Chapter 4 #2
I hit my stride and headed to the O-Course.
I’d been avoiding so many places on base and around town.
Without Adam, I just couldn’t face going to our favorite spots or spending time where we’d made so many memories.
But I needed to burn off some of these damn emotions.
Maybe if I could get myself front-sight focused, I’d be able to keep my fucking self in check.
My feet pounded the ground. My heart raced frantically, but no matter how hard I pushed my body, my mind and the thoughts swirling inside could not be caught. Memories spun so fast that they blinded me. So, I just kept running.
Thuds sounded around me. I knew the sound of feet hitting the ground around me as well as my own.
My brothers. The eight of us were a unit, but the tempo was out of sync.
There was a set of thuds missing. And that silence, that gaping fucking hole in our team’s cadence, just reminded me of what I—we—were missing.
I stopped, glancing down at my watch, and saw I’d been at it for quite a while. I’d clocked nine miles in just about an hour. That I did it in jeans and boots just went to prove the forty percent rule. Even when your brain said you were down for the count, you still had sixty percent left to give.
I had so much left in the tank, and I had to put all that effort and energy into finding Adam. Not running myself fucking ragged on the O-Course. Adam was fucking coming home if it was the last fucking thing I did. He would set foot on American soil again, and it wouldn’t be inside a fucking box.
“You done with PT for the day, Jones?” Finlay asked.
The run must’ve burned off his bad temper. He was sweating and smiling like we hadn’t just damn near sprinted for the last hour.
“Yep.” I pulled my t-shirt up, wiped my face, and ran my hands through my hair. “I need chow, and a shower and a change of clothes. Then I’m going to pop a squat in the command center to watch TV until I see a friendly face.”
Later that day, after refueling and scrubbing the stank off, I walked into the command center. Maree showed me to a computer, assured me I couldn’t fuck anything up too badly, and got the film rolling.
Over the next several days, I stayed in the command center, in front of that computer, watching every video link I was given and helping them pour over the footage.
So far, we’d gotten some identifying info off about half of the vehicles.
We were still looking for several of them that seemed to have disappeared off the face of the planet.
I rubbed my burning eyes and dragged my hand through my shaggy hair. I couldn’t have told you the last time I’d showered other than it was when Maree threatened to pull me in front of command for assaulting an officer. When I argued, she’d said the smell was enough to knock her down.
My eyes burned so damn bad. I’d been staring at a screen and not getting any fucking sleep for the last hundred or so hours, which was a great fucking cover story.
But I couldn’t deny that some of the bleary vision, gritty feeling, and redness were due to my emotions getting the better of me.
Tears had plagued me off and on over the last week, especially when I’d been idle.
That was why I was here. When I was front-sight focused, I could keep shit at bay for the most part.
I zeroed in, laser-focused on finding Adam. I scoured every second of the footage, going over some bits and pieces ten or more times.
The lack of progress was killing me. I needed a target to hit.
Since my fuse was short enough as it was, the longer this dragged out, the more my mood deteriorated and the shorter my fuse got.
I glanced at the BS going on over at the coffee pot and reached for my headphones to drown out the chatter going on around me.
Maree had suggested I’d put on my headphones yesterday when I’d almost taken the head off an Ensign for cracking a joke.
Don’t these assholes realize Adam is on borrowed fucking time?
I glared at the two Chatty Cathys and turned up the volume on my headset. The playlist that blared in my ears was the one I used to zone out. I was a diehard grunge fan. I’d even partially converted Adam from his beloved country to the edgier, grungier side of music.
As the song flipped to something raw, the bass line fucking filthy just the way I liked it, I caught sight of something we’d all been searching for for days.
I clicked some buttons, and there on the screen, big as the hole in my fucking heart, was a sign. Adam’s call sign patch was in the back glass of the SUV I’d just come across. I sank into my chair. It would’ve been so easy to miss.
“I FOUND HIM!” I yelled, jumping up from my chair as I yanked my headphones from my head.
Daniel and Maree came running. When they stopped behind my chair, I pointed out the patch. Maree shoved me aside, did some of her voodoo magic computer shit, and hugged me.
“That’s him. You did it, you big-ass lummox! We might make you something other than a knuckle-dragging door kicker yet.” Her voice rose at least an octave as excitement and relief took over.
I dropped back into the chair I’d spent most of the last week in. My head fell into my hands as I tried to curb the emotions slowly bubbling up inside me. It wasn’t much. I knew that. I also knew we were still days behind, but at least we now knew the direction Adam had been transported.
“Okay. You need to shower, grab some grub, and rack out for a bit,” Maree said softly.
