Garcia

When I’m outside I wave at Drake across the street in his yard with Tango. Then I remember he can’t see me anymore and I jog over to thank him for suggesting we introduce Tiana and Kimber.

“Major Valentine, sir?” He’s watering the flowers on the side of the house and looks up in my direction. Tango sits at his feet poised and ready to help him with anyting he needs.

“Garcia, is that you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Call me Drake, we’re neighbors now.”

“Sure thing, Drake then. I just wanted to say thanks for sending Tiana over to visit with Kimber. This is the first day I’ve left her alone and her mother’s not going to be around until noon. I feel a little better knowing she’s not alone.”

“No problem, I should be thanking you. Tiana needs friends right now, she’s going through so much.” He turns his head in my direction but his eyes are unfocused and blank.

“Maybe we can all get together sometime and have dinner or something.” I think Tango must know the word dinner because his ears prick when I mention it.

“That’s a great idea, I’ll bet Tango thinks so, too, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, how’d you know? Guide dog intuition?”

“No, this pig eats anything and everything. He knows any and every word related to food or eating. He’s supposed to be keeping me safe but I think if there was a burrito or ice cream around he would let me walk in front of a bus.”

“Well, we will have to grill him up a burger then, won’t we, big guy?” Tango stands for a moment but sits back down trying valiantly to control his enthusiasm.

“He would love that, how about this weekend? Do you two have anything going on?” He sidesteps away from me a few feet moving the stream of water from the hose to the next section of the flower garden and Tango moves with him dutifully.

“Just changing diapers and burping a baby.”

“Good, come over around six Saturday night. I’ll make us a couple of strong drinks and we can all get to know each other better. I’ll invite your grandpa, too.”

“Sounds great, I’d better go.”

“See you Saturday.”

“Bye, and bye to you, too, Tango, keep this guy safe.”

Tango’s eyes sparkle as if he understands and I head back to my side of the street and open the door of my Range Rover. Before I can get inside, I catch a glimpse of a shiny black Bentley with a Texas license plate coming down the street.

What the hell are they doing here? I’m going to be fucking late for work.

The car pulls into my driveway blocking me from exiting and I blow out a long irritated breath and focus on not being a complete asshole.

I shield my face from the sun when I turn and watch them step out of the pristine car. They Bentley is showroom clean and garish just like them. Diego and Sebastian are my father’s favorite children. Dad says jump, they say how high. Too bad they couldn’t have put that kind of dedication into serving their country instead of serving him.

They’re here to give me more shit about being engaged to a woman who just had another man’s baby. They’ve been harassing me since they found out I was getting married. Text messages with dirty pictures of men having sex with pregnant women, Snapchats of wimpy looking men holding babies in the grocery store implying that I wasn’t man enough to have my own biological baby. Phone calls from prostitutes offering to let me impregnate them for free. Seb or Diego would then grab the phone from the woman and call me a pussy for turning her down. Anything they could do long distance to torture me, they did it.

Dad still has me watched to this day. I don’t know how it benefits him to know my every move but other than the time I spent in Afghanistan, I’ve known about his surveillance. The Corps doesn’t take kindly to having their people followed but they couldn’t stop him.

“Hey, there, baby brother,” Sebastian says pulling his suit jacket together to button and straighten it while he approaches.

“What are you two doing here?”

“Came to see your… oh wait, not your baby, some other dude’s baby,” Diego says with a cackle. He has this look on his face, the one he’s had since we were little that says I was born to make your life miserable.

“Well, you’re going to be disappointed then, Kimber is busy visiting with a friend and I’m on my way to work. I’m going to need you to move your car.”

Sebastian cocks his head, glances at Diego and pulls his sunglasses down on his nose when he swings his focus to me. “Not very hospitable today, are you, Baby G.” he says.

“I don’t have to be, you showed up unannounced and I’m going to work.”

“We would have come at a more convenient time if you would have invited us over to meet the new fam,” Diego says crossing his arms over his beefy chiseled chest. Diego and I look a lot alike and were often mixed up as kids. Sebastian and I never had that problem, he’s much shorter and he’s more pretty like our mother than rugged like dad.

Seb and Diego work out, party hard, and live a life of luxury most people don’t even know exists. I’m surprised they are even awake at this time of day. My father must have insisted they come at this time.

