Page 46 of Shelter for Shay
“This will be a really stupid question, but what exactly do you do?” Todd asked.
“If I told you that, I’d have to kill you,” Moose said with a straight face.
Todd just stared, slack-jawed.
“I’m kidding.” Moose took a sip of his bourbon. “Are you asking what my role is on the SEAL team or in general?”
“I guess both,” Todd said. “I feel like an idiot because I know very little about the military.”
“My husband is a nerd.” Becca raised her glass. “If you want someone to crunch numbers, help you grow your portfolio, or rattle off useless information because he’s a walking encyclopedia of weird facts, he’s your guy.”
“Hey, no information is useless.” Moose nodded his head. “Most people have a romanticized view of SEALs,” he said. “The job covers a lot of ground. Training, specialized ops that include things like intelligence gathering, insertions and extractions, underwater demos, to name a few.”
“That’s a lot and I can’t say it makes sense.” Shay took his hand.
“My technical role on the team might make less sense.” He kissed the inside of her palm. “I’m a diving specialist.”
“Now I feel really stupid.” Todd shook his head. “What’s that?”
“While we all have dive training, I’m the guy with advanced diving skills for marine environments, underwater reconnaissance and demolitions, and my favorite, I get to drive manned submersibles.”
“Basically, you could save me if I was drowning,” Shay said, fanning herself.
“I told you I was a good swimmer.” Moose winked. “But it’s a little more than being a rescue swimmer, though I can drop from a helicopter and save someone… if I had to.”
“And here I was hoping he was a sniper.” Becca sighed. “I’ve always been obsessed with men who carry big guns.”
“No, babe. You’re obsessed with serial killers and people who do strange shit.” Todd lowered his chin and arched a brow. “The weirder the crime, the more it interests you.”
“Sloan’s the sharpshooter on our team, but I’m not a bad shot.” Moose smiled. “We all kind of have to be good at each other’s jobs, even medical. We’re one half of a twelve-man team with two commanding officers and part of SEAL team four. When we’re deployed, it’s usually somewhere in South or Central America and it can be land or sea.” He chuckled. “And now I sound like a recruiting officer.”
“Yeah, you kinda do.” Shay squeezed his hand, staring up at him, searching his face for something other than humility and a tad bit of amusement, which she suspected was a way to push down the gravity of his job. But all she found was a man who didn’t see himself the way others did. A man who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—see how truly special and unique he was. “I’m wildly impressed by all the things you do, but at the same time, it’s super scary.”
“Not as scary as getting charged by a raccoon in the middle of the night.” Moose smacked his forehead. “Now that’s some scary shit.”
“You’re telling me you actually got attacked by a raccoon?” Todd asked, eyebrows raised over his wineglass and a half smile curled on his lips.
“Oh, he did.” Shay smiled, remembering the story. “He called me the next day with the biggest bruised ego.”
“This was recent?” Becca asked.
“Just the other day.” Moose nodded, rubbing his arm. “Guy came at me like he had a grudge. I was just trying to refill the chicken feeder.”
“See?” Todd said, pointing a finger at Becca. “This is why I don’t do pets. Or wilderness. Or even camping because there are raccoons on those islands in the Narrows.”
“Just to clarify, because normally nothing gets by me. I’d been distracted. Thinking about other things. It was dark. I was in a bit of a rush, waiting for someone to call, who was late in doing so, by the way,” Moose continued. “I had a headlamp and a rake, but it still got the drop on me because I wasn’t following my own rules by checking my six. Damn thing got hold of my pant leg. I tried to shake it off. It wasn’t having that. Thank God the chickens got involved. They saved my life.”
Shay laughed so hard she nearly dropped the plate of cookies in her lap. “Now you’re exaggerating.”
“Only about saving my life, but it felt like they did,” Moose said with a smirk. “They chased that raccoon off while I was flat on my back, staring at the stars, making the decision that I no longer like raccoons.”
“I never liked those creatures, no matter how cute they look.” Shay shuddered.
“Exactly.” Moose smiled. “So, what’s it like being an accountant?”
“Everyone thinks my job is boring,” Todd said. “That all I do is sit and look at numbers, statistics, and analyze shit all day, which isn’t necessarily untrue. Sometimes my daily function is boring as sin. I’ll record transactions. Prepare spreadsheets. It can be mind-numbing. But all of that is necessary to see the bigger picture so you can make the bigger decisions. And that’s the fun part of my job. When I get to dive into those numbers and sit down with a client and help them plan for their future. Ilove that part.” Todd’s eyes lit up. His face flexed, tightened, and relaxed all at the same time as he spoke.
“No offense, man, but I think I’ll stick with what I do.” Moose raised his glass and sipped.
