Homes for Heroes is proud to celebrate the homecoming reunion and betrothal of Sergeant Jenine Devlin and Private Diego Velez Gasparilla.
Tonight’s Guests of Honor
Tiana found the accompanying placard at the banquet hall’s entrance to be slightly misleading. These were both soldiers who’d served and been wounded in Iraq. They’d also been high school sweethearts, and the selected photograph showed them in each other’s arms at their senior prom. Both were fairly attractive, full of fun and love and hope for the future. But that was not what they looked like now.
Private Gasparilla had paid his dues as a semi-pro MMA fighter before joining the Army, which was partly why he’d been singled out as the honoree tonight. Many of the best fighters in America were here to salute him, one of their own, and to help raise money for this charity, one Tiana had always liked, as it helped disenfranchised and wounded veterans re-enter civilian life with a dignity their government often did not care about helping them achieve. Private Gasparilla had stepped on a landmine somewhere on the outskirts of Mosul and had lost both his legs.
His girlfriend, now fiancée, Sergeant Devlin, had suffered a serious head trauma during a firefight in Tikrit a few months earlier. Her rehabilitation had been long and painful. During that time, and throughout Private Gasparilla’ s difficult treatment, the two of them had not seen each other; their only link was by email, and even then, due to her impaired sight, Devlin had had to dictate her messages for a nurse to type on her behalf. It must have been agony, Tiana reckoned. To know the person you loved was going through hell but that you couldn’t be with them to hold their hand through the ordeal because you were going through a private hell of your own.
To come through an experience like that, be handicapped for life, and have the strength to want to pick up the pieces when you got home: that was the stuff heroes were made of. This couple deserved all the help and all the accolades they got. They’d fought for their country, had lost a lot personally, and had almost lost each other, but they’d ultimately won happiness and a fresh start. Homes for Heroes had helped them build a brand new house with all the facilities they needed. Included was a state-of-the-art wheelchair, a home care assistant to aid them whenever required, and a promise to pay for any further medical treatment that their Army insurance did not cover.
She felt good about being here tonight…for them.
But she disliked the choice of that senior prom photo, and this was the reason why: it cheapened the ordeals they’d been through. The kids in that image knew nothing about life. A marriage proposal then would no doubt have been magical and fairytale and all the rest, but so what? Millions of couples got married every week. What was special about these kids was that they’d gone to hell and back before finding—or re-finding—that magic, before seeing that happy-for-now ending. They’d suffered and endured so much, and it was who they were now that was inspiring people all across America.
The photo should show them as the couple they were now, with all their scars and disfigurements and the innocence gone from their eyes. Just like Tiana and Thad were on the inside. The biggest differences were that Tiana had never been through a life-or-death ordeal and she did not have her happy ending.
This was her ending. Here. Tonight. On the arm of the man who’d threatened to kill her. What she chose to do next would tell her a lot about herself, and to be honest, she didn’t know herself well at all. How could she? She’d only ever been with one man and look how he’d turned out.
Sergeant Devlin and Private Gasparilla might not be the most glamorous couple here tonight, but Tiana, for her part, envied them that love that they had never let die. It must be a rare thing, to have one’s love returned, undimmed, after a trauma like that. Thad had pissed his away, or had it beaten out of him over the years. If he’d had his concussions treated properly, if he’d stayed off the steroids, would he be a different person now, more like the guy she’d fallen for in high school?
The more she wanted to feel good about the two soldiers and their engagement, the more depressed she felt for her own train wreck of a life. She tried peeling away from Thad, but he wouldn’t let go of her. “First we have dinner,” he reminded her. “Then we mingle.” With all the misery that implied.
Tiana desperately looked around for a friendly face, someone to rescue her from this role as high-priced escort. No doubt there were other escorts here tonight, but she wagered none of them were under threat of death if they didn’t perform.
