Page 126 of Men of Fort Dale: The Complete Series

He cocked his head to listen. The music coming from the living room was too loud, but he thought he heard the thump of a boot being dropped by the front door. Only one person had the ability and willingness to stroll into his apartment without so much as a warning.

“God, don’t,” Nick’s deep voice complained, drawing closer.

Nick stopped just shy of stepping into the bathroom. “Congrats.”

“Making it look like Santa threw up all over the place.”

“Oh, god damn it, not you too,” Matt complained.

Nick gave his trademark lazy grin. “C’mon man, you’ve got the biggest, gaudiest wreath on the front door, even compared to the front door of the Christmas store downtown.”

“It’s Christmas!” Matt complained as if that was all the explanation needed.

Nick crossed his arms over his broad chest and leaned against the doorway.

Even with the slouch, he was a little taller than Matt.

That wasn’t because Matt was short, Nick was just genuinely tall and broad.

He wasn’t built as thick and burly as Sean, but he was tall and wide enough to be intimidating.

Or, he would be if it weren’t for his light skin, bright blue eyes, and yellow blond hair.

He looked like the quintessential boy next door.

He even had a lopsided smile and a faint smattering of freckles over his nose to add to the image.

Matt was built a little thicker than Nick but a few inches shorter, and he was dark to Nick’s fair. Considering he didn’t know his family, he could only guess what heritage had given him his coal-black hair, dark brown eyes, and the ability to go copper rather than red in the sun.

Nick squinted at him. “Where’d you go just now?”

“Uh,” Matt hedged. “I’d say nowhere, but I actually can’t remember.”

There was no way on God’s green earth he would admit he’d been comparing them physically. It would sound weird as hell, even coming from Matt’s mouth.

Sure, he could admit his best friend was an attractive man. To Matt, that was just an honest assessment, one he’d given before. But to draw too much attention to his opinion of Nick’s looks would, again, be weird.

And it wasn’t like Matt was against looking at guys.

There had been that one incident when he was younger with another dude, but it hadn’t exactly sparked anything in him.

His eyes still lingered over women, and it had been women he’d dated.

So, really, it shouldn’t have been that weird that he was comfortable enough to notice things like his best friend’s looks or compare them.

Nick grunted. “You’re still a shit liar.”

“Hey! What makes you think I’m lying?”

“You’ve got that look on your face that says whatever you were thinking about was probably weird, and because I asked, you got even more weird thoughts.”

Matt tried to keep his face as neutral as possible. “That’s a very specific look.”

“You have a very expressive face.”

“Or maybe you’re just weird and somehow learned to translate the slightest twitch of my eyebrow like a stalker.”

Nick’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I know. I might even know where you sleep and your favorite places to eat and hang out. That’s gotta be a creepy idea.”

“Probably even seen me naked.”

“Mm, speaking of, put on some pants. I’ll get some food going.”

Matt huffed. “I have food.”

“Let me guess, microwave food?”

“Uh, no?”

“Uh-huh.”

Matt sighed. “Might be a burrito.”

“How you’ve managed to live this long without dying from heart failure is beyond me,” Nick muttered as he walked back toward the front of the apartment.

“This from the man who uses so much goddamn butter he might as well have the last name Deen!”

“Better than the frozen crap you nuke three times a day,” Nick shouted back.

Matt gave another huff and shut the bathroom door.

Okay, maybe he wasn’t all that handy in the kitchen.

As a matter of fact, he had the dubious honor of being the only one on the team who was never given cooking duty.

Nick was generally given the job, if only because he could whip up something remotely pleasant with the worst ingredients.

Sighing, he dried off, smiling when he heard the music turn down enough that it wasn’t blaring but still traveled clearly down the hallway.

He wiped the mirror and looked himself over.

There were enough marks on his body that he was sure someone could have played a bizarre version of connect the dots.

There was the jagged scar on the underside of his left bicep, a present from a barbed-wire fence that decided to get frisky when he was clambering over it.

The pockmarks on the back of his left shoulder, shrapnel from an IED that had gone off yards from him, he still wasn’t sure his hearing had recovered fully.

The burn on the back of his right calf, courtesy of a makeshift Molotov someone had dropped in the hastily dug trench he’d been taking cover in.

