In the yard, Hooper had both babies balanced on his chest, one in each arm, as he lay on his back making engine noises. Rawley’s son, Ethan—all of six months old with his father’s serious eyes and Jojo’s sunny disposition—gurgled with delight while Macon and Carter’s daughter, Margot, watched with the solemn intensity that reminded me so much of Carter it was almost spooky.
“She’s gonna be trouble,” I observed, nodding toward Margot. “Already plotting world domination at three months old.”
“Takes after her daddy,” Macon agreed, a hint of pride in his voice. “Though Carter swears the stubbornness is all me.”
A burst of laughter drew our attention to the side of the house where Danny sat in the shade with Jojo and Carter, the three of them engaged in what appeared to be an animated discussion. Danny’s hands moved expressively as he talked, his pregnant belly leading each gesture like it was conducting an orchestra. He caught me watching and shot me a smile that made my chest tight with something too big to name.
“You ever think we’d be sitting here like this?” I asked, turning back to my former teammates. “Beers on the porch, babies in the yard, building houses and planning futures?”
Rawley grunted, the sound conveying volumes about improbabilities and unexpected turns.
Macon just shook his head. “Hell, no,” he said. “Three years ago, I was still waking up thinking I was in Aleppo. Now I’m changing diapers and discussing paint samples.” He took a swig of his beer. “Life’s fucking weird, man.”
It was, at that. Three ex-SEALs, trained to kill with efficiency and precision, now sitting on a porch in Montana comparing notes on baby formula and mortgage rates. If our former CO could see us now, he’d either laugh himself sick or have us all committed.
The changes in my own life still caught me off guard sometimes. I’d gone from sleeping with a gun under my pillow to making middle-of-the-night runs for pregnancy cravings. From planning extractions in hostile territory to picking out onesies and debating the merits of different diaper brands. From a life where the only thing that mattered was the mission to one where everything revolved around the tiny human growing inside the man I loved.
It should have been terrifying. Sometimes it was. But mostly it just felt... right. Like I’d been moving toward this point my entire life without knowing it.
“So,” Rawley said, breaking into my thoughts. “Who’s next, you think?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Next for what?”
“To fall,” he clarified, gesturing broadly at our little gathering. “Love, marriage, baby carriage. The whole disaster.”
I considered the question, mentally running through our former team. Decker was still too married to his routines and inventory systems. Hooper was... well, Hooper.
“Not Hooper,” I said with certainty. “That man’s allergic to commitment. Can’t even get him to commit to what he wants for dinner.”
Rawley’s mouth curved in what passed for a smile on his typically stoic face. “You’d be surprised,” he said. “And I think Hooper will be, too.”
Before I could ask what the hell that meant, the man himself appeared at the bottom of the porch steps, a baby tucked under each arm like footballs. His face was flushed with exertion, but he was smiling—a genuine one, not the manic grin he usually wore.
“These things are getting heavy,” he complained, though he made no move to put them down. “How do they gain weight so fast? It’s like they’re hollow and you’re just filling them with lead when we’re not looking.”
Macon rose smoothly, reaching for his daughter with the careful precision that characterized everything he did. “Give her here before you drop her on her head.”
“I would never,” Hooper protested, but he handed Margot over with surprising gentleness. The baby immediately grabbed for her father’s beard, tiny fingers curling into the dark hair with surprising strength.
“I have excellent reflexes. Ask anyone.”
“Your reflexes got you shot in the ass in Kandahar,” Rawley pointed out, taking Ethan from Hooper’s other arm.
“That was a tactical decision,” Hooper insisted, dropping onto the porch steps with a sigh. “I was creating a diversion.”
“By mooning the enemy?” I asked, unable to keep the laugh from my voice.
Hooper waved a dismissive hand. “Details, details. It worked, didn’t it? We all got out alive.” He reached for the cooler beside me, extracting another beer. “So, Callahan. How’s it feel to be a homeowner? All grown up with a mortgage and a pregnant omega?”
The question should have been annoying—typical Hooper, reducing my entire life to a punch-line. But there was something in his eyes that made me answer honestly.
“Terrifying,” I admitted, the word feeling strangely right as it left my mouth. “But in a good way. Like jumping out of a plane, except instead of a parachute, you’ve got...” I gestured vaguely at the house, the yard, the people scattered across our property. “All this. This whole life you never expected to have.”
Hooper nodded slowly, his usual manic energy dialed back to something almost thoughtful. “Yeah,” he said. “I get that.”
And somehow, I thought he actually did.
As evening approached, our conversation drifted like the smoke from the grill where Decker was charring steaks to perfection. One minute we were reminiscing about that clusterfuck of an extraction in Kandahar—“Three hours in a drainage ditch, Macon. Three. Fucking. Hours.”—and the next we were debating the merits of different diaper brands while passing around photos of the babies on our phones.
