Wash Out

by L. A. Witt

  “How long will that be?”

  “Too long,” he grumbled. “Docs say the cast will be off soon, but it’ll be at least three or four months after that before I can run. Assuming I don’t need more surgery.”

  “Yeah, careful working in this office, Logan.” Diego stepped out of his cube, thumbing through a stack of papers as he spoke. “It’s the office of cursed legs.”

  “Pfft.” Casey rolled his eyes. “We all had fucked-up legs before we got here.”

  “We did,” Diego corrected. “What about Sarah?”

  Casey’s eyes flicked toward the empty desk. “Okay. Fair. But still, that’s only one person who got hurt after they started in this place.”

  “Exactly. Three people in an office of four have shit legs.” Diego glanced at me. “Careful with yours, my friend.”

  “Duly noted,” I said.

  “I’ll be right back,” Diego told me. “I need to talk to the XO, and then I’ll walk you through the safety program. That’s what you’ll be teaching first.”

  I nodded, and as Diego headed out, I noticed for the first time he had a subtle limp. “Cursed legs, huh?” I turned to Casey. “What’d you do to yours?”

  Casey’s mood immediately darkened. He dropped his gaze for a second, but then shook himself and cleared his throat. “Got hurt at BUD/S.”

  I blinked. “Wow, really?”

  “Yep,” he said bitterly. “Hey, I’m in good company, right? Isn’t it like ninety-seven percent of BUD/S recruits that wash out?”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. It was common knowledge that all the special forces training programs, especially the SEALs, lost most of their recruits. I’d met a few washouts, and never quite knew what to say to them. If they’d busted their asses that hard to get in and didn’t make it through to the end—that shit stung.

  And it was an injury that had killed Casey’s shot at a trident. He might very well have had the mental and physical wherewithal to be a SEAL. But whatever had happened to his leg . . .

  “I’m sorry,” I finally managed to say. “That . . . must be tough.”

  “Yeah.” His voice was dry. Distant. “It is.”

  “But hey, at least no one’s shooting at you in here, right?”

  Casey set his jaw. “Something like that.”

  Silence fell. After a moment, he turned back to his desk. I chewed my lip, really at a loss for what to say, especially since I didn’t know him at all. I held back a comment about how he’d dodged a bullet. Quite possibly a literal one. People didn’t join the military to avoid getting shot at. Finding out you weren’t going into the heart of a war zone was comforting to the side of you that wanted to survive, but it didn’t do good things to the part that was trained to fight.

  Someone like him who was driven enough to become a SEAL was never going to be happy anywhere but the front lines. Someone like me who’d been to the front lines would never be able to explain that it was a circle of hell we wouldn’t wish on anyone.

  Not even the ones who wanted to be there.

  I was relieved when Diego came back and took Logan for a tour of the building. The silence had gotten awkward as fuck, and now that he was gone, I could breathe.

  I felt bad about it, though. Logan seemed like a nice enough guy. He’d had every right to ask about my leg. Hell, I’d brought it up. He just couldn’t have known how much mental shit was attached to all the damage that cast was holding together.

  Alone in the office, I sat back in my chair and rubbed my eyes. Sometimes, I wished people understood that “at least you’re not getting shot at” wasn’t as comforting as they thought. I was supposed to be fighting. Or at least training to fight. Being a SEAL was who I was—or at least, who I was supposed to be—and sitting behind a desk was a kind of torture most people just didn’t understand.

  Some days were worse than others too, and today . . . Fuck.

  My leg hurt, for one thing. I was really kicking myself—so to speak—for not taking Diego up on the offer of letting him teach some of my classes this week. Leaning on my crutches during the PowerPoint presentations and lectures wasn’t usually that bad, but back-to-back classes this morning had been a mistake. Probably would be until the next surgery, and God knew if that one would help. All I knew now was that the joint hurt like hell and the muscles were throbbing. I swore I could feel every pin, screw, and scar trying to keep my lower leg from falling apart.

