“My unit, yes.”

“You’re a close-knit bunch?”

“Very.” He shot her a smile. “A unit spends more time together than most families ever do. We get into, and out of, a lot of shit together.”

“So what does a day as a Coastie look like?”

“At the unit, or deployed?”

“Both,” she said, giving in to her ridiculous curiosity about him since he seemed willing—somewhat—to answer her questions.

“If we’re at the PSU—our Port Security Unit,” he clarified, “we start at 0500. It’s training, training, and then more training, most of it brutal. Muscle memory’s everything. We conduct muster, shoot guns, meet with the division, shoot more guns, clean boats, drive boats, and shoot even more guns. Then we go to the range to shoot again until we can’t hold our arms up.” He glanced over at her. “Sensing a trend?”

“Definitely. When do you eat and sleep?”

“Oh, all that’s just the first part of any given day. There’s also division-specific training and inspections. We eat or sleep whenever there’s a spare second. Then wake up and do a wash and repeat.”

Hard life. “And when you’re deployed?” she asked.

He rubbed a hand over his jaw. A rare tell, she’d discovered. He wasn’t uncomfortable often, but he definitely wasn’t a fan of talking about himself.

“Sometimes it’s almost a relief, because there’re no inspections. Rule number one: keep weapons clean at all times. A dirty weapon’ll get you killed. There’s mission planning, equipment checks, reports. And then rule number two: sleep when you can and eat anything other than an MRE when you can. We take eight- to twelve-hour shifts, either driving boats, working in a TOC—tactical operation center—or manning an overwatch with mounted machine guns protecting high-value assets.”

“High-value assets.”

“Such as a navy ship, or Guantánamo Bay, or even a liquefied natural gas ship if the US has intel that it might be used in a way that could be detrimental to a highly populated area.”

She boggled and was in sheer awe at the core strength of this man and all the others like him. “Do you ever get downtime?”

“Sometimes. We Skype home, chase any kind of ball we can get ahold of, and drink. In general, if there’s trouble or merriment to be had while we’re gone and left to our own devices, we will find it.”

This she could believe. “Do you know what I think?”

His expression went slightly wary, the equivalent of a normal man’s full-out wince. “Do I want to know?”

“I think you’re incredible.” She saw his surprise, something she was pretty sure he didn’t normally experience. She smiled. “What?”