“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Adam said. “Boys, boys! Let’s take a deep breath here. I really don’t think we need to get the police—or any lawyers—involved.”
Cody was very unhappy. “I need to get to Vegas. Right goddamn now. I don’t have time to screw around with the police. When do you get paid?” he asked Wade.
“Not until next Monday,” Wade said.
“Fuck!” Cody said. “I’ma fucking kill you!”
Wade nervously cleared his throat and looked at Adam. “Maybe we could—” he cleared his throat again “—um, borrow money for a bus ticket, so Cody can get to Vegas for um… you know, his important business deal…?”
This was not part of their carefully scripted scene. Wade was improvising. But clearly he believed it would be better for everyone—Angel and Wade—if Cody spent the next few days or even weeks searching Las Vegas for his soon-to-be ex-wife.
It was ironic, really. If Ben hadn’t slashed Cody’s tires, the man would’ve already zoomed off to Vegas. Of course, they’d had no way of knowing, in advance, that Cody would so easily believe the cyber-trail they’d set down. And in the grand scheme of things, giving Cody a one-way bus ticket to Vegas, where he’d be forced to hump the strip on foot—and then have to hitch or earn his bus fare home—was a huge win.
Ben could see that recognition in Adam’s eyes. But Adam was also wary of just flippety-ing over a full one-eighty. Sure, I’ll just randomly buy you a bus ticket, older brother of the boy who’d recently threatened to kill Ben’s boyfriend and then broke Ben’s nose! Hop into my car, we’ll just leave Ben, Ryan, and Wade here to work things out amongst themselves as I drive you to the station, like we’re besties!
And yet, Cody’s moments-ago-uttered I’ma fucking kill you—directed at Wade—was pretty motivating.
Amazingly, it was Cody who showed that mad acting skills ran in the family. He was as good of a liar as his little brother as he backed up a few steps so that he could sit exhaustedly and dejectedly on the front stoop.
“Wade was just trying to help me save face,” he said in the voice of a man who’d lost everything. “I need to get to Vegas because—” his voice actually broke “—my wife, Angel… She just left me. I found out she’s headed there, and I need to find her to tell her I’m sorry, and that I love her and… I can’t live without her.” He looked up at Adam and there were actually tears in his eyes. “Please.”
This was it. They were seeing it firsthand—the reason that Angel had had to get well out of physical range of her husband. Cody was such a good actor that he practically oozed regret and remorse. Or maybe, in this moment, he truly believed that what he felt for Angel was love and not a need to dominate, control, and abuse.
And for the first time since he’d met Angel, Ben understood why she hadn’t been able to leave. This sensitive man—if only he were real—would be worth sticking around for.
But he wasn’t real. In the silence after that plaintive please, as Cody looked from Ben to Ryan and back to Adam, Ben could see—just a flash—of Cody’s cold calculation. Did he need to lay it on more thickly to get what he wanted?
“You could sell your truck to get some cash,” Ben suggested, mostly just to see Cody’s reaction and yup. There was that flash of mean and ugly again.
But Cody tamped it back down and mournfully said, “You can’t sell something you don’t own, son. I’m still paying for the truck. And with my father out of town… He won’t be back for another week, so… I’m throwing myself on your mercy here.”
“Jesus, I’m a sucker for romance,” Adam finally said. “Look, I’m between jobs myself, but… How much is a bus ticket to Vegas?” He knew damn well what an on-line ticket cost, from having just created that fake browser history.
Wade answered for Cody. “I don’t remember exactly. Maybe sixty bucks?” He looked at his brother. “We were just on the website, and I remember thinking it wasn’t that much, but that, still, Angel didn’t have that kind of money.”
“Sixty’ll do it,” Cody told Adam. “Wade’ll pay you back on Monday.”
Adam narrowed his eyes, considering. “Okay, but if I help—and I’ll have to buy the ticket for you with my credit card, because I don’t have the cash. But if I do that, this is done, right?” His gesture included the disabled truck. “No police, no lawyers, no payback of any kind. Also? Wade stays far away from both Ben and Ryan.” He turned to Wade. “And I’m serious. I have that dash-cam video, and I’m gonna put it into deep storage, son. You so much as look at them in the hall at school, and we’ll be pressing charges.”
