Page 27 of Hot SEAL, Under Pressure

“Nothing. Well, nothing bad. At least notthatbad.” Giving up trying to qualify this debacle and how he felt about it he said, “Command called me in.”

Wyatt nodded. “Yeah. I know. I’m the one who found you at the gym and told you.”

“Yeah. Well, remember when we were on the O-course and that film crew had you all sign releases?”

“Yes.” Wyatt frowned, looking confused as to the connection between the commander's summons and the O-course.

“The production people were there to shoot a new competition based on SEAL training.”

“Yeah. They told us that when we signed.” Wyatt nodded.

Stefan drew in a breath. “Command wants me to be on this show. As one of the competitors.”

“That’s amazing.”

He snorted out a laugh. “Is it?”

“Yes. What’s the problem?” Wyatt frowned.

The problem was he didn’t want to do it. The LT was forcing him to do it.

Those complaints made him sound like a whiny bitch. But his other objection didn’t.

“If the team gets spun up, I won’t be able to go. I have to stay here for theshow.” He wrinkled his nose while saying the last word.

“Who are the other competitors?” Wyatt sat on the edge of the other chair and leaned forward looking actually interested.

“From what I can tell, a bunch of separated and retired SEALs. The guys we saw there that morning on the course.”

Wyatt rubbed his hands together. “So you’re going to kick their asses, obviously.”

“Yeah. Probably.” Stefan hesitated. “And actually, one of the producers—the blonde running things that day at the O-course—said she needed help planning the competitions. I offered to help.”

“Dude. You can design the competitions? Oh my God. You totally are going to kick ass.”

“That’s kind of what I was thinking too.”

“Hey, we going or not?” Ty leaned in.

Wyatt glanced at Stefan. “You want help?”

He shook his head. “You guys are on your way out—”

“For this, we’ll adapt.” Wyatt glanced at Ty. “Change of plans. Pick up a couple of six packs. Order a couple of pizzas and get all the guys in here. We have an op to plan. The team’s reputation depends on it.”

Recovering from the surprise, Stefan smiled. They might tease each other and annoy each other, but when they worked as a team, nothing could stop them.

Next stop, victory!

ChapterEleven

The smell of leftover tacos hung in the air as the containers littered the coffee table in the conference room of the New Millennia Media San Diego office.

The white board on the left was ready for them to fill in their brilliant ideas. It was numbered neatly down one side in purple marker and Lucy’s inhumanly neat handwriting,Episode 1throughEpisode 10.

The white board on the right was less pretty. In Shelly’s scrawl written in black marker was the list Stefan Kowalski, her SEAL partner—like it or not—had sent her.

She stared at his choices for the challenges and shook her head. Her fish tacos sat like a rock in her stomach. The sinking feeling of looming failure weighed the greasy food down, making it feel even heavier in her belly.

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