Page 5 of The Only Reason (The Trident Trilogy 2)

Chapter Three

Mason

San Diego, California

2020

“Well look who decided to join us,” Jack says as I grab a beer from the cooler. “Did Millie give you permission to leave the house tonight?”

I scoop a handful of ice out of the cooler and dump it down his shirt. He jumps up like someone set off a bottle rocket under his chair. I walk around the fire-pit and take the chair next to Chase.

Since I moved to San Diego a couple months ago, I’ve been adopted into the weekly gathering of retired SEALs. Jack—the oldest of us all—hosts whomever shows up every Wednesday night on his back patio. When a bunch of old operators get together, there’s a lot of beer and stories about our time in service. Most of these guys have been out ten years or more. I’ve only been away from my team for two months. I’m not quite ready to talk about it like it’s in the past. That’s one of the reasons I rarely show up, but for probably the first time in his life, Jack is actually right about something. My main reason is that I want to be with Millie as much as possible. Being away from her when I’m at the base is torture. When I’m done with work, I go straight to her house. If she didn’t go out with her friends every once in a while, I don’t think I’d ever be away from her. Tonight, she’s out with Chase’s wife, Mariel.

“You heard from the ladies yet?” Chase says, shaking his head. “The last time they went out together, they ended up in the ocean fully clothed.”

“Yeah. I remember. Millie shook for an hour even after she dried off and buried herself in a mound of blankets.” I smile as I think about the five or six blankets that always clutter her bed. I still haven’t figured out how someone can be so cold all the time when it’s almost always seventy degrees here.

“I told Mar to try to stick to two glasses of wine tonight, but no promises. She gets cranked up when she’s around Millie.”

Jack has finally cleared the ice out of his shirt. He plops back down in his chair and clears his throat loudly to make sure everyone is paying attention to him again. He’s one of those guys who never knows when to quit.

“I’m just saying the sex has to be out of this world to have the great Mason Davis all whipped up like this,” he says, peering at me over his glasses as he stokes the fire-pit with an old broom handle.

“Worry more about your own sex life. Or lack of one,” I say as my empty beer can lands perfectly in the middle of his forehead.

“He’s not wrong, Jack. When’s the last time you even touched a woman?” Chase drains the last of his beer and heads over to the cooler for another.

“Damn. If I had someone who looked like Millie, I wouldn’t be able to walk straight.” Jack just can’t stop himself. His voice is getting a little shaky. He knows he’s about to step on a land mine, but he keeps going. “The last time I saw her—at Charlie’s—she was wearing that little sundress number that just barely covered—”

“Watch your mouth,” I say sternly as Chase comes up behind him and almost knocks his head clear off his body with a swift backhand.

“Don’t talk about her like that again,” Chase says in a friendly tone, but his body language—including the finger that’s inches from Jack’s face—is telling a different story.

Jack tries to recover some of his swagger. “All right. All right. I know Princess Millie is off limits. I’ll back off. But only for her dad. Mack was the toughest fucker I ever met. I think he could probably still kick my ass from his grave.”

Chase rolls his eyes as he makes his way back over to me. “Ignore him,” he says as he hands me another beer.

“I always do.” I take a long swig. “Hey. Did Millie tell you about my replacement going down?”

“No, man. Just injured, I hope.”

“Yeah. Nothing serious. He tore his ACL. They want me to take the team back for a few months while he recovers.”

Chase raises his eyebrows. “How does Millie feel about that?”

“After the fight we had today, I’m guessing she’s all in favor of it.”

“What was the fight about? Same thing?”

“Yeah. You know how she is. She’s defiant about me trying to protect her. She’s so damn stubborn about it. I’m really trying to back off, but with everything that’s happened to her in the last year, it’s not easy to be laid-back about it, you know?”

“Yeah. You don’t need to tell me about Millie’s stubborn streak. That child almost gave me a heart attack during her college years. I’ve told you what she put us through. I felt like I was tracking a fugitive.”

I shake my head. “Her old agency boss has been calling her, too. He wants her back in DC. I don’t think she really has much interest in it.”

“From what she’s told me, she doesn’t have any interest in it. Do you want to go back to active duty? Or do you feel like you’re done with that life?”

“You’ve been gone for, what, about ten years? Do you feel like you’re done?”

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