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It was funny to think it had only been three years since Aidan had been introduced to Team Maelstrom, an elite fighting force headed by Sean. It had happened a few months after they’d lost one of their own on the field. After Clint’s death, the remaining members were dropped off at Fort Dale and told to wait until the vacancy was filled. Aidan had been the answer General Winter had come up with.

There was a thump from the other end of the line as Matt slid into the car, repeating the address to the driver. From the sounds of it, Aidan had tackled Sean, and the two men were rolling away from wherever the phone had been set down. They might not hate each other anymore, but they still enjoyed wrestling and sparring, usually for fun. Matt didn’t have to worry about them injuring each other, but he might have to worry about it becoming foreplay.

“Guys?” Matt called loudly, hoping to interrupt them. “C’mon, I haven’t talked to either of you in weeks. Please don’t ruin it by fucking while I’m on the phone.”

“We aren’t fucking,” Sean called, sounding annoyed.

“Not for lack of trying on my part,” Aidan added.

Matt sighed. “You’re full-grown men in charge of other full-grown men. Can you please act like it?”

“Hey, we’ve got the privacy of a room. We can do what we want,” Aidan contested.

Not strictly true, but Matt knew better than to argue. It didn’t change the fact that while the two of them were no longer on the same team, they did work together closely. Which meant their relationship was still forbidden.

Sometimes, Matt wondered how they managed it. He hadn’t been in a relationship for a few years but didn’t think he could manage a three-year relationship completely hidden from allbut his closest friends. Yet Aidan and Sean had been doing it, devoted to their jobs and sticking together with a tenacity Matt found impressive.

“Nick there with you?” Sean asked, voice closer to the microphone.

“Naw,” Matt said. “He had a meeting with the General. Probably still stuck there.”

It seemed like everyone on Team Maelstrom had gone on to do something else after the team had been officially disbanded. Sean and Aidan were overseas, managing teams. Ricardo had left the military after his contract ran out, snapped up by a private security company in California. Nick and Matt had been offered a place back at Fort Dale. Nick was in charge of combat training on the base.

While Matt? Matt was in communications. General Winter had thought it the best place for the tech-obsessed man, but Matt wished he’d been given another position. Communications were boring as hell and didn’t open any doors career-wise.

“Ah, going over the training schedule some more?” Aidan asked.

“I think so. Nick said the last time he talked to General Winter, the guy was tense.”

“Tense? Does General Winter get tense?” Aidan scoffed.

“Apparently.”

“Huh,” Sean grunted, “guy always seemed so unflappable.”

“Well, apparently, he’s doing some big Christmas thing this year, and the planning isn’t going well.”

“Oh yeah. Things weren’t the same for him when that cute blond went and left,” Aidan added.

“Cute blond, huh?” Sean asked wryly.

“You and I both know that little twink was cute.”

“Not the point.”

“I mean, it wasmypoint.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “You guys remember when you gave me and Nick shit for constantly bickering back and forth?”

“You were,” Sean pointed out.

“Yeah, well, you guys have taken the cake, the title, and destroyed any competition that stood in the way,” Matt told them.

He left out that he and Nick could still occasionally give Aidan and Sean a run for their money. Matt and Nick had been together on the same bus to boot camp, and that was all it had taken. Matt had been drawn to the taller man’s inner quiet and steadiness. Nick? Well, Matt had no idea what had drawn Nick to him.

After years of fighting, bleeding, and nearly dying together, the result was a bond that was part unbreakable fellowship, part brotherhood, and, according to Aidan, part old bickering married couple. Sean, Aidan, Ricardo, and even the late Clint were all his brothers in Matt’s mind. But they paled in comparison to his relationship with Nick. They’d known one another longer, and there’d always been an element of something subconscious, some quiet but essential part of them that drew them closer.

“You know,” Aidan piped up, breaking through Matt’s thoughts. “When you get quiet, I get worried.”