Rebound (Seattle Steelheads #1)(46)

“Good plan.” He paused. “Speaking of their mom…”

“Hmm?”

“Is it cool to ask about her? Your relationship with her?”

“Oh. Um. Sure. Yeah. What do you want to know?”

“What happened, I guess.” He turned to me, eyes sparkling in the sunset’s warm light. “Just curious. Did you break up because you’re gay? Or…?”

I shook my head. “Nah. I mean, I’m bi, and she knew that a long time before we ever thought about splitting. We… Well, it’s kind of complicated. We met while we were both in the Marine Corps. She’d been in almost four years. I’d been in three. We got married right after I reenlisted after my first term. When she was going to re-up after her second term, we agreed things would be easier if only one of us stayed in. Especially since we wanted to start a family. So she decided to be the one who got out.”

“She didn’t want to stay in?”

“She did, but she’d seen some women in her platoon getting shit for being pregnant. You know, getting passed over for promotions they absolutely should have had. And with more and more combat deployments happening…” I sighed. “Anyway, the bitter truth was that I stood a better chance of getting promoted and making enough to support the family, while there was a chance she could be held back just for having babies.”

“That sounds like some bullshit.”

I snorted. “Welcome to the military.” Sighing I rested my chin on my folded arms and fixed my gaze on the lake. “Anyway, it worked out okay for a while, but I think we both underestimated how hard it would be for her to nail down a career anywhere else. Just when she’d started getting a foothold at a new place, we’d have to pick up and move again. And when I went to combat, she ended up being a single parent for a year at a time. At some point, I think she started thinking of herself as a single parent. So she decided to be one.”

“Wow. That’s rough.”

“Eh, it was, but I think by that time, we’d drifted pretty far apart. And me, I’d done four combat tours in eight years. All I knew how to be at that point was a Marine. Husband? Father?” I shook my head. “Not so much.”

“Whoa. I can’t imagine. Like…any of that.”

“It was rough,” I said with a nod. “But if I was going to go through all of that, there were worse people to be divorced from than Val.”

“How so?”

“Because I kind of wanted to shut down and shut everyone out.” With a quiet laugh, I shook my head. “She wasn’t having it. She made me go to therapy. She pushed me to see the kids even when I didn’t think I could hack it as a dad, single or otherwise. Things aren’t great between me and my kids right now, but we’re getting there, and a huge part of that—and why I even have a relationship with them to salvage—is Val digging her heels in and refusing to take my crap.” I laughed. “I once told her she’s like that nurse who comes in after you’ve had surgery and tells you it’s time to get up and walk around when you just want to sleep. It sucks, and you don’t want to, but she knows—and you kind of know—you’ll be glad you listened to her.”

“What did she say to that?”

“She said guilty as charged. My partner’s the same way. Between the two of them, I don’t get away with much.”

“So they keep you in line. Nice.”

I eyed him. “Are you suggesting I need someone to keep me in line?”

Asher shrugged innocently. “Hey, I have three coaches and a PR department, so…”

I laughed. “Oh, yeah. You do, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh. And believe me, they don’t let us get away with much. Our head coach rules with an iron fist because, as he puts it, that’s the only way to handle Frat Boys on Ice.”

“Frat Boys on Ice?” I laughed. “That’s even better than the Magnificent Dumpster Fire Riots.”

He chuckled. “Maybe they could be our opening act.”

“I’d buy tickets.” I wrapped my arm around his shoulders and drew him closer. “With bands like that, it definitely wouldn’t be a boring show.”

He grinned, sliding his hands up my bare chest. “Especially not if the frat boys were naked.”

“Ooh, now we’re talking.”

“Thought you’d like that.” He kissed me lightly, his mouth sweet from the wine we’d been sharing. It started as a light kiss, anyway, but since when did we ever stop there?

I pulled him closer, deepening the kiss as the cool water around us underscored the heat between us. The thin layers of our swim trunks did nothing to hide our growing erections, and neither of us made any effort to hide them anyway. Before I knew it, he had me pressed up against the side of the pool, our hips grinding together beneath the water, and I sighed with delirious pleasure as he started kissing down my neck.

A soft breeze cooled my wet skin, reminding me we were outdoors. Without letting go of his broad, powerful shoulders, I murmured, “Can any of your neighbors see us?”

“Don’t know,” he murmured against my throat. “But the only neighbor I have who’s close enough he might see is a football player.” He nipped my collarbone. “He won’t post anything online.”