“You got a funny definition of a vacation, man,” Janssen remarked, twisting open a beer.
“You more than earned these,” Spencer took a bottle out of the cooler and pushed the nylon tote toward his fellow veteran, who made no secret of the fact that he enjoyed a fine IPA every now and again.
“It’s a shame that hot little redhead had to go to jail,” the scarred young man remarked, taking a slug of his beer.
“She won’t have it nearly as bad as the loser who actually killed the guys,” Spencer replied, his jaw tightening as he remembered Missy’s condition when he and Chas had found her in the closet. “You left your wetsuit behind, by the way,” he smirked.
“Nah,” Janssen drawled. “Wasn’t my wetsuit.”
“You stole it?”
“Heck, no. I may be many things, but a thief ain’t one of ‘em,” the veteran protested mildly. “That’s why I left it behind. Not my fault if the owner was careless enough to leave their boathouse locked with a lock so pitiful that they might as well not’ve bothered.”
Spencer grinned and shook his head, thinking what a relief it was to be able to be in the company of someone who knew exactly who and what he was and accepted him anyway.
“I even left some instructions for the nice security folk at the Pinnacle as to how they might want to improve their perimeter security,” Janssen rasped, amused.
“How very kind of you.”
“Yeah, I’m just a heckuva guy,” he nodded, polishing off his first beer and reaching for another.
“You gonna be around for a while?” Spencer asked, not looking at his buddy.
The scarred veteran shrugged. “Never know. Depends on which way the wind blows. We both took a risk, being up there. We won’t know for a while yet whether anyone saw us. I’ll keep my ear to the ground and do what I gotta do, you know?”
The Marine nodded. “I hear ya.”
“We got a job to do.”
“I know.”
“If things go south, you’re gonna have to make some hard choices, man,” Janssen warned.
Spencer’s jaw was set. “I’ve made my choices. I have a family now, that’s all there is to it,” he insisted softly.
“You and I both know it ain’t that easy,” was the pragmatic reply. “But I got your back, man. You can bet on that.” Janssen stared out into the distance.
“I do. That means a lot,” Spencer replied, his gaze faraway.
“It’s what we do.”
“It’s what we do,” the Marine agreed.
The two of them sat in silence, Janssen drinking the rest of the six-pack, Spencer lost in the contentment of being in the company of someone who really understood. The sun began to set and Janssen slipped off to his nighttime dwelling, leaving the Marine to think his thoughts and eventually head back to home and family, carrying his empty six-pack.
Irish Creme Killer: Book 1 in The INNcredibly Sweet Series Page 7