I looked at her and noticed everyone else had shuffled off to their respective stations. I opened my mouth, and she steeled her spine and gaze, the officer showing up instead of my friend.
Maree crossed her arms, arched her brow, and said, “Do not argue with me, Brock. When we find a target, you need to be ready, because we will send everything we’ve got after Adam.”
I nodded. She was right. I couldn’t risk being seen as undeployable when the time came, and if I continued down this path, I would be. Commander Mercer and Foster Holt would not hesitate to order me to sit my ass at home if either of them thought I wasn’t ready to spin up when the call came.
Standing from the chair, I straightened to my full height. Maree wasn’t a tiny woman, but I towered nearly a foot taller than her.
She was around five and a half feet tall but built like a straight boy’s wet dream.
Her arms were cut, and I knew for a fact she was hiding a six-pack underneath that uniform shirt.
She liked to run with the team, and she did so in a pair of leggings and a sports bra, even though we ragged her for it since we ran in full gear.
She would laugh and say she didn’t have to do asinine shit like that unless she wanted to, and she wasn’t that stupid.
“Aye, aye, Lieutenant,” I smarted off, giving her a two-finger salute as I strode out of the command center.
I strode down the hall to the showers and cages. I stripped down and slipped under the scalding hot water. I still couldn’t believe how long it’d been since I’d last seen Adam’s gorgeous face. I could remember the first time I admitted I was attracted to him.
SPRING 2004
Fucking sand every-damn-where. I mean, yeah, we were in the fucking desert.
I expected it to be everywhere when you were outside, but motherfucker, it was inside, outside, floating in the air, in the sheets on your bed.
Just everywhere. And to make it even worse, I fucking swore I ate more sand than I did chow.
One of the new guys on the team that had rotated home when we had rotated in told me it was fucking awful, but Jesus Christ. It was overwhelming how you couldn’t get away from the sand.
Not even a shower worked. As soon as you washed it off, the second you stepped out of the shower, you were covered in the fucking irritating shit immediately.
If we were doing something other than settling in and getting our shit sorted, maybe that would have helped take my mind off shit, but we’d only been here two days.
After two fucking years of training and a two-year deployment rotation in Coronado, Adam and I were finally headed to Vah Beach. We were fucking Navy SEALs, and we were only a step away from getting our shot.
Adam and I both had one more goal we wanted to achieve, but we were trained and deployed with our team. Only one more deployment after this, and we would get recommended to Green Team, the training team for DevGru. At least, that was the hope.
They were the tip of the spear. The elite of the elite. They were our ultimate goal.
We’d settled into Adam’s apartment when we’d gotten to Vah Beach from Coronado. We’d found a couple of units in the same building. Adam’s unit had been ready when we’d arrived, but mine would be a few weeks. The sailor who lived there was still deployed because the ship’s orders had changed.
We hadn’t been so lucky when we’d gotten assigned our SEAL Team because the team was up for almost immediate deployment when we got to Vah Beach. With deployment looming over our heads, we’d decided to share the unit until we got back from where-the-fuck-ever.
With all the upheaval, I knew Adam was stressed. It was his default setting when unknown shit popped up. He could handle anything thrown at him, but he liked having a plan in place.
Me? I was called Rocket for any number of reasons. I was fast as fuck, and I flew by the seat of my pants on the regular.
We’d been with our team for two weeks when we’d finally gone wheels up. Which was also just a few days after the night Carly took us home.
Or did we take her home?
I mean, she’d driven, but it was Adam’s place, and we’d both fucked her. Or rather, Adam had fucked her while I watched. I mean, yeah, Carly had sucked my cock like a pro, which most of the women I’d let down there sucked at—and not in a good way—but she hadn’t been my focus.
Not in the fucking least. No matter how good she was at giving head, neither she nor the orgasm that hit me could have distracted me from the sight of Adam DuBois blowing his load, even if Carly had been on the receiving end.
If I was honest with myself—and I’d promised myself I was done denying who and what I was—I’d been attracted to Adam the moment I’d laid eyes on him.
He was so fucking gorgeous. When we’d first met nearly four years ago, the towers hadn’t come down, and we were both scrawny-ass little shits entirely out of our element on our way to hand our lives over to the United States Government.
I thought that would be the defining moment of my life. But I was wrong—so damn wrong. The moment I saw Adam, my soul recognized him, and any thought of anyone else took a backseat on the spare bus that had broken down at least half a mile back.
Adam DuBois was my person. My other half. I was just the unlucky bastard whose soulmate was straight. At least, I thought so. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell kept me from being positive.
The longer I thought about that night with Carly, the more I remembered Adam staring into my eyes as he came.
What if I’m wrong? What if he’s not straight?