Page 31 of Men of Fort Dale: The Complete Series

Well, more out of control than they already were.

Then the door swung open.

“Oh. You,” Aidan said, looking him over.

Aidan continued to stare at him for a long, drawn-out moment. “Need something?”

Sean cleared his throat, saying the best thing he could think of, “You got a second? I think we should talk.”

Aidan’s eyes were wary, but he didn’t make a smart comment, and he backed away from the doorway to let Sean in.

Not willing to look a gift horse in the mouth, Sean hurried into the room.

It was set up like most of the rooms in the barracks, with two desks, a bunk bed, and a light fixture overhead.

Aidan hadn’t bothered to decorate it with any posters or pictures, and from the looks of it, he didn’t have a roommate either.

“You could probably request being moved into one of the apartments, you know. There’s usually a free spot or two on base that General Winter keeps open just in case.”

“Just in case of what?” Aidan asked.

“Just in case someone...special rolls through,” Sean finished.

And that was the point, wasn’t it? Why Aidan was on his team in the first place.

As much as Sean wasn’t sold on the general’s vaunted niceness or honor, Sean knew the man didn’t make a decision just for the hell of it.

General Winter had always put thought behind his choices, and he wasn’t going to throw Aidan onto his team simply because he had to.

Which left Sean wondering what he was supposed to do knowing that.

“My mommy always told me I’m special,” Aidan said wryly.

Sean looked around. “But you don’t have any pictures of her.”

“My mom was a drunk who was pissed off that she had me in the first place and liked to remind me that I was unwanted my entire childhood. My dad took off before I was born, so who the hell knows what he thought other than he didn’t want me either.

My mom didn’t tell me I was special, Sean.

I was being a smartass,” Aidan said, sounding uncharacteristically tired.

It was, Sean thought, the third genuine emotion he’d seen from Aidan.

First had been the anger, and then had come the lust. Sean had been prepared for the anger and had even wanted to see it.

The lust had hit him around the side of the head and dragged him along for the ride before he’d known what he was doing.

Just hearing Aidan sound tired, right down to his bones, maybe even his heart, was something Sean didn’t know what to do with.

“Oh. So you…” Sean continued, realizing he didn’t know how to finish.

“Don’t have any family, no. Don’t have any friends either. Kind of hard to make them when your job shunts you all over the place,” Aidan said, now sounding irritated.

“Shunts,” Sean repeated, frowning.

Aidan sighed, walking past Sean to flop on his bed. “You didn’t come here to get my oh-so-very sad backstory. You came here because you fucked me against a building.”

Sean cringed. “Jesus.”

“Would you prefer I said, ‘had sexual intercourse’ instead?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t sound like an asshole when you talked about it,” Sean snapped.

Aidan’s jaw tightened. “Maybe you should try not being one yourself, for once.”

They glared at one another for a good minute before Aidan jerked his eyes away, throat working. Sean thought the man was going to come back with something sharp and biting, specially made to get a rise out of Sean. Instead, the anger in Aidan’s eyes died, and he sighed.

“Look, I know why you’re here. Because of what happened and the fact that you’re my CO.”

Sean looked away, realizing with a sudden cold wash of shame that it was exactly why he was here. Not because what they’d done had felt wrong, but because he didn’t want his ass handed to him by the Brass. The last thing he needed was another kick while he was down.

When Aidan spoke, it was soft but earnest. “I’m not going to go running to General Winter because we had sex, Sean. I’m a big boy who doesn’t need to go running to Daddy. Plus, it’s not like I wasn’t right there, a part of it.”

“I know,” Sean said, meaning it. “But?—”

“But we haven’t exactly been getting along, and you were worried I might get it in my head to use that against you,” Aidan said, something sharp and pained flashing in his gaze.

“Sounds worse when you say it out loud,” Sean admitted.

“I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t...abuse that,” Aidan said quietly, looking at the floor.

There was such a quiet emphasis on the way he said it that Sean drew his head up with a frown. He opened his mouth to ask where that had come from but was stopped by a sharp rap at the door.

Aidan snorted. “I’m popular today.”

Ricardo’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Aidan, you in there?”

“Yeah, come on in,” Aidan called back.

Ricardo stepped in, freezing when he saw Sean. Ricardo’s eyes immediately scanned the room, reading the emotional weather. If Ricardo thought anything was strange, other than the fact that Sean and Aidan were in the same room without trying to kill one another, he didn’t say anything.

“Saves me the trouble of trying to hunt you down,” Ricardo said to Sean.

Sean frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Word from General Winter came in. We have to get suited up.”

Sean straightened, immediately alert. “For what?”