“Hollis, my brother. What up?” One of Thad’s old rivals, Gaston Petrov, strutted toward them with all the confidence she’d remembered. His redheaded trophy wife, Rosina, was with him, looking striking if a little too overly made up. She’d gone way overboard with the blusher. Gaston and Thad had remained friends for years, but Tiana and Rosina had absolutely nothing in common, not even a dislike for the brutality of MMA, which Rosina, in all honesty, seemed to get off on. God knew what she and Gaston got up to in bed. Rumors of wildly kinky S&M might only be rumors, but nothing would surprise Tiana about Rosina Petrov. She had all the poise and hardness and dis-inhibition that Tiana had always lacked.
“Petrov, you son of a bitch. Where’ve you been hiding?” Thad let go of Tiana’s arm for the first time in order to slap a hug around his Ukrainian friend.
“I been to tournament in Europe—first in Dresden and then, ah, what was the other one, darling? Not Madrid…”
“Lisbon,” Rosina reminded him. “In Portugal, on the coast.” And to Tiana: “He won both tournaments by knockout in the finals.”
“Congratulations, Gaston,” said Tiana. And to Rosina, while the men were busy catching up: “Which one did you prefer as a place to visit: Dresden or Lisbon?”
“Lisbon for the weather, Dresden for everything else. We enjoy nights in Germany. But how have you been, Tiana? We hear of trouble at Thad’s last fight. Did it frustrate him?”
Bitch.
“Um, maybe a little. He gets over these things though. You know how these guys are. I think he wants a rematch.”
“I’ll bet,” Rosina said with a twinkle in her eye. “And one with Dax Easterling as well, from what we hear.”
“Nah, I don’t think so. Dax Easterling was just trying to help out. There are no hard feelings.”
“I see. No hard feelings from Thad, or none from you?”
“Let me know what you mean by that, Rosina.”
“Ah, maybe my English let me down. I simply mean Thad seemed angry—we watched the footage—whereas you appear to have reacted differently.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Have either of you spoken to Dax Easterling about it?”
Tiana sensed the Ukrainian witch was feeling her out, trying to divine her loyalties. It made Tiana uncomfortable. She backtracked over her meeting with Dax last week. Had someone seen them together? Had news spread about it? If the Petrovs knew, or even just suspected, would they say something to Thad?
“I think it’s best we stay away from him,” Tiana replied as diplomatically as she could.
“I think that would be wise.” Again, the subtle wording. Not an accusation exactly, but a warning. How much did Rosina know? Did Rosina know anything? Maybe it was just paranoia eating away at Tiana. Not that she didn’t have a right to be paranoid after Thad’s outburst earlier.
“You look beautiful,” Rosina told her, though Tiana had long since learned to take any of her compliments with a pinch of salt. Someone like Rosina told you what you wanted to hear, nothing more, nothing less. She was as artful and as cold as they came.
“So do you,” Tiana replied.
“Gentlemen, shall we?”
The “gentlemen” broke from their male bonding session to accompany Tiana and Rosina into the dining room, where hundreds of well-dressed patrons and sports celebrities were threading their way to their various tables.
Just as they were about to take their seats at the round dining tables, something happened to make Tiana’s night even worse.
At the table next to hers stood Dax Easterling. Her heart lifted. He looked suave and cute and more like a sexy bodyguard than a celebrity. In his left hand was a beautiful bouquet of flowers. On his right arm, the skinniest, palest, most doe-eyed waif in the entire room. He saw Tiana, then Thad, and promptly ignored them both. Not even a secret nod to acknowledge, well, anything about her. It was as though she didn’t exist.
At that moment, she’d have preferred not to.
***
Between a rock and a hard place, frustration. The pre-dinner speeches were interminable. Next to her, Thad smiled and clapped and laughed on cue. Not more than ten feet away, Dax Easterling, seated side-on from her so that she had no choice but to glimpse at him in the periphery of her vision, did the same: all on cue. She felt so claustrophobic, everything about this night seemed pre-planned to make her miserable, to torment her. Her pulse began to thump in her ears. She had to concentrate on the length and depth of each breath to make sure it gave her enough oxygen or else she’d have an anxiety attack; she knew one was close. The air in the room was charged and jealous and hateful and getting more rarefied by the second.
