Chapter 24

Hangovers were only painful if you let them be. They could only affect your life if you were planning on having one. The snow greatly impeded any chores getting done, and Alex had been doing just fine without Gabe the days he’d been…stuck elsewhere.

Elsewhere had him leaving his bed and searching for more alcohol. It would make the pain go away. The pounding head, the swirling stomach.

He blinked blearily at the empty bottles that littered his small, squat dresser. They were all empty. It seemed impossible, but the evidence was right there in front of him.

He’d have to go get more. The thought of leaving was as unpleasant as any, but not nearly as bad as sobering up. He’d run through the shower, wake himself up a bit, and then head into town for more booze.

He’d get enough for weeks. Months. Years. If that much in two days hadn’t fixed anything, he needed to up his game.

Unfortunately, the shower’s cold water brought too much clarity. He could think straight. Worse, he could feel…everything. The physical pain. The emotional pain.

He wrenched off the shower and dried himself off. His head was pounding, and he felt unsteady on his feet. He gripped the sink, trying to find some center of not-going-to-puke.

Once his body settled a little, he slowly lifted his head. Then he could only stare at himself in the mirror, wondering who the man looking back at him was. That man looked haggard. Haunted. That man looked like…well, everything Evan had ever hoped he’d be. A lonely, drunken loser.

Gabe spun away from the mirror and jerked on his clothes.

Fuck Evan. Fuck old memories. Fuck…

He didn’t even want to think her name. It conjured up too many memories of her smile, her touch, her laugh. Saying she loved him as if that was something either of them would ever survive.

He took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to lose himself in alcohol today. If only to prove he didn’t need to. But he wasn’t going to sit here and think either. If he allowed himself to think too much, he’d be liable to convince himself of something that could never be true.

When he stepped out of the bathroom, he stopped abruptly. Jack was sprawled out on his old bed, and Alex was sitting in an uncomfortable chair Gabe never used.

“What are you two doing?”

“Thought we’d help you drink yourself to death,” Jack said, nodding toward the dresser, where his empty bottles were lined up, but a brand-new and very full bottle sat at the end.

Tempting. Especially with Jack and Alex here, likely with advice or some shit. Best to handle this the way he always handled things. Flippantly and distancing. Throw in a few good smiles, if he could manage them, and he’d win whatever battle this was going to be.

Even though he’d decided to lay off the booze, he wasn’t about to tell them that. It would play into their hands. “What else is there to do in this godforsaken wasteland?”

“You could leave,” Alex said calmly, his dark gaze only adding to the way those words landed like blows. “You don’t have to live in this wasteland if that’s how you feel.”

Flippant. Be flippant. Smile. But he couldn’t get his mouth to curve. He could only stare at Alex as if the man had thrown a machete into his chest.

“You’ll note he said you could, not that we want you to,” Jack added.

Gabe slowly turned to meet Jack’s gaze. “Is there a difference?”

“Yes,” Alex replied calmly.

“We want you to be happy,” Jack said, sitting up in the bed, eyes never leaving Gabe. “If that meant leaving, we might be sad, but we’d support it.”

“You need me here. You can’t run this place without me.” He sounded too rusty, too desperate.

They don’t want you either. It whispered along his skin like needles, and only when he began to see spots in his vision did he realize he’d stopped breathing. He sucked in a breath that sounded horrible and telling in the silence of the bunkhouse.

“We do need you,” Alex said quietly. “We need you, but we love you. So happiness matters.”

Gabe didn’t know what to do with that. How could he absorb… It didn’t make any sense. If they needed him, they wouldn’t have been suggesting he leave. If they loved him, they wouldn’t have suggested he go.

Bottom line. Bottom line.

Except if he reversed situations, quite against his will, he knew he’d say the same to either of them. They’d pushed Alex to get help when he’d needed it and been refusing it. They’d given Jack a family and people to trust and lean on when he’d needed it. Now they were giving him his freedom if he needed it.

He didn’t. He wished to God that was what he needed, but no. What he needed was a mystery. “I wouldn’t be any happier anywhere else.” Which didn’t sound casual or flippant or like a throwaway comment. He wanted it to sound like that. Needed it to sound like that, but it sounded pained and desperate and weak instead. “So, just…go.”

Alex and Jack exchanged a glance, but then they both just settled back into what they were doing. Jack lay back down and sprawled out. Alex picked up his phone and began to scroll.

“What are you doing?” Gabe demanded, ignoring the slow beat of panic in his body.

“I think I’m going to take a nap,” Jack said on a yawn. “Rose was up half the night puking. Didn’t get much shut-eye.”

“And I’m going to catch up on my reading.”

“I don’t want you two here,” Gabe said. “I… Go away.”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Jack said as if that explained their continued presence.

“Even more reason to go. You have families now. You have…other lives. Go be with your wife. Go take care of your baby mama. Go.”

“You’re our family, too, Gabe.”

“No, I’m… No.”

Jack sat up again and Alex put his phone down, and they were both looking at him as though he’d hurt them in some way. “Your friend. Your partner. I’m…that.”

“Our family,” they said in unison.