“I guess he’s done waiting for us to give him the green light. He’s throwing us out somewhere.”

Aidan stood up, cocking his head. “Somewhere?”

Ricardo shrugged. “All he said was that we’re getting put out into a ‘real’ test of our team. And to suit up and meet out by the airfield.”

“Where the fuck are we going?” Aidan asked.

Sean grunted. “Let’s go and find out.”

The headset crackled to life in Sean’s ear, filling his head with Matt’s voice. “Is this really necessary?”

“General Winter seems to think so,” came Ricardo’s response.

“Feels excessive.”

Sean was inclined to agree, but he wasn’t going to voice that to the rest of his team, who were anxious enough as it was.

They hadn’t been given much time to get their gear together and meet their ride out at the airstrip.

First had been a plane, but not before they’d had helmets strapped on their heads, limiting their hearing and completely blocking out all light.

They’d flown for a while before being transferred to what he was sure was a helicopter.

Their only contact was with one another, over the intercom built into the helmets.

“General Winter doesn’t want us to know where we’re going,” Nick said.

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Matt said dryly.

“He wants us tested, which means throwing us into the unknown without time to prepare. The guy doesn’t do anything without a reason,” Nick said.

“Yeah, but we usually have a good idea where we’re being dropped off and what’s ahead,” Matt replied.

Aidan’s voice came back, quiet and thoughtful. “That’s my job.”

From the silence, Sean guessed the rest of the team wasn’t sure what Aidan meant, but Sean did.

With Aidan being the newest member of the team and their intelligence specialist, Sean could see the logic General Winter was working with.

He needed to be sure Aidan was not only good at gathering and working with information, even under unknown and stressful circumstances, but also that they could all work together with whatever Aidan gathered.

Sean wracked his brain, trying to decide what General Winter might throw at them.

In his mind, they were either going into something familiar for them all, to see if they could still function in a desert climate, or something altogether different.

Sean couldn’t see the point of something different other than to see if under chaos and the unknown, they could work together.

Matt’s wry voice came over the comms again. “Alright, any idea of where we’re headed?”

“Several,” Aidan replied, voice distant.

“That’s not very helpful.”

“Speculating won’t do us much good while we’re sitting blind in a helicopter,” Aidan said.

Sean's attention was drawn to Aidan's quiet, almost distant voice. The man was normally sharp and on point, but he seemed lost in thought. An idea occurred to him immediately, and he cleared his throat.

“Matt? Shut up,” Sean grunted.

For all his attitude and occasional need to fight Sean, Matt did as he was told.

Aidan fell silent immediately, and Sean would swear he could feel the man thinking.

Sean couldn’t help but feel a little curious about what Aidan was up to, but he knew better than to press him.

The man was a right pain, but Sean suspected he was far more capable than Sean had given him credit for.

The pilot’s voice crackled over the speaker. “Alright, boys. You can unbuckle yourselves and prepare to get off.”

“Can we take these stupid things off?” Nick demanded.

“You aren’t seeing shit until you open that door, so be my guest.”

“Then what the hell was the point of them?” Nick asked.

“General’s orders.”

Sean didn’t bother arguing, reaching up to unsnap the helmet and pulling it off. As the helicopter's interior came into view, he saw the rest of his team doing the same. Aidan ran a hand over his closely cropped hair and set the helmet aside with far more care than most of the team.

“It’s not the desert,” Aidan said, just loud enough for Sean to hear.

“What is it?” Sean asked.

Aidan shook his head, pointing at the helmets.

No doubt, the intercom system was still active, and with a jolt of realization, Sean understood that their comms might be listened to by more than just the pilot.

He didn’t see the point in hiding it from General Winter if the man was listening, but it was interesting to see Aidan’s distrust of authority aimed at more than him.

The pilot called back to them. “Alright, this is your stop.”

They lurched toward the huge, sliding door. Taking point, Sean reached out, wrenching the handle down and pushing. The door slid open with a roar, and the warm interior of the helicopter was filled with a bitter blast of frozen wind.

“Holy shit,” Matt muttered, taking a step back.

Sean looked down, seeing the snow below billowing in a thick cloud as the helicopter blades blew it in every direction. The vehicle was hovering several feet above the ground.

“We’re supposed to jump?” Ricardo called from behind them.

Aidan frowned, leaning out. “Looks soft enough.”

“Jesus Christ,” Matt muttered.

Aidan looked at Sean, shrugging. “Your call.”

Sean brought the thick mouth protector up over his lips. “We jump.”

And with that, he threw himself out into the bitter cold, tumbling down until he hit the ground.