by L. A. Witt
“Great,” he muttered.
I chuckled and just watched him for a few minutes. We’d come to his place so my roommate could sleep for a few hours, and Chris was rummaging around in the kitchen in the name of dinner. I didn’t even know what he was making, but there wasn’t much I wouldn’t eat right then. It had been a couple of days since the accident, and the concussion had finally stopped fucking with my stomach.
It didn’t hurt that I knew from experience what an amazing cook he was. There’d been a little barbecue outside the building where we’d done our classroom work in coxswain’s school, and Chris had gotten permission to use it. Didn’t matter what he threw on the grill—steaks, burgers, chicken—it was always perfectly seasoned and perfectly cooked. I might’ve kind of fallen a little bit in love with him the first time he’d grilled me up a steak.
My throat tightened as I watched him flitting around the kitchen.
Might’ve fallen a little bit in love with him?
Okay, so maybe I’d been on cloud nine at that point. I’d had a flawless steak grilled to a perfect medium rare by a gorgeous man while I was on a break from learning to be a coxswain. It really didn’t get any better than that.
And now that gorgeous man wouldn’t leave my side while I recovered from my worst nightmare. Watching him from his couch, I caught myself physically aching to touch him. It didn’t matter that he was straight. That would make me keep my hands to myself of course, but it sure as shit didn’t change how I felt about him. I’d had a crush on him since day one, but right now . . . fuck, I was pretty sure the might’ve and little bit ships had sailed a long time ago.
I let my mind wander back to coxswain’s school. It had only been a couple of weeks long, but goddamn, those had been a couple of amazing weeks. Careening around the water, learning how to maneuver at blistering speeds during combat maneuvers, and . . .
Chris.
The very first day, I’d taken one look at that tall, dark-skinned guy with the playful smile and the dancing eyes, and that had been it. Instant crush.
Then I’d gotten to know him. Found out we had the same sense of humor. Found out he loved Taylor Swift and Britney Spears—something he’d only told me after I’d admitted to knowing every lyric from every boy band song since the dawn of time. Found out he could cook and light up a room with a joke and drive a boat like he was born to do it and . . . God. Everything. Every time I’d found out some new detail about him, I’d wanted him more. I hadn’t been surprised to find out he was straight, but the disappointment had hit me hard.
Just because I couldn’t have him didn’t mean I couldn’t want him, though, so I’d let myself swoon over him. And even if I couldn’t have him as a boyfriend or whatever, I had him as a friend. A damn good friend. I could live with that.
We’d both gone back to our respective commands on opposite sides of the country, but we’d stayed in touch. I’d had to tweak my cell phone plan because we’d been texting and messaging so much. We’d chatted constantly, even while he’d been deployed, and his texts and IMs had quickly become the highlights of my day. As soon as my crew and I would finish a patrol, I’d hurry to my locker to check my phone, and I’d grin like an idiot when I had a message from him.
Then Chris had transferred to NAS Adams, and shortly after that, I’d gotten orders to the same base. I had literally jumped up out of my chair and shouted when I saw REPORT TO NAS ADAMS on my screen. My coworkers had thought I’d lost my mind, but I didn’t care. And a few weeks later, I was here. And he was here. And every single fucking day, I got to see him. And—
“You don’t mind it a little spicy, do you?”
Chris’s voice jarred me back into the present. I blinked a few times, hoping he would blame my space-out on my rattled skull.
“Spicy? What?”
He held up a jar of some kind of bright-red powder. “The chicken. I was going to put some chili powder on it. That okay?”
“Yeah. Of course.” I smiled. “It’s all good.”
He smiled back, sending a zing of holy fuck right through me. And while he sprinkled chili powder and God knew what else on the chicken, I just stared.
Damn you for being straight, Chris, because I think I fell for you long before I ever fell out of that boat.
The next day, while Chris was at work, Chief Lasby called me into his office. I was on medical leave, and he told me I could wear civvies, so at least that meant I wasn’t getting my ass chewed or something. If anything, he probably just wanted to make sure I was doing all right. My new phone had been ringing like crazy with people checking up on me, so I figured he was doing the same.
