SEAL'd With a Kiss: SEALs and Geeks, #1

Prologue

RAMSEY BREMER

As far as plans go, it’s not the worst.

I’m still learning who’s who, but I’m pretty sure that was Eco’s voice. When Edison came home from his last Navy tour a few weeks ago, he brought two of his battle buddies with him. Eco and Benedict. The fourth man of their tight knit squad, someone they call Hux, had chosen to reenlist and had been moved to train with a new team while Eddie and the guys out processed. Eddie, Eco, and Ben had all decided not to reenlist, but I guess the other guy couldn’t bring himself to commit to life after the Navy. He’s trying to convince his commanding officers to let him cycle through another deployment to avoid coming home.

It’s not the best plan, either. If Hux finds out we know his med rating is going to bounce him after this evaluation cycle, he’ll go nuclear on our asses. I still have a scar on my shoulder from the last time he lost his temper, man.

I shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but I’m too bored to force myself off the landing of the stairs to go the rest of the way upstairs to my childhood bedroom. I’ve been staying here since law school graduation while I study and prepare for the bar exam later this summer. If I have to listen to one more podcast covering the blackletter law of estates and trusts, I’m going to run away from my whole life.

Anyway, it’s not as if I’m doing anything shocking, right now. Spying on a girl’s big brother and his friends is practically canon in the little sister manual of life.

If Edison didn’t want me peeping on his friends, he shouldn’t have brought such stone-cold foxes home with him. They’re here to open a security firm to serve the tech bro companies flocking to Mariposa with the intention of turning it into the new millennium’s Silicon Valley. Blah, blah, blah. All that matters to me is that there’s beefcake wandering around our parents’ house pretty much around the clock until Benedict and Eco find rental units.

If curiosity killed the cat, and cats have nine lives, well, I’m probably on at least my fifth or sixth. Our dad calls me a Nosy Nelly, but the truth is, I mostly snoop only into his and Eddie’s lives. As one of the only two girls in the house, I’ve always figure it’s my job to watch over them and make sure they’re not doing dumb boy stuff. It doesn’t matter that I’m the youngest. Everybody knows men are idiot prone.

So, no. I don’t feel any sort of true guilt for eavesdropping. The guys are so focused on one another and the plans they’ve got spread out all over the coffee table they won’t notice me. I sink down onto the carpet of the landing and lean against the half-wall banister, getting comfortable as I listen.

He doesn’t have to know we found out before he did. He just needs to know our plans for Cyber Patrol won’t work unless he signs on. His excuses for staying in the sandbox are played out. We get it. He got dear Johned. It’s been a decade. The man needs to get over it.

My heartstrings? Officially tugged. The idea of a man being so heartbroken over losing the love of his life via a breakup letter, while deployed, that he can’t bear to come home…? Yeah, it’s almost enough to make a girl tear up.

Fuck off, Eco. You know it’s not about that. His pride might have taken a hit, but you know Hux woulda fought for her if he’d really given a shit. It was just the final straw once he found out about the accident. Edison’s never being the voice of reason in our family. Funny to see him play the opposite role with his SEAL