Page 5 of Men of Fort Dale: The Complete Series

“How long you been at that pot?”

He did that enough in his dreams.

Taking a deep breath, Sloane stepped away. “How much time do you have?”

“What? No rushing off because you’re going to be late?” Sloane asked wryly.

Dean turned, swatting Sloane lazily with the towel. “Quit.”

Sloane wrinkled his nose, wiping at the damp spot on his hip. “You’re the one who can’t keep track of time.”

“I do just fine.” Dean sniffed as he set the rag over the faucet.

“Only because you’ve kept working out,” Sloane said with a sip of his coffee.

Dean refilled his cup. “I like to think the occasional morning rush is as good at waking me up as drinking a whole pot of coffee.”

Sloane eyed him over the rim of his cup for a moment longer before reaching down and picking up his phone.

Dean watched him quietly, only then becoming aware of Sloane's state. Though his hair was too short to be disheveled, Sloane looked sleepy-eyed, with thick stubble on his jaw, and his voice was still rough from having just woken up. He hadn’t bothered to do more than throw on a pair of shorts before stepping into the kitchen.

Still sleepy and a little raw from his overreaction, Dean scanned Sloane’s body as the man tapped away at his phone.

Sloane was just as fastidious about keeping up with his workout routine as Dean, though the results were more obvious.

Sloane’s chest was solid muscle, and his stomach was flat, with the faintest hint of sculpted lines.

It didn’t help that Sloane’s body had a healthy layer of dark hair, just enough to send Dean’s heart racing with anticipation but not so much that he couldn’t see the skin beneath it.

Sloane chuckled. “And just like that, she’s onto the next.”

Dean jerked guiltily. “What?”

“Shawna. She was losing her mind over some boy the other day, and now she’s telling me about some new boy she met while watching a movie with friends.”

Dean focused his attention on Sloane’s face, snorting. “What did you expect? She could never focus on anything for too long. Remember her salsa lessons?”

Sloane rolled his eyes. “Yoga.”

“Meditation.”

“Knitting.”

“Photography.”

Sloane sighed. “Nothing will compare to when she decided to take up tap dancing. That was before I shipped out for basic, and I don’t think my mom has managed to get the scuffs out of the floor since.”

Dean laughed. “My mother would have had a fit if I tried to do something like that.”

“That because it was a girl thing to do, or because you would’ve ruined her floors?”

“The latter. She never really gave a shit when she found out I was gay. My father said something about how that was the ‘college’ thing to do and then just shrugged when I reminded him I was going into the service.”

“They’re probably betting you’ll get out and go to school.”

Dean shrugged. “Probably, but I’ve already renewed once, and I don’t see any reason not to again.”

Sloane cocked his head. “You’ve never talked about what you wanted to do after serving. I guess I figured you’d decided on staying.”

“I hadn’t...made up my mind, actually. Honestly, when I renewed, it was because I didn’t know what I wanted to do if I were to get out. Go to college? And do what? Nothing called to me. There wasn’t any one thing I was good at.”

“I think being a Doc counts for a lot on the civilian side of the world.”

Dean snorted. “And do what? The same thing I’ve been doing here? What’s the point of leaving then? It might not seem like much to my parents or people like them, but hell, at least here, I have a purpose. I have direction. If I left, all I’d do is wander around, unsure what to do with myself.”

“You stay because it gives you meaning,” Sloane said simply.

“Not the most thrilling of reasons,” Dean admitted as he refueled his cup.

“When the fuck did a reason have to be thrilling? If it’s a reason that works for you, then fuck it, go with it.

If you being in the military gives you what you need, keep the contract going and make a life of it.

If you find out you don’t want to do it anymore, stop after it expires and don’t renew. Simple.”

Dean chuckled, sipping his coffee and nodding. Dean wasn’t sure if Sloane tended to cut to the heart of a problem because he was hardwired that way or because he’d been forced to after helping raise his two admittedly emotional and melodramatic sisters.

“You haven’t exactly talked about what you were going to do other than this stuff,” Dean pointed out.

Sloane shrugged. “I might stick with it, but eh, probably not. Military can always use more grunts, but I don’t want to be a grunt forever. Maybe I’ll find something with the cops, wouldn’t that be something? Poor kid growing up to be a soldier, then a cop, that would get them talking back home.”

Dean grinned. “Probably no more than my parents’ friends.”

Sloane blinked. “I mean, my neighborhood is filled with nothing but druggies, gangsters, and burnouts. What the hell would people in a nice neighborhood have to talk shit about?”

They had grown up on opposite sides of the proverbial tracks.

Sloane had grown up with people being shot on his street, muggings in the alley next to his apartment, and drug dealers lurking on every corner.

It had always puzzled Sloane when he was given a peek into the troubles of upper-middle-class America.

Dean sighed. “Our neighbor’s daughter was in med school before I left, and their son was on his way to valedictorian of his graduating year.

Across the street were twins whose science project caught international scientific interest, something about cleaning up plastics in the ocean.

One of my cousins just got accepted to some big law firm in New York, and another is this big nature photographer who even got into National Geographic. ”

Sloane frowned. “And? Is this one of those things where your parents think something stupid?”

Dean laughed. “Compared to all those examples, how would I stand up? I did alright in school, never was part of a club of any mention, and after graduation, I signed up for the military. My parents thought it was just a phase, that I was going through a ‘rebel’ stage, their words, not mine, and that I would work it out.”

Sloane squinted. “Signing up to serve the government...to go fight and maybe die in some part of the world...is a...rebel stage?”

“Yep.”

“That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Only because you haven’t been at one of their family dinners. That’s where the really fun things are said.”

Sloane shook his head. “I swear, everything I hear about your parents makes me want to hit them upside the head.”

Dean shrugged. “That’s just how things work in my family and with their social circle.”

“They should appreciate the son they have, not try to make him into something they think he should be.”

Dean smiled, touched. “You clearly don’t know how things work in middle-class suburbia.”

“And I don’t want to either, sounds stupid.”

“Only because you have a family who likes you.”

Sloane raised a brow. “They liked you too.”

Dean paused and then let out an exasperated sigh at Sloane’s grin. “Please. Do not.”

“Shawna, especially,” Sloane continued.

Dean pointed. “No.”

“Mom said she was heartbroken after she told her you were never going to be interested in her, and not just because she’s like, ten years younger than you.”

“At least I stopped you from telling her,” Dean said, remembering the previous Easter when they’d both been given leave and had flown to visit Sloane’s family.

“I still think it would have been funny if I had.”

Sloane’s version of funny was likely a lot different from Shawna’s.

Despite loving his time around such a vibrant and warm family, Dean hadn’t been blind to the teenage girl’s flirtations with him.

Everyone else had been aware of Shawna’s feelings, but unlike Dean, Sloane and his mother had found it absolutely hilarious.

It had certainly made Easter dinner more awkward, but Dean still counted it as the best Easter he’d ever had.

Dean rinsed his cup out. “And would you look at the time? Suddenly, I realize I have to go on shift.”

Sloane chuckled, leaning against the counter behind him with the smuggest expression possible. “How convenient.”

Dean ignored him, mainly because the sight of Sloane, cocky and sprawled out, was incredibly distracting.

He shifted his attention to his neatly folded pile of clothes next to the couch and scooped them up.

Dean could feel Sloane’s eyes on him the whole time, and he repressed the urge to look again.

He knew from experience how easy it was to fall into feasting on the sight of Sloane looking impossibly handsome and casually sexy.

“You can run, but you can’t hide,” Sloane called after him.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Dean muttered as he closed the bathroom door behind him.