Page 36 of Oblivion

Forrest turned to face the guys and dropped the bombshell. “He’s not re-enlisting.”

CHAPTERFIFTEEN

Dante

Three months later …

“Welcome to the team, Bateman,” Makka declared, raising his condensated beer glass high.

Tonight was my welcome drinks at their local bar, and the guys were already treating me like one of their brothers.

“You know you’ll need a new nickname, right?” CJ boomed, flashing me a grin that no doubt turned every girl’s panties wet.

I’d met him a couple of times over the last month before I officially started the job at Cole Security, and quickly learned that he could take the shit he dished out.

I pointed the top of my beer bottle at him. “Don’t make it as crap as yours.Howis ‘CJ3PO’ an improvement on CJ? It’s nothing but a goddamn mouthful and a pain in the ass to say!”

CJ cracked a hearty laugh that was entirely appropriate for the big Texan. “Ooh, you’re giving mechills,boy.Chills!C’mon, bait me some more.”

I flipped him off as Laser crowed, “The Army boy is like a big ole ball of man bait sitting over there, drawing CJ3PO effortlessly into his clutches.”

“Yo, Manbait, your round,” Makka chipped in with a devilish smirk on his face.

I flipped him off too. “Manbait? Really? How fucking original. What are we? Nine?” Scoffing, I hid the tugging amusement behind the neck of my beer.

Truth be told, I was all-to-eagerly immersing myself in the banter. It reminded me of the guys back at Fort Campbell, and if this kept up, I’d be right at home with Cole Security.

For the first two weeks after leaving the Green Berets, I couldn’t escape the foreboding sense of aimlessly wandering without direction. I went home to Nebraska, spent some time with my family, and lived the simple farm life I’d left straight out of high school. Once grounded again, I returned to San Diego to begin setting up my new life.

Everything I knew, everything I lived for, was now nothing but memories. Not all of them good, either. Some still fucking broke me. Some still haunted the depths of my sleep, the place where I had no control over. It wasn’t every night, nor was it every week, but during the bad spells, those demons scared the ever-loving fuck out of those around me.

I hated that leaving the military left me so lost. We all needed “our people,” and Cole Security was as close as I was going to get out of uniform.

Jackson assured me I would soon adjust to civilian life, especially with the boys at CS all being former SEALs.

I’d completed numerous tours to Afghanistan and Iraq, and had loved it. Thrived off it. Lived and breathed it. Until it all came crashing down. Now, my experiences had me questioning loyalties, and hell, maybe somewhere along the way I even grew a conscience.

Now, here I was, working with a whole bunch of former military assholes like myself.

“Manbait, it is. Purely because I can see how much you love it,” Tate, the big, ginger-bearded ogre straight out ofGame of Thrones,drawled.

“And yours is?” I raised a brow, smirking when he scowled.

CJ sniggered. “It’s Tater.”

“Fuck’s sake, CJ!” Tate exclaimed.

The guy grinned, openly giving zero fucks about Tate’s displeasure.

“The amount of smack you talk, it’s about time you get instead of give.”

Tate scoffed and pointed at himself, then CJ. “I’m the giver, not the taker.”

“Sure you are… ‘til that one woman comes along with some freakish kink, and you let her peg your colon into your throat,” CJ boomed, loud enough for it to echo around the bar.

Tate’s disgust was comical. He visibly blanched, and the gagging sure as hell wasn’t faked.

I roared with laughter, along with the rest of the guys at our table. Of all the brothers at Cole Security, I’d already surmised that Tate was the most volatile. There was always one, and while I hadn’t been around these guys long, I was sure it was Tate. The indignation lighting his eyes cemented my first impressions of him.

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