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“Oh there you are, man.” Curly gave him a broad smile. “Came looking for you earlier to see if you wanted to game, but you weren’t around.”
“Yeah.” Wes forced himself to breathe normally. “Went out for a while. Back now, but I might be too bushed to play.”
“You seeing someone in the city?” Curly’s speculative gaze made a shiver rush up Wes’s spine.
“What? No,” he sputtered.
“No biggie.” Curly’s eyes stayed narrowed, but his mouth was an easy smile when he tapped the side of his neck. Oh fuck. Wes must have a mark there—he flashed back to the shower, and Dustin’s mouth against his skin as they’d climaxed. Hell. And he’d been so careful. Curly dropped his voice. “But you need me to cover for you any time, all you have to do is say the word. You know I’ve got your back.”
Wes nodded. “Appreciated. I’m good though,” he added, trying to end the conversation without more speculation on Curly’s part. He was a good guy, but no way would he be so understanding if he knew who Wes was fucking around with. As far as Curly knew, he was a semi-closeted guy trying to stay that way, not a lovesick idiot over one of their commanding officers.
I’m not lovesick, he lectured himself, even as he knew it was a lie. He was so tangled up over Dustin that now it was all about self-preservation and damage control. Eliminating risk in life-or-death situations was part of his job. How fucked-up was it that his personal life had become some kind of messed-up time bomb—one he’d made himself, but that he seemed to have zero control over and zero desire to defuse.
Chapter Sixteen
“That wasn’t so bad.” Dustin’s father grabbed a beer from the open bar at the reception for Dylan and Apollo’s wedding at a downtown San Diego hotel. “Tasteful.”
“Ceremony was nice.” Dustin grabbed a beer of his own. His dad had made a lot of comments like that the whole week they’d been visiting—he tried to be supportive of Dylan, but it was rather clear he wasn’t the most comfortable with either Dustin’s brother or his newly-minted husband.
“Sure is something, seeing Apollo in his dress uniform. Back when I was in the service, never thought I’d see the day...”
“Yeah.” This was one of a hundred little moments when it might be a good time to have that heart-to-heart with his dad that was years overdue. But then his dad would go make a comment like the “tasteful” remark, and Dustin’s teeth would clamp together, no confession forthcoming.
“Girls asked if they can call me Gramps.” His father gave a lopsided smile. “Didn’t ever expect Dylan to give me grandkids first. Speaking of, why don’t you have a date here? You need to get on with having a family. Can’t put it off too much longer or else you’ll be forty with a newborn—and we did that with Dylan—you don’t want that, trust me.”
Yup. That talk might be a long time coming, but hell if he could make his voicebox work. “I...I don’t really want kids,” he admitted, giving his dad half the truth, testing the waters. He wasn’t lying—kids weren’t really in the cards for him. Apollo’s kids were cute and all, but also rather exhausting in anything more than small doses.
“What? Of course you do.” His father clapped him on the back. “Everyone says that before they have kids. But trust me, you meet the right girl, and you’ll be thinking babies in no time flat.”
“Maybe I’m just meant to be an uncle,” Dustin mumbled. Right girl, indeed. And what if he’d met the right guy who just happened to be all wrong for him? Just tell your dad. Wes was right that his family could adjust to him being bisexual. And he was sweating, burning up with the need to tell someone about Wes.
“You are not. I’m counting on you.” His father gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze before his uncle came up to them, ruining Dustin’s chance to say more.
I’m counting on you. For what exactly? To be the big tough military guy? To be a SEAL? To be the guy who married the girl, had the babies with the last name his dad put way too much stock in? And it wasn’t that his dad didn’t love Dylan. He did. But for some reason, Dustin had always borne the brunt of his pressure. Maybe it was being the oldest, like Wes said, and that sucked. Felt like only Wes knew how he felt—
And there he was thinking of Wes again. Wishing he were here, which was stupid, but he couldn’t seem to stop. All week he’d thought of Wes at the most inopportune moments, wondering if he’d like the food or how he’d charm Dustin’s mom. They’d messaged some over the week when they were off duty, but Wes had seemed more distant somehow, and they hadn’t had another clandestine meeting, which was good and sane and the right thing, and still Dustin wished they had managed to get together before he’d had to deal with this wedding stuff.
