardboard box, just like Speedy’s had.
What a depressing thought that was.
He blew out a breath and glanced up to see Rocky’s gaze pinned to the stage, a stupid grin on his face as he watched one of the girls strip off another piece of her costume.
It seemed Brody was alone in this metaphysical crisis.
“I’m thinking about going home.”
Rocky’s head whipped around at that statement. “Now? Your CO is on his way here.”
Rocky had misunderstood Brody’s out of the blue statement. Why would he rush home tonight? Chris wouldn’t be there. There was no one to miss him if he strolled in at sunrise or not at all.
“No, not now. I mean take leave and go home to Alabama for a visit. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the family.”
“Sure. Why not? You got the time saved up. As long as there’s no big shit on the horizon we don’t know about, I don’t see why the head shed wouldn’t let you go.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figure.” It was the perfect time to ask for leave. What hard ass commander would deny a man a trip to visit his momma after he’d been deployed for six months?
It would be good to be home for a little while. It might help him remember what he was fighting for.
Of course that was a double-edged sword because he’d also be reminded of what he’d sacrificed so he could be in that fight.
What he’d left behind and who—
Grant came through the door before Brody had time to finish his beer or his thought.
Standing, Brody extended his hand to shake Grant’s. “Hey, that was fast.”
Grant lived in officer housing on base so he was close by, but Brody had figured it would take him some time to convince his wife he had somewhere he needed to be this late on a Friday night.
Grant tipped his head to the side. “Eh, it makes things easier when the wife just stops talking to you completely.”
Things made more sense to him after that comment.
Maybe Rocky’s guess about Grant’s possible marriage troubles was correct.
No surprise there. There was some insane statistic floating around that close to ninety-percent of all SEAL marriages failed.
Whoever kept track of that shit sure had a shit job.
“Do you know Rocky?”
“I know
of
him, but don’t think we’ve ever had the pleasure.” Grant extended his hand to Rocky, who stood and shook it.
“Know of me, huh?” Rocky shot Brody a sideways glance. “Should I be worried?”
Brody lifted one shoulder. “Now that Grant’s an instructor, unless you’re planning on going back and starting your DEVGRU training all over again, I guess it doesn’t matter.”
Grant smiled. “All good things, I assure you. And actually, I put in a request to move back over to the teams.”
Brody widened his eyes at that. “No shit? You’re quitting the instructor gig? I figured you’d ride out that cake walk until retirement.”
“Yeah, so did my wife. That’s the problem. We don’t exactly see eye to eye about my decision.” Sitting in the empty chair that Mack had occupied, Grant glanced around them. “Where’s a waitress?”
Rocky stood again. “I gotta take a piss. I’ll find her and send her over.”
“Thanks. Appreciate it.” Grant looked weary and like he could use a drink as he leaned back in his chair. His eyes barely flicked to the girl on stage before he turned his attention to Brody. “Good to see you back. And in one piece.”
“Yeah, no shit. You hear about Speedy?”
Grant drew in a breath. “Yeah. News like that travels fast. Even to us instructors who are back here safe in the rear.”