Page 36 of Badd Ass

“Jesus, you dork, who even uses words like ‘tetchy’?

“I do, Crankshaft.”

“Crankshaft?” I asked, staring at him.

“You know, the comic strip about—”

“I fucking know whatCrankshaftis, cock-waffle.”

“Yeah, well, you’re acting more curmudgeonly than Crankshaft. Which is at serious odds with the idiot grin you were floating around with all morning.”

I glanced at the time on the register screen; 3:55 p.m. “I gotta go. Got shit to do.”

“Classic avoidance technique, brother.”

“I’m not avoiding anything, I just—I’m supposed to call Mara at four. And if you say a damn word, I’ll castrate you in your sleep.”

“The nurse from the wedding? You’re…callingher…on the phone?”

“No, you dick-turd, I’m gonna stand on the roof and shout.”

“Dick-turd?” He paused in the act of pulling a pour-spout from an empty bottle of Jameson and stuffing it into a fresh one.

“Yes. Dick-turd.” I washed my hands and then collected the tips from the tip jar by the register. “Ass-muffin. Douche-canoe. Shit-goblin. Scab-eating shit-sucker. Walking moose knuckle. Sheep-fucker. I got more—should I keep going?”

“Please, no. You’re offending my delicate sensibilities with your crude, barbarian epithets. I might faint.” He delivered this dripping with monotone sarcasm. “Where do you even come up with this stuff, anyway?”

“Long flights to insertion with not much to do except find new and ever more creative ways of insulting each other,” I said.

“Well I’ll give you an A for creativity, that’s for sure.”

I laughed, counting the bills and sorting them. “Seriously, we’d do that for hours. Those are tame compared to some of the shit we’d come up with. Your ears would shrivel off your proper little head if you heard what we’d come up with after six or eight hours in the back of a C-130. The goal was always to be as vile and offensive as possible.”

“Go. Call your woman. We got this.”

“She’s not my woman. We’re just…practice dating.”

Brock stared at me for a long moment. “There’s so much to unpack from that statement I don’t even know where to start.”

“So don’t start. Just let it go.”

He shrugged, hands raised in surrender. “Okay, okay. But you realize I’m gonna psychoanalyze you later, right?”

I waved and stuffed the cash into my pocket. “Yeah, yeah, egghead. I’ll see you later.”

I jogged upstairs and changed into clean jeans, a plain black polo, my combat boots, and my leather jacket. I hesitated for a moment, and then stuffed a few condoms in my back pocket, just because it never hurts to be prepared, especially considering the intense physical chemistry between Mara and I.

Xavier was gone on his bike so I was left on foot, a situation I’d have to rectify posthaste if I was gonna live here another eight months, minimum. To be honest, I could see myself being here in Ketchikan for a little longer. I was enjoying being around my brothers, being back at home, living a little boring civilian life for once. I’d been in the Navy for ten years, the bulk of that as a SEAL and my life had been anything but normal, so this was new and kind of weird and I was enjoying it.

I slipped downstairs and outside, then started walking toward the dock where I knew Mara’s friend Claire’s cruise ship was docked. I dialed Mara.

She answered on the third ring. “Hey you.”

“Hey. Have fun with Claire?” I heard noise and voices in the background, which definitely put her at the cruise ship docks.

“Yeah, it was a fun day. We hiked more of the Rainbird, took a Duck tour, had some lunch.”

“Funny, I grew up here and I’ve never done one of the Duck tours.”