Wade looked from Ben to Ryan, and Ben could hear their voices echoing in his head. I love you. I know. Wade nodded.
“Okay,” Adam said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Before I drive Cody to the bus station, I’m gonna take Ben and Ryan home—”
“No,” Ryan spoke up. “I mean, since Cody’s in a hurry…” His voice trailed off, because he was really worried about leaving Wade alone with Cody. Getting Wade’s brother on a bus heading out of town was his highest priority, despite the fact that his “boyfriend” Ben was still bleeding from that “broken nose.”
But before Ben could chime in with an I’ll be okay. Ryan’ll get me home, the cavalry finally arrived.
A car and truck both came roaring up the street, pulling to a stop behind Adam’s Prius. The car was Eden’s, and she came rocketing out and running towards him. “Ben!”
In the truck was a SEAL that Ben had only met a few times in passing—an officer who was nicknamed Grunge. Jay Lopez must’ve called him.
He was tall and lean. SEALs tended to be either Hulk-Smash huge, marathon-runner lean, or small and wiry, and Grunge was in the second subset. He had a halo of blond hair around a face that was Hollywood lifeguard hot. He had a rawhide necklace with a single blue stone bead tied around his sun-kissed throat, and he was wearing flip-flops with his jungle-print cammie uniform cargo shorts. His demeanor was chill, but Ben had spent enough time around SEALs to know that meant exactly nothing.
In the point-oh-seven seconds that Grunge had been here, he’d clearly made note of everything that Eden had seen—the damaged tires, the blood on Ben’s pre-battered face, Wade’s torn shirt—along with everything that she may not have noticed. Like, Cody’s instantly combative body language, the fact that there were no weapons—concealed or other—evident, and certainly the fact that Angel was nowhere in sight. Ben had no doubt that Jay Lopez had filled Grunge in on all the important details.
“What happened?” Eden asked Ben, who glanced pointedly from both Wade to Cody as he flat-out “lied” to her.
“I tripped and fell and smashed my nose.” Ben nodded at his sister in a silent play along with me, adding, “Since you’re here to take me and Ryan home, Adam’s gonna drive Cody to the bus station. He’s gotta go to Las Vegas to find Angel and apologize, but he had a—” he cleared his throat “—freak accident with his truck, so he needs to take the bus.”
“Pack whatever you need,” Adam told Cody, then aimed his words at Wade as Cody went into the house. “You can ride along to the bus station.”
“Oh,” Ryan said.
Adam looked hard at Ryan. “Dude.” He mouthed the words, I’m not taking him by myself.
“How about if I get Cody onto that bus?” Grunge asked with an easy-going smile. “I’m heading in that direction anyway. And since it looks like everything’s under control here…?”
Adam’s relief was in his eyes. “Thank you, Lieutenant. That would be… great. But… I’m underwriting Cody’s bus ticket, and I don’t have cash. I was going to use a credit card at the Greyhound station, you know, buy the ticket for him.”
Grunge made a dismissive gesture. “I can do that for you,” he said.
“I’ll pay you back.”
“I’m not worried.” Grunge smiled again. “You’re Tony’s…” He searched for a word that worked under the invasive Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell rules that were still in play. He settled on “Yo
u’re Tony’s.”
“I am,” Adam said, shaking the SEAL’s hand.
“Nice to see you again. Tony’s one of our best.” Then Grunge aimed his knee-weakening smile at Ben. “And you’re Dan’s brother, and Izzy’s brother-in-law. Nice to see you, too. Ben, right? You got that bleeding under control, Ben?”
“Yes, sir.”
Grunge took him at his word, giving a smile and a nod to Ben’s sister. “Eden.”
“Thank you so much for…” Eden couldn’t finish the sentence because Cody came out of the house carrying a gym bag and that ancient laptop computer with the power cord trailing behind him.
“Not a problem,” Grunge said easily. “Happy to help.”
