Page 122 of Men of Fort Dale: The Complete Series
Tucking his bags under his arm, he left the store, leaving the cheery music behind.
It was quickly replaced by the murmur of the crowds on the sidewalks and traffic as rush hour approached.
Sighing, he checked his phone, hoping his ride would arrive soon.
It would take forever to get back to Fort Dale, and he’d prefer to get the trip over with.
No sooner had he tucked away the phone than it started buzzing. The headset in his ear immediately began to blare the Mission Impossible theme. Everyone of any importance on his phone came with a ringtone, and he smirked as he connected the call.
“Hey, Aidan,” he greeted his friend, former teammate, and second in command.
“Good God, where the hell are you, a club?” Aidan asked.
“I’m downtown shopping.”
“Shopping, isn’t it...rush hour?”
Matt huffed as someone bumped him roughly on their way past. “Sure is.”
“What the hell are you doing shopping?” Aidan asked. Matt heard muffled conversation in the background, followed by Aidan’s wry, “Right, of course. Christmas shopping again?”
Matt listened to holiday music from a nearby store. “Hey, not everyone waits until the last second just to buy a bunch of gift cards, like you,” Matt shot back.
“I do not,” Aidan said. Once more, there was muffled conversation and then deep laughter.
Matt smirked. “That Sean?”
“Yes,” Aidan huffed.
“Am I allowed to say hi?”
“He’s being an ass, so he doesn’t get to talk to you right now.”
“Put me on speakerphone, Aidan.”
“Or what?”
Matt grinned. “Or I’ll program your phone to play gay porn with every alert...again.”
“Jesus,” Aidan grumbled, and the background noise increased. “There, happy?”
“Hi, Sean. I hear you two are having fun,” Matt said, reaching into his pocket when it buzzed again.
“Well, I am,” Sean’s deep voice replied, sounding amused.
“He thinks he’s funny,” Aidan told him.
“And someone doesn’t like the taste of their own medicine,” Sean said.
Matt shook his head, checking the message from his Uber and scanning the crowd for the car.
Sean and Aidan bickered back and forth, but Matt had been there when they were introduced.
He knew all too well what genuine animosity between them looked and sounded like, and he hadn’t seen or heard it in quite some time.
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 all but 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 was my point.”
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.”
“I’m sorry,” Matt grumbled. “Did Aidan Rider just joke about someone talking too much?”
“I take exception to that,” Aidan said.
“More like resemble it,” Sean added.
Matt heard another thump, followed by Sean’s laughter as he hit the floor.
Matt shook his head, leaning out the window to show the front gate his ID so they’d let him onto the base.
For all his grumbling, Matt liked hearing Sean laugh again.
After Clint’s death and up to a certain point when Aidan was around, Matt had believed he’d never see his friend smile again, let alone laugh.
They had all suffered after losing their teammate.
Looking back, Matt was amazed at how bad things had been.
Nick had always had issues sleeping, though point blank refused to get himself diagnosed with insomnia.
After Clint’s death, Nick hardly slept at all, except for dropping off randomly during the day whenever there was a lull.
He’d retreated from the team in a way even Ricardo hadn’t managed, and worse, he had retreated from Matt.
It wasn’t until Ricardo dragged the man to Matt’s apartment that something finally gave.
“Should I let you two have a moment alone?” Matt asked as the car coasted into the housing section of the base.
“Uh, we’re fine,” came Aidan’s somewhat distant reply.
Matt frowned at the guilty tone in his voice. “I don’t like what I’m hearing. Please tell me why you called before whatever is ready to happen actually happens.”
“You mean other than the fact that we haven’t spoken to any of you in a couple of weeks?” Sean’s muffled voice asked.
Matt smiled as the car came to a stop. “Aw, aren’t you guys just the sweetest?”
“Oh God, I can’t tell if he’s being mushy or sarcastic,” Sean grumbled.
“You say that like they’re mutually exclusive with Matt,” Aidan said.
“True. I don’t think he knows how to be genuinely affectionate.”
“Ignoring the hypocrisy of what you just said, you’re right. With one exception.”
“Ah yes, the disjoined but still conjoined twin of his.”
Matt listened to them long enough to thank the driver before interrupting. “You guys know I’m still here, listening, right?”
“Duh,” came the in-unison reply.
“Right, well, when you two are done sharing a brain,” Matt said, grinning at the cry of outrage.
Sean’s voice grew closer. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just put me on the same mental and maturity level as Aidan.”
“Hey!” Aidan protested.
Sean continued unabated. “But we also called because we’re not going to make it to the States for at least another couple of months.”
Matt tried not to let his disappointment show. “Keeping you guys busy, huh?”
“Something like that,” Sean replied, as cryptic as ever.
Matt wasn’t surprised. Whatever the two of them had been up to had kept them busy. Matt had been hoping they could squeeze some time off somewhere in their schedule, but he hadn’t been clinging too tightly to it.