And then there was the ugly-looking semi-circle low on his hip, the one scar Nick rarely saw as it was below the waist, but the one that always cast a dark look over his face.

Before he could travel down the fickle path of memory lane, he tossed the towel over his shoulder and marched into his bedroom.

With the music quieter and his bedroom door open, he could hear Nick’s soft thumps and clinks in the kitchen.

No doubt the man was grumbling about something Matt didn’t have in stock.

Half the seasonings and cooking utensils in his kitchen had come from Nick, either bringing them from his apartment or buying them for Matt’s kitchen.

He threw on a pair of lounge pants and a loose t-shirt before padding into the hallway to investigate what Nick was up to.

Turning the corner into the kitchen, he stopped at the sound of something being beaten vigorously.

Raising a brow, he peered over Nick’s shoulder as the man took a mallet to a piece of plastic-wrapped meat.

“There’s a joke about beating meat to be made here,” Matt noted.

Nick snorted, never looking up from his work. “Even worse joke when you consider it’s chicken.”

“Ah, yes, why beat the meat when you can choke the chicken.”

“I was thinking ‘cock’, but yours is better.”

“Look, I know we’re close and have seen each other naked, but I don’t think we should be complimenting each other’s cocks. At least take me to dinner first.”

Nick turned, giving him the dry, unimpressed look Matt knew so well. “I’m cooking you dinner. Isn’t that enough?”

Matt made a show of thinking it over. “Well...alright, yeah, I suppose that’s enough. Carry on.”

Nick snorted, turning back to the chicken and peeling back the wrap. “If anyone heard our conversations, they’d really think more was going on between us.”

“And that,” Matt said as he opened the fridge for a drink, “is why they’re conversations that happen when no one else is around.”

“Speaking of people who get funny ideas, my mom called earlier,” Nick said as he sprinkled seasoning over the meat.

“Yeah?” Matt asked, cracking open the beer. “What’d she want?”

“She was planning to invite everyone from the team for Christmas.”

“Mm, doesn’t quite work when no one’s going to be around.”

“Which I told her. So she switched to telling us to come instead.”

Matt didn’t bother to hide his fond smile. “Told us, huh?”

“She tried to make it sound like a request,” Nick said, pulling out thin slices of meat and cheese. “But she’s about as subtle as a grenade.”

Matt watched him layer the meat and cheese over the flattened chicken. While he wasn’t a deft hand in the kitchen, he didn’t mind watching someone whip up something good. He had no idea what Nick was making, but he sure as hell liked watching, completely trusting that he knew what he was doing.

“So, when are we expected?” Matt asked.

“She said by the twenty-third, I think she wants to get some quality time with us.”

“It has been a while since we showed our faces.”

“Which is why I didn’t give her any trouble.”

Matt wasn’t going to argue, either. As weird as it had been to have Nick’s family essentially adopt him after their first meeting, Matt was used to it now.

Even when Matt quietly sent gifts to Nick’s parents and siblings over the years as a thank-you for everything, no one drew attention to it.

Well, except when he’d bought Nick’s parents a ticket to New York to visit Nick while they were on leave.

That had resulted in one hell of a bear hug from Nick’s dad and a tearful one from his mother.

“You think we’ll get the time off?” Matt asked.

“I don’t think the General will fuss too much. He’s a little distracted and probably feeling more holiday spirit than he was yesterday.”

Matt raised a brow. “Do I want to know?”

Nick chuckled, rolling the chicken into layered logs. “His husband showed up today. You should have seen him. He lit up brighter than your whole damn apartment at this time of year.”

Matt snorted. “It’s amazing how that man manages to date and then marry the guy who is not only, like, twenty years his junior but also once worked for him.”

Nick looked up, his eyes flitting over Matt, watching him for a moment.

In the silence, Matt found himself wondering, and not for the first time, what was going through his best friend’s head.

It was strange how they could know the inner workings of one another’s minds so well, and yet there were times when it felt like a screen was thrown up between them, leaving Matt to guess Nick’s thoughts.

It didn’t last long, and Nick shrugged. “I think with the quality job he does around here, no one’s going to throw a fit over the age thing. And last I checked, they dated after Christian left the service.”

“Right, because they spontaneously decided to date after he left. There was no way anything started before that, no sir,” Nick said with a grin.

“Nothing we can prove,” Nick said, dragging a few containers out.