Cole

 

The mail had just come.

When you’re deployed, there are times you are anxious for anything from home—a care package or just something familiar, something to make you feel less like you’re thousands of miles away. All the guys in my unit get stuff sent to them from home.

Not me.

There was no one back home missing me, and there was no one looking to make me feel better.

It didn’t bother me. There were always guys in my unit who didn’t mind sharing. On that day I remember, I looked around and spotted Gavin sitting and reading.

“Are you seriously reading People Magazine?” I asked, trying not to laugh.

Gavin flipped me the finger but didn’t look up from the glossy pages he was obviously engrossed in. “Shh. I’m trying to decide who wore it better.”

I yanked the magazine from his hands and grinned when he reached for it. “Maybe next time you should ask someone to send you Playboy, not People.”

“Right. Because I’m going to ask my sister to send me porn.” Gavin spoke in a deadpan, still reaching for the magazine but refusing to get up. “C’mon. I’m bored out of my mind here today. Let me just look at the pretty people and forget that I’m surrounded by your ugly faces.”

Because I enjoyed annoying him, I took another step back and began looking through the pages of the magazine. “Geez, what a bunch of superficial assholes,” I murmured. “The worst thing anyone in here has to worry about is if their outfit makes them look fat. They should try walking around the dessert with a hundred pounds of gear on their back.”

With a sigh, Gavin put his arm down. “I’m not reading it because it’s intellectually stimulating, you idiot. I’m reading it so, for a few damn minutes, I can think about something other than this place. It’s mindless reading. Now give it back.”

I flipped through a few more pages, and it just pissed me off. Pretty people posing for the camera without a care in the world.

Must be nice.

I was sitting here in sweltering temperatures and wondering if I was going to live to see tomorrow, and I was getting a crappy paycheck for it. These people were sitting in their mansions with others waiting on them hand and foot, and they were making millions just because they’re beautiful. Talk about injustice.

I flung the magazine back at him with disgust.

“Personally, I’d rather read nothing than that crap.”

“Don’t be hating,” Gavin said as he began reading again. “Ooh, a new Batman movie and a new 007! Nice!”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

“They’ll be old news by the time we get to see them,” I commented, taking a seat next to him on the ground.

Putting the magazine aside, Gavin looked at me with mild annoyance. “Could you maybe go for more than a minute without being a pessimistic pain in the ass? I’m trying to just relax here for a few minutes, and your constant negative comments are really getting on my nerves.”

He was right. I was a pessimistic person, but that wasn’t going to change any time soon. Especially not living in this nightmare. I’d escaped one nightmare and exchanged it for another.

Lucky me.

“So what’s your deal? I mean, basically I know what your deal is, but why take it out on some stupid magazine? No one’s asking you to read it,” Gavin said.

“It’s what it all represents. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could make millions of dollars for memorizing a couple of lines of dialogue while someone does our hair and walks our dogs? It’s bullshit, man.”

“Yeah, okay, I get that. But again, no one’s asking you to read it. Harper sends me different stuff every month to keep me entertained.” He gave me a lopsided grin. “It’s not like I have a subscription and I’m making you pay for half of it or something.”

Again, he was right. I was just in a pissy mood.

Actually, I was always in a pissy mood.

I was here in Afghanistan and I wasn’t sure when I was going home. Not that I had a home that I wanted to go back to. I grew up in shitty circumstances, and no matter how hard I tried to change them or escape, I couldn’t seem to catch a break. And what was worse, these guys who were now my friends had no idea how lucky they have it.

I looked away from Gavin and toward the rest of the guys milling around. Everything was quiet right now, and the mail had finally gotten delivered about an hour ago.

Hence Gavin’s magazine.

He elbowed me, and I turned back to him. “Harper also sent some cookies.” He held up a tin to me, and there were a bunch of chocolate chip cookies in there. “Take some before anyone else sees them. I know for a fact Levi will try and horde them all if I tell him I have them.”

Laughing quietly, I took a few. “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”

Gavin always shared the stuff he got from home. So did Levi. And Sebastian. No one ever came right out and mentioned that I never got anything, and for that I was grateful. I usually tried to find something to do when the mail truck came—no need to draw attention to the fact that nothing ever came for me.

