“But what did Grunge do before this, when his daughter came to visit him?” Adam was puzzled. “If he was living in the officers’ barracks on base, did they…stay in a hotel?”
Eden turned to ask Lindsey, “You didn’t tell him?”
“Tell me what?” Adam looked from Lindsey to Eden and back.
The baby must’ve been kicking again, because Lindsey rubbed her belly as she said, “Nobody knows what he did, or evenifshe visited, because no one knew Grunge even had a daughter.”
“Really?” Adam asked. “Not even Izzy?”
And yup, they again all looked up at him, expectantly.
“I thought you knew Grunge from way back,” Adam continued. “Like, before you were SEALs.”
Izzy nodded. “Grunge and I did our first WestPac together as E-3s. In fact, we hot-bunked on a tiny, low-tech, about-to-be-decommissioned destroyer—this was back before he followed the shining light over to Officers’ Territory and before either of us did BUD/S.”
“I think I got some of that,” Lindsey said, still rubbing her giant baby bump. “E-3’s the rank—or is it rating—of someone who’s still pretty newly enlisted?”
“If you’re talking enlisted, it’s called rating,” Eden said.
“Yeah, I got very little of it,” Adam said. “BUD/S. I know BUD/S—but everyone knows BUD/S is where Navy SEAL wannabes audition to get into the Teams.”
“It’s a wee bit tougher than an audition,” Izzy said.
“You’venever tried out for a Broadway show,” Adam shot back. “That shit is cutthroat. Anyway, I’m massively discouraged, because Tony’s been teaching me to speak Navy, and I thought I was doing at least moderately well.” Like Lindsey, Adam’s life partner was also a SEAL in Izzy’s Team. “Argh, matey, lower the mains’l.Fuck, I just realized—he’s been teaching me to talk like a pirate!” As they all laughed, he added, “But seriously, someone please translate what Izzy just said.”
“Back when they first enlisted in the Navy,” Eden told him, “they shipped out on something called a WestPac—you float around in the Western Pacific for six solid months. In Izzy and Grunge’s case, they were on a really old destroyer that was so crowded they had to share the same bed. They had different shifts, so they slept at different times.”
“It’s called hot-bunking,” Izzy said, “because he’d roll out and I’d roll in, and the mattress would still be warm from his body heat.”
“So you’re, like, one of his oldest Navy friends,” Adam surmised. “And he never mentioned that he had a daughter, not even while you were hot-bunking—and oh, the things I’m not saying aboutthat.”
“So…not even any baby pictures taped to the bunk?” Lindsey asked.
“Nope.” Izzy shrugged. “But we weren’t exactly friends back then. More like partners in mutual misery.”
“But you’re friends now,” Eden pointed out. “Ithink of him as a friend. I mean, he’s quiet, sure, but…”
“Yeah, I dunno,” Izzy said. In the foggy and fun-filled years since the USSBergeron,he and Grunge had both become SEALs. And in the past year or so in particular, despite the officer/enlisted divide, they’d gone from respectful teammates to real friends.
Or so Izzy had thought.
“Didheeven know he had a daughter back then?” Lindsey asked. “There’s a trope in romance novels calledsecret baby,and—”
Izzy laughed. “I’m sorry. Secretwhat?”
“Baby,” Eden said. “The hero gets someone pregnant, but she doesn’t tell him about it, and then anywhere from one to twenty years later,surprise!The secret baby needs a kidney, and the hero and heroine reconnect to save her life and they fall in love and everyone lives happily ever after.”
“Well, that’s intense,” Izzy said.
“But thefemalecharacter’s not surprised, right?” Adam interjected. “Because that’s the storyI’dwant to read.”
“Whoa, me, too,” Izzy said. “Hey, what’s that stuck between the cushions of the sofa? Holy crap, I must’ve had a secret baby last night when I fell asleep watching Netflix!”
Adam laughed.
“Don’t mock it, boys,” Lindsey told them sternly. “It’s a popular theme in a very popular genre.”
“I can see how it would be,” Izzy said. Eden was a huge romance fan—blazing through several books a week. “With lots of complications and entanglements and angst. But I’m pretty sure Grunge knew he had a daughter from the start. He just didn’t tellmeabout her.” He gasped. “Which suddenly makes sense ifI’mthe hero of this secret-baby story, and it’s not a romance, but instead a tale of deep friendship. Are there secret-baby buddy movies?”