  And I’m supposed to run on this? Like, ever?

  The docs were convinced I would. I might not ever run a marathon, and my Physical Readiness scores might never be above satisfactory, but I would run.

  I’d believe that when I saw it. All I knew now was that I was too fucked up to finish training and become a SEAL, but not fucked up enough for a medical discharge. I didn’t want to stay in if I couldn’t be a SEAL. My contract didn’t care.

  Ah well. At least the Navy was paying to fix my leg. I couldn’t complain about that part.

  I turned my head toward the cubicle where Logan would be sitting. Maybe this would be slightly less of a shitty deal now that there was some eye candy around the office. Diego was hot and all, but Logan? Whoa.

  He was seriously built. The guy had shoulders and arms like some of the guys I’d known in BUD/S, but without that balloon-animal look some of the meatheads got. His black hair probably hadn’t seen a regulation cut since he got out, and it just teased the collar of his dress shirt. He was fair-skinned like he probably didn’t get much sun, which wasn’t out of the ordinary in the Pacific Northwest. Even my SoCal tan was fading fast.

  It was a shame I’d been so distracted by my own brain when he’d left, or I’d have made a point of checking out his ass. Eh, the day was still young. And I was lucky—my desk was turned at the perfect angle to let me subtly ogle anyone coming or going.

  You just became my new happy place for when the doc is messing around with my leg.

  I laughed at that, and tried to ignore the goose bumps prickling up my spine. Oh yeah, I’d be thinking of him, and not only when the doctor was testing out new torture techniques on me. When I tried to sleep, when I jerked—

  The clomp of high heels in the hallway brought me out of my thoughts, and I smiled. I knew that set of footsteps from a mile away.

  Sure enough, a second later, Sarah came strolling in through the open door, the beads in her long black braids clicking as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. She was seriously tall, and she wore these enormous heels all the time, so she towered over all of us.

  “Hey, honey.” She flashed me a smile. “Just you in here?”

  “Yeah. Diego’s showing the new guy around.”

  “Oh, what’s he like?”

  “Oh, you know.” I shrugged. “A little bitchy sometimes. Swears in Spanish when he’s mad.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “The new guy, dumbass.”

  I snorted. “He’s all right. Easy on the eyes too.”

  “Oh yeah?” She lit up. “Well now I’m curious.” She let her nails click along the top of my cube before she turned into her own and dropped into her chair. “How’s the gimpy leg?”

  “Eh. Gimpy.”

  She frowned. “Better? Worse?”

  “Not happy after two classes in a row this morning.”

  She clicked her tongue. Then her drawer rattled, and I straightened like a cat who’d heard the treat bag crinkle. A second later, she tossed me a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. “There. That won’t make it better, but being sore with one of these is better than being sore without one.”

  “Fuck yeah, it is.” I tore into the orange wrapper.

  I loved Sarah. Diego had taken a week or two to really grow on me, and I’d never cared for Logan’s incompetent predecessor, but Sarah? I’d loved her the minute I’d started working in this office. That little drawer full of candy didn’t hurt, either. Especially when she loaded it up with Baby Ruth bars. I had a feeling we’d all be in sugar comas around Halloween.

  Sarah had
to leave again for a meeting a few minutes later, and after she’d gone, I went back to the PowerPoint presentation I’d been ignoring for the last half hour. While I worked on it, though, I couldn’t get the new guy out of my head, and not just because he was attractive as hell. Yeah, a lot of people had combat-related injuries and didn’t like talking about them, so asking about wounds and scars was tricky, but I’d mentioned it first, so it had been fair game. I probably would’ve asked too, just out of curiosity. And rationally I knew what people meant with those comments about metaphorical dodged bullets. It just frustrated me that I couldn’t explain how much they hurt.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. Okay, Logan and I had just met, and we’d gotten off on the wrong foot (so to speak), and I needed to fix it. Otherwise things were going to stay really awkward around the office for a while. Maybe once we’d felt each other out a bit, I could gently explain to him how little comfort there was in dodging this particular bullet, and maybe he’d understand. But for today, he was the new guy who genuinely meant well, and I was the unreasonable dickhead for expecting him to read my fucked-up mind.