“What else did you get?” I asked.

Twisting away, Gavin reached for the box and put it between us and began going through it. “The cookies, the magazine, some socks,” he said with a laugh, “a toothbrush and some other toiletry crap that she insists I need and, huh, a letter.” Taking it out of the box, Gavin opened the envelope and unfolded the paper from inside as he sat back to read it.

Lucky bastard.

The pang of envy hit me harder than it ever had before.

Getting a letter from someone who actually gave a damn if you were dead or alive must be nice.

Beside me, he let out a low laugh at something his sister had written.

Maybe I should have gone to sit someplace else. Suddenly it felt like I was invading his privacy by staying there, but when I looked around, it seemed like everyone was reading something from home.

With nothing else to do, I picked up the damn magazine and began flipping through the pages again.

Look at all the superficial pretty people.

Shit.

If I ever met one of these fuckers, I’d seriously have to punch them in the face.

***

A few years later, and not very much had changed. I’d come home. Gavin had died. I had friends when I’d never really had them before the Marines. But it still felt like things weren’t right in my life.

And today was worse than normal.

I’d never been one to say no to a challenge, but right now as I stared up at the massive structure in front of me, I wasn’t sure if I could do this. No one would even know. I could just drive away, and no one would be the wiser.

I don’t want to do this.

There are things you have control over and those you don’t. I should have been a pro at spotting the difference between the two. My life had been nothing but a never-ending list of shit I didn’t want to do. Granted, I ended up doing most of them, but this? This was avoidable.

Utterly and completely avoidable.

I looked at the building and then at my keys and back again. No one knew I was here. Sure, it was pretty much expected, but then again, most people knew better than to expect anything from me. I played by my own rules now. For far too long I’d been forced to live by everyone else’s rules, expectations, and demands. This was my time now.

The pep talk normally did it for me, and under any other circumstances, I might have already been a couple of miles away by now without giving it a second thought. But for some reason, I couldn’t seem to make myself move.

You owe it to them.

Shit. Yes. No. Maybe. I shouldn’t feel the need to owe anything to anybody. Not ever again. But there was that voice inside me telling me otherwise. I didn’t like thinking about it—owing anyone—but in this instance, there was a pretty damn good chance that I did. It was the least I could do.

You owe it to me.

And that was it in a nutshell. It wasn’t even my voice right now talking to me. It was his. Gavin’s. Hell, I’d give everything I had to actually have him here beside me, talking to me, telling me to stop being a pussy and get my ass out of the car. He’d laugh at me, and I’d bitch about it, but in the end, I’d get up and go.

I slammed my head back against the headrest. All this time and it still got me by the throat. Suddenly my heart was racing and I was breaking out in a sweat. PTSD. I thought it was a load of BS when I first heard about it, but now that I’d experienced it—hell, I was experiencing it right now!—I knew it was real.

Deep breaths. In. Out. Repeat.

You can do this.

I had to get myself together. There was no other choice. I was not going to sit here in my damn car and let my anxiety—or anything else for that matter—get the better of me. I was stronger than that. I was getting better. Maybe if I said it enough, I’d actually start to believe it.

You can do this—for me.

“Dammit, Gavin,” I muttered.

And that was all it took. Saying his name out loud was my own way of facing my demons. It was like a blast of cold water in the face. He wasn’t there. He was never going to be there again.

Because of me.

I’d only cried once in my life. And it was that day. When I knew Gavin was gone and I was the reason for it, I cried until I couldn’t breathe. I cried until my body ached. It was already bloodied and torn up from the explosion, but I didn’t feel any of those injuries. No. What I felt, I felt in my heart as it tore in two.

I’d killed my best friend.

A loud knock on my window had me nearly jumping out of my skin. Quickly turning my head, it took a minute for me to get myself back in the present. As things came into focus, I saw Declan standing next to my car.

“Yo, are you ever getting out of the damn car?” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve been standing here for five minutes.”

