Squared Away (Out of Uniform 5)

“You’d like being out on missions. We can go weeks and weeks without the water to shave.” Mark groaned low, settling more into the couch, head falling back. “And damn, I swear I’m so much more together out in the field. I’ve sutured in the pouring rain before. Awful conditions.”

They weren’t exactly cuddling, but they also weren’t not. And after the past two weeks Isaiah had had, he needed this kind of contact far more than the beer he’d ended up setting on the floor.

“I believe you.” Isaiah followed Mark’s lead and got more comfortable, head coming to more fully rest on Mark’s thigh. “Did you always want to be a medic? I mean you could have gone into investment banking like Cal or venture capital like your dad. Why go SEALs?”

“Funny story.” Mark moved his hand to trace Isaiah’s neck and shoulders. Not quite a massage, but damn distracting. “I wasn’t much older than Daphne. Seven or eight maybe. And I was biking over near the beach. Got up this tremendous head of steam, faster than I’d ever gone before, and then I wiped out. Spectacular crash. Blood everywhere. The nanny freaked out even worse than I did with Daph.”

“I bet.” Isaiah laughed and arched into Mark’s touch, trying to chase more of it.

“And these guys were out for a jog on the beach. SEALs. They saw the whole thing, and they came racing over. And the biggest, baddest one, says, ‘Don’t worry. I’m a medic.’ And he got a kit out of his souped-up red truck and patched me right up. And that’s when I knew. I wanted to be that guy.”

“One crash? That’s all it took?”

“After that day, I’d see the SEALs around the island, and I always just knew, deep inside that I was meant to be one of them.”

“Damn.” Isaiah envied that kind of certainty. “I never got that feeling.” Well, other than the swift, sure knowledge he’d had at eighteen that Mark was the one, and he’d been spectacularly wrong about that. “Dad always talked about me going to college like it would be this mystical experience, and I’d figure out my future freshman year, but that’s not how it happened.”

“Tell me about this latest thing.” Mark’s fingers danced over Isaiah’s cheekbones and he was staring at Isaiah’s mouth again. “The horticulture certificate? You got a passion for that?”

I’ve got a passion for you, Isaiah almost said, but he didn’t want to break the spell that seemed to have descended on them.

“Yeah,” he said instead, voice hoarser than he could remember. “I do. Growing things is just...real. Tangible. Satisfying.”

“Good.” Mark nodded. “Mom used to garden some. But then Dad made her hire it out.”

“That’s sad. If I had this property, I’d be growing all the things. Vegetables. Ornamentals. No offense, man, but the grounds are in pretty sorry shape considering the value of the house.”

“You wanna have a crack at it?” Mark had moved on to tracing Isaiah’s ears with his thumb. “Get me a list of what you need, but have at it. If I’m going to have to sell, we might as well make it look better.”

“Dude. It’s a big old beach house on Coronado. It’ll sell. But yeah, I’d love getting my hands dirty again. I can do it while the girls are at school, maybe.” Eventually he was going to have to work out employment compatible with having the kids, but things were still too new and they needed him too much. He could live on his savings a while longer.

“I’ll help. Make things safer.”

“It’s a date,” Isaiah said without thinking, then started laughing. “But no ‘putting out the trash’ after. Promise.”

To his surprise, Mark didn’t laugh. Instead, he looked thoughtful. “What if I asked you to?” he said softly.

“To put out?” Isaiah’s throat had never seemed drier.

“We’re sitting here. Talking. Like adults. Just a couple of guys. And I can’t quit thinking about your lips, and I don’t know why.” Mark’s voice had a sleepy, dreamlike quality to it, and Isaiah was fully prepared to wake up any second because he’d been dreaming about Mark saying shit like this for years.

“I do.” Moving slowly as to not bang heads or—more likely—spook Mark, Isaiah moved so that their faces were level, inches apart. “You want to kiss me.”

Chapter Ten

“You want to kiss me,” Isaiah said again. “So you should.”

His face was right there, waiting, body no longer the reassuring weight on Mark’s lap. He seriously could have kept touching Isaiah all night. He’d never wanted to explore another person the way he did Isaiah.

You want to so you should. Isaiah made it sound so simple.

“Unless you’re chicken?” Isaiah grinned at him, unrepentant, and Mark flashed to the last time Isaiah had dared him like this, the last time he wanted to find out what Isaiah tasted like. He’d wanted to kiss Isaiah so badly that night that it had hurt. But Isaiah had been eighteen and he’d been himself and just...yeah.