Chapter 10
MIKEY
Sweat pooled against my lower back and dripped from my brow as I threw Bernie to the ground. Again.
The distraction I was searching for wasn’t working. No matter who approached me to spar, no matter how many times my fists made impact, the thought of last night had yet to leave my head.
“Damn, Mikey, let up a little would you?” Bernie croaked, dust settling around him.
“Again,” I demanded.
“Fuck no.” He rose from the ground, brushing off sand that clung to his own sweat. Shaking the adrenaline from my arms, I squared up to Bernie. He was the last one who willingly agreed to spar with me, and of course he was backing out—just like the rest of my opponents.
“Again,” I stated.
Bernie ran the back of his palm across his forehead, leaving a streak of dirt. “What the hell is going on with you today?”
No fucking clue.
“Nothin’.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Let’s go again.”
“Absolutely not. You already sent Ford to the medic with a fucking bloody nose. I don’t know what I was thinking agreeing to spar with you after that blatant display of unrestraint,” Bernie hissed, placing his hands against his thighs and panting.
Closing my eyes, I gulped down the confusion tingling at the back of my throat. What was going on with me? Even a distraction wouldn’t fuel me to behave in such reckless ways as I was right now. There was something more going on.
“By the way,” Bernie began, and I opened my eyes. “What happened last night?” Clenching my jaw, I swallowed stiffly.
“Last night?” I asked as casually as possible. There was no way he knew or saw Scottie and I holding hands. Wait, why the hell was I so nervous that he might know? We hadn’t done anything wrong… Okay, yes, it had totally crossed a line, but still…
“Yeah, when you went to take a piss?” Bernie continued. I furrowed my brows, feigning even more innocence and hopefully buying time for me to get my story straight. He rolled his eyes. “You know, how I asked you to check on Scottie because she was gone too?” His gaze shot over my shoulder, presumably landing on the very woman I’d been avoiding all day. And there was no stopping my own eyes from glancing at Scottie set up beneath a barbell, squatting.
Her skin glistened, the heat from the sun shining against the sweat that dripped from her cheeks. My own body roared hot, something flickering low in my core as I watched her brace against the weight. As if attached to puppet strings, my head tipped sideways and this strange uncontrollable desire to find out what her sweat smelled like crashed through my body.
Hammering like a drill in my chest, my heart begged for me to get as near to her as I could, to run my tongue against—
Stop it, you shithead.
Ripping my eyes away from her, my stomach sank, appalled with my own thoughts. What in the world was going on with me? Our hands touched last night, that was it. Why in the world would a carnal desire like that cross my mind? Ever. Especially about her. No. No. No—
“Earth to Mikey. Hello?” A voice I recognized came through the muddied gutter my thoughts were quickly drifting toward. “Yo, assface!” Fingers snapped in front of my gaze, jerking me out of whatever frozen stupor I’d been locked in.
Bernie. Standing in front of me, his brows drawn together tightly, Bernie stared at me, waiting as if I was supposed to say something.
I was supposed to say something, right? He’d asked me a question about Scottie, which was why I’d looked at her. What was it…?
“Oh, um, you know, uh…” I clacked my teeth together.
“I’m gonna assume that she was fine ’cause you can’t even remember what happened last night,” Bernie said, shaking his head with a chuckle.
Right.
“Yeah, she said she needed to pee which was why she left,” I explained, running a hand over my hair. Grains of sand sprayed from the touch as a shiver shot up my spine. Someone was looking at me. And I knew who it was. There was no one else who would have a reason to look at me except for Scottie.
She’d avoided my gaze all day, as well, and barely spoke to anyone—not just me. At some point we were going to have to face each other, though I would not bring it up again. There was no need in rehashing something that shouldn’t have happened or the fact that I should have done something different.
But there was a part of me wondering if the shift in her attitude had less to do with me and more to do with Reyes and his buddies. There was something off about that guy, something that had me wondering how appropriate it would be to ask Colonel Duke about his file and how he did in sniper school that would create such intense feelings of envy in him. Though I knew if I did inquire, someone else might get suspicious, and I didn’t want that, especially over some stupid ass jealousy thing that shouldn’t even be happening.
It wasn’t my place to step in. No matter how much I wanted to scratch that itch, Scottie had asked me to let it go. Even though it didn’t seem right that she was subjected to that kind of harassment, knowing I could do something about it but she didn’t want me to. For reasons that I understood but didn’t totally agree with, and never would completely understand because she was right—she was a girl in a boy’s club.
“Let’s get the team and run some drills or something after I take a leak,” Bernie offered. I nodded but didn’t say anything. He quietly walked away, leaving me alone to huff and puff in my own strange world of confusion and misery.
Staring blankly at the rolling dunes that seemed to go on for forever just beyond the walls of this outpost, my mind slipped back into that same box I’d been so unsuccessfully avoiding all day. If any sign of that damn terrorist showed up right now, I would not complain. Heading out on a mission with a clear goal in mind would be exactly what was needed in this situation.