“Brothers,” Alex said.

Gabe wouldn’t do this. Not now. Not when he wasn’t… He couldn’t do this. “If you won’t go, I will.”

“No. No, that is not an option.”

“You’re not my leader anymore, Alex. We’ve been over that,” Gabe said through gritted teeth. He looked around the spacious bunkhouse for his boots. They had to be somewhere around here.

“Just where are you going to go on Christmas Eve?” Jack asked, too much gentleness in his tone.

“Go home to your families,” Gabe said, realizing too late it was a shout, and not a particularly effective one when he sounded panicked and out of control.

“As if you’re not a part of those families?” Alex scoffed. “We are one big family. A weird-ass conglomeration of family, I’ll give you, but a family nonetheless.”

“No. You have wives and kids. It’s different. It’s more.”

“It isn’t more. It’s just different.”

Gabe looked away from Jack’s eerie calm. “Nice thought and all, but it isn’t true.”

“Of course it is. Firstly, you’re a part of the reason we even have those things. Who threatened to fight me when I was screwing things up with Becca?” Alex demanded, with none of Jack’s calm. “Who promised to be here for Jack when Rose was trying to skip town? You don’t get to decide you’re not a part of this just because someone else joined. It’s not all or nothing. You or them.”

“No.” Gabe whirled, pointing toward the outside world. “It’s them.”

“No, it’s us.”

“I don’t want you. Any of you.”

“What utter bullshit,” Jack said and actually laughed. “If that were true, you wouldn’t have busted your ass with us to get Revival up and running. You wouldn’t have stuck with us in that rehabilitation center when we all know you were cleared before we were.”

“Th-that isn’t true.” Exactly. He’d been given an option, because while his injuries had been extensive, they hadn’t required the same kind of rehabilitation, but it had been close enough that he’d been given an option.

“Christ, Gabe, where is all this idiotic denial coming from? Do you think Becca would ever forgive me if I said, ‘Oh, Gabe wanted to be left alone on Christmas Eve so we left him there’? She loves you, too, and more, she doesn’t need all of me to function. She doesn’t have some one hundred percent hold on my love or devotion, nor would she need it.”

“God knows Rose doesn’t even need a quarter of me to function. It’s not some all-consuming thing that takes you away from everything else. Love is just…there. No piece of pie you have to dole out carefully.”

Gabe wanted to argue with that. He’d only ever known people whose love was all or nothing.

Except here. Alex and Becca gave parts of themselves to this ranch, to this foundation, to friends and community. Rose had a whole slew of sisters she gave to with or without Jack.

And more, so much more, over a decade of friendship that had survived being SEALs and losing Geiger and their futures. They’d always given to each other.

But…but…

“Is this about your family?” Alex asked quietly. “Why you’re not seeing them on holidays?”

“They don’t love me.” He honestly couldn’t believe the words had come out, but there they were, flopping on the floor like a grotesque dying fish.

He figured Jack and Alex would try to argue with him. Try to tell him he had to be wrong, because families always loved each other, unless someone very much didn’t deserve to be loved.

Me. Me. Me.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t,” Jack said firmly.

Horrible words. Horrible lies. But Gabe felt like he was being cracked open. Worse, somehow, than when Monica had said it. He could convince himself she didn’t know him. Could never understand him. She might, but he could work hard to believe she didn’t.

He couldn’t work up the same denial with Alex and Jack. They knew him better than anyone. Even if they didn’t know his family stuff, they knew him. The boy he’d been, the man he’d grown into.

“You love her,” Alex said simply.

Bang.

“How do you know that?” he demanded, though his demand sounded more like a whisper.

“I know you. I love you. I’ve also felt the same kind of panic. Maybe not for exactly the same reason, but only love works a person up quite like this. Where you’re ready to burn it all down because your fear is bigger than your faith.”

“I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to trust it.”

“Why not?”

He turned away from them. The two friends who knew him, who could see through him, who’d built their own lives and weren’t walking away from him, weren’t letting him walk away from them. “Easier that way.”

“When do Navy SEALs need the easy way out?” Alex demanded.

“I’m not a Navy SEAL anymore.”

“Maybe not in practice, but in action, you’ll always be one. You know better than to let fear—any fear—rule you,” Jack said. “It’s hard. God knows civilian hard is this whole other thing from SEAL hard, but it’s still hard. Harder, I think, because it’s all about our insecurities, weaknesses.”

“Love means being vulnerable when we were taught to never show that, but allowing yourself love—giving and receiving it—it’s stronger, braver, harder than anything we ever had to do in the military.”

Funny, the man who’d never meant to join the military found those words the most enlightening. He’d wanted to prove something by becoming a SEAL—to Evan, to his mother. That he was worthy of their love. Worthy period.

He hadn’t. Not to them and not to himself. Instead, he’d found love in the failures. Losing a man, losing the SEALs. Admitting things to Monica. In all of those horrible, dark places, all the good in this life had sprouted.

So, maybe… God, could he really trust the sprouts not to die? He turned back to face Alex. Jack. His brothers. His family.