I just didn’t want to talk to him. The only person I wanted to talk to less was MA1 Anderson.
Professionalism and military bearing demanded I suck it up, though, so I put on a decent pair of jeans and a Huskers sweatshirt. I still wasn’t steady enough to drive, so I called a buddy on patrol and had him come get me at the barracks.
“How you feeling?” MA2 James asked as I slid into the passenger seat.
“I’ve been better, believe me.”
“I’ll bet. And I always knew MA3 Rhodes was tough, but goddamn.” He whistled, shaking his head. “Takes some serious balls to jump in water like that.”
“No kidding. Thank God she did it.” I shuddered. There was no doubt in my mind I would have drowned if she hadn’t come in after me. None. “You know if she’s back at work? Or did they give her some time off too?” We’d texted back and forth a little, and she’d insisted she was all right, but I’d wondered if that was just to keep me from worrying.
He shook his head again. “Don’t know. I saw her and her husband at the Exchange last night, and she said she was pretty sore and tired, but she didn’t say anything about coming back to work.”
Well, at least she was up and about. Maybe still tired thanks to the hypothermia, but she must not have been too fucked up. Thank God for that. I had enough trouble sleeping with it on my conscience that she’d gone in after me at all.
MA2 James dropped me off at the security building. Chief Lasby’s office was here instead of in the harbor building, which was usually a blessing because it kept him out of our hair. Today it was a curse because security was always a lot more crowded than the HPU building, so walking through these halls meant wading through a gauntlet of people who’d heard what had happened. I appreciated the well wishes, of course, but I was exhausted. More than that, my head was still wonky after the concussion, and conversations were way harder than they should have been. I could keep up, and I could respond coherently—it just took a hell of a lot more work than usual.
Chief Jackson and Senior Chief Curtis were coming down the hall, coffee cups in hand, and stopped when they saw me.
“MA2,” Jackson said. “Glad to see you on your feet.”
“Thanks, Chief,” I said with a smile I didn’t feel. That wasn’t his fault. I actually liked Jackson and Curtis. The fact that they were both openly gay didn’t hurt, but they were also good guys. They weren’t like those assholes who let their ranks go to their heads and threw their weight around. Shame Curtis was transferring out soon; his replacement would probably be an insufferable dickhead.
“How are you feeling?” Curtis asked, genuine concern creasing his forehead.
“Like I should hold off on swimming again until the weather warms up.”
They both laughed, and I managed to do the same. It was hard to plaster on smiles today, though. I felt like shit. I just wanted to go back to the barracks, burrow under the covers, and fucking sleep.
Fortunately, they kept the conversation short, and after some more well wishes, we continued in separate directions. A moment later, I tapped on Chief Lasby’s door.
When he opened it, he smiled. “MA2.” He shook my hand and clasped the other one over the back of it. “Good to see you up and around. I hear the other night was a bit eventful.”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“Why don’t yo
u have a seat?” He tapped the back of one of his guest chairs.
“Thanks, Chief.” I sat down, grateful for the chance to let the chair deal with keeping me upright. Standing for any length of time without falling still took more effort than I liked to think about.
On the other side of the desk, Lasby sat back in his chair, hands folded under the paunch the Navy apparently issued to everyone as soon as they made chief. Well almost everyone. Chief Jackson was ripped. So was Senior Chief Curtis. In fact, I’d seen him and his husband at the base gym a few times, and I was pretty sure Senior was getting close to a six-pack. Man, if I ever made senior chief, I hoped I stayed in as good of shape as—
“MA2?” Chief Lasby’s voice made me jump.
I blinked my eyes into focus. “Sorry, Chief.”
His brow furrowed with obvious concern. “You really did take a nasty blow, didn’t you?”
I touched the bandage, which was almost as annoying as the throbbing gash underneath it. “Yeah. Boat, one. My head, zero.”
