Page 7 of Stryker

“What?”

“You wanna tell me what’shappening between you and John?”

“No. Why the fuck iseveryone asking me that?”

Brick’s chuckles hadStryker growling even deeper, but the bastard wasn’t afraid of himand only laughed louder.With friends likehim, who needs enemies?Stryker shook hishead and continued walking, trying to ignore his best friend, whowas now smiling from ear to ear.

“I guess this means you’llbe sticking around a bit longer,” Brick said.

“Asshole.”

Brick began laughing all overagain.

Damnit.

***

John

When Stryker and Brick returned fromthe diner, neither said anything and the move carried on. It wasn’tuntil John received a phone call from the moving company thatafternoon, indicating their insurance would cover the damage, thatJohn figured it out.

He didn’t know whether to be angry orhappy about what they’d done. On the one hand, he was happy they’dnot have to take a loss on the broken piece of furniture. On theother, he wasn’t some dude in distress and he didn’t want to betreated like one.

Especially not by Stryker. John may besmaller than the rest of the guys, and not some super-soldier, buthe could handle himself.

The more he thought about it the moreworked up he got, until he found himself searching out Stryker tohave a little conversation. He found the man unwrapping a buffet inthe back of the store.

“We need to talk,” hesaid.

Stryker turned and looked at him, butif he knew what this was about, he wasn’t giving it away. “Sure,what’s on your mind?”

“Did you force those mento admit to the truth about damaging the table so that it would becovered by insurance?”

“Yep.” Stryker stole asmall cheese block from the food tray and popped it into hismouth.

“I don’t need anyone tostick up for me,” John said.

“Everybody needs somebodyone time or another,” Stryker said, his dark eyes watching John’severy move now.

“I’m not some weaklingthat needs to be defended.”

“I never thought youwere.”

“Then why did you go andsay something to those men?”

“Because assholes need tobe dealt with, or they’ll keep taking advantage of people. Maybenext time, they’ll think twice.”

“I don’t need ahero.”

“Good, because I ain’t nohero. I’m about as far as you can get from a hero.”

That statement confused John. “Butyou’re a Navy SEAL.”

“Yeah, that was myjob.”

“You savedpeople.”

“Correction, I went onmissions I was assigned to.”

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