“I’m taking this with me,” Cody told Wade, pointing at the laptop. No doubt so he could stalk the temp agencies and looking-for-roommate apartments that Angel had, allegedly, surfed while researching the Nevada city.
“I hope you find her,” Wade told his brother with a completely straight face.
“Lieutenant Greene’s gonna drive you to the bus station,” Adam informed Cody. “He’ll handle the ticket and…”
Cody really couldn’t care less who was paying, as long as someone was.
Grunge waved as he got into his truck. “Let’s connect for, you know, pizza maybe later in the week.”
“Absolutely,” Eden called back. “Our treat.”
And with that, they watched Grunge’s truck, with Cody in it, disappear down the street.
“He’s straight,” Eden said, meaning Grunge.
“Believe me, I know,” Ben said.
“And way too old for you.”
“Easy, sister. A boy’s allowed to dream,” Adam interjected.
Eden looked at him. “I think right now I want silence from you, please.”
“Angel’s safe,” Ben told her. “Thanks to Adam.”
“Thanks to all of us,” Adam defied Eden’s request.
She asked, “She’s not in…”
“Vegas?” Ben finished for her. “Of course not. Cody just thinks she is. Thanks to Adam.”
“Thanks to all of us,” Adam added.
“May I use your bathroom?” Ryan politely asked Wade, who nodded and led the younger boy into his house.
As the door closed tightly behind them, Ben could only imagine the way they surely clung to each other in relief, once safely hidden inside.
Eden was thinking the same thing. “Wade’s safe now, too?” she asked.
“For now,” Ben told her.
“So it’s okay if I ask what the hell—” her voice got loud “—did you do to your hand…?”
It looked worse than it was. “I’m okay,” he told his sister. “It’s not deep, and I’m up to date with my tetanus shot so…” He shrugged and went for cute, giving her a toothy grin as he let her take a look. “Boo-Boo’s got just a little boo boo.”
Eden rolled her eyes as she laughed and hugged him hard, then opened her arms to include Adam in the embrace.
“You will tell me everything,” she told them, “and I mean everything. But right now, let’s get you home and cleaned up.”
She glanced over at the house, and Ben knew what she was thinking.
“It’s all right if we leave,” he told her. “They’ll be okay. Wade’s mom’s not coming back, and his dad’s gone for at least another week.”
Ben knew from experience that Wade was better than okay. For the first time in his life, he was finally safe to be himself in his own home. That was an unbelievably great feeling.
No, it wouldn’t last, and that safety wouldn’t exist when Wade stepped out of his front door.
But for right now? It was enough.
I love you.
I know.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Late Thursday
“Hey, I just spoke to Eden—thanks for helping out today,” Izzy told Grunge, who was standing on the beach.
The night shift officer couldn’t resist giving the class some additional surf torture, even as the temperature dropped. Maybe especially because it was so cold. They were approaching the end of Hell Week, and Grunge’s never-let-up philosophy was in full play.
“De nada,” Grunge said. “And really, it was pretty much nothing. I sat in traffic, and then I drove an abusive shit-for-brains asshole to the bus station, watched the bus pull away with him on it. Didn’t kill him. Had the chance, but took the high road. So, yeah, all-in-all a pretty easy day.” He glanced at Izzy. “Is Ben okay? There was a lot of blood, but I took him at his word.”
Izzy nodded. “Yeah. He, um, grabbed a very sharp knife at the wrong end. You know what that’s like. It wasn’t deep, but hands, you know.”
“They bleed. Stitches?” Grunge asked.
“Nah,” Izzy said. “Just a lotta bandaids and hydrogen peroxide.”
“Ow.”
“Kid has diabetes, so we’re careful with injuries on extremities,” Izzy said. “Feet more than hands, but… He’s a smart kid. A good kid.”
“Your whole family’s pretty freaking adorable,” Grunge said. “The Zanella-Gillmans. Who would’ve ever thought.”
“I have married into greatness,” Izzy admitted. “And yeah, Dan and I didn’t start in a good place, but we both love Eden, and we both love Ben. Jenn is amazing, too. Have you met Danny’s wife Jenn?”
