Band of Bachelors: Jake Book 3 Read online

  He woke up. There was movement around him. The familiar scent of his woman came to him first, her lips whispering something. He wanted to ask her about the babies, but when he opened his eyes and scanned the room, they were alone. Mia had grabbed his hand and placed it between her legs, moaning with her need. He wasn’t so sure he wanted to repeat what had just happened, so he sat up.

  His back and shoulders were soaked with sweat. He had trouble breathing. Mia scurried to her knees, her beautiful naked body jumping to action.

  “You are not well, my love?”

  “No. I—I just had a dream, I guess.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, tell me. But are you okay? Everything okay? You dreamed about overseas? Something that happened to you?”

  She was thinking he’d had a nightmare about his time in the war zone! But was it a nightmare? It was something he knew could never happen, and yet he experienced it just like it did. His heart raced. Should he tell her? Or should he just let her think it was some form of PTSD? And was this kind? Was it honest? But if he told her he knew it would never happen, couldn’t happen, then he’d have to reveal to her his secret.

  That he was sterile! His sperm did have dented heads and no movement. He’d seen it with his own eyes in the doctor’s office.

  The worst day of his life.

  He met Coop at the Rusty Scupper, their favorite Team hangout, later that morning. He had already downed one beer and was working on his second, and it wasn’t even lunchtime.

  “Whoa! What’s up, Frodo?” Coop’s lanky frame deposited across from him as gracefully as a giraffe in heat. He’d recently gotten over being offended at the nickname Coop gave him from The Hobbit, since he was the short, stocky one, and Cooper had the height and litheness of an Olympic swimmer. But today it felt like a kick in the gut.

  “Did I ever tell you I hate it when you call me that? Don’t do it any more.”

  “Never?” Coop asked casually, not taking him seriously. He sipped on his mineral water and ice chips, checking out the room for people he knew.

  “I said fuckin’ never! I don’t like that shit.”

  “What the fuck’s gotten into you?”

  How could he tell Coop? The dream had been so powerful, he was still sweating, his heart pounding like a funeral dirge. Maybe they needed to get to Gunny’s for a workout. Maybe he needed a five-mile swim in the inlet. Maybe three or four more beers or some scrambled eggs and the hottest chilis he could find.

  Something had to happen to erase the images of toddlers calling him Papa, hiding in closets and cupboards when he opened them, crawling over his duty bag, throwing the laundry all over the room, and chasing little Ricardo, who was older, but barely old enough to stop them from overrunning them. These visions plagued him even though he was fully awake. And he couldn’t tell Mia what he was seeing, or rather, imagining. Was he going crazy?

  Maybe it was PTSD!

  “Hey, man. Libby and I were doing just fine this morning in bed, and the kids are over at Kyle and Christy’s for a sleepover. So you got me here, but I’d rather be in the arms of the most beautiful lady in the whole world right now. So tell me the fuck what’s so important I gotta sit here watching you piss your pants and drink beer before noon.”

  “Coop, something’s wrong with me.”

  “Well blinding flash of the obvious, Fredo. With what you eat every day—a diet straight from hell, man—what do you expect? You think you’ll be thirty years old forever? You’ll feel young and invincible the rest of your life?”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means that your old fairy godmother over here,” he thumbed at his own chest, “is telling you you’re gonna die if you don’t start watching what you eat. I make jokes about it all the time.”

  “Tell me about it.” Fredo wouldn’t look at him. He noticed a couple of high school hotties intent on landing a nice SEAL enter the bar with barely anything on. This also wasn’t like him, but this morning, he checked out every luscious detail. He had the most beautiful wife on the Teams, not Coop. Mia, the Puerto Rican bad girl bombshell had become his sex kitten and wife, totally devoted to him, totally loving doing all kinds of nasty things to him that blew his mind on a regular basis. Why in the world would he be looking elsewhere? But today, he was.

  Coop noticed. “You’re an asshole, Fredo. You guys have a fight? Am I here to give you an alibi so you can go fuck some frog hog? That it?”

  Fredo stood to lean over the table, toppling his beer and trying to grab Cooper’s polo shirt. Coop, too quick for him, backed up two steps. He returned a gaze Fredo was ashamed to admit made him feel terrible.