  It was almost an hour before Diego and Logan returned, and as soon as they came in, my stomach knotted. Logan glanced at me and smiled, but there was still some tension in his brow, and the air between us was definitely awkward. He probably didn’t know what to say or if he’d already said too much.

  I waited until we were more or less alone. Sarah was out of the office and Diego was on the phone, so I grabbed the opportunity and turned my chair to face him. “Listen, um.” I cleared my throat. “Sorry for kind of giving you the cold shoulder earlier. When you asked about my leg.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t know you well enough to be asking about—”

  “No, you were fine. I brought it up, you know?” I paused. “So, just . . . I’m sorry for being an ass, all right?”

  Logan studied me, but nodded without pushing the issue.

  I went on, though. “Like I said, it’s the reason I had to drop out of BUD/S. So it’s, you know—”

  “I get it,” he said softly. “I wouldn’t be happy about something like that either. And, uh, sorry if I downplayed it.”

  I swallowed, nodding. “Thanks. It’s . . . You really couldn’t have known. So it’s okay.”

  The silence stretched on, threatening to get even more awkward, before Logan said, “Where will you go once your leg’s healed?”

  That was another minefield, but it was a reasonable direction for the conversation to head. I shrugged tightly. “Back to a ship, I guess. Depends on where they’ve got an opening for a Gunner’s Mate. I mean, unless Diego pushes to keep me here or—”

  Diego barked a laugh. “That’ll be the day.”

  “You know you love me, Ramírez.”

  Another laugh, this one quieter. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

  “Asshole.”

  Logan chuckled, and the tension in the room seemed to loosen. “I think I’m going to like working in this office.”

  “Eh, give it a week.” I smirked. “You haven’t heard one of Diego’s tirades yet.”

  Muttered Spanish from the other cubicle made us both snicker.

  With the air cleared between me and Logan, I went back to my PowerPoint, and he continued getting oriented. Diego got him started with the computer system—pointedly eyeing me when he reminded Logan not to forget his ID card at the end of the day, since some people in this office were notorious for leaving theirs in the card slot—and Sarah took Logan downstairs to finish his new-hire paperwork.

  Logan still seemed surprised by the jabs we fired off at each other, but that was probably just because he didn’t know all of us yet. I guessed he’d be joining in without hesitation by the end of the week. The rest of us had gotten on board pretty quick. After all, none of us had even been here all that long. I’d started two months ago. Diego had apparently been here for almost a year by that point, since he’d started around the time the department had been restructured. Sarah had worked in various departments for three years, but she’d only been in training since shortly after Diego had started.

  We all got along most of the time. Diego had days when he was insufferably crabby, but almost without fail those would be the days when his fiancé would show up to take him to lunch or something, and suddenly all would be fine. I sometimes wondered if Sarah tipped Mark off that it would be a good time to come strolling into the office.

  Sarah was admittedly not the easiest person to work with for a few days out of every month. Like clockwork she’d be out sick for two days afterward, and she’d leave chocolate bars on our desks when she came back on the third day. Not that she needed to apologize, for God’s sake. Diego and I never gave her any shit for it—we didn’t know what it was like firsthand, but damn, if we were that miserable, we’d probably snap at people sometimes too.

  I also had my moody days, especially when my physical therapy started tickling the line of cruel and unusual punishment. Or when I started thinking too hard about the fact that I was pushing a goddamned desk and training Sailors to do CPR and killing them with PowerPoint presentations instead of becoming a SEAL. Most of the time, though, I was okay. And even though I was still pissy about being here in the first place, the Navy could’ve put me on worse detail. Training was a cakewalk, and as a bonus, my boss was gay. After the homophobic asshole I’d worked for on the ship before I’d gone to BUD/S, I’d take it.