“I didn’t invite you because I don’t want you here.”

“Wow, I’m hurt.” Diego gasps like a girl and holds his hand over his heart.

“Listen, I don’t know why you’re really here, you two are the furthest thing from family men I’ve ever known so cut the shit. What does dad want?”

Seb rolls his eyes and Diego chuckles. “He wants you to come home and work for him like he always has. See… we are family men,” Diego says nodding his head.

“You can go back and tell him I’m not interested, I never was and I never will be. Now move and don’t come back here. If I see you anywhere near my family I’ll strangle you with my bare hands.”

“You mean that other jar head’s family, don’t you?”

That’s it, I’m tired of being toyed with and irritated to my wits end with these two morons. I rush Sebastian and snatch him up by his throat. He may be a badass drug dealer but I’m a trained Marine and I’ve killed more people than I ever want to think about.

Blind with rage I squeeze his neck tight. These two have always had a habit of pushing me until I’m on the verge of doing something incredibly stupid. But I’ve always bee able to hold back, until now.

They’ve never come between my family and me and I’m about to show them they better not do it again.

Diego underestimates my strength and grabs me from behind. I don’t even have to shake him off. I’m in the best physical condition I’ve ever been in my life and they can’t bully me like they did when we were kids anymore.

I squeeze Seb’s neck until he’s red and then purple. Veins in his temples bulge and sweat covers his forehead as he claws at my arm holding him hostage.

“Garcia, you having a problem here, Captain?” Drake says from nearby cutting through the cloud of fury surrounding my brother and me.

Fuck, my brothers would love to mess with a blind Marine. I need to get him back across the street to his house before they realize he is disabled.

I release Sebastian with a hard shove and look behind him at Drake. “No, just a little brotherly roughhousing, right guys?”

I’m glad Drake can’t see Seb, if he could he would know I wasn’t messing around. He’s gulping in air with his hands around his neck.

“Fuck, Julián, you’re such a fucking asshole. Come on, D, we’re done here. For now.”

He adds the for now part as a warning and my blood boils. I want to resume choking the life out of him but I have to get Drake and Tango back to their house where they will be safe.

I step around Sebastian and move to Drake’s side. “Come on.” My voice is strained and tight. I don’t offer my arm like I did in California when I was helping him around Camp Pendleton. I’m crossing my fingers that my brothers think he’s just a guy out walking his dog and don’t notice he’s blind.

When we reach his driveway, I watch my brothers swing out of my driveway like maniacs burning rubber when they take off. I’ll bet dad puts a whole new set of tires on that car the minute they get back home to Texas, which I hope is soon.

“You going to tell me what’s going on?”

“My brothers are dicks, that’s all.”

“Should we be doing something about these dick brothers?”

I look at him and wonder exactly what it is he’s suggesting. He may be blind now but he was one badass Marine for seventeen years. He could probably handle himself ten times better blind than an average man with his sight.

“I think I’ll call Max and ask him to come and keep an eye on things at your house today.”

I look at him quietly and try to read between the lines but it’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking since he lost his sight. More than ever I believe the saying, the eyes are the window to the soul. Drake’s windows are closed and his secrets are safe behind them.

“Do you mean you’re going to have grandpa Max come and watch the house alone or are you going to have him bring his friends?” By friends I mean the Special Forces group he is close to. The same Special Forces group that he called in to help save Drake and his family when his best friend and neighbor went off the deep end and kidnapped them all. Those men have no fear, they’re fierce and they don’t back down to anyone, not even my brothers.

“You have a fiancé and a brand new baby over there. Do you really want your seventy-year-old grandpa and a blind man watching the house alone?” he says making air quotes around the word watching with his fingers.

I glance at the house and envision my asshole brothers checking into a hotel nearby and coming back when I’m gone to hassle Kimber and Grayson. “No, no, I don’t. Thank you, Drake.”

“No problem. Now get to the base, you don’t want them to think you went AWOL on your first day back.”

“Right.” I hesitate. I feel like I should stay home.

He reads my mind, “They’ll be safe, go on.”

They better be, those two people are my entire world. If anything ever happened to them I would kill whoever was responsible, even my brothers.