Chapter 17 #3
“When he hears who the HVT is, I highly doubt it will be an issue,” Zenko told him. He scanned the kitchen counters. “Tell me this house has a coffee machine?” He looked at Grif, who was quietly talking to Allie at the table. “Fuck, at this stage even instant will do.”
“Where the hell did you find him, Noble?” Grif asked, his face a study in seriousness. “Instant coffee is like sucking camel ass.” If Zenko hadn’t known and worked with Grif before, he might have briefly considered that the man really was wondering if he was an idiot or not.
“BUDs.” Noble shrugged his shoulders. “He kept standing on my heels when we were in the Grinder, and when I turned to thump him, the drill instructor made him my swim buddy. I’ve been trying to get rid of him ever since he cheated and won that belt and buckle off me.”
He opened his eyes wide as if in total disbelief, and Zenko knew that fucking look.
Back when they were in Teams, seeing it appear on Noble’s face usually had everyone holding their breath while they waited to find out which poor asshole was about to end up in the line of fire for whatever wise-assed comment Noble had come up with.
“Since when have you been sucking camel ass, Grif, or is that what you are calling Rock these days?” Noble asked. “I suppose if you look at him from a certain angle, he does have a kinda camel look about him.”
“Bastard,” Grif muttered before turning back to Allie and the route map they were looking at on her phone.
“I didn’t cheat,” Zenko told Noble. He started opening cupboards. There had to be fucking coffee here somewhere. “Not my fault your ass is slow.”
“What are you looking for, Zen?” Shaun’s voice directly behind him made Zenko jump.
“Fuck, don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
Shaun, the bastard, was laughing at him. Zenko could see it in his eyes.
Asshole.
He moved to the side when Shaun nudged him out of the way and opened the only cupboard he hadn’t tried yet, pulling out a coffee machine that looked more at home in a café in downtown NYC than on the kitchen counter of a run-down little house in Croatia.
He watched Shaun fiddle with the machine, then smirked when he picked the damn thing up and looked underneath it before plugging it in.
Shaun found a tub of coffee pods, selected one, then stood staring at the machine with his mouth moving.
Zenko was pretty damn sure he lip-read the words “fuck” and “shit.”
He bumped his shoulder against Shaun’s and lowered his voice. “The US Government spent millions on training you, and a coffee machine has stopped you in your tracks. Should I be worried about you coming on this mission with us?”
“We have had this thing for nearly two years, and I still can’t figure this thing out; it must be female or something,” Shaun muttered, his eyebrows pulled together as he opened the cupboard again and started flicking through some instruction manuals he found there.
“Who says I am going on the mission with you?”
“Noble.” Zenko jerked his chin over his shoulder. “You are, right?”
“Yeah,” Shaun muttered. “I’ve been loaned to Red Squadron until we get the former commander.”
“Jeez, don’t sound too excited about working with me.”
What the fuckity fuck is wrong with him?
Zenko had expected Shaun to be at least a little fucking pleased they were going together. Instead, he sounded like someone had handed him a punishment detail.
“Fuck this,” Shaun muttered. “I’m going to the bakery for coffee, be back in ten.” He slammed his fist on the counter and stalked out of the kitchen before Zenko got his brain back in focus from the whiplash he was getting from Shaun’s mood swings.
“Damn it.” Zenko watched the door close behind Shaun and turned to Grif. “Any idea how this machine works?” He refused to let anyone see that Shaun storming off had hurt. Fuck, he didn’t get hurt from shit like that.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
He could practically see the demon on his shoulder waving his hands about behind his ass.
See the smoke? Yup, you, my man, officially have hurt feelings.
“Oh, shut up, asshole,” he muttered more to himself than anyone else, but Grif answered anyway.
“Shaw has been a member of our team since shortly after Fallujah during Operation Phantom Fury in two thousand and four.” Grif ran a hand over his hair and tucked the longer-than-regulation locks behind one ear.
“We might go out on solo missions, but this is the first time since he joined the team that he has been transferred, and even if it’s temporary, it’s a kick in the teeth. ”
“Shit,” Zenko groaned. “He feels like he is being punished for being captured, doesn’t he?
” That put Shaun’s reaction into an entirely different light.
Zenko had been looking at the assignment as more time together, while Shaun had heard that his own team was being sent one way and he was being handed over to somebody else.
Well, fuckballs.
“Most likely,” Rock answered as he came through the door.
“I told him that wasn’t the case, but Shaw is a complicated guy.
” He looked at Noble and Allie. “We are all wheels up in sixty. Get your shit together. Two planes are meeting us at the strip. One to take us stateside and one to take you to wherever it is you are going.”