Riptide gave him a quick jab to the kidneys, but Cameron kept his composure and continued to walk.
"We can always throw him overboard if we feel like it later."
The others laughed.
Well, most of them.
Wolf looked like he was tolerating them, like he always did.
Buck, who was at the front of the room, half-turned in his chair to look at them. "Don't you think you can stop teasing Riptide by now?"
Cameron 'nudged' Riptide toward an empty seat by Buck. "I'll never get tired of it. He's the inflitrator of the team. We have to keep him on his toes."
Wolf cleared his throat. "Riptide is the Navy liaison on the team and you should know that he passed all of the same tests to be here that you did, Axl. So take a seat and shut it."
While the words were pointed, Wolf's tone wasn't.
"And Riptide is going to be an integral part of this mission because we're going to be on a Navy transport."
Wolf lifted his arm and clicked on the remote. The white wall behind him lit up as the lights over the seats dimmed. "This is what we're up against."
They'd havesome time to grab their gear, but they didn't need much. Wolf and Pallas kept them all prepared for this kind of movement at anytime.
Axl put a hand on Pallas' shoulder as he reached fate front of the room. "Hey."
Pallas turned to look at him. "You have a question, Axl?"
Did he?
Yes.
Did he have a question that he had a burning need to ask at the moment?
Not really.
"I just want to say," Cameron filled his lungs with the cold, clean air-conditioned air in the room, "you're a lucky guy. You'll be back soon and you can pamper your wife to the point of making the rest of us sick to our stomachs."
Pallas' reaction was typical for his friend.
He lifted an eloquent brow and shook his head. "Don't I always?"
Axl couldn't argue with the truth.
He stood straight at attention and gave Pallas a wink. "Yes, sir."
Sighing, Pallas walked off toward their locker room.
FOUR
KAWEHI
It wasSaturday night and every time the front door opened, Kawehi would lean over the counter to see who was coming in.
No matter how many times she looked, it wasn’t Dom.
Domenico.
Domenico Pallas.
