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“I’m glad you found your way out.” Spencer squeezed Bacon’s hand. Electricity arced between them, swift and unexpected. He didn’t need Spencer’s pity, but this...compassion wasn’t unwelcome, warming long-frozen recesses of his heart. “When that military contact of mine committed suicide, it hit me hard, and I was a long-grown adult. I can’t imagine being as young or as emotionally invested as you were.”
“Suicide sucks no matter what age you are, no matter how removed you think you are. And anyway, that’s part of why I haven’t come out to the whole team. Jamie’s death messed me up good. Took years before I felt ready for another relationship, and by that point I was fully invested in my career, long deployments derailing several opportunities.”
“My career’s wrecked more relationships than I care to admit,” Spencer said with a wry laugh. They were still holding hands, so Bacon gave him a sympathetic squeeze before Spencer continued. “And I’m not here to urge you to come out to your team. Or judge you in some way. We all have to walk our own path.”
“Yeah.” Even though a big part of him wanted to keep holding on, he forced himself to drop Spencer’s hand. Needing a distraction, he scanned the beach below them. “Oh fuck. This isn’t good.”
A few team members emerged from the tree line, carrying a field stretcher right as his radio crackled. “Bacon? LT says to get your ass back to the beach. We’ve got a situation.”
Chapter Eight
Spencer followed Bacon back down the bluff, trying to keep up with his fast, nimble strides. He wasn’t even sure why they had had to do this hike in the first place—he guessed the two of them staying behind on the beach was a no-go, but he certainly understood Bacon’s irritation at how pointless the whole exercise seemed.
They were silent as they hurried down to the beach, and Spencer kept searching for the right words to sum up how deeply Bacon’s story had moved him. To be so young and lose so much... He shook his head. He couldn’t even imagine. It also made more sense now why Bacon identified as pan instead of gay or bi, not that he needed an explanation or reason. And whatever Bacon identified as, he was strictly off-limits to Spencer. He’d be lying if he said that he was glad Bacon wasn’t straight—this was a complication he didn’t need. It would be easier if he could tell himself that there was no chance their attraction was mutual.
Even this tentative...friendship was ill-advised. And sure, he’d made friends with sources before over the years, but caring always came at a cost.
“What happened?” Bacon rushed toward the guys carrying the stretcher. The SEAL they all called Shiny was on the stretcher, struggling to sit up while the medic, Bullets, pushed him back down.
“Shiny took a tumble. Suspect another concussion,” Bullets reported tersely.
Another? As in there had been more than one? Now he couldn’t use any of Bacon’s story as fodder for his writing, but this could be an interesting angle for his piece, talking about how the military handled injury in its top operators.
“How many concussions has he had?” Spencer asked Bacon in a low voice. Bacon shot him a look that said he didn’t like this line of questioning.
“Two. Maybe three,” Shiny answered before Bacon could put Spencer off. “It’s no big deal. We all get our bell rung good a couple of times a year. This is probably my sixth twisted ankle too. Losing count of how many times I’ve sprained it. Guess my joints are just prone to sprains.”
“Like my knee,” Spencer said, looking to build common ground. “When I ripped my ACL, even after surgery, it was still weak and prone to going out on me. Doesn’t take much for it to act up.”
“Yeah. Like that.” Shiny made a pained face. “It’s like it never fully healed from the first sprain, but what are you gonna do, right? Not like I can stop walking or running.”
“Of course not,” Spencer said, even as he was thinking that perhaps the navy should have given this kid more time to heal.
“Our Shiny’s just injury prone.” Bullets rolled his eyes. “Get him to tell you about the time he got injured during a HALO jump. Could have died. And seriously, talking is good for him. Let me go see what the LT wants to do as far as loading up the boats and I’ll be back.”
Bullets sprinted away as the rest of the team emerged from the jungle-like vegetation. Shiny launched into a rather disjointed tale about a parachute jump that went wrong. Something about almost colliding with their former XO.
“Probably ’cause Strauss was too busy checking out Lowe’s ass,” Donaldson cracked.
“Dude. Not cool.” As seemed to be the usual, Bacon was the only one to put the wiseass in his place, although there were plenty of uncomfortable looks being exchanged. Spencer carefully filed both the comment and the response away as the rest of the team came over and attention shifted to Shiny’s injuries and getting situated on the small boats to go back to the Mark V.