Tiana escaped the only way she could think of…in her champagne glass. She’d never been much of a drinker, but tonight she had no choice. Small sips at first, so as not to attract attention, but it tasted so damn good and by the end of her first glass—on an empty stomach, mind—it was anchors aweigh.
“Why aren’t you clapping?” Thad asked her, no, threatened her. From now on, every word out of his mouth was a threat, either until she survived the evening or until he flipped his lid and went buggo in front of everyone. Either way, she had hell to look forward to all night.
She clapped and whistled, then signaled for the waiter to fill her glass. Another speech, another flute bottomed, and things began to swirl. The round table spun. As she glanced round the hall, the opulence blurred into a twinkly slipstream that made her smile at last. This was her way out. How to dissolve reality and dip in and out at will. The more she drank, the more the weight on her heart lifted. Emotions evaporated like vapors in a silent, windless tornado. There were droplets of them left: hate, jealousy, old love, old joy, fear, imminent relief. Tiana wiped away her tears and imagined her life to this point wiping away with them. It left her feeling…nothing.
Dinner came and went. The food was tasty, but there wasn’t much of it, and as soon as it was gone, she couldn’t remember what she’d eaten. Conversation came and went. Some of it was witty, but there wasn’t much of it, and as soon as it was finished she couldn’t remember what she’d said, if anything. Thad nudged her now and then, to keep her attentive, and she nudged him back, giggling. A black, vengeful giggle. The best she could do for now. The real revenge would come later, she felt, whatever that was.
“Where did you and Thad Hollis meet?” a voice asked her through the fog.
“Mm?” she saw that Thad’s chair was empty. He was nowhere to be seen.
“I asked how you two met. I heard that you’ve known each other a long time.” The speaker was in his sixties. He looked like a senator or something, white-haired and inoffensive.
“Yes, ages. I—we went to school together. I mean we schooled together…or something. And we were together ever since. You could say Thad and me, we’re in some kinda clinch, on the ropes, and the bell’s about to go for the end of the match. Ding-ding! And the loser is…” Her aim was a little wonky, but she managed to point a finger at herself. Tiana almost spluttered a laugh. “I’m sorry. Did I answer your question, Senator, sir?” She flicked him a salute, at which point his wife pulled him away.
Tiana stumbled to her feet, glanced round the slowly spinning room, trying to locate Thad. Not that she gave a shit if he was with her or not; she just wanted to know where the ape was, so she could give him a wide berth. He had to be here somewhere, but where?
She stopped another man as he passed. He was black, tall, and looked like a fighter or a football player. “Excuse me, I seem to have lost my glasses. I can’t see far without them. Can you tell me…I mean have you seen Thad Hollis?”
“Yeah, he’s over there.” The man pointed her to the adjacent section of the hall, separated from the dining area by a rope cordon and a series of banners and large portraits of military personnel. Presumably those were some the wounded veterans who had received assistance from Homes for Heroes. “I’d get in there quick if I was you,” the man said, smiling. “Dude thinks he’s John Travolta.”
“Thank you.”
Tiana made her way through the maze of tables and chairs and, unable to locate the proper way around the cordon rope, hiked up her skirt and strode over the damn thing. Her right heel almost gave way. The shock sobered her up a little.
She looked out across the dance floor, and her fists balled at her side. “That fucking rat!”
John Travolta, a.k.a. Thad “Two Left Feet” Hollis, and two of his fighter pals were jiving and thrusting their way through a dance scene straight out of that underground hideout in Dirty Dancing. The women with them weren’t just dancing, they were sleazing all over them—at least that’s how it seemed to Tiana. Spectators appeared to approve: they clapped and cheered. Even some of the older couples joined in, if not so energetically, with their own old-timer twists.
