Tight Quarters (Out of Uniform 6)

Lowe chattered on a bit more about his private sector work, but then there was a low rumble of a voice in the background and he had to go, sounding not one bit sorry about the fast goodbye. Must be nice.

Yeah, he needed to get laid himself. He wasn’t usually this morose. Unbidden, an image of Spencer Bryant crept into his brain. Nope, nope, nope. But maybe he could scratch the itch the man had awakened. Head out to the Hillcrest bars, find an older man...

Buzz. His phone went off again. Still not the base, but his mother.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hi, sweetheart. You still Stateside?” she asked.

“Yup. We’re heading out soon, but I’ll try to text you when we do.”

“I know it’s a Friday night, and all...” Her voice sounded more tentative than usual, so Bacon forced himself to take a deep breath, sound like the patient guy he was, and not the cranky bastard he’d been playing at all day.

“It’s okay, Mom. What do you need?”

“There’s something wrong with my toilet. It keeps running, but the landlord said he could have someone come on Monday—”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. We need to find you a new landlord. Make a list of anything else you need me to do while I’m there—lightbulbs? We might be gone awhile, so I want to do what I can tonight.”

“Thanks. I hate bothering you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” His mom had moved across the country to be near him. The least he could do was go give her a hand. Busting out of his funk could wait.

* * *

Spencer supposed that it being a Friday night he should go explore San Diego, maybe get tipsy and get laid. But this embedded assignment was the opportunity of a lifetime, and he was too old for bar crawling anyway. He took himself out for dinner in the hotel restaurant, passing what looked to be an anniversary party in one of the ballrooms. A giant gold number fifty hung at the front of the room. Fifty. Jeez. He and Greg had barely made it five years, and three of those were bicoastal separation with sporadic visits. They’d each been married to their work before they ever got together, and while he missed talking shop with Greg, he didn’t pine for the relationship itself. Relationships were work and required sacrifice, which he wasn’t particularly good at.

No, he was happier being a casual guy, dating here and there when he got tired enough of his right hand and eating alone, but otherwise keeping his independence. Greg had moved on, found an adorable preschool teacher to play house with, and Spencer was genuinely happy for him. In fact, he snapped a picture of the ballroom and texted it to Greg.

Don’t you have an anniversary this week? You and Justin need to start planning now. You’ll have to wheel me in, of course.

The reply came a few minutes later after he’d been seated at a side table in the restaurant.

Ha. Yup. Three down, forty-seven to go. Heard through the grapevine that you got a plum assignment.

Spencer ordered himself a glass of a nice white burgundy to have with his order of pasta with a cream sauce. The wine was a bit of an indulgence, as was the pasta, but he knew he could get called back to base at any time, and he wanted to make sure he had a meal that would last awhile if that was the case.

After quickly ordering an arrangement of the same sort of daisies Greg and Justin had had at their wedding to be sent to their DC home, he texted Greg back.

Yup. Embedded. Can’t say exactly where, but this should be a hell of a story.

And it should. And that’s what he had to focus on, not his intriguing handler, not the weird team dynamics, nor the impression that they did not seem to want him there at all. He had to look beyond that, find the heart of the story that would grip readers. It was what he was good at—finding the human side of his assignments—but this time, he was also motivated by Harry’s suicide.

They don’t see us. No one cares, Harry had texted him. But Spencer had been out chasing a story, hadn’t checked his phone until it was too late. Maybe nothing he could have said would have made a difference, but Harry had been upset that while Spencer’s book hit the bestseller charts, there was still no push in Washington to make real changes for veterans and enlisted personnel. Spencer was determined that his next story would lead to greater public awareness of military issues, give him a platform from which he could work to honor Harry’s life. Maybe by showing the inner workings of a spec ops team, he could help people to value the spec ops veterans in need of assistance. That was the plan at least.