“I like you too, Del.” Spencer tested the nickname out, seeing how it felt on his tongue. Weird how his brain still thought of him as Bacon, even with the man’s guarded permission to call him Del. Delbert Lawrence Bacon, Junior. Man, the poor guy really had lost the name lottery, that was for sure.
Bacon seemed to like his use of the name, growling and rolling Spencer beneath him.
“Need you again. Fuck. Don’t like being this crazed.” Del panted against Spencer’s lips, already hard against him again.
“Me either. Let’s be crazy together, Del.”
And they were, sharing a slow, lazy round two as promised, this time jerking each other off as they made out, building up to an utterly devastating climax. It wrung Spencer out, leaving him to sleep long hours, dreaming of Bacon, almost missing the time to go. He had a vague memory of Bacon saying he needed to leave and kissing his head.
* * *
Skin heating with memories of the night before, Spencer threw off the covers before forcing himself out of bed. He couldn’t be rolling around with memories all morning. He had a flight to catch. He was flying back to San Diego because his car was there, and he also had a meeting with Naval PR, one he was sure he wasn’t going to enjoy.
But first he was breaking up the long flight to check on his parents in Hawaii. He’d told the LT that was his plan, so he felt somewhat obligated to stick to it. And okay, part of it was delaying that meeting, trying to find an angle that wouldn’t have the navy shutting him down. He had a strong feeling he wasn’t going to be offered the chance to embed with another team, but he still felt obligated to dig deeper, honor who Harry had been, honor both his memory and all the possibilities that had died with him.
They don’t see us. How could Spencer make people see the sacrifices and trials of the spec ops warriors? If this profile got killed, he’d still keep working to fulfill the silent promise he’d made Harry at his funeral. Hell, he still kept that text in his message history. Writing this story, doing this project, was the only way of outrunning his guilt over not seeing the text, not realizing Harry might need him on some human level. He’d been so intent on reporting, on keeping to the ethics he’d told Bacon he valued so much, he hadn’t realized until too late that maybe he could have made a difference. Maybe he could have saved Harry. And that thought had dogged him the better part of the year, only getting louder as he left the island, feeling like he might be letting his best chance at his own personal mission slip away.
He spent the flight to Hawaii trying not to relive the encounter with Bacon and failing miserably. He swore his skin still smelled like the man. Despite their tentative plans to keep in touch, Spencer wasn’t going to be the one to make the first move—if Bacon’s offer had been a heat-of-the-moment sort of thing, he didn’t want to force his attentions on him, and quite honestly, Spencer wasn’t sure what to say. Bacon had shaken him to his core, caused him to doubt himself as a journalist, rattled his very sense of who he was and what he stood for.
And it wasn’t until he was stretched out on a lounger at his parents’ condo complex pool, laptop in front of him, attempting to write, an early morning breeze licking his skin, when his email account dinged and he realized exactly how much he’d been kidding himself, how desperately he wanted to hear from Bacon.
Bacon’s email address contained the fanciful scorpion_bait handle that was also his chat ID. His avatar was a picture of his scorpion tattoo, and Spencer swore he could almost taste the man’s skin as he clicked open on the email.
Hey,
Another down day here in sunny paradise. Thought I’d drop you a line while I had internet access. There was talk of us going back to the States, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon, for reasons I wish I could say but can’t. But I wanted to tell you that the guys I told you about lived. Double miracle if you believe in those.
I know you well enough to figure that you’re drowning yourself in regrets over what happened—both out there in the field and with us. Don’t. I wish the mission had gone different of course, but I don’t regret a thing. And I definitely don’t regret anything between us. Hell, those memories are keeping me sane, no joke. My room is still too quiet, and waiting to be called back out has me all antsy. Is it bad form to admit jerking off to someone via email? I guess I’ll keep quiet, but just...thank you. For everything.