in him, Cheezer said he was one of the best to come his way as an instructor.
After a week of leave, Hemingway headed over to the northeast side of the base to attend SQT, away from the Center and BUD/S. Training was intense with medical and navigation, then it was on to the NSW Mountain Warfare Training Facility at La Posta east of San Diego in the Laguna Mountains. After he earned his expert weapons qualification, it was back to Coronado and close quarter defense training. Then one hundred and thirty-five miles east of San Diego, he learned desert training at Camp Billy Machen, NSW Desert Training Facility. Then it was back to combat swimming in San Diego Bay. Hemingway remembered the sixty-degree water…maybe not fondly. Finally, jump school with his classmates, where they turned him into a helicopter, HAHO and HALO badass paratrooper. He loved jumping out of perfectly good helos and airplanes. The tests had been easy, since classwork was always something he excelled at.
He set the card back into the box, his heart heavy. He’d heard about finding the one, that elusive person who would make him feel complete, but he had always thought it was just bullshit, to be honest. Now he was the one eating crow.
It was clear that Shea wasn’t coming back to him. They didn’t need to have the awkward conversation. She didn’t ever talk about it or bring it up during the few short moments he’d talked to her. She did say she was sorry that she’d had to leave so abruptly, but they had both known it was coming.
What they had was over, for her at least. He wondered if it had been that easy for her, like when she’d walked out of his hotel room.
He got hard remembering that first time.
He didn’t want to mar this day, so he smiled and compartmentalized his pain at losing the first woman he’d ever loved. The knock at his door made him close the box, gather the wrappings and tuck it under his bed.
His sister was working part-time for NCIS. She probably knew Shea, and he didn’t want to field questions or receive sympathy. He’d gotten enough after the NWO had trapped them in the BUD/S classroom. Paige had been beside herself, and when she’d shown up at Coronado, demanding to see him, she was horrified at the shape he was in. He’d let her mother him a little, but he had to get back to training.
The look in his sister’s eyes said it all. She was realizing that he wasn’t a little boy anymore, that training had strengthened him and changed him. He knew who he was, and what he was doing. It was that understanding between them that got her to get in her car and drive back home to her husband and daughter. Later, when he’d talked briefly to Kid, he said that she’d come home from seeing Hemingway and wrapped her arms around her husband. Then she’d told Ashe Wilder how proud she was of Kid Chaos, what he’d gone through, and how he kept going out every day to keep the country safe.
Hemingway knew his sister saw him as a grown man now. Maybe for her that was bittersweet. He was the last one out of the house, but she could console herself with her daughter and the other children she was sure to have with Kid. Her love for him had been the foundation from which he’d gotten all his values. He was very thankful that she had been the one to instill them in him and his dad, once he’d gotten over his pain and grief from losing their mom. Now he was wondering if anyone ever got over it completely.
Hemingway opened the door and Paige bustled in with Chloe on her hip. She’d grown so much, but still held out her arms to him. He took her, and she kissed him on the cheek.
“H’unkle Atty,” she said.
“That’s all she kept saying the whole way over,” Paige said, hugging him and giving him a kiss on the cheek.
“Yeah, when she wasn’t yelling doggie or fishy,” Kid said with a grin.
“Hey, she’s brilliant,” Hemingway said.
“Son,” his father said, shaking his hand. He was moving a little stiffly, and Hemingway looked at his sister with concern.
“He insists on working the garden for all hours. This after landscaping for hours. The man loves his plants. There’s no stopping him.”
“Keeps me young,” he said with a smile. “We ready to