The Consequences of the Truth
Calder
“I LOVE YOU, CALDER.”
Reggie had said those words so softly, so simply. Nothing earth shattering at all, but my world turned on its axis anyway.
The next morning as we pulled up to the cemetery, my world tilted again. I hadn’t been back since the funeral. Wasn’t sure I was ready now.
But I remembered the way to Chris’s plot. Plot. Such a strange name for a gravesite.
And I remembered everything about that day . . . the day we buried him.
Mom slumping against Dad’s shoulder, quiet tears tracking down her face. Dad, stoic, but a tic clicking in his jaw over and over again.
Chris’s brothers-in-arms, steely-eyed and unyielding, although a few of them bit their lips or sniffed hard. Their team was of a different caliber than mine.
Reggie. All in black. Face as pale as I’d ever seen it. Seated right in front of the coffin. Hands open to accept the perfectly folded pristine American flag.
Now I led Reggie down the path. Toward Chris’s grave. Across the crusty snow.
We held hands.
Then only our fingertips brushed together.
That final touch dissolved completely when I saw Chris’s tombstone.
Breaking from Reggie, I fell to a knee at his grave.
Ghosts of frost traced over the marble marker.
My breath billowed in and out, white smoke in the cold still air.
Christopher James Malone
CAPT
US Air Force
Jun 25 1989 – Jan 10 2015
And beneath the Air Force emblem:
Don’t mourn me when I’m gone
For now I soar always
Aim High . . . Fly-Fight-Win
I heaved in a giant breath. Placed my palm against his name. And everything shattered.
Sobs I’d buried for as long as he’d laid in the ground wrecked me. Wrecked me so much I didn’t know what I was saying until Reggie finally came forward to join me.
I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry
“Hush, baby. Hush. You don’t need to apologize to him,” she soothed, a soft calming voice rolling over me as she crouched beside me.
Inhaling a choppy breath, I raised my eyes to a sky so unearthly blue it blinded me.
“I’m sorry, Reggie.” I dried my face with the cuff of my jacket.
“You don’t need to apologize to me either.” She captured my face in her hands, drawing my gaze to hers.
I nodded. Scooted back a bit. I didn’t feel right touching her. Not in front of . . . Chris.
Steadying my breaths, I hunkered on my heels. “You come here often?”
She broke out in a short burst of laughter, and my gaze swung to her.
Her head tilted. “You do realize that’s a pick-up line, right?”
Despite the intensity of the situation, I gave a half smile. “Not what I intended.”
“I know.” Her hand lingered on my shoulder for a moment. “I do. I visit him when I can. It’s been hard to know when to let go without beating myself up about it.”
“He wouldn’t want you hanging on when he’s gone.”
“Ditto,” she whispered, her somber eyes colliding with mine.
I swallowed. Nodded.
“Who else comes here?” I asked, taking in the flurry of American flags fluttering around my brother’s marker.
“Your parents, of course. His squadron. Their wives. They were all family too.”
The family I’d almost blanked out of my life because I was such an idiot.
The brother I’d lost so unexpectedly.
“I never said goodbye to him, Reggie. I never said how much I loved him.” Pain punched me in the gut, harder than any hit I’d ever taken, and I curled up.
Reggie kneeled beside me, giant tears of her own falling. “He knew.”
I rolled into her hold. She held me tight when I should’ve been comforting her.
“God, Calder. You were best friends.”
After the pain eased its grip, I pressed up. I placed both hands on the gravestone.
“I love you, brother.”
I squeezed Reggie’s shoulder then left her to say her own farewells.
She caught up to me in a few steps, grasping my hand again. It was then I felt it. Then I knew. Her right hand was bare.
I lightly explored her fingers with mine before saying, “You’ve taken off your rings.”
“I decided it was time.”
Wrapping an arm around her—finding her shivering shoulders—I gruffly covered my emotions. “Probably need to get you back before you catch hypothermia from sitting out there on the cold ground.”