“You’re turning us into Oprah, so you’re going to need to believe us and go make up with the woman, so we can stop,” Jack offered dryly.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Gabe said weakly.

“I have it on great authority they’re going to be here tomorrow for Christmas dinner. I’d suggest fixing things before my wife gets even a whiff of discord. It would be really unmanning to have her swoop in and fix it for you.”

“She would, too,” Gabe muttered. Becca would swoop in and somehow, with her goat-rooster magic, sew everything back together. But that wouldn’t be right. He was done making his choices for other people and, more, letting other people make his choices for him.

He was a lot of things, and probably not good enough for half the things he wanted, but he wasn’t a coward.

Maybe his mother had simply made a choice, the wrong one. And maybe he could make the right one.

“Do either of you know where I can get a puppy?”

* * *

Monica hefted Colin’s bag, now made twice as heavy by the presents bestowed upon him, into the back of Dad’s car. Colin and Mom were still inside, deciding on what airplane snacks to pack for Colin, but Dad had helped Monica pack up the car.

She had figured she’d be excited to go back. Excited to have Colin to herself again, to have their little Christmas traditions just him and her.

Gabe had ruined that.

She hefted out a heavy sigh that puffed wisps of air into the cold afternoon.

“You don’t seem that excited to go back. You could stay. I’d pay for the ticket change.”

She smiled. Her father’s frugality made that offer extra special. “I want Colin to spend Christmas at home. And as much as there’s some unpleasantness to face, I learned from my parents it’s best not to put it off.”

“Want me to off him?”

Monica laughed, but it caused a little stab of pain. “You made that offer a lot when I was with Dex.”

“He made you cry a lot.”

“I was a teenager.”

Dad shrugged. “Doesn’t matter much when you’re the one watching your daughter cry.”

She, of course, hadn’t been able to understand that back then. She hadn’t been able to separate normal parent overprotectiveness from his PTSD episodes. She hadn’t been able to accept he might have just been worried about her.

Then she’d become a parent, and a lot of it had made sense in retrospect. Still, she’d never talked about this with her father. Maybe it would be good to. “Did you still hate Dex at the end?”

“I never hated Dex.”

“You were downright mean to him.”

Dad grunted, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against his car. He squinted across the street. “Yes, but I didn’t hate him. I hated the idea of him. Some little punk air force brat touching my beautiful daughter. I didn’t want you to get married so young, get tied to someone so young when you had so much life left to live.” Dad moved restlessly, which wasn’t like him at all. “Doesn’t help any, but I regretted it after.”

“He thought it was funny. Way funnier than I thought it was.”

“Sorry,” Dad mumbled. But he eyed her. “So, now I got to deal with some smart-ass SEAL touching my beautiful daughter?”

Monica heaved out a sigh, mirroring her father’s pose. “What made you finally get help?”

“Don’t tell me the shit has PTSD.”

“No. Not that it would change things, but no. He had a rough childhood though. He doesn’t trust love.”

“Then I guess that’s your answer.”

“What?”

“Why did I finally get help? Because I’d never had a reason to doubt your mother’s or your love. I doubted my manliness, my bravery, my sanity, but I never doubted I had people who loved me. I got help not because of any one thing, but because you and your mother never gave up on me, and eventually that built and built and built until I trusted it more than I trusted my pain.”

“Daddy…that’s…I think the most words you’ve ever said to me at once.” And they made her teary.

“Don’t get used to it,” he said sternly. But no matter how stern his words were, he’d softened. A great deal. With love and time.

“A man with scars needs a woman like you,” he murmured.

She swallowed at her tight throat. “And what does a woman like me need?”

“A man who’ll want to treat her like a queen,” Dad replied as if it was obvious.

She wrinkled her nose, hugging herself against the cold air. “I don’t want to be treated like a queen.”

“Of course not, but a good man will want to treat you that way.”

She wished it didn’t make any sense, but in a strange way, it did. She wanted a man who wanted to try, that was for sure.

“Now, before that monster of yours comes tearing out here, I’ve got one more thing to say.”

“What’s that?” she replied with a smile, expecting some sarcastic joke.

Instead, he turned to face her, making eye contact. “Thank you.”

She stared at him for what felt like the longest time. “F-for what?”

“The years.”

“I-I don’t understand.” And her father’s uncharacteristic emotional forthrightness scared her down to her bones.

“The years you hounded me to get help. The years you begged me not to give up. I resented hearing all those things from my daughter, and I wasn’t always kind about it. But I needed it. And I thank you.”

She didn’t have words. Even if she did, she wouldn’t have been able to speak them. He reached out and brushed the tears from her cheeks.

“None of that.” Then he pulled her into a hug.

Her stoic, military father had thanked her, was hugging her.

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart. You’re a good mom, and the best daughter, and I imagine the second strongest woman I know. Your mother only wins because she’s older, but if you beat some sense into that idiot SEAL, you’ll be damn close.”

She laughed and cried into his shoulder. “Got any tips on how to do it?”

“When a sledgehammer fails, just be the rock.”

She thought about that the whole flight home, and she came to the conclusion that both her parents were right. Love was the river and love was the rock, and somehow, she had to be both.