Chapter Sixteen
“Crawl to the whistle, gents!”
Matt sat at the training center reception desk, trying with all his might not to look at the double glass doors that led to the grinder.
It was dark out and he wouldn’t be able to see anything except his own reflection anyway, but besides the fact he’d been warned to stay the fuck away from those doors, the thought of what was about to happen out there…
Just another watch. Just another Sunday night, except for the fact that Shane’s class would soon be herded out of their pizza-smelling classroom and ushered into hell.
It was Matt’s rotten luck he’d drawn the mid watch at the center and for all intents and purposes would have a front-row seat to the carnage.
He hoped he wouldn’t burst into tears when the shooting started.
The painful memories drove him up and out of his chair.
He paced restlessly along the length of the hallway, his eyes going for the millionth time to the beefcake calendar tacked up on a bulletin board outside the conference room.
Mr. October. A guy wearing a Speedo, his oiled muscles gleaming, stood with his weight canted on one hip and hands linked behind his head to showcase his physique.
And it was an impressive one. The white swimsuit left nothing to the imagination, riding so low in front it revealed a tiny slice of pubic hair over an enormous bulge.
Whoever the model was, he was supremely fit and undeniably sexy.
But he had nothing on Shane.
Matt fought against the urge to rip off the crude cutout of Shane’s face haphazardly glued to an unfamiliar body—a body rippling with muscle instead of gloriously lean and sleek, one that undoubtedly smelled of coconut oil and pomade instead of sunshine and fresh air…
A body that hadn’t been pressed to his or trembled helplessly under Matt’s touch.
Turning his back on the calendar, Matt returned to his post, his duty for the next several hours to watch over a phone that wouldn’t ring and a door that wouldn’t open. An air of stillness hung like a storm cloud over the entire base, heavy with the knowledge of what was to come.
He checked the clock again, then jumped from his chair at the reception desk and headed for the coffee urn set up in the conference room.
One of his tasks during the night would be to make sure it was always full of fresh coffee for the instructors who’d eventually be rotating through the center to fill out discharge paperwork, make phone calls, or simply take a break from their mission of putting hapless trainees through hell.
“You’d better not fuck up my coffee, son,” Chief Howe thundered when Matt first came on watch. “Hot and fresh, all night long.”
“Hooyah, Chief,” Matt said briskly.
The chief narrowed his eyes at him, peering at the name tape on Matt’s uniform top. “What the fuck kind of name is that?”
“It’s Czech, Chief Howe.”
Matt stood at ramrod attention as Howe regarded him through beetled brows. “Have you ever been to the Czech Republic?”
“Negative, Chief.”
“Do you speak Czech?”
“No, Chief.”
“Then what good are you?” Howe barked. “Drop and gimme thirty!”
Matt didn’t know what good speaking Czech in Coronado, California, would be, but there’d been no choice but to shout “hooyah” and drop.
Now he shook his head, thinking he actually wouldn’t mind if someone ordered him to run the O-course in the dark. At least he’d be busy; sitting around with nothing to do was driving him crazy.
As he paced, his ears picked up a faint roar off in the distance. He tensed, staring toward the glass doors, watching them start to vibrate as the tsunami approached, a wave of sound that got louder and louder and finally exploded onto the grinder just a few yards away.
The undefined roar splintered into a cacophony of gunshots, yelling, whistles.
Even buffered by the doors, the commotion was deafening.
Matt stood, fists clenched, memories assaulting him from all sides.
Out there on the asphalt guys would be crawling, a writhing mass of humanity driven into a confusion and fear that wouldn’t abate for hours and would only be exacerbated by unrelenting cold.
Matt threw away the hot cup of coffee he’d just fixed. No way would he allow himself such a comfort while his brothers were suffering only a few yards away. While Shane was suffering.
“Hang in there, clown,” he whispered, staring toward the doors. “One evolution at a time, okay?”
Hang in there.
* * *
“That fuckin’ Hovland is something else, ain’t he?”
Snorts of laughter from whomever Bernson was talking to. “That’s the tall blond dude, right?”
“Yep. Mr. October himself. All the other guys were about to lose it, but he stood up and told me in no uncertain terms to fuck off, he hadn’t signed jack shit.”
More laughter, and then a different voice said, “I hope you worked him over for that.”
“Oh, yeah, he was one cold, hurtin’ puppy when I was done with him, but then I slipped him an extra cup of broth afterward. Gotta admire his grit.”