  Coop threw down five dollars and turned to leave.

  “Wait.” Fredo was hyperventilating. “I need some help.”

  “Fuckin’ A you do, Fredo. Is it your time of the month? Or did Mia cut you off? What the hell’s going on?”

  Fredo looked at the mess on the table. “I need to get out of here. Let’s go.”

  “Sure.”

  Just before he ducked going through the doorframe out to the Strand and the bright street in Coronado, Coop added, “We gonna hold hands now and make up?”

  Fredo kicked him in the butt and followed behind. They ambled down the block, then crossed the street and headed toward the neighborhoods at the approach to the beach. Cooper was taking his lead from him, searching everywhere else but not looking his way, which Fredo was grateful for. The two close friends knew each other well. Coop knew Fredo would eventually come out with it. Problem was, Fredo didn’t know how to put words to what he was feeling.

  A block away from the sand, Fredo found his voice. “I had a bad dream.”

  “Really.” Coop stopped, putting his hands on his hips, and stared back at his best friend. “This is all about a bad dream?”

  Fredo sighed. “Yes. I think so. Maybe something is wrong with me, but this dream was a total nightmare. I just don’t know how to explain it.”

  “Just fuckin’ breathe, asshole. And try. I need to get back to Libby. I’d much rather be there, but I’m here for you, man, as long as you don’t take too much time.”

  They approached the sand, which was already warm. Fredo’s flip flops allowed the white grains to calm his toes. At least that part of his body was soothed.

  “I’m dreaming about babies.”

  “Now I’ve heard it all,” Coop said as he sat down abruptly. “You. Dreaming about babies.”

  “Yes, my babies. Lots of babies.”

  “So where’s the nightmare aspect of this? You’ve been obsessed with babies ever since you had that fuckin’ doctor’s visit. I told you it was unhealthy to look at your own sperm. A man should never do that.”

  “I know, Coop. This has nothing to do with that.”

  “Oh, yea? I imagine Mia dreams about babies, too. What’s the matter with that? Maybe it’s God’s way of telling you that you need to come clean with her, let her know the truth. You guys are young and healthy. You should look for kids to adopt that need a loving home like yours.”

  “Well, maybe I’m not so healthy after all.”

  “Now, there’s no fuckin’ surprise there.”

  “Maybe it’s up here.” He pointed to his temple.

  “Like you’re going batshit crazy, Fredo? That what you mean?”

  “Or something like that.” He shrugged and sifted the sand with his fingers. He liked the warmth on his butt. Now his fingers were warm, too. Being here was helping. It was making it easier to tell Coop the impossible details of the dream. Or so he thought.

  “I’ve never had this dream I had last night. It started out okay. I’d just come home from deployment, and Mia and I were—you know the routine.”

  “I sure do. Best part of being a SEAL, in my opinion.”

  “Right. Me, too.”

  “And?”

  “Well, we were making love, and the next thing I knew, her belly was getting big right under me. I was pumping her up like over-inflating a bicycle t
ire? A balloon.”

  Coop looked at him like he’d looked at the camel spider they’d dug out of the garbage on one mission overseas. “I can’t say as I’ve ever had that image before, Fredo. I’ve fucked my pregnant wife plenty of times. It’s not a nightmare. It’s a fuckin’ beautiful thing. Seeing her big belly and all.”

  “No, when I was—she wasn’t pregnant. But right in the middle of it, her belly became distended, and she began to have a baby.”

  “While you were having sex? I can’t see how that’s possible.”

  “Not while, well, I pulled out, I guess. I—I just watched as she delivered a baby, but then she delivered another, and another and—”

  “Excuse me. This is not making sense, Fredo.”

  “It makes no sense to me, Coop. My house was suddenly filled with toddlers.”

  “Like zombies? Day of the Dead sort of thing?”

  “Oh no! They were beautiful children, all smiling, curly haired.”

  “Boys or girls?”

  “What the fuck difference does it make?”

  “I thought maybe it could be a Freudian thing, you know.” Coop’s turn to shrug. “Libby’s dad could help with this, you know.”