  Everything had run nicely the whole time I’d been here, right up until Stevens had left. Good thing they’d gotten Logan in here when they did; we could all handle the extra classes and workload, but not for much longer. Once he was up to speed, it would be a hell of a lot easier on all of us.

  Assuming I could get anything done while someone that hot was in the same office.

  A little before twelve, Commander Fraser poked his head into the office and looked at Logan. “You ready to roll?”

  Logan nodded. “Yeah, give me a sec.” He got up and went to Diego’s cube. “Hey, I’m heading to lunch. Is that cool?”

  I didn’t hear Diego’s response, but Logan left a second later, and this time I did watch his ass on the way out.

  “Mm-mmm.” Sarah whistled. “About time we got one of the pretty ones in this office.”

  “Hey!”

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine. One of the pretty ones who plays for my team.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Twenty bucks.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Fifty.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Confident, aren’t you?” She craned her neck. “You in, Ramírez?”

  “No way.” His chair creaked, and something rustled. When he appeared, he had some folders tucked under his arm and a stack of papers in his hand. He was flipping through the pages, but paused to eye us both. “He hasn’t been here half a day, and you two are already making bets?”

  I shrugged. “Admit it—you’re surprised it took us this long.”

  Diego laughed and rolled his eyes. “Okay. Yeah. I am.” He paused, sobering a little. “By the way, how’s your leg doing?”

  “Still attached, I guess.”

  His forehead creased. “You need me to take your afternoon classes?”

  “Nah.” I shook my head. “I’ve got it. And you’re dealing with the new guy anyway.”

  “Sarah can handle him.”

  “Ramírez, what did I say about volun-telling me to do things?”

  Diego turned to her. “That you’re my subordinate and you’ll do it without question?”

  “No. The other thing.”

  He thought for a moment. “That you’ll start putting Almond Joys instead of Mounds in the candy dish?”

  Sarah nodded.

  Diego narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

  She narrowed hers back. “Try me, motherfucker.”

  He huffed. “Fine. I’ll train the new guy.” They both laughed, and I was pretty sure they knew as well as I di
d that Sarah would fill in for him without complaint if he needed to take over one of my classes. They just had to constantly bust each other’s chops.

  “Guys, it’s really okay,” I said. “It’s one class, and it’s downstairs instead of in another building. I’ll be fine. Diego, you can keep training Logan, and Sarah, you can keep putting Mounds in the candy dish.”

  Diego turned more serious. “Are you sure? If standing for that long is bothering you, say something, all right? You know I get it.” He gestured at his knee, which wasn’t in a brace today but sometimes was.

  I nodded. “I know. I appreciate it. But I’m good. Promise.”

  He studied me. Then he shrugged, swiped a handful of Mounds bars out of the dish, and headed back to his desk.

  “Hey!” Sarah called after him. “You’re only supposed to take one!”

  “Just saving myself a trip,” he said, tearing one open with his teeth as he rounded the corner into his cubicle.

  Sarah huffed. “Asshole.”

  I just snickered and kept plowing through my PowerPoint, wondering who the hell Logan had blown to score lunch with Commander Fraser.

  The NAS Adams officers’ club was nice. Officers’ clubs in general were probably all nice, but I’d never been in one before. The lighting was dim, giving it a kind of upscale atmosphere, especially with the dark hardwood floor and rich red leather on everything. From what I’d heard, the enlisted club across the street was basically a step up from a Denny’s. Even though they were both open to officers and enlisted, the differences between them brought to mind all the animosity between the ranks. I rolled my eyes at the memory of officers looking down their noses at us while me and my guys glared right back at them. There were things I missed about the Marine Corps, but that wasn’t one of them.

  Clint and I took a seat at a table with a view of the golf course, and started perusing the menu. Out of sheer habit, I skimmed the drink menu, but caught myself and turned the page to the entrees.

  “Grilled cheese sandwiches?” I smirked across the table at Clint. “Mozzarella sticks? The O club is really keeping it classy, aren’t they?”