“Only in passing,” Grunge said.
“Yeah, well, Dan is the second luckiest mofo on the planet,” Izzy said. He himself, of course, was the first. “And you know the way you’re always after me to Officer-Up at OTS? From now on, every time you do that, I’m gonna be all Let me list the reasons why you, too, should have a ginormous family of your own.”
“Like that’s not going to get obnoxious.”
“Exactly,” Izzy said.
“Wow.” Grunge looked at him. “Z, I’m sorry.”
“I know you want me to be happy,” Izzy said. “And I want the same for you. But maybe we should let each other find that individually—in ways the other can’t quite imagine.”
Grunge nodded.
“Also?” Izzy continued. “Now you have the Seagull to shape into the perfect little officer of your dreams.”
Grunge nodded again, but it quickly turned into a head shake. “Yeah, I dunno, Iz. With Timebomb rolled, something’s different with the Gull. And again, I can’t put my finger on it. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if he rang out. I mean, I really have no idea what’s going on in his odd little head.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that, too,” Izzy admitted. “A change of energy. A kind of a weird disconnect, like part of him got rolled with his swim buddy. Still, I think it’s safe to say that’s he’s not going to quit.”
Grunge glanced at him again. “You heading out, or…?”
“No, I’m gonna stick around,” Izzy said. Whenever he day-shifted Hell Week, he stayed through the final night. This shit was better than reality TV.
“You just want to see me break Schlossman.”
“I hate to tell you, sir, but he’s not going anywhere either,” Izzy said.
“Maybe,” Grunge said. “Maybe not. But if he stays, I’m making damn sure he’s earned it.”
* * *
SEAL Candidate Petty Officer Third Class
John “Hans” Schlossman:
I don’t remember much of the last twenty-four hours of Hell Week at all. That’s what I tell people.
I mean, except for, you know, the story. The legend. That I remember. Very clearly. But the rest, leading up to it…? It was unpleasant, and I’d really rather not talk about it.
I mean, we can pretty much just sum it up with one sentence.
Lieutenant Greene and the other instructors leaned on me, hard.
* * *
SEAL Candidate Petty Officer Third Class
John “Seagull” Livingston:
Grunge was gunning for Schloss. There was no doubt about it.
That’s why I did what I did. Or rather, why I waited to do what
I did until after rock portage. Our second rock portage, that is, which came after our final, nighttime Around-the-World.
Stupid thing is, we should’ve talked. I should’ve told my squad what I was planning. That was my bad—thinking it was just me, who… Well.
Problem was, I was exhausted. So instead, I focused only on getting my squad through the week. I made sure that it was my voice in their heads—Schloss’s head in particular, since he was the one Grunge was targeting. We’re gonna do this. We can do this. There is nothing that can stop us now.
We were still a team, even without Timebomb. We were still Boat Squad John.
So yeah, we made it. That final rock portage sucked—in the dark, with just the four of us, with the tide going against us, just like Schloss had warned. But we did it.
And from there on out, as far as Hell Week went, the guys just needed to keep breathing.
I felt pretty confident they could do that without me.
* * *
LT Peter “Grunge” Greene:
Did Seagull’s actions after rock portage surprise me?
Yes, but not half as much as what Schlossman did. That was the shocker.
I’m pretty sure I was standing there like some cartoon character whose eyes are suddenly on springs—boing!—as I gaped in amazement. (laughs) And of course Zanella was looking at me like, Oh who’s completely not surprised by any of this? Why, that would be…
* * *
Petty Officer First Class
Irving “Izzy” Zanella:
Moi.
Although in truth…? (looks furtively around) Shh, don’t tell Grunge, but Boat Squad John went above and beyond anything I might’ve imagined. I may have been grinning at Grunge, all outwardly, Was I right or was I right about my boyz? But inwardly, I’m verklempt. Inside, I’m a weeping ball of love and admiration and pride.
Holy fuck, the pride I’m feeling for these tadpoles.
As you know, we don’t let just any old John, John, or Jon become a U.S. Navy SEAL.
When we invite candidates to BUD/S, we’re looking for the best of the best.
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