  “I have no idea. I wasn’t looking at their sex, man.”

  “Hard to miss that one. But you’re right, that’s a fucked up dream all right.”

  “It was like that Disney movie where he kept getting the buckets of water and they wouldn’t stop. You know that one?”

  “Fantasia?”

  “Yeah. The kids kept coming. Right in front of me, they grew to walking size. They started talking.”

  “What did they say?”

  Fredo looked hard at his best friend. “Hi, Papa.”

  “You mean like in Dracula?”

  “Fuck no. Like a little kid would say to his daddy.” Fredo noted the worried look on Coop’s face deepened. “You do believe me?”

  “Of course I do. That sounds exactly like the kind of dream I could see you having. With all the shit you put into your body, no wonder you dream about birthing babies. I’m surprised you don’t see tamales with little arms and legs running around your house and beans and tortillas floating through the air. Your diet, man, sucks.”

  “It’s gotten better. I’m trying to eat vegetables.”

  “Um hum. Don’t lie to me, Fredo.”

  “No tofu. I refuse to eat tofu. The traditional Mexican diet is healthy.”

  “Lard. Corn meal. Cooked goat. Sure.”

  “Haven’t you ever studied anything about cultural anthropology, Coop? Our traditional diet is actually healthy.”

  “Fuck, Fredo, your ancestors were eating human sacrifice.”

  “And yours were eating Englishmen and fucking their wives. Those Viking assholes smelled like fish all the time. Something major wrong with that.”

  “They conquered the known world with their kippers, Fredo. They battled the cold, each other, the rough seas, pirates. And yes, they ate fish.”

  “And drank like hell, too.”

  “That they did. But just what does this have to do with your dream?”

  “I’m saying we each eat what we are culturally predisposed to eat. What’s natural for you isn’t natural for me.”

  “Except your diet gives you sperm with dented heads.”

  “I don’t think that has anything to do with it. Just the way I was made.”

  “So if you’re so perfect, why don’t you tell her, asshole?”

  Fredo didn’t have an answer for that one.

  Fredo’s Dream is available here.

  Continue reading the first chapter of the Zak…

  Zak is available here.

  Zak

  Chapter 1

  Zak stopped by the Rusty Scupper, the SEAL watering hole in San Diego before leaving for San Diego International Airport to pick up Amy. He’d gotten up early since he’d been tossing all night long. Nerves. Not battle nerves, but those of the female kind. Bugged him that the training hadn’t worked all that out of him.

  This was going to be an important first meeting between Amy and his SEAL Team 3 buds. Sure, Amy had agreed to marry him, after a wonderful half-day of sex together. It was easy to make a commitment then. But would she still say yes after she really knew what she was getting into?

  He wanted everything to go off without a hitch. Needed her first impression of his Team and their community to be perfect so she’d still agree to his plan. They had intended to wait until he got back from deployment before scheduling this meet and greet. Zak’s anxiety whispered that leaving Amy behind in San Francisco, where they’d foiled a terrorist attack, was unsafe. He hoped to convince her to move down to his apartment now, rather than wait. Then they could plan the wedding and get married when he came back.

  He asked advice from several other SEALs while they waited for their food. He knew right away it was a mistake to do so.

  “Get her drunk. That always eases things along a bit,” said Alex.

  “Don’t fuckin’ pay any attention to him. He’s divorced and never gonna find anyone who will put up with him,” said Calvin “Coop” Cooper. The tall surfer-looking dude, one of the Team medics and gadget guru, had an unflappable demeanor.

  “You charm her,” said Fredo, wiggling his unibrow up and down. “Ladies like to do romantic things. Walk on the beach at midnight, go for a swim. Right, Coop?”

  Cooper grunted in the middle of a blush.

  “Take her to a Padres game, man.” Carter demonstrated a slow swing. “Ladies love baseball.”

  Fredo objected. “You livin’ in some kinda alternate reality, Carter? That’s just what you tell yourself. Nothing romantic about watching your lady ogling guys in tight, butt-fitting pants who make millions of dollars while you sittin’ there in the sun with mustard all over your chin. You like that shit?”