But she recognized Thad’s partner from somewhere…wait a minute…yes, from that night—the ring girl he’d checked out at a time when he never usually looked away from the ring. The Slavic stick insect. Slinkier than a Russian assassin under a bed of fur. She draped herself over Thad, unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt as if she’d done it so many times before she could do it with her eyes closed. The tramp. And now look at him, after all his bullshit about behaving tonight for appearance’s sake, letting the whole world know that he was a free agent and she—Miss Tiana Crowe—was yesterday’s news. Yesterday’s garbage, stuffed into the most expensive and revealing garbage bag he could afford. Now she could be tossed out into the street.
Okay, we’ll see about that.
Funny how her focus had returned when she needed it most. The room no longer spun. She picked out Dax Easterling quickly. Even in a room full of luminaries and tuxes and to-die-for couture, he did kind of stand out. There, across the dance floor. He wasn’t dancing, at least not yet, not until she got there.
Those evaporated emotions all came flooding back as she imagined what would happen when Thad saw her dancing with Dax—when the asshole got a taste of his own medicine. Would he pick a fight with a former Marine? A part of her hoped not, for Dax’s sake; the guy didn’t deserve that. Another part of her, the hurt, boiling part, couldn’t think of anything she wanted to see more: her big military hero beating the living hell out of the man who’d made her life a misery, who was still making her life a misery, even after he’d officially dumped her.
She stopped. Remembered. Dax was not here alone. He’d brought his own date, another pale ring-girl type who no man with a pulse would spurn in order to dance with a fatty in a garbage bag. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. See? There she was, and there he was: the ring girl and Dax Easterling, already chatting away like besties. A few smooth moves and he’d have her out of that dress in his hotel room so he could give her the ride of her life. And that was how things went in this world—the world of MMA and professional sports and celebrities—a world she’d been around but had never really been a part of.
The danger, the risk, the casual sex: what the hell had she been missing all this time? She’d only ever had the one man, but how many women had he had while she’d played at Little Miss Monogamous? Seeing him gyrating like Patrick Swayze—or rather a wooden Ray Harryhausen version of Patrick Swayze—with that Victoria’s Secret wannabe, it was enough to get Tiana Section-Eighted alongside him.
He made her sick! She made herself fucking sick.
Tiana turned away in disgust, ready to storm out and never look back. As she did, her heel gave way and she slipped onto her ass. It didn’t really hurt, but the shock of it (and the shame of it, at such a wide-open moment) made her cry. A few men helped her up and she limped away, dying a little with each step.
Suddenly the future was terrifying, because it was so blank. The dance music dimmed and the voices disappeared. She found herself alone in the foyer, staring at the senior prom photo of Sergeant Devlin and Private Gasparilla. It broke her heart, seeing those two young people so happy and so innocent. Knowing the hardships they would have to endure to reach their “happily ever after” made her even more emotional. She felt herself about to burst into heavy sobs. It was welling, and she had no more resistance to it. This had been the worst evening of her life, bar none.
“Tiana? Are you okay?”
She composed herself instinctively, took her time before turning to face the speaker. To her genuine surprise, Dax Easterling stood before her, and he was alone.
Had he followed her out?
“You fell hard back there. You’re not hurt, are you?”
“Me? No, no, I just…needed to get some air. It was getting…oppressive in there.” She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. “Won’t your date being wondering where you are?”
“My date? You mean my niece, Lacey. She made me promise to bring her. These special guests—” He motioned his champagne glass at the senior prom photo, “—they’re her heroes. She’s doing some kind of college project on them. I think she’s hoping for an interview.”
“College, huh?”
“Yeah. A freshman. Amazing. Seems only yesterday I helped take the stabilizers off her bike. Now she’s ten times smarter than me and knows all the tricks to get around me, or at least she thinks she does.”
Tiana laughed, more with relief than anything. He wasn’t dating anyone after all. At least no one here tonight. “Maybe I should get her to show me a few of those tricks,” she said. Definitely the champagne speaking, but now that she was out on a limb, she might as well test its limit.
“Well, the first one is easy,” he replied. “I’m a sucker for a woman who tells the truth.”
“Really? About what?”
“About everything.”
“For instance…?”
