Nashville SEAL: SEAL Brotherhood: Nashville SEALs by Sharon Hamilton

into boys, that how it goes sailor?”
    “Nosir. Nothing wrong with me in that department.”
    “Did I say there was anything wrong with being gay? I’m fuckin’ gay. You wanna see if I can whip your ass, sailor?”
    “Nosir. I meant no disrespect.”
    The trainer looked him over. He picked his hands up and saw the calluses on his fingertips. “You a guitar player?”
    “Yessir, I am.”
    “No, you’re not. Your ass is mine. You might never get to play a guitar again, son. Is that gonna be okay with you?”
    Jameson sighed, wondering how long the smack talk was going to hold up. “I brought my guitar, but like you said, sir, I’ve not had the energy to play it. But writing music helps me to relax.”
    “What the fuck is that? We don’t write songs in the Navy. You like Frances Scott Key or something? Gonna write a new Navy SEAL song?”
    “No sir, that would be a very bad idea.”
    “You’re damned straight.” He walked around him a couple of times. “Who got you trained for this gig? You fill out well. You a swimmer?”
    Jameson signed again and examined his boots. “No sir.”
    “This getting all hard on you, son? You don’t like someone talking to you this way?”
    “I had a soccer coach who used to talk to me like this all the time.”
    “That a fact? And how did you guys get along?”
    “I quit the team. And I slashed all his tires.”
    “What the hell for?”
    “He wanted me to give up the lead in the high school musical. So I quit the soccer team.”
    “So you’re a Romeo boy. A crooner, that what you’re sayin?”
    “I sing and write country music, yes sir. If that’s what that means.”
    “You get the ladies all hot and bothered is my guess. You’re kinda good-looking, kid. Too good lookin’ for a SEAL. We only let ugly ones pass. That’s a little known fact.”
    “Horseshit.”
    “Excuse me?” The instructor leaned his concrete chest against Jameson’s. “You want to tell me that again?”
    “Horseshit, sir. I got friends who are SEALs, and they’re damned good-looking.”
    “Really, and who would those friends be, or are they posers?”
    “Chief Petty Officer Kyle Lansdowne, Special Operator Calvin Cooper, and a couple of others.”
    The instructor tried not to show it, but Jameson could tell it had left an impression on him. “So, you’re hoping to be one of Kyle’s boys, that right?”
    “I understand it doesn’t exactly work that way, but if it’s possible, yes.”
    That day turned the corner for Jameson. He was given a lighter duty than the rest of them, and allowed to get a little more sleep. One by one, they learned to swim in the dirty inlet, increasing their swim and run times until most of them could nearly break records on the college level. Jameson ignored the repeated calls from Thomas, and never got one from Lizzie. He focused on only one thing: not giving up.
    In the end, he was one of twenty-two out of two hundred who graduated with his original class.
    Kyle, Cooper, and several of the other men showed up at his Trident ceremony. He was unprepared for the fact that they’d asked Kyle Lansdowne to deliver the speech to the new graduates.
    “The world’s changing, gents. We’ll probably have a woman graduate within these next few years. I’m not at liberty to comment about that, but the nature of warfare and the rules of engagement are changing as we sit here on this beautiful and sunny San Diego day. There are people out there,” he pointed off in the distance, “who are planning right now to do us harm. Right here on American soil. That’s not official Navy issue, but it’s a fact. By becoming a SEAL, wearing the Trident—which I don’t recommend doing, by the way, in public anymore—you are not only endangering your own life; but the lives of your wives, girlfriends, parents, brothers, and sisters.
    You don’t walk in these shoes lightly. As SEALs, we carefully train for every eventuality. And your families need to agree to be a part of