“He’s finishing the Week really strong. Good motivator, showing great teamwork…”
The voices faded away as Matt moved on past the instructors’ table to dump his chow tray.
He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but the cadre was sitting right behind him and he hadn’t been able to help it.
It was Thursday night, Shane’s Hell Week was almost over, and apparently he’d been making quite the impression on the instructors.
Good for you, clown.
The next afternoon, Matt ran to the parking lot to join the excited throng waiting for the blue bus to turn off the Strand with its weary, jubilant cargo.
“There they are!”
Cheers were raised when the bus appeared at last. Matt paced impatiently next to his truck.
He’d been so shocked to see Shane waiting there after his own Hell Week.
Going home with him had been a no-brainer, despite Matt’s disgust with him.
Putting up with a quitter in exchange for getting to wallow in a big, cushy bed? Fuck yeah.
What he hadn’t expected, though, was to end up feeling so cared for, so…
cherished. He sighed, remembering pillows under his legs, soothing touches, a dark, quiet room where he could just let go of his exhaustion and the memory of trauma, secure in the knowledge that Shane was there and he would take care of everything.
It’d be a very lucky man who’d have Shane’s love someday.
A twist of dislike stabbed him toward that unknown, faceless man, and before his thoughts could go any farther down that road, he caught a glimpse of Shane himself limping across the parking lot toward him, a smile on his wan face.
Matt hurried to meet him and wrapped his arm around his waist. Shane trembled against him, obviously at the very end of his endurance.
“You did it.” Matt gave him a tight squeeze. “Let’s get you home.”
Once at the house Shane went to take a hot shower while Matt changed the sheets on the bed, closed the blinds and set out a fresh bottle of water on the nightstand. When he finally emerged, Matt helped him to lie down and tucked the comforter around him.
He kissed his forehead, murmuring, “Get some sleep,” yelping when Shane grabbed him and yanked him on top of him.
“Want a better kiss,” he rasped, holding on to Matt tightly, not letting him up. Matt gave an exasperated huff as he leaned down to peck Shane on the mouth.
“How’s that?”
“Uh-uh. More better.”
“God, you’re ridiculous.” Despite his outward annoyance, Matt’s lips were gentle as he brushed them across Shane’s again, this time letting them linger.
“Mmm.” Shane cupped the back of Matt’s neck and angled his head to deepen the kiss. “Thinking about doing this is what got me through those last few hours.”
Arousal bubbling through his veins, Matt pulled away. “Well, whatever worked,” he said briskly. He twitched the comforter back into place before striding to the door, hearing Shane’s low chuckle following him.
“Night, Soup.”
Matt flipped off the light and closed the door softly behind him. At loose ends, he stretched out in Shane’s recliner to veg in front of a mindless action movie.
“Matt!”
Shane’s hoarse cry had Matt leaping to his feet to run down the hall and fling the door open. “What’s the matter?”
Shane was still in bed, the covers tangled about his hips. He was pushed up on his elbows, his lips twisted in apparent pain. “I can’t move,” he gasped. “Need to piss and I can’t get my fuckin’ legs to work.”
Matt hurried to him and pulled the covers all the way back, taking in the situation at a glance. Shane’s quads were twitching with painful muscle spasms, the result of finally lying still after days of constant motion.
“Jesus, hold on.”
He dug through the top drawer of Shane’s nightstand, finding the small tube of lotion he remembered seeing there and quickly coating his hands with it. Starting at Shane’s knee, Matt worked his way up his thigh with a firm massage, easing the cramping, before moving to the other one.
“Dammit, that hurts,” Shane groaned, his face tight. “Am I gonna die?” He sounded so pitiful Matt couldn’t help but roll his eyes.
“Welcome to Hell Week aftermath, day one. Time to man up.”
“Aww, fuck you.”
Matt helped Shane to sit and then stand, supporting him as he hobbled with him to the bathroom. He leaned against the doorjamb, watching him closely to make sure he didn’t fall. “Doing okay?”
Shane huffed, flushing the toilet and moving to wash his hands. “If I ever need you to hold my dick for me while I take a piss, just go ahead and put me out of my misery, would ya?”
“Roger that.”
They shuffled back to bed, Matt helping him get situated again. Shane caught his hand before he could turn away. “Stay with me. I don’t think I can go back to sleep yet.”
Matt perched on the edge next to him, unable to keep from brushing his thumb across Shane’s cheekbone, a dark bruise there lurid against Shane’s pale skin. “What happened here?”