thrilled. Problems at home?”
“Problems?” Zane laughed. His mother wouldn’t allow problems. “Nah. Home is good. Really good. Two weeks of sleeping as late as I want, not shaving, eating mom’s cooking? Good times, man. Time with my family, hanging out with the twin, chilling with my buds. All good.”
“That’s three goods. In my experience, three goods equals bad.” Jared threw up a hand before Zane could reply. “We’ll get back to that. First, the twin?”
“My brother, Xander.” Actually, thinking about seeing Xander again made the prospect of home a lot more interesting. Seeing any of his family was okay, but everything was always better when Xander was around.
“Identical?”
“Fraternal.” He considered for a second, then shrugged. “But we look enough alike to pass for brothers.”
“Do you have that twin mystique?” At Zane’s questioning look, Jared explained, “You know, you do things alike. Think alike. Finish each other’s sentences. Twin things.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Zane objected. Others said it a lot, but he really didn’t see it himself. He doubted his brother did, either. They were themselves, not two halves of one person.
“What’s your brother do?”
“He’s an engineer. In the Navy.” Zane slid a sidelong look and smiled. “And a SEAL.”
“No shit?” Laughing in delight, Jared gave him a swift slap on the shoulder. “That’s awesome. Twin SEALs. Where’s he stationed?”
“Virginia.”
“The two of you ever serve together?”
“Nope. I enlisted the day after we turned eighteen. He went the Annapolis route after graduating high school. My focus was explosive ordinance, his was engineering.”
“Is he the reason you blew through OTC like there was a tiger on your ass?”
“Nope.” He had gotten his bachelor’s degree and went through officer training in the shortest amount of time possible, but it had nothing to do with keeping up with Xander. “I simply wanted to beat Cole Hanes. I pretty much forgot about the guy after we went our separate ways when I kicked his butt in BUD/s. Word got back to me that he was talking smack about me. That once he made officer, he’d prove once and for all who was the better SEAL.”
“So rather than accepting that nothing could take away from graduating top of your BUD/s class, you busted ass, tripled your workload to get your degree then plowed through OTC in record time all because some idiot was trying to make himself look good?” Lansky slanted him that WTF expression again. “Why?”
“He challenged me.” Zane shrugged. “A challenge is just a fancy-ass dare, isn’t it? And only a wimp walks away from a dare.”
“True that,” Lansky agreed, his boyish looks contemplative as he stared out at the ocean. They sat in silence for a few seconds, then he sighed.
“We’re hard-wired to compete. To push, to be strong, to be the best. That’s why we are the best.” He waited for Zane’s grin before continuing, “But sooner or later, you realize that the only person you have to prove anything to is yourself. Once you’re comfortable with that, you can pick and choose the dares you care about. Makes life easier.”
Zane nodded. He got that, he really did. But...
“‘The only easy day was yesterday,’” he quoted the oft-used SEAL phrase.
“There you go.” Lansky gave a rueful laugh. “I suppose that’s why going home is so good that you say it three times? Because you’re worried you’ll lose your edge?”
“Please, my edge is permanent,” Zane said dismissively. “It was carefully and strategically honed in the deceptively picturesque town of Little Creek, Colorado. A place where everybody knows everybody else and minding the neighbors’ business is a way of life.”
“Sounds nice.”
“Sounds boring as hell,” Zane acknowledged. “Which is why we started issuing challenges. Dares, if you will. For the craziest crap. Who could jump farthest off the high school gym roof? Who could eat the most little green apples before competing in the track meet? Who looked best in a dress and heels?”
“Beg pardon?” Lansky interrupted, with a raised eyebrow.
“Halloween, junior year of high school,” Zane explained before continuing his recital of various dares and challenges. “And every trip home, it continues.”
“Is that the cause for all those goods? You want to avoid the dares-slash-challenges?” Lansky gave him a pitying head shake. “Way to represent the team, Bennett.”
“Once you’ve rappelled out of a helicopter into the Atlantic during a storm while a gang of Somali pirates are shooting at you, being challenged to chug-a-lug a dozen Big Gulp slushies just isn’t the same.”
Although the brain-freeze threat was a hazard that couldn’t be dismissed.
“So don’t play.”
“Yeah, right.” Zane laughed. “Like you said, we’re hardwired to compete. I can’t walk away from a challenge. Ever.”
“You might want to work on that.”
“Might.”
But probably not on this trip. This trip would come with plenty of challenges. He was heading back for a high school reunion and the gang would be all there. But after ten years, most of the guys he’d gone to school with were settled down. Living the nine-to-five life with wives and, in some cases, kids even.
Talk about challenges. How the hell did they do that? It was the complete opposite of his motto: No Ties, No Lies.
“You ever worry that we live so far over the edge that we aren’t suited to, you know, regular life?”
“You said it yourself. We’re not meant for regular life, Bennett. But like picking and choosing our challenges, we have to learn to decompress from time to time or we’ll burn out.” Lansky’s voice tightened, his eyes locked on the churning waves as if searching for some answer only the ocean could offer. “You know as well as I do that the body needs time between workouts for the muscle fibers to mend. If you want to stay sharp and last the duration, you take advantage of those valleys between each peak.”
“Peaks and valleys, huh?”
“Yep.” With that and another slap to the back, Lansky got to his feet. “You can always try my tried-and-true method of resting.”
“Chasing women?”
“Works every time,” Lansky shot back with a laugh before sauntering across the sand to join the other men.
Zane stayed where he was. After all, he wasn’t on duty. He was heading for that valley called home.
He’d just have to find something interesting to keep his senses alert, his skills challenged and his
