BOOKER

Leo walks into the office while I’m staring off into space. I’d shrug, if I had the energy. It isn’t the first time this week he’s caught me at my new favorite activity.

Apparently, he’s grown tired of it, however. Instead of leaving me to wallow in my misery as he has been doing, Leo makes a beeline straight for the partner’s desk he and I have shared since we first started putting the Twilight Room together. Perching a hip on the corner nearest me, he crosses his arms atop his chest. Stares down at me. It’s obvious Sarge’s mood is dead serious. He’s got that pinched together eyebrows thing happening above his nose.

“What the fiery, fucking hell is going on with you?”

My first instinct is to snarl back at him. But Leo is pretty much the man I look up to more than any other. I watched him put himself at risk over and over again for the men he led during the war. Watched him treat our company within the 1st Infantry like a disciplinary but benevolent father—or the closest facsimile any of us were ever likely to see, at any rate, given the harrowing circumstances. And this despite the fact he wasn’t more than eight or nine years older than the youngest of our troop. God knows he shepherded me from boy to man during those long, long, damn terrifying, stress filled months we fought side by side.

He is definitely the man who listened with exceptional forbearance each and every time I cried in my beer over Lena never writing.

So, I quit acting like a petulant sixteen-year-old and tell him about my dad showing up. Then I admit to the painful stuff as well, filling him in on everything the woman who is no longer my mother has done.

Sarge absorbs it all in silence. Sits quietly on the corner of the desk for several heartbeats after I quit speaking. Then he shakes his head and climbs to his feet. Gazes down at me. “Damn, Booker,” he says with quiet sincerity, “I’m sorry. That’s rough and it’s gotta hurt something awful.”

I swivel my chair around to face him. “No fooling. Still,” I continue thoughtfully, “I’ve been brooding over it nonstop since it happened.” A fact I was too self-absorbed to realize until this instant. “I need to get my shit together.”

I shift uncomfortably, thinking of the sex I’ve instigated with Lena ever since the morning Mothe—Edna—showed up at my door. It’s been more hard, furious fucking than the love making Lena deserves. My fury isn’t directed at her, of course, but Lena has borne the brunt of my rage at my...with Edna.

God love her though, for being in the moment with me every time. I know I haven’t hurt her and I’m pretty sure my aggression has even kind of excited her. Well, for the most part. I admit I have seen her wide-eyed more than once when I’ve pushed up on my hands, my face no doubt fierce as I pound in and out of her with hard, deep, forceful strokes.

As if she’s maybe wondering if this can possibly be considered normal.

If anything could make me smile this week, that thought would damn near do the trick. Lena left the foundling home at eighteen, and has since worked in a number of bars—some of them real dives from what I understand. Yet she’s surprisingly easy to shock at times.

She’s sure as hell not shy. But she is a woman who likes to know what she’s doing. Hell, who wants to be in charge of anything she finds herself involved in. Add that to having grown up in the B of C, and yeah. Sex is outside her area of expertise.

If I were a good man, I would cut her loose. Lena is going places and she doesn’t need to wade through my family shit with me. Not that I have the first desire to let her go. Still, it would probably be better for her.

“I have a feeling it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” I tell Leo. This is the first time I’ve said as much aloud, but it’s a gut feeling I have that’s been keeping me on edge. “Edna is acting crazy. And I don’t mean slightly off normal. I’m talking committed to a state institution insane.”

Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But the rational mother I thought I knew has definitely gone off the rails.

“Jesus, Sarge.” I rub at the headache that staked a permanent claim on my temples from the moment Dad unwittingly dropped the bomb mom’s been lying to my face for years. “I always thought Edna Jameson was the gold standard for gracious womanhood. Not in a million years would I have dreamt she could be so vicious.” The bark of laughter exploding from my throat is miles shy of actual humor. “It never occurred to me she even knew such offensive language, and I certainly never would have believed she could turn downright ugly-mean.”

I scowl at my friend. “She called Lena a guttersnipe gold-digger, a floozy, a slut and a whore, for cri’sake. Then she insulted her education, which Lena pointed out was exactly the same as mine.”

“Your mother has clearly never taken the time to have an actual conversation with Lena,” Leo says.

“Yeah, she was too busy working on her agenda to drive the two of us apart,” I agree. “Hell, if she were a man, I would have flattened her.”

“Damn, Booker,” Sarge says. “I wish I had some words of wisdom to give you. Unfortunately, never having encountered anything like this myself, I don’t. All I can say is continue living your life on your terms.”

Leaning down, he grips my shoulders in strong, work and battle hardened hands. His thumbs and fingers dig at the tension there as he locks me in the cross-hairs of his steady gaze. “I’m sorry I don’t have something more concrete to offer. Just...take it a day at a time. And like I said, live your life on your own damn terms. Never anyone else’s.”

I remember Sarge’s words as Lena and I are letting ourselves into the house several hours later. And since it’s three am, and therefore a literal new day, I decide now is the perfect time to take his advice. I follow Lena up the stairs to the bedroom, coming up behind her as she’s removing her earrings by the dresser. I kiss the side of her neck gently.

A groan of remorse promptly escapes me when she stiffens slightly, and I abandon every thought I had of cutting her loose.

“Ah, no,” I croon regretfully, straightening up and turning Lena to face me. “Don’t be afraid of me. I’m sorry I’ve been an ass this week. I’ve been rough with you.”

“You haven’t been rough-rough, exactly. Not like hurt me rough.” She stares at me unblinkingly. “But, Booker, you’re so angry.”

“And making you feel like you’re taking the brunt of it? I am so sorry, baby. I have been beside-myself furious. But not with you, Lena. Never with you. Hand to God.” I slap my left over my heart and lift the right to the unseen heavens above. “You are the only thing keeping me sane.” Seeing the tension leave her body, I bend my head to kiss her softly on the lips.

Then I carefully pick her up and carry her to bed.