He laughed humorlessly. “Well, I’m glad to see it didn’t do more damage than it did.”
“Me too, Chief.”
He took in a breath. “Listen, the reason I brought you in here is I wanted to give you a heads-up. There is going to be an investigation.” He scowled, rolling his eyes. “That’s the Navy for you these days—anytime there’s an incident, they have to investigate it.”
I shifted uneasily, not sure what to say. MA1 Anderson had almost gotten me killed, so yeah, there’d damn well better be an investigation.
Lasby gave a heavy sigh. “You’re going to need to give a statement as soon as you can.”
“Okay. I can do that while I’m here.” I gestured over my shoulder with my thumb. “I’ll just go—”
“No, no.” He patted the air. “You had your bell rung pretty good, and I want you to have some time to recuperate.”
“I’d rather give the statement sooner than later. While the details are still fresh.” The details I could remember, anyway.
He watched me, his expression unreadable. Finally, he shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’m confident the investigation will be . . .” He paused, then waved dismissively. “You understand how it is, MA2. We have our procedures and protocols, but in the heat of the moment, sometimes we have to bend or even break those protocols. Especially when there are lives on the line.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t following, and I couldn’t decide if the concussion had anything to do with it.
“So when MA1 Anderson believed there was someone in distress,” Lasby went on, “I think the investigators will agree he was doing his duty as a master-at-arms to take care of the situation.”
I blinked. “Huh?”
He looked me right in the eye. “You can understand MA1 Anderson’s motives, can’t you?”
“Uh . . .” I swallowed. “With all due respect, Chief, his actions put myself and MA3 Rhodes in danger of—”
“And according to Anderson, you weren’t taking appropriate safety precautions when the incident occurred.” He sat up, folded hands landing on top of his blotter. “Is that correct, MA2?” He spat out the two, as if to subtly—or not—remind me of my position on the totem pole.
My mouth had gone dry. “When we hit the nets, I was on my way into the cabin to advise him that we needed to turn back. Before that, I was watching the bow. Checking for objects in the water.”
His eyes narrowed. “And after you turned away, the screws tangled in a fish net, correct?”
It took a moment for the accusatory tone to sink into my brain. For me to put the pieces together and realize what he was implying.
Sitting straighter, I struggled to hold his gaze. “I didn’t see any nets.”
His eyebrow arched. “You weren’t looking when the bow passed over them.”
Ice water spread through my veins. I fought the urge to fidget nervously, but failed. “The nets were under the surface, Chief. The visibility was barely a few inches, plus the seas were rough and the light was fading. Even if I had been looking over the bow right then, I wouldn’t have seen them.”
Eyes hard, he shook his head. “MA1 Anderson was relying on you to make sure there were no hazards in the water,” he said coldly. “I suggest you remember that when you issue your statement.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off with a terse, “Dismissed, MA2.”
Without another word, I got up and left. As soon as I’d gone around the corner, I stopped to lean against the wall, not sure how much of this dizziness was from my concussion and how much was my mind reeling after the conversation. My head hadn’t spun this fast at the ER the other night. What the fuck? What the fuck?
I’d come in here thinking he just wanted to check in and make sure I was all right. Instead, Lasby had all but told me he was going to do everything he could to paint MA1 Anderson as a hero. Someone who’d broken protocol in the name of potentially saving lives. The damage to government property—the boat, MA3 Rhodes, and myself—wasn’t because he’d stupidly taken us out of the harbor. It was because I’d been derelict in my duty of watching for hazards.
What. The. Fuck?
Technically, watching for hazards hadn’t been my job, but I knew how easily it could be spun that way. By going onto the bow like I had, I’d tacitly assured Anderson I was keeping an eye out for hazards. In the seconds my attention had been off the water—when I’d been heading for the coxswain’s seat to argue with Anderson—the nets had slipped past the bow and under the hull to snag the screws, crippling us and catapulting me into the drink.