I drove back to her hotel, stiff and unsure. Roiling with a fucking mess of feelings I wasn’t sure I could cope with.
When I’d said goodbye to my folks earlier I’d played the jovial son, joking, hugging, kissing, making promises I hoped to keep this time. All the while hiding the dark demons of the past rising up.
But as I stood at Reggie’s hotel room door, dropping her off for the final time before heading back to Charleston alone, it all broke again, just like at the cemetery.
Because what the hell would my parents think about me making moves on Chris’s widow, for chrissakes?
“You coming in?” Reggie asked, framed by the open door.
There was a pink bloom to her cheeks, and her eyes were as shiny as her wavy hair.
“I don’t think so.”
“Goddamn it, Calder!”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Don’t you dare tell me what to do when you can’t even go after what you want.”
Blazing eyes.
Gauntlet thrown.
“I never knew you were such a shrew.” I squinted down at her.
“Bastard.” Her stinging slap hit my cheek before I could even blink.
My nostrils flared. My eyes narrowed.
I stalked her into the room, letting the door bang closed.
I struck—not with a hand, never that—with my mouth.
Tongue lunging into her wet heat, I trapped her against me. Not that she was fighting. Her hands went to my hair and my ass. A sultry moan hit my ears—more burning than the smack she’d slashed across my cheek—and Reggie returned the kiss to end all kisses.
I pressed her away. Breathing hard. Backed her against the wall. Bracketing her with my body, I manacled her hands beside her head.
“I can fuck you if that’s all you want.”
“Fuck you,” she spat out.
I smirked, turning to assholish behavior to keep her at arm’s length. “That’s just what I was offering.”
I grinded my hard cock against her.
For an instant.
Her body reacted, but the venom in her eyes was enough to bring me to my senses. I released her immediately.
Backed away toward the door.
Kept my hands at my sides, my eyes on her. “Jesus.” I huffed out a breath. “I’m so fucking sorry, sweetheart.”
“I’m not telling you again to stop apologizing.”
Swiping a hand across my jaw, I went to her side. “I didn’t mean any of that.”
“Did you mean it when you said you loved me?”
“Yes. With my . . . with my whole heart.”
“Then why are you breaking mine in two now?” she whispered.
“Don’t wanna break your heart.” I slouched into a chair, my hands hanging between my knees. “But what if I fuck up this reconnection with my folks by going for what I want with you?”
She gave a sad laugh. “I don’t know the answer to that. I guess it comes down to whether you’re willing to take a risk on me.” She looked so young and vulnerable, the usual force of nature tamped down.
And that hurt.
“How’s it gonna work anyway? You planning on commuting from Charleston to Vegas?”
Her eyes flipped to mine before flitting away. “I guess we’ll never find out.”
Another knife slash to my heart.
“That love. Our love. It’s not enough then?” With her brown eyes a metallic almost-black, she slid closer to me.
I couldn’t think of anything to say to fill the gaping hole, the wretched agony between us.
Reggie took my silence for what it was. Another defeat. And I was the one defeated that time.
Shoulders back, she strutted to the door. “In that case, you should go.”
“I don’t wanna leave.”
She snorted.
I lifted to my feet, advanced on her. “I can’t tell them, Reggie. I don’t wanna let them down.”
“Let them down by being happy?” She crossed her arms over her breasts and stared up at me, unflinching.
“It’s not that fucking simple, is it?” Rogue anger fired through me.
“No. But I never figured you for a coward.”
Reggie went right for my jugular without even lifting a hand, and that time she cut deeper than ever.
“Just remember this. I’m not your lost love. Not the girl next door. I’m the woman you could have. And I’m not waiting for long.” Reggie’s undaunted show of strength topped mine.
Down the stairs. Through the lobby. In the parking lot.
I beat my fist against the steering wheel of the car once I jerked the door open, slumped down, slammed it shut.
I looked back.
Just once.