Trusting a Warrior (Loving a Warrior #3) - Melanie Hansen Page 0,17
side. The van rocked violently as it swerved onto the shoulder.
Outraged yells from the back. “Son of a bitch! You made me piss myself!”
Rocco roared with laughter as an acrid, unmistakable smell filled the air.
“Fuck, I’m covered with it! You’re gonna pay, asshole!”
Geo glanced over his shoulder, unable to keep from snickering at the sight of his teammates frantically blotting at the urine splashed on the seats and themselves.
He fished some more napkins from the console and helpfully tossed them back.
Next to him, Rocco pounded the steering wheel with the heel of his hand and shouted, “Gotcha, muhfuckahs!”
The furious muttering behind him made Geo wince. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but in the near future Rocco was gonna find himself duct-taped to a tree somewhere, and if he was really, really lucky, they’d let him keep his clothes.
Rocco met his eyes and shrugged. “Worth it,” he mouthed before directing his attention back to the road.
Shaking his head in both disgust and amusement, Geo turned to stare out the window at the relentlessly brown landscape flashing past. Every SEAL, at one point or another in his career, found himself duct-taped to a fixed object. For him, it’d been—
Geo struggled to keep it closed, but his mental box of Cade memories burst open.
“Get ’em!”
A vicious tackle, and Geo crashed to the floor of the hotel room. All around him came the crunch of fists on flesh, the sound of bodies slamming into furniture, into walls. Geo kicked, punched and fought, but soon found himself trussed hand and foot and tossed next to Cade, both of them stripped to the waist.
Shouting, laughing team guys poured liquor down their throats, and drew on their chests with Sharpies. When the women finally burst in with outraged screams, they discovered Geo and Cade thoroughly shit-faced and covered with crude Sharpie penises.
Cade’s fiancée, Renae, put her hands on her hips and glared around the room. “You fucking assholes,” she grated. “Cut them loose. Now.”
Like chastened little boys, the SEALs obeyed, and Geo rubbed the blood flow back into his wrists as Renae yanked Cade to his feet.
“Really, guys?” Her voice was furious, but controlled. “He’s getting married in less than twelve hours!”
Shaking her head, Renae led Cade away to get him sobered and cleaned up.
Geo’s date, Vanessa, crouched next to him, red-faced and teary-eyed as she scrubbed with a wet napkin at the pendulous “balls” drawn right between his pecs. “What were you thinking? You’re the best man! Cade and Renae’s wedding is ruined!”
Geo didn’t reply, his energy consumed with trying not to hurl. How could he explain to her that this is what team guys did, how they showed affection for each other?
Despite their antics, the wedding went off without a hitch. Geo had to enjoy the festivities dateless, since Vanessa had packed up and left.
“Sorry, dude,” someone said, and Geo shrugged. It took an extremely strong-willed person to be with a SEAL and the close-knit, unique culture he brought with him. Renae both understood and accepted that. Vanessa didn’t.
“Best wedding I’ve ever been to. God, I miss you, bud.” Geo squeezed his burning eyes shut.
When the van finally pulled up at the transient quarters of the base, the SEALs dispersed, leaving the two FNGs—fucking new guys—to clean up the pee-soaked seats and flooring.
Geo unloaded Bosch’s crate and gear himself, and after getting it all settled in his room, bent to ruffle the dog’s ears. “How ’bout a run?”
He wrapped a reflective Velcro belt around his waist and clipped one end of Bosch’s three-foot lead to a ring attached to it. Geo tucked his phone into the pocket of his shorts, and they left their quarters at a slow jog to run along the nearby flight line.
Fighter jets roared down the runway and rocketed up into the night sky, their afterburners glowing. Next to him, Bosch trotted along at a steady pace, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
“What a long-ass day, buddy,” Geo grunted, the endorphins warring with exhaustion. “I work with a bunch of pricks—”
Understatement of the fucking year.
“—and I got a phone call from this beautiful woman that I don’t know how to handle.”
He paused, as if waiting for Bosch’s reply.
“Yeah, you’re right, she does come with a lot of baggage. Not really sure if I’m interested in tangling myself up in that, you know?”
A recent breakup. An unplanned pregnancy. A painful past, one that threatened to poke at Geo’s own wounds.