CHAPTER TWO
“Hey, what’s up?” asked Maverick as he stepped inside the apartment of Braxton Pechkin.
Brax and his twin, Paxton or Pax, were both on Mav’s SEAL team, along with Patrick Humphrey. Brax and Pax were the sons of Benji and Annie. Benji had once been a SEAL as well, thrown together with Annie, the daughter of a SEAL, in the worst possible circumstances. Patrick was the son of Bogey and Alice . Bogey had also been a SEAL at one time.
“Just watching the game, brother,” smirked Brax. “Truthfully, counting the days until we’re home for good. Being at the wedding last weekend was sweet, and it made me miss everything. The food, Mom and Dad, the water, all of it. Hell, I even missed the animals.”
The men laughed, nodding at one another.
“CJ sure looked happy,” said Pax. “I’m glad for him. He’s had some shitty girlfriends in the past. He deserved someone like Jill. Plus, she’s beautiful and smart as shit. Smarter than him for sure.” Again, they all laughed but noticed that Maverick wasn’t his usual jovial self.
“What’s up, brother?” asked Patrick.
“Yeah, what’s the problem? Don’t you think it was great seeing everyone at the wedding,” said Paxton.
“Yeah, another happy affair,” said Maverick with a tone of disgust.
“Brother, just because you haven’t found the one doesn’t mean she isn’t out there,” said Pax.
“I’d rather not find out at this point,” he said.
The others smirked in his direction, knowing that his last girlfriend turned out to be a bit of a party girl. She always wanted to go out. Not just for dinner, not just for drinks. She wanted to be in the clubs dancing until two a.m., then get up the next morning and make her way to work.
Maverick wasn’t built that way. He was a solid, follow-the-rules, by-the-book type of guy. Six-feet-two, two hundred and ten pounds of well-honed muscle, he was a SEAL’s SEAL.
“I just can’t get Melissa out of my head. I was stupid to ever start that relationship. I thought she might really be the one, which only proves I have shit judgment when it comes to the fairer sex.”
“Did you, Mav?” asked Pax. He stared at him. “I mean, did you ever once consider taking her home to meet your parents? Did you ever think about how she would fit in with our team? I’m not saying she wasn’t a nice girl. She was nice enough. She didn’t really do anything wrong. She was pretty. She was smart in her own way. But she wasn’t what any of us typically goes for.”
“To answer your question,” frowned Mav, “no. I didn’t think about taking her home, and that’s what made me realize that she wasn’t for me. That and the utter exhaustion. She was always wanting to go out. I’d think ‘out’ meant dinner at six or seven and then back to maybe watch half a movie. Brother, she had plans for a different club or party every night. How do people fucking operate like that?”
“Man, I don’t know,” said Brax, shaking his head. “Some days, I feel like the true old man of the team. If we’re not in training or called up, I want to be in bed by nine, at the latest ten. We’re up at 0430 for PT and back at the grind. That last chick I dated would get home around 0430 and call me just to talk, knowing I was up and getting ready for work. Fucking talk when the sun is up. I’ve got to start my day.”
“We’ve all been through it,” said Patrick. “It will happen for us. We’ll get as lucky as our folks and live happily ever after in the land known as Belle Fleur.”
“I guess,” said Mav. “It’s just this weird feeling in my chest. Not like a chest pain, more like something else I can’t put my finger on. It’s not just about Melissa. Fuck, we’ve all dated dozens of women.”
“Dated?” smirked Pax.
“Okay, okay, been with. Not dated. Anyway, we’ve been with a lot of women over the last decade, and they’re all the same. How did our folks get so damn lucky finding one another?” The guys all looked at one another and nodded, saying it at exactly the same time.
“Mama Irene!”
“I suppose,” grinned Mav.
“They’re not all like her, Mav. You know that,” said Patrick. “Look, let’s talk about our exit day. We’re all leaving on the same week, right?”
“Yep,” nodded the team.
It was unusual that they put brothers on the same team, and even more unusual when four ‘brothers’ from Belle Fleur were on the same team. Although, in fairness, very few people knew who their families were. They worked hard trying to keep all of that secretive, and for the most part, they were successful.
“I say once the papers are signed and we’re done, we get the fuck out of here,” said Patrick. “I’m thinking about giving up my place now and just moving in here for the last few weeks.”
“Just remember I have two weeks longer than you guys unless the Navy decides to be kind to me,” he said with an exaggerated eye batting.
“Yeah, good luck with that shit,” laughed Pax.
“I’m headed home,” said Mav, standing. He set his beer on the table and fist-bumped his friends. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow for PT.”
“Hey, Mav? It’ll happen, brother. When you least expect it, it will happen. You’ll see,” said Brax.
Mav left Braxton’s apartment, walking the short distance to his own. They all lived off base, wanting their own space, but lived within a stone’s throw of one another. Even Pax and Brax had separate apartments, although they were usually at one or the other together. Maverick never understood why the twins didn’t just live together, especially since they always seemed to be in the same place at the same time.
Mav stopped walking, thinking he heard something up ahead. He eyed the darkness and waited. This street was always dark, the streetlights never seemingly working the way they were meant to.
“Let me go!” screamed the woman. He heard shuffling and then heard a scream again. Shaking his head, he knew how this might end.
“Shit.”
He sped up, taking out his phone and texting the guys to follow his tracker. As he neared the shuffling noise ahead, he was shocked to see a tiny woman, red hair swaying over a man’s back.
“Problems with your girl?” asked Mav.
“Fuck off,” said the guy.
“Help me! He’s not my boyfriend. He’s kidnapping me,” yelled the girl.
“Is that right?” asked Mav. The guy just stared at him as another stepped out of the darkness.
“You don’t want to fuck with us,” said the guy. Their faces were somewhat masked by the dark light, Mav not able to get a good glimpse of their features.
“Wow, you’re really scaring me,” smirked Mav. He took another step into the light of the one working streetlight, and the two men stared at him, then at one another. “Put the woman down.”
“Back off, buddy. I don’t want to hurt you,” said the man standing without the woman.
“Yeah, we wouldn’t want that, would we,” said Pax, standing behind the two men. Brax approached from the other side, and they stared at the three men. When Patrick moved forward, they looked at one another with a strange expression.
“I won’t ask again. Put the woman down.”
The man gripped her tiny, childlike waist and tossed her across the sidewalk, straight at Mav. He caught her midair, staring down at her face. Her shocked expression looked up at him with huge green eyes, a small cut bleeding along the side of her face.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Y-yes. Thank you,” she said, struggling to stand. Mav barely noticed, then set her feet on the ground.
“Stay behind me.”
“Not a problem,” she said, moving around behind him.
“What did you want with the woman?”
“Just a conversation,” said the man.
“Didn’t look that way to us,” said Brax. He looked at the woman huddled behind Mav. “Do you know them?”
“No. Yes. Not really. I saw them earlier today hanging around outside my apartment. I don’t know who they are.”
“Who are you, fellas?” asked Brax. Neither said a word, and then Brax stepped forward. “I asked nicely. I won’t ask nicely again. Who are you?”
Tires screeched around the corner and a black SUV started toward them, jumping the curb, half on the sidewalk. Someone was firing directly at them. Mav flattened the woman beneath him while the others ducked for cover. When they sped away, all four noticed that there was no plate on the SUV.
“Holy cow,” said the woman, standing. “Thank you, guys. Seriously. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” said Mav. “What did they want?”
“I don’t know,” she said unconvincingly. “I’m just up the street. Thank you again.” She started to walk away, and the men all looked at one another and laughed. Mav took two giant steps and gripped her arm.
“I don’t think so.”