“Any chance I could get even half a cup? I’ve got a buddy in a bad way. Wanted to get him some before we went wheels up, but I couldn’t risk the LT going all ballistic if we were even fifteen seconds late.”
“Oh, I know your LT.” Chen smiled sagely. “He’s an...interesting one.”
“Yup.” Bacon wasn’t going to make the mistake of trash talking the LT with a near-stranger, so he didn’t add anything further. “So, how about it? I’d owe you a huge large, man.”
Why he was so intent on getting Spencer coffee, he didn’t really want to examine.
“Technically, it’s supposed to be just for the flight deck, but I suppose I can spare a cup.” Chen sighed as he pulled a white paper cup out of a compartment.
“You’re a lifesaver.” Bacon beamed at him as he accepted the steaming cup and two sugar packets. He hurried back to Spencer, who was still typing away.
“Hey, brought you something,” he said as he settled back down in his seat and passed Spencer the coffee and sugar packets.
“Coffee? You’re the best.” Spencer’s smile was worth having to sweet-talk Chen—it was wide and welcoming, with that dirty-secret tilt that did things to Bacon.
“No guarantees on the quality, and if it’s like other navy coffee it could probably double as shoe polish, but it should help you stave off any caffeine withdrawal.”
“Much appreciated. I owe you.”
“Enough to ask the LT for a different handler?” Bacon teased. “Man, no offense at all, but hanging back on this mission is going to suck.”
“I know.” Spencer gave him a sympathetic look. “Any word yet about what sort of mission this will be?”
“The LT and the XO will have to be the ones to brief you, and honestly, we never know much ourselves at this stage either. We’ll get to the base, run as much training as it takes to satisfy the higher-ups, then we find out more when it’s closer to go time. However, my gut says that this has a lot to with the embassy bombing two months ago that terrorists holed up in the South Pacific claimed responsibility for. We’ve been ramping up our presence in the region as a result.”
“Yeah. That’s what I was thinking too.” Spencer’s head tilted thoughtfully. “So what is it that you usually do on missions when you’re not stuck ‘on babysitting duty?’” He dropped his voice at the end to imitate Bullets’s low, gravelly tone.
Bacon had to laugh at the spot-on impression. “I do whatever the mission requires, but I’m trained as both a recon guy and a sniper.”
“That’s neat. How’d they pick you for that role?”
“I shot the lights out in basic training and again in BUD/S.” Yeah, Bacon had a little ego. “Got some brass to notice. They asked if I wanted sniper training, and I said yes, because target shooting was a lot more fun than I’d expected.”
“I’ve shot before. I can see that. It certainly gets the adrenaline pumping.”
“Yeah, there’s a certain rush to it. And I’m damn good at staying hidden. Had enough practice.” Hell. He hadn’t meant to share that last bit.
“Oh?” Spencer sounded curious, not judgy, but Bacon was still reluctant to tell him the whole story.
“Like I said, my old man was a piece of work. Less said the better.” For all that Spencer was remarkably easy to talk to, Bacon wasn’t prepared to have some sort of talk-show moment of relieving all his childhood hurts.
“He’s dead now?” Spencer prodded gently.
“Yeah. Heart attack shortly after I got my trident. At least he knew that I did it, that he didn’t keep me down.”
Spencer’s face turned pensive, and his hand moved restlessly. For a brief second, Bacon was convinced that he was about to touch him, but finally he just nodded.
“I’d say not. You seem to have done pretty well for yourself.” Spencer drained the last of his coffee, and then seeming to sense that Bacon wanted a topic change, asked, “So what happens after we land?”
“We’ll be bused to the barracks and then fed after that. You’re lucky—they have new barracks there that the Special Forces use when we’re here for extended missions and training. The old ones were pretty limited and crowded, but the new ones aren’t bad. We’ll be two to a room, but I bet they’ve put you on your own.”
Bacon hadn’t ever been the praying type—if the universe hadn’t answered his childhood pleas, it sure as heck wasn’t likely to give a fuck about his adult issues—but nevertheless, he really hoped the LT hadn’t been stupid enough to put him with Spencer. Alone, in a room with a door...
Nope. That’s a whole load of nope and not happening right there. He wasn’t sure why his body was insisting on reacting so strongly to Spencer—he was funny and cultured and a good conversationalist, but none of those were reasons why Bacon’s dick should suddenly be going haywire. He needed to rein it in, not go getting any sort of crush.