He downed the last of his bubbly and set the flute down on top of the brass cordon post. “For instance, why are you really out here?”
“I told you, I…” Tiana sighed, let her head bow in shame. “The truth? I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“The crowd?”
“Everyone having a good time like that. That’s not what I want to see right now. I want every motherfucker in there to be as miserable as me.”
He gazed at her, his eyes narrowing a fraction. “Why are you miserable? Is it Thad Hollis? Has he done something to you?” Dax stepped toward her. His face tightened, and she saw the rage just under the surface. Maybe it was there at all times, and he could summon it at will, whenever something offended him.
She stopped him right there. No way was she going to be the cause of another cockfight. “He hasn’t touched me…this time. But he made me come here tonight, even though he said we’re finished.”
“You two have split up?”
She nodded. Saying the words was still too painful. “He’s been screwing around, and when I caught him making a call to his whore, he didn’t even deny it. Bastard was proud of it. Then he tried to turn it all on me! I can’t even begin to get my head around that part. I swear he’s making this shit up as he goes along. It’s just…too much. Then when I saw him dancing with that slut in there, after he’d forced me to come here with him, it was as if he wanted me to see it. He brought me here to punish me.” She swallowed hard. “It’s not me, is it? I feel like I’m losing it. Tell me I’m not losing it.”
“You’re not losing it, Tiana. He is. He’s either a delusional asshole or just an asshole. Either way, you’re better off without him.”
“There was a second part to that truth,” she said, “about why I had to get out of there.”
“Go on.”
“There was this guy I’m kind of sweet on. I hoped he’d be here tonight. But the truth is, when I saw him, he was with another girl. It made me feel…jealous.”
“How jealous?”
“Jealous enough to want to drop-kick her.” Tiana cleared her throat, sensing she’d gone too far. “Of course, I’d never touch a college freshman.”
With the corner of his mouth, Dax flashed her a very brief but telling smile. “You might not have gotten that far. I taught her a few moves when she was younger.”
“Who said I was talking about your niece?”
“You weren’t?”
“What do you think?”
Dax took another step toward her, close enough for her to smell his delicious cologne. “I think you’ve been admirably honest until now. I like my women honest.”
“You’ve said that already.”
“Yeah, but here’s something I haven’t said yet: I was jealous tonight as well.”
“You were?”
“Past tense,” he said. “He’s gone and blown it for himself, so rather than drop-kicking him, I should probably thank him.”
Tiana didn’t know what to say. Had the champagne caught up with her, making her hear only what she wanted to hear? Was this guy playing with her? Drawing her out, only to throw it back in her stupid face when she’d made a complete ass of herself? Something told her no. Maybe because of his selfless stunt at the fight the other week, risking everything to save a guy he didn’t even like. Or maybe because he just looked so damn hot in a tux, and the smoldering look he was giving her…
“Are you for real?” she asked.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“On how real you want me.”
She cozied up to him, running a flat palm over the breast of his jacket. Then she pressed her cheek to his chest. His arms curled round her, and she felt so safe, so unusually safe, his firm but tender touch took her breath away.
“I think I like you just the way you are,” she said.
“I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad night.”
“Me too. But it wasn’t your fault. And it’s not anymore—not bad, that is. I don’t hate this night anymore.”
“If you wanted, we could improve it some more.”
“How?” Her question came out at an excited whisper.
“I think I know a way.”
“Does it involve us leaving here?”
“Uh-huh.”
Tiana began to tremble—a wonderfully nervous tremble. “What about your niece?”
“What about her?”
“How will she get home?”
“Oh, she’s a smart girl,” he replied. “When she saw me come out after you and when I don’t return, she’ll have put two and two together.”
“Did anyone else see you follow me?” A scary thought right there.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. All that matters is that we turn this night around, right? No one who looks as good as you should have to end tonight in tears.”
“Something’s telling me I won’t.”
He kissed the top of her head, then lifted her free. “Shall we?”
“Uh-huh.” As they left the foyer, Tiana glanced over her shoulder at the veterans’ senior prom photo. She threw it a wink.