Page 25 of Loving a Warrior

“I did more than think about it,” Salazar responded, downing a huge gulp of his beer. “I screened for it. Obviously didn’t make it.”

There were some wide-eyed looks at the admission of failure, but Salazar brushed it off. “I ain’t ashamed of it. You know why? ’Cause at the end of the day I accomplished something three-fourths of you yahoos sitting here right now won’t ever accomplish—I got my Trident. I’m serving my country in a way most men can only dream of. Yeah, I screened for DEVGRU, and guys who’re better than me got in. I’m still a good SEAL, and I’m still better than you.” He grinned. “So put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

When the resulting hoots died away, Elias asked about Salazar’s combat experience. After calling for a fresh beer, Salazar got comfortable and regaled them with a story about an urban firefight he’d been in.

“So this dude, he comes out of nowhere, gets the drop on me. I turn around just as he clacks off a suicide vest.” Salazar patted his chest and stomach as if in wonderment he was still in one piece. “Lucky for me, he used demo, not frag.”

“What’s frag?”

Salazar threw the questioner a withering look. “Fragmentation. He didn’t pack the explosive with shit that flies out and cuts down everything in its path. It was just C4, so the guy only managed to vaporize himself. I was completely unharmed. His leg landed on the windshield of our Humvee, though.”

Laughter and some shocked exclamations followed. Matt was enthralled, but Shane’s shoulders were bunched and his fingers were crushing the Coke can he held. After a moment he got to his feet and strode off toward the water of the nearby bay, flinging the Coke can aside.

As unobtrusively as he could, Matt followed. He didn’t know why. Nothing Shane said or did would make Matt think he’d welcome his company at the moment, but he kept going until he was standing next to him, shoulders almost touching.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” Shane swallowed hard, opening and closing his hands as if he was trying to grasp something that wasn’t there. “Just, you know, memories.”

Memories of what? Suicide bombers? Matt looked sharply at him.

“Did you do a combat deployment in the Marines?”

“Yeah, a few months in Afghanistan between screening positive for the SEALs and getting my contract to BUD/S. Just supposed to be support and training for the ANA, but we got into a few skirmishes.”

Shane’s eyes were haunted, with a look Matt had seen on his uncle’s face many, many times before. After a beat of hesitation, he put his hand on Shane’s arm and squeezed. They stood there quietly, gazing out over the bay, until Shane tilted his head back and blew out a breath.

“Fuck. Let’s go.”

Without another word, Shane turned and they strode back toward the others, just in time to hear Salazar say, “Well, enough male bonding. My wife is expecting me home. Gentlemen, thanks for having me.”

People jumped up to walk him to his car while Matt jogged over to pitch in with the cleanup. As he worked, he studied Shane, who was silent and pale. Definitely not just a pretty boy, not if he’d been to war.

When everything was done, Matt looked around for Shane as people started to disperse, but he was nowhere in sight. No one seemed to know where he’d gone, so Matt reluctantly called it a night and headed for his room.

He slept like the dead, and when he emerged again at dawn, intending to go for a long run, he almost tripped over something sitting in front of his door. Smiling to himself, he picked up the freshly painted green helmet and set it gently on the table inside.

* * *

“Drop! Push ’em out!”

Matt hit the asphalt, wincing as his abraded palms scraped the rough surface. He did push-ups as if his life depended on it, the yelling of the instructors in the background a cacophony of sound.

“Your form sucks! What a bunch of losers. Get wet and sandy!”

Matt struggled to his feet and ran over the berm to the surf, the rest of his class on his heels. They were utterly exhausted, shivering with cold, and the sun was barely up.

“This is only the first day, gentlemen,” their new lead instructor, a hard-eyed man named Josh Bernson, shouted as everyone lay with their heads and shoulders in the water, doing flutter kicks. “You wanna be frogmen?”

Matt’s abs were on fire and his breaths came in gasps.

“How bad do you want it, people? How bad?”

They were ordered back to the grinder and dropped for more push-ups and sit-ups. To add insult to injury, the instructor staff sprayed them down with hoses, aiming the water right into their faces. All around Matt, guys were spluttering and coughing.

“Is putting up with a little cold water, a little pain, worth it to you?”

“Hooyah!”