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Chris had his own questions, but the Pentagon wasn’t interested in those. They just wanted the blow-by-blow factual account of what he’d seen and done. And he’d given it to them. Over and over.
He was stripping out of his Navy combat uniform and into civvies for a night on the town, when he received a text from Fallon.
Rand
Skip drinks with the team. Meet me here asap.
The message included a link to a bar that was just a few blocks from their hotel.
Fallon hadn’t planned to go out with the team tonight, but Chris couldn’t remember why.
Chris
What’s up?
You’ll find out when you get here. See you soon.
Chris stared at the phone. After three months deployed together, he figured he knew the lieutenant commander, and this was odd.
Still, he was curious. He could go out with the rest of the team when they were back in Little Creek. Might as well humor his OIC.
He paused at that thought, remembering the Officer in Charge from his last team. He’d give anything to be able to go out for a beer with the lieutenant commander one more time.
He quickly finished changing and was out the door. It was a chilly December evening. The wind coming off the river had a cold bite to it.
The team had missed Thanksgiving with family and friends, and it was now just a few short weeks until Christmas. They all had two weeks of leave, starting tonight, and most of the guys were flying tomorrow to wherever home was. Chris hadn’t decided if he should take a trip or just head back to Little Creek and finish moving into his new house.
A year ago, he’d have made a beeline for Coronado, but a year ago, he hadn’t known his wife was sleeping with another man. Now Pam was the last person he wanted to see. He’d come home to a packet of divorce papers he needed to read and sign and the news that she and his old teammate were expecting their first child in April.
Reading the papers and signing was on his to-do list for tomorrow. What a way to start a vacation.
Maybe he should go to Port Angeles, Washington, and meet Xavier and Audrey’s baby. Georgina was just over four months old now. The latest pictures Xavier had sent were too adorable for words.
Yeah. That was what he should do. He’d been wanting to talk to Xavier since the op went FUBAR in the slot canyon. He wouldn’t be able to give specifics, but what he could share would be enough for Xavier to get the gist. He’d understand Chris’s dilemma in a way no one else could.
Of course, he should ask if Xavier and Audrey wanted company. He supposed if they didn’t, he could go hiking in the Olympics. Maybe this time, he’d get to enjoy Olympic National Park.
He paused in his walk and shot off a text to Xavier, then continued the last block to the address Fallon had sent him.
It was a new building—everything on the waterfront here had been built in the last fifteen years—and business was booming on a Thursday night. He paused to check the menu posted in the window and discovered Rand had sent him to a gastropub owned by one of the DC area’s top chefs. The menu mostly consisted of small plates that promised culinary excellence.
Chris was hungry after a long day of being grilled like a fillet, and wondered if it would be weird to order three of everything as he pushed open the door and stepped into the noisy pub.
A hostess greeted him and asked if he wanted a table or to sit at the bar. Chris apologized and said he was meeting someone, but wasn’t sure if he was part of a larger group.
“You look…big. Like several of the guests I’ve sent up to the private party in the loft. You one of them?” She pointed to the stairs on the far side of the ornately carved bar that filled the back wall. He scanned the patrons packed in the bar area. Randall Fallon would stand out with his blond hair and six-foot-two height, which could explain the hostess’s comment on size.
“I’m not sure. Maybe? Fallon party?”
The hostess checked the screen in front of her. “No. It’s Adler. A birthday party.”
Adler?
The name suddenly clicked. “Right. Morgan Adler.”
The hostess smiled. “Go on up.”
At the top of the stairs, he met Fallon’s cheeky grin. “Figured it out yet?”