I wanted to roll my eyes and remind myself he couldn’t make up rules like that, and this couldn’t come back and bite me as hard as he wanted me to think it could. Unfortunately, I’d been in the Navy—the master-at-arms rate in particular—long enough to know that was bullshit. He couldn’t string me up for dereliction of duty when “watching for flotsam, jetsam, and fishnets” wasn’t actually my duty, but he could make sure this followed me to the end of my career. I already knew all too well how true that was—my single trip to Captain’s Mast had been following me around for a damn decade. Some scuttlebutt among the chiefs’ mess could kill my chances of advancement, and without advancing, my career was over in under two years anyway. And if MA1 Anderson was not only cleared but branded as a hero who’d been trying to save some civilians only to get hung up on a fishnet thanks to me being insubordinate . . .
I blew out a breath.
And my stomach picked just that moment to lurch. I clapped a hand over my mouth. I still didn’t know if it was the concussion, the conversation, or both, but it didn’t matter because I had about three seconds to get to the men’s room.
I made it.
Barely.
“Oh hey.” MA3 Powers snorted, leaning into the patrol boat’s cabin. “Look at that—they’re finally working on the Metal Shark.”
Sure enough—there was a crew from Port Ops working on the larger vessel as I steered us back in off watch. The boat Anderson had been driving the other night was out of commission pending the investigation—the entire boat was considered evidence—so there’d been no choice but to let us take out the bigger boat for patrols, and apparently that had been enough to light the fire under Port Ops’ ass. After all, if this boat broke down, we were dead in the water.
Christ. Was that really what it took to get a boat fixed around here?
I pulled my gaze away from the repairs in progress and focused on parking my vessel in its usual slip. I was eager to get off the boat and text Dalton to make sure he was doing okay. He’d been pretty steady on his feet, but still. I didn’t even like leaving him to come to work. Unfortunately, the doc had only wanted someone to keep an eye on him for forty-eight hours. So this afternoon, after making sure my number was programmed into his new phone, I’d left him in the barracks and headed to work.
On my way up the pier after parking the boat, I sent Dalton a quick Are you doing okay? text. As I lowered my pho
ne and lifted my gaze, I just about tripped over my own boot. What the fuck was MA1 Anderson doing in uniform and anywhere near the HPU building?
Standing outside and having a cigarette, that was what. He wasn’t armed, so he was probably on some sort of desk detail until the investigation was over. Didn’t that just figure—motherfucker causes a disaster and gets cake work for a while.
When I failed to kill him with my mind, I continued walking toward the building—and him—and eyed him. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a month. I hoped he didn’t sleep anytime soon. Reckless motherfucker.
Except, the more I watched him, the more something didn’t sit right. As he brought his cigarette up to his mouth, his hand was shaky, and I almost felt bad for thinking he was such a dick. He seemed genuinely upset. A few shades whiter than usual. Keeping his eyes down. His usual bravado annoyed the crap out of me, but now that it was gone, he looked like someone who might drop if a fly landed on him with too much force. The guy was obviously rattled, and even if he deserved to be, I couldn’t help a little bit of sympathy. It wasn’t like he’d set out to nearly kill my best friend.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t feeling as charitable as I’d thought.
He glanced at me but quickly cut his eyes away as he sucked in some smoke. I picked up the pace so I could go inside, do turnover for the oncoming watch, and—
“Hey, MA2.”
Damn it.
I stopped, but I didn’t speak.
He swallowed hard, focusing on crushing his cigarette under his boot heel. “Is, uh, MA2 Taylor doing okay?”
No thanks to you.
I tightened my jaw. “He’s hanging in there, MA1.”
“Good. Good.” He nodded, releasing a breath, and I resented the shit out of his relief. He had no right to be anything but stressed out and anxious right now. In an uncharacteristically quiet voice, he added, “Give him my best, okay? We’re all worried about him.”
“Yeah. Sure, man.”
He glared at me, and I figured he was weighing if it was worth jumping my shit for not calling him MA1. He must’ve realized that now was not the time and I didn’t give a fuck about military bearing, because he let it go.