  “Works for me,” returned Carter.

  “Which is why you’re still single.”

  Coop was still laughing at Fredo’s comment.

  “I’m just trying out the merchandise, making sure I gets it right,” shrugged Carter. “And for the record, if she doesn’t like baseball, well, that’s a game-stopper for sure.”

  Zak knew there wouldn’t be any baseball games due to his lack of funds. Walks on the beach were sounding better and better.

  Carter stood, fist-bumped his friend, and left. Fredo, Coop, and several others said their goodbyes and wished him luck.

  Lucas, Rory, and T.J. got up to leave, as well. Lucas added his two cents. “Some never like it here, especially if they’re the jealous type, so be prepared. Or they like it at first, and then they turn on you so fast—”

  “Hell, Lucas, you know better than to tell this young froglet that,” said T.J.

  Rory Kennedy leaned into Zak and winked, whispering, “Don’t listen to any of them. Let the ladies convince her. She’ll not believe anything any of us will tell her, anyhow. But the girls, they are great at answering questions and helping her out. They’ve been there and had to wrap their minds around the way we are. They have to like all their business known by everyone else, not having much of a life outside the community. Some resent it. You’re bringing her to the Barbeque at Coop’s?”

  “Planning on it.”

  “You’re good to go, then.” The scruffy-haired explosives expert scratched his Brillo pad reddish brown pelt and cracked his neck as he walked away, a slight limp in his gait, following behind T.J. and Lucas.

  Zak steadied his breathing and then took off for the airport.

  While driving, he wondered what Amy’s reaction would be to the rest of the team and their wives. Deployment was in less than a month, since they were tasked with a short special TDI in North Africa. Normally, they’d be working up for several months, so this was very short, especially for Zak and Carter, who had to learn everything. Everyone else had been on their “off” rotation for nearly three months and had deployed more than once with the team on prior missions.

 
; They were a well-oiled machine as a group, and now that he’d spent some time with them, he could spot other Special Forces or Team guys on the street. Everyone had a nickname that the ladies would probably think was belittling. Smack talk was the usual form of conversation. Hot buttons were discovered and pressed often for the good of the man, as well as the team.

  He followed the turnoff to the airport.

  As a sniper, he’d trained with Armando Guzman, the legendary shooter on SEAL Team 3. The man had more kills than the rest of the squad combined. Zak had been nervous at first, working so closely beside Armando, but that was nothing compared to the case of nerves he was sporting right now.

  After parking the car, he dodged traffic at the arrival terminal and made it up the stairs from the baggage claim area where he could watch arrivals. He was still a half-hour early.

  At first, he sat and watched people. Couples kissed, kids hugged their grandparents, and old friends shook hands and slapped each other’s backs. A group of older women with leathery tans laughed so loud they drowned out all the other noises of the busy airport. The matching carryon bags identified them as Mexican Cruise ship returnees.

  Zak got up to get a cup of coffee but wanted a beer instead. He went for a mineral water and couldn’t decide if he was hungry or thirsty. His palms sweated.

  He caught a reflection of himself in the mirror behind the counter, and it gave him a start. He’d gotten a bruise under his right eye from one of the fifty cals they’d been training with when it swung loose and caught him before he could duck. It was not unlike the way he’d last seen Amy. They’d survived that bombing at the MegaOne complex in San Francisco, and when he’d left her to join his team back in San Diego, they both had bruises and scrapes, as if they’d gotten into an altercation between themselves.

  This bruise hurt so badly he was sure he’d gotten a hairline fracture to his cheekbone. He refused all x-rays, not wanting to risk a chance he’d be rolled back to stay home and heal. He was not a complainer and kept his mouth shut.

  Zak’s heart pounded, and his fingers began to tingle at the sight of Amy smiling down at the floor and weaving in and around the crowd, nearly skipping. Her stretchy dress had just the right amount of cleavage showing. The fabric hugged her awesome derriere and swung around her smooth tanned legs, peeking above her knees for some dangerous views of her thighs. The airport noise was muted, since he was on the other side of the Plexiglas barrier, so he watched in near silence until he realized he was holding his breath. He waved and then tapped on the divider. She looked up.