Because all I was managing to do was wrap myself up in something that didn’t matter at all.
“I heard you made Ford’s nose bleed.”
Scottie.
My gaze snapped sideways, and there she stood, right beside me. Hair stuck against her forehead and the top of her neck, coated in sweat from whatever workout she’d just finished. The blood in my veins roared with adrenaline, prickling beneath my skin and slamming my heart against my ribcage.
“Uh, yeah,” I muttered. What the hell?
Her brows arched, and she shot a glance around me, as if checking that we were far enough away from the rest of the soldiers that our conversation would be private. “Did you do that because you couldn’t punch Reyes last night?” she asked.
“Punching him would feed his ego. So, no,” I answered, turning to face her.
“So, that had nothing to do with him or his buddies?” She narrowed her gaze.
Offering her a subdued grin, I shook my head. “Nope. Nothing to do with him or them.”
“Then…” One word, only one, left her lips. I knew what she was asking, or was going to ask, but I didn’t want to talk about it. My head had still been unable to process last night, so at this moment, it was merely…something that happened.
I quickly redirected the conversation. “Just frustrated that we’re sitting on our asses, waiting. I don’t get why we can’t be off doing something else in between orders for this specific terrorist.”
She pulled her lips between her teeth, studying me as suspicion flitted across her face. “You guys don’t normally wait? The Army motto is: Hurry up and wait. What about the Navy?”
“I mean, we SEALs wait, but something about this just feels…different.”
“You think there’s more going on.”
Blowing out some air slowly, I nodded. “I’m worried shit’s gonna blow up in our faces if we’re not more proactive.”
She scoffed. “Damn. Bernie said you were untrusting, but I didn’t realize it bled into every aspect of your life.”
“Oh, ha. Ha.” Being untrusting had nothing to do with this. “Don’t believe everything he has to say, this is Bernie we’re talking about.” I gave her a crooked grin and looked over her head. An unusual whirlwind of sand rose toward the sky. Not like a dust devil, but as if several vehicles were barreling across the dunes and quickly.
“What the…?” I muttered, pulling my brows together, immediately distracted from the conversation.
Scottie turned around, following my gaze, and then froze. “Is that patrol?” she asked.
“If it is, why are they coming back in such a frenzy? Did something happen?”
She didn’t say anything in response as the cloud continued to grow in size and close the distance between our combat outpost and its vicinity. And we weren’t the only ones whose attention was being drawn toward it. Slowly, the chatter around us faded as every soldier turned and froze, staring at the incoming swirl of sand.
Scottie took a step back, bumping into my torso. And she didn’t move away as every muscle in my body turned to stone. My hands clamped down to my sides, and my attention tore away from whatever impending doom was rocketing toward us. Her back, flush against my frame, slick and warm, smelled sweet like honey and vanilla, and something a little gentler and more savory.
Sirens erupted, wailing around the outpost. Alerting us that whatever that was, held death at its hand.
Snapping into action, my feet blazed across the scorching sand, leaving little time to be frustrated that things had so rapidly changed and I was no longer standing with Scottie against my body.
I followed her as we sprinted out of the gym, darting off to gear up.
“Mikey! Scottie!” Someone shouted as we raced around a corner. But neither of us stopped. Someone was coming, targets that needed to be neutralized and quickly.
“Viper! Squib!” They called out above the sirens again. Skidding on my heels, annoyed and ready to ram my fist into the face of whoever called Scottie that name, I spun around to meet the steely glare of Reyes.
Of course it was Reyes, but he spoke before I lost my cool. “Colonel Duke needs you both.”
“What about the incoming attack?” Scottie asked, obviously ignoring the waves of anger and nerves that rolled from my shoulders.
Reyes tossed a thumb over his shoulder. “This is more urgent, apparently.”
They knew. He knew. He saw me grab her hand last night. I’d fucked things up royally by an involuntary response that would never happen again. A week into deployment and this specific mission detail.
“Let’s go,” Scottie said, slapping my arm with her hand as she jogged on by. Cautiously, I followed her, keeping an eye on Reyes, and as we ran past, Scottie didn’t notice me briefly pause.
“Don’t fucking call her that,” I quickly snarled and then sprinted off, watching that he didn’t make a move to follow.
Sirens continued to blare around us as we raced past soldiers geared up and heading toward the ready racks near defensive posts and guard positions. My instincts told me to follow, to go help, but instead, I fought through those desires and followed Scottie into the colonel’s tent.
Where the rest of our team was already waiting.
Colonel Duke immediately began speaking. “Bad timing, obviously, or maybe the best because now you can slip out of the outpost mostly undetected. We received word that one of our men inside has the Black Box. So, gear up because you’re going to go get it out. Now.”
Fuck yeah. Finally.