Desert Alpha: A Lady Boss Press Navy SEAL Novella, Bethany Lopez [readict books .txt] 📗

“Still on leave,” he replied, and excitement fluttered in my belly.

“Would you be up for a visitor?” I asked, biting my lip as I waited for his reply, which was a swift, “Hell, yeah!”

“Really?” I felt giddy at the thought. “I have to check in to my squadron tomorrow, but once they sign off on my leave I’ll hop in my car and head your way.”

“So, you’ll be here tomorrow night?”

“As long as everything goes well, yes!”

“Awesome. I’ll take you to my favorite Mexican restaurant.”

“That sounds perfect,” I said. And it really, really did.

Chapter 16

Rip

“Dude, can you clean up after yourself? The kitchen looks like a bomb went off!” I yelled to King as I vacuumed the living room.

“Calm yourself, man,” King shouted back. “You’re acting like the Queen of England is coming by.”

“Can’t hear you above vacuum,” I lied.

I’d been cleaning like mad ever since I’d gotten up and King had been giving me shit about every five minutes. Still, out of the corner of my eye I saw him going into the kitchen, even if he was shaking his head and muttering under his breath.

Cass had texted me when she left her place, so I figured I had about three more hours until she arrived from Vegas.

You wouldn’t think two guys could ransack a two-bedroom house in a few short weeks, but somehow we’d managed it. We weren’t normally slobs, but we’d been spending most of our time at the hospital or on base, only stopping at home to crash or eat takeout, and neither of us had put much effort into keeping the place clean.

I finished the living room and continued down the hall and into my bedroom. When the carpet was all clean, I put up the vacuum and proceeded to tackle my bathroom.

Two hours later, the place was practically shining it was so clean, so King and I each opened a beer and took them out to our back patio. San Diego had the best weather in the world, in my humble opinion, so we’d put some effort into making our outdoor space a cool place to hang out.

We had a long table and chairs, a seating area with wicker furniture, a fire pit with logs around it on the back end of the yard, and my favorite item … a pizza oven. We’d only been able use it about three times since we’d splurged on it and I was hoping I’d get the chance to do a pizza night with Cass while she was visiting.

King and I sat across from each other on the wicker chairs and I took a deep breath of fresh air and grinned.

“Thanks for helping me out.”

“We let it get bad,” King said with a grimace.

“Well, we’ve been pretty busy since we got back. But, yeah, let’s not let it go that long again.”

He shook his head in agreement and chuckled.

“What time’s your girl getting in?” he asked.

“’Bout an hour.”

“You really like her,” King stated as he leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him.

“I do,” I said with a grin as I pictured her. “There’s something about her that … I don’t know … speaks to me. Not to sound corny, but I’ve never felt with anyone the way I feel when I’m with her. And I know it’s crazy and that we barely had a chance to get to know each other, but there’s a connection that I want to explore.”

“I’ve been there, man, so I get it, just be careful. You know how hard it can be to maintain relationships with what we do.”

“You talking about Keely?” I asked. Keely was his ex-wife, someone he’d never really gotten over.

“Yeah,” King said, tipping his bottle back to take a swig. “We only dated three months before we got married, did you know that?”

I had, but didn’t answer. I didn’t think he really expected me too, he was too caught up in the memory.

“I asked her to marry me at SeaWorld and even though we both knew our families would think we were nuts, she said yes. We went to Vegas that weekend and drove thru one of those chapels and bam! We were a unit. Things were great. We talked about starting a family and then back-to-back deployments started happening and I was gone more than I was home. Eventually Keely got tired of waiting for our life together to start and decided she needed to find someone who could give her what she needed.”

“I’m sorry, man.”

King didn’t talk about Keely much, but when he did I could still hear the pain in his voice.

King sighed and said, “I don’t mean to be a downer. I just want you to be careful. I know you’ve been down the marriage and divorce aisle before, but you’re right, even I can see things between you and Cass are different. Make sure you can trust her with your heart.”

“I will, thanks.”

“Now,” King began as he stood. “I’m going to go to the hospital and get out our of your hair. Let you guys have a little privacy for your reunion.”

“You don’t have to do that. I know Cass will want to see you.”

“I’ll see her later,” King assured me. “After all, I live here.”

He grinned and clapped a hand on my shoulder before going back inside to presumably get ready to leave.

I stayed outside a little longer, enjoying the weather and my beer, while constantly checking my phone to see if it was close to the time when Cass should be arriving.

Finally, when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I got up and went inside so I could be in the living room where the bay window was. That way I’d see her when she pulled up and go outside to meet her.

Ten minutes later, I was pacing back and forth across the living room, driving myself crazy as I started to wonder if she got lost. I