Page 33 of Direct Action

And what was happening was five million, three hundred thousand and seventy-one times worse than the time I was caught by my boyfriend’s mom with her son’s hand up my shirt. I was seventeen, and no seventeen-year-old boy or girl wanted to be caught by their parents making out. Adding to that, Braden’s mom was a teacher at our school. The rest of the year, even after we’d broken up, I thought I’d die every time I saw her in the halls.

It was a teenage calamity.

However, I found that getting caught banging one of my bosses by three of my other bosses was a seventy-two on the Richter scale. Of course, I didn’t know if the scale went that high—I was thinking it didn’t, seeing as a ten pretty much destroyed a whole city and demolished freeways and bridges, so a seventy-two would be end-of-days devastation.

And right then, sitting on Ryan’s couch with Pete, Fallon, and Gavin in the room, that’s what I was experiencing—a seventy-two-point-one earthquake. My only hope was that a fault line would open up right under Ryan’s house and I’d fall into it.

Because plummeting to my death into a pit of molten lava sounded better than facing the mortification.

“You said you’ve never met Cynthia,” Pete started.

My gaze swung to him, and I instantly regretted it. I was positive the heat that had crept up my neck was visible.

I shook my head.

“Was she ever on shift with you while you were working?”

The good news was, Pete didn’t sound angry I had a second job, just oddly curious about this Cynthia woman. Which was nice he cared. I mean, a missing woman was something everyone should care about, but I didn’t understand his deep interest in whether or not I knew her.

“No.”

Pete looked at Fallon. Fallon dipped his chin in some weird silent communication. I didn’t ask about it, because, really, I’d used up all my courage coming out of my hiding place around the corner from the living room. I hadn’t meant to listen—well, I had, but only to ascertain what Gavin was saying and if he knew I was there. I didn’t think I’d find Pete, Fallon, and Gavin in Ryan’s house talking about Poppy being upset and Cynthia missing. Like I’d told the guys twice now, I’d never met her, but Poppy talked about her a lot and liked her very much. Said she was cool people. She also told me she’d lost both of her parents. I couldn’t remember how that came about, but I did know she’d gone out to Las Vegas with Poppy last Thanksgiving to spend the holiday with her family. So they were friends—good friends—and if Cynthia was missing, Poppy would feel that . . . acutely.

I needed to call her to check in and see if she needed me to come over tonight after work. Which was another issue: I needed to get to the Plank.

“I should . . . um . . . get to work.” I voiced my thoughts, pretending I wasn’t seriously weirded out that I’d been caught at Ryan’s. “Would one of you mind taking me in?”

No one answered me, though Ryan didn’t need words to convey what he thought of my question.

His scowl said it all. I just didn’t understand why he’d be pissed I needed to get to work.

I was still contemplating and dissecting his response, but even if I weren’t, his question would’ve taken me off guard.

“Do you know what me and the guys do?” Ryan strangely asked with a jerk of his head in the direction of said guys, who had all sat down. Fallon and Gavin on the couch. Pete in a chair he’d dragged over from the kitchen table. The very table his friend and co-owner of the bar I worked at had fucked me on. Leaving Ryan to sit in a brown leather recliner. Though he wasn’t reclining; his ass was on the edge of the seat, and his elbows were resting on his knees.

This felt like a trick question. Even so, I answered, “You own and run a bar.”

Ryan nodded. “And before we owned the bar?”

“You all were in the military,” I told him, still not understanding where he was going or why he was asking. “The Navy.”

Ryan leaned forward, laced his fingers together, and nodded. The position and the stiffness in his shoulders confused me more.

“Did I get that wrong? Were you Marines?” I asked, remembering a friend’s brother who was a Marine and would get positively pissy if someone mistook him for a Sailor.

Sluggishly he shook his head. “Navy. We were all Team Guys.”

Growing up in San Diego, I knew what a Team Guy was. Before I was of legal drinking age, I’d heard all the stories about women hitting bars to pick themselves up a Seal. When I was of age, I’d witnessed this firsthand. I was proud to say, I was not a Frog Hog, nor were any of my friends, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t had my fair share of run-ins with guys stationed at the Naval Special Warfare Command. It wasn’t that I was on the lookout for them. It was that you couldn’t miss them—they were normally the loudest, rowdiest, and cockiest.

Which made the news that Ryan had been a Seal a shocking discovery. But in hindsight it shouldn’t’ve been that surprising.

“The Plank,” I muttered, putting two and two together.

A huge slice of live-edge wood hung behind the bar. A Trident was burned into the far right side; on the left, Big Navy’s anchor insignia. Between the symbols, a rusty rectangle of metal was screwed into the wood, with the words Here I Am. Send Me. engraved on it.

Stupid me thought that the Trident was paying homage to the area. Coronado was home to four Seal Teams—which meant there were a lot of them roaming around and a lot patronized the Dirty Plank.

“How did I not know this?” I asked, unable to keep the hurt out of my tone.