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“I don’t do subtle,” Hula told him and shifted a pointed look at Hunter. “Takes too long, life’s too short. Gotta wonder why a friend keeps a secret like this, though.”
Hunter blew out a breath. “So I wouldn’t have to listen to you saying things like ‘stinkin’ rich.’”
“No offense, you know?” Hula glanced around the big room again, then slid his gaze back to Hunter. “Just surprising finding out one of our own is a gazillionaire.”
“Shut up, Hula,” JT said and walked into the study, his gaze also darting around the room, taking it all in.
“Have a seat,” Hunter said, glad to see his friends despite the fact that they now knew his secret. He retrieved the scotch, got two more glasses and then sat down across from two of the men he routinely trusted with his life. They were looking around as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing, and he couldn’t really blame them.
In all the time they’d been together, Hunter had never once mentioned that his family was rich. He hadn’t wanted them or the others on the team to treat him differently. All he’d wanted was to be one of them. To be accepted for who he was, not what his family had. Now, though, he had to wince. Had to look to his friends as if he’d been lying to them for years.
Because he had been.
JT braced his elbows on his knees, stared at him and asked, “So why’d you never say anything?”
“Yeah, brudda,” Hula said, his dark eyes flashing. “Seems you like to keep secrets, huh? What’s wrong? Afraid I’ll borrow money after one of our poker nights?”
Hunter sprawled in the chair, balanced his glass of scotch atop his flat abdomen and shot first one man, then the other, a hard look. “This is why I never said anything. You’re both looking at me like I’m a rich sonofabitch.”
“It’s only the rich part that’s new,” Hula told him with a wink. “Seriously, man, why’d you hide it? If I had a great place like this, I’d be telling everybody.”
“Yeah,” JT said with a shake of his head. “We know. But then, you tell everybody you meet every minute of your life story.”
“Well, I’m a fascinating man,” Hula said with a smile before he took a sip of scotch. “Like the time I tangled with a tiger shark off the coast of Maui…”
“We already heard it,” Hunter and JT said together.
Then the three of them grinned at one another like loons. And just like that, things were back on an even keel. The secret of his family’s money was out, and his friends had put it aside already. Made Hunter wonder what the hell he’d been worried about for so long.
“I actually missed you guys,” Hunter told them.
“Good to know,” JT said, easing back into the leather chair. “When we didn’t hear from you, I started thinking maybe you were reconsidering coming back to the team.”
“I told him that was cracked,” Hula said after a long, appreciative sip of scotch. “No way Hunter doesn’t come back, I said. Hell, Hunt lives for the buzz, man.”
The buzz. What they called the adrenaline-laced rush they got just before a mission. What they all felt when they were given orders to complete and dropped behind enemy lines. What they celebrated when they were all back home safe.
The buzz had a hold on Hunter, and he couldn’t deny it, but lately he’d been asking himself if the buzz was enough to live on. And how much longer could he do this job to the degree of perfection he expected of himself? He wasn’t getting any younger, and already two or three of the guys he’d entered SEAL training with had retired or taken on stateside training jobs.
JT was rolling his glass of scotch between his palms and watching him quietly.
“What?”
“Nothing,” his boss said. “You just seem…different, I guess.”
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