Sam exhaled loudly and relaxed back inthe booth.He began to swirl the bottle he was drinking from on thetable, drawing circles on the surface as he fought to find thewords to explain.
“I was awake when youleft,” Nick said, and Sam lifted his gaze.
“I thought you might havebeen.”
Nick nodded.“I was, but I could tellfrom the way you moved that you needed to get out of there.Ithought in that moment it was because of one of two reasons.Thefirst was that you regretted what had happened betweenus.”
“No!”Sam denied, leaningforward.“That was–“
“I know,” Nickinterrupted.“That wasn’t the case because I saw the look on yourface when you turned back to look at us from the doorway.You haveone of those faces where your emotions are there for the reading ifyou haven’t managed to clamp a hold on them like youdo.”
“And what did you see?”Sam couldn’t help but ask in a quiet voice.
“I saw a man who wasfighting his emotions, but a man who yearned for what he waslooking at.”Nick shared a quick glance with Aiden.“I know thatlook because I see it on my own face when I look at Aiden and whenI look at you.”
Curses and the sound of fighting brokeinto that moment, and Nick’s gaze shot to the back corner.Samfrowned as he turned to see what was going on, and was in time tosee two men who seemed to be fighting despite the fact they weretwo sheets to the wind, slam down onto a table.With a curse, Nickleaped up from the table and shouted to someone called Blake tocall it in.Sam went to stand up and help but stopped when Aiden’shand fell on his arm.
“Nick’s got this,” hesaid, and Sam turned to look back at him with a frown.“Honest, hedoes.We’ll only get in the way, and then there will be more formsfor him to fill out.Trust me.”Aiden’s eyes narrowed at him.“AndI guess that’s what this boils down to, right?Can you trust Nickand me with whatever it is that happened in your life that stoppedyou from taking our calls eighteen months ago, and what put thatlook of pain on your face when you were standing by the booth awhile back.”
Aiden’s job was to see things thatothers missed, and recognize what’s important from what’s not.Andin this case, he’d hit the target dead center, and Sam had todecide if it was something he could give.
ChapterSeven
Aiden was having a good time.Hecouldn’t argue that.Four members of Bravo team had dragged him andSam out of their private booth and over to a large table while Nickwas dealing with the guys fighting in the pool room.When he’dfinished he’d joined the table.They were a great group of guys,funny as hell and had the some of the best on-the-job stories thatAiden had ever heard.But their timing sucked, and he was anxiousfor it to go back to being him, Nick, and Sam alone, and to get ananswer from Sam on the whole trust thing.Something in Sam’s pasthad him running scared eighteen months ago, and they needed to knowwhat it was in order to get past it.
“You got quite thereputation in the EOD.”
The statement brought Aiden out of hismusings, and he turned toward the quiet man who’d asked thequestion.
“I’m almost afraid to askwhat that might have been,” Aiden said with a wry smile.Glenn wasby far the quietest of Bravo team, and the others were veryprotective of him.It might not have been something that theyconsciously did, but they definitely moved to ensure he was flankedby friendlies.
Glenn smiled, but it never reached hiseyes.“I’m sure you know it as fact, but it was rumored that youwere the best EOD technician to come out of the Naval academy.After you saved Riley here, Marcel looked you up, and a lot of yourtrainers talk about you to their new recruits to this day.They sayyou were able to defuse even the most difficult charges, andidentify weak spots in walls of fire that no one else couldsee.”
The rest of the men at the table hadfallen quiet, and Aiden had to fight to keep the color from risinginto his face.“I studied hard I guess.”
Glenn leaned forward, staring at Aidenin a way that made him think he was looking at the sniper and notthe man.“But it was more than that, wasn’t it?It’s like it is forme when I have the crosshairs in front of me.You fall into a zonewhere the landscape, the terrain, everything all falls away, and itbecomes like a grid in your mind.”Aiden froze as Glenn uncannilyput into words what Aiden had often failed to explain.“Everythingdisappears until it is just the target, or in your case, the innerworkings of an explosive device.You see it as a living thing, muchlike I do the trajectory of a fifty caliber bullet, even when thetarget is surrounded by collateral.People everywhere and onlysmall windows of opportunity to strike the target.I would hazard aguess that it’s exactly like that for you when you are looking forweak spots in a fire.”
Aiden stared at the man with anewfound respect.“Yeah, that’s exactly what it’s like.Myinstructors used to say it was like I was part of the device, andthat fire to me was a living entity, and it was strange to me thatthey, the men who were tasked with the job of training me, didn’tsee it as the natural beast that it is.You have to respect thefire.It kills indiscriminately and without remorse.You have torein it in, you have to control it, and you sure as hell have to besmarter than the fucker who planted the device.I approach everysituation with the opinion that I can disarm anything, and that noone knows explosions and fire like I do.It’s saved my life on morethan one occasion.”
“Mine, too,” Riley saidquietly.“And I reckon there are hundreds of servicemen and womenthat would say the same.”
The group fell silent for a moment, nodoubt drawn back into their own memories of the horrors of war.Aiden hated being the center of attention like this, especiallywhen it came to his job as an EOD tech, and he cast a look toNick.
“So you’ve all beentogether since basic?”Nick asked reading Aiden’s need for adiversion.
“Pretty much,” Dev saidwith a grin around the table.“I have had the misfortune andpleasure of leading this group from the moment I was promoted andgiven a posting with a sniper team.”
“What was it like puttinga small team together like that?”Nick asked from beside Aiden withan ice pack pressed to his knuckles.He’d started out trying tobreak up the fight with his voice, and his badge, but it ended withhim having to put both the drunks on their asses.
Dev grinned but shook his head.“Itwas a fucking challenge.You had to get the right group of mentogether with the right skills, and somehow try to get them to actand react as one unit.”
“Dev had a week with agroup of fifteen Marines to choose his team from,” Marcel added.“He was a bastard during that week, too.”
“Really?”
“Hell yes,” Sam answeredfrom beside him.“I would rather be fired on by a maniac wieldingan RPG whilst sitting in a fucking tree than go through that weekagain.”
“As you’ve been throughboth, then we’ll take that as gospel, Pretty Boy,” Finn McGregorsaid with a shit-eating grin, “but I want to know why Dev made youcarry a potted tree around with you for much of thatweek.”
