It was something stupid my friends and I might have done years ago when I was seventeen and thought I knew everything. Thought I’d seen everything. Thought I knew what it was going to take to get my bird―my Trident―when I’d known shit.
I was three drinks in by the time Mac joined me, his naval uniform making the women in the bar chase him with their eyes, unaware of the gold band that was on his ring finger and the woman at home who commandeered his body and heart. He sat down next to me and ordered a beer, saying nothing until he had his bottle in his hand.
“To sacrifice,” he finally said, raising his beer toward me.
I clanked mine with his. “Hooyah.”
“To what do I owe this unexpected Nash visit?” he asked.
I wasn’t in D.C. much. I avoided it like the plague on most occasions, but I’d had limited choices after I’d left Inez’s office. When I’d gone back to the academy, the officer in charge had called me in and informed me I was officially placed on leave until Inez cleared me. I’d intended to make the drive back to Church Beach and hole up in Tristan’s basement like normal, but instead, I’d found myself on my way to D.C., calling Mac.
“Can’t I just want to see my friend? How was the honeymoon?” I smirked.
Mac’s face broke out into a smile so huge and bright he could have stopped a whole herd of deer in its shine. “Worked damn hard the whole time,” he said.
“Worked?”
“Worked at making a baby.”
I paused with my bottle halfway to my lips. “A baby?”
“Yep.”
“Mac the Daddy. MacDaddy.” I couldn’t help a laugh. “Shit, watch out, world.”
“Well, hell, I figured if you can take care of Hannah, I sure as hell can raise my own.”
My smile disappeared.
“Did she finally kick you out?” Mac asked as he watched my face sober up.
“Tristan? Nah. I’ll head there after this.”
“How many have you had?” Mac asked, looking at the pile of money I’d stacked up next to the coaster.
“Not enough to put me under for the night.”
Mac was silent for a moment. “Did you ever consider that having you there only makes it harder for her?”
His words stabbed at me. They might as well have ripped open the wound I’d incurred on that god-awful op and let me bleed out. Did I make it harder for Tristan? The idea had filtered through my brain a million times. I wasn’t an idiot. I was the guy who’d come home when her husband had not. But we were also a family. We’d been a family for almost as many years as I’d been with my actual family. And we both understood what had been lost. The better human being. We shared that grief.
More importantly, I was determined to be there whenever she needed me to help pick up any pieces of her life that she couldn’t deal with. Pick her up when she fell apart, even when she rarely let me see her that way.
Right now, it was me who was falling apart.
“They put me on leave,” I said, the tightness in my chest only increasing.
After a long moment, Mac breathed out, “Hell.”
His eyes grew soft, and I couldn’t face it. I turned back to the bartender, waving my empty bottle. I hadn’t even gone on leave when I’d first come back with the dead bodies covered in flags. Instead, I’d gone straight into the inquiry with Mac at my side. Then, I’d gone on to the review board, and from there, to a special committee on The Hill. In between, I’d buried four men. I’d taken a short leave to help Tristan and Hannah move back to Delaware. I’d taken another short leave when she moved out of her parents’ house into the rental place in Church Beach. That was it.
They’d reassigned me while waiting for a spot to open up on a team. I’d supported training sessions at the sniper school, BUD/S, and the academy. The academy was what had stuck the most. Maybe because it was a chance to make sure those kids were as ready as they could be for what was coming for them. No one could ever truly be ready for the hell that was Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training or the trainings that came after, but my being tough on them now was a leap in the right direction.
But I knew—just like Mac knew—being put on a mental health leave now, a year later, didn’t bode well for my military career. The only thing saving me from discharge was the amount of time and money the Navy had put into me.
“I don’t have a fucking death wish,” I muttered to Mac as well as myself. “None of us do. I can’t be thinking I might die every time I go into an op. That shit would lock me up cold, but I also can’t be afraid to die. Knowing and accepting are different than wishing for it.”
Mac was nodding. “Absolutely. What did he say to that?”
“Said he’d put me back on active duty once I had a reason to live and threw our motto in my face.” I was still pissed about it.
We drank in silence for a while more before Mac put his hands out in a sign of peace before saying, “Have you thought about getting out? About what you would do in civilian life?”
I shook my head. “I’m a lifer, Mac. You know that.”
“Civilian security pays a boatload more than what you’re making now.”
“Since when has money been my motivation? I have no desire to work for one of those shitty companies trying to do our jobs