Well… shit. Totally missed that. “Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled. “Keep your panties on.” With no other choice, I grabbed my keys and climbed out.

It was hard to get anything by Declan, and I guess I was pretty transparent at the moment. “You okay?” he asked. “You look a little… off.”

I swiped a hand over my face. “What? Yeah, no, I’m fine.”

He stared at me for a minute and then turned and looked over his shoulder to the building behind us. “I hate going in there.”

“Me too.”

“I mean, we’re here for a good thing, but… you know. Still.”

I guess that was the good thing about being friends with people who had gone through what I had. Sometimes there wasn’t a need for words. We just knew.

“I’ve been sitting out here for a while now,” I finally said. “It’s just a building. I know that. But sometimes it’s just a sound… or a smell…”

“I know,” Declan said somberly. “I pretty much talked to myself the whole way here so I was in the right frame of mind.”

“Did it work?”

“It did until I got a look at you,” he said. “Now I’m ready to turn tail and run.”

“No one’s allowed to run,” a voice said from behind us.

“Sebastian,” I said, holding out my hand to his. “I thought you were tied up at home getting ready for Ali’s graduation.”

“Are you kidding me? And miss this?” he said with a big grin on his face.

“You’re actually excited about it?” I asked and then thought, It figured. Leave it to Sebastian to find some sort of fucking silver lining when the rest of us knew the reality.

“What’s not to be excited about? This is huge! Come on. Levi’s probably waiting on us.” Sebastian shook Declan’s hand and then took the lead on the walk across the parking lot.

“Freak,” I mumbled under my breath as I finally convinced my legs to move and follow.

If I thought I was freaking out in the car before, it was nothing to how I felt ten minutes later. The smells. The sights. It was my own personal hell on earth at the moment. I was on the verge of getting pulled under when suddenly a hand on my back and the sound of my name brought me back.

“Cole! Thanks for coming, man. Seriously. I’m really glad you’re here!”

And there was Levi. Standing there in a set of scrubs, looking like he hadn’t slept in a week, and wearing the goofiest grin on his face I had ever seen.

“Congratulations,” I finally said and shook his hand.

“Thanks.” His grin seemed to get even bigger. Looking around the waiting room, Levi was larger than life as he took in the three of us. “I have to tell you, I thought I was a strong man, but after watching Harper go through what she just did, I realized we don’t have anything on her. She was amazing!”

“Speak for yourself,” I said with a laugh. “Her body is designed to do that. What’s the big deal?”

His smile didn’t even falter. “Trust me. I know what we all went through in our training and in the field but…” He stopped and shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It was just incredible. I’m humbled. Seriously. I always knew Harper was strong, but after this? I have a whole new respect for her.”

“As well you should,” Declan said. “You’re the reason she had to go through that.”

We all laughed. “Yeah, well, I’m told that someday she’ll look back on this and won’t remember the pain. But while it was going on, she was one tiny, pissed-off woman.”

“You would be too if you were trying to get another human being out of your body,” Seb joked. We all quieted down then and just sat in amicable silence for a moment. “So when can we see her?”

“Actually, Harper’s sleeping right now. She’s exhausted. We sent the baby down to the nursery just so Harper could catch a couple of hours of sleep. I thought we could walk down the hall and you can at least see him.”

“Him?” I asked. Crap. I hadn’t even asked what the baby was. Hadn’t really wanted to know. When Sebastian had called earlier, Harper was still in labor.

We all stood, and Levi’s big grin was back. “Uh-huh. A boy.”

There was more backslapping and handshakes and shouts of congratulations as we walked down the hall toward the nursery. The guys were all talking, but all I could hear was a loud buzzing in my head.

It’s a boy.

It’s a boy.

It’s a boy.

Stopping in front of the window of the nursery, Levi motioned to one of the nurses, and she smiled as she complied. A minute later, she was standing on the other side of the glass with a tiny baby swaddled in blue.

“Guys, I’d like to introduce you to my son, Gavin,” Levi said quietly.

I couldn’t speak. Hell, the words almost seemed to come out strangled from Levi. It wasn’t about how much time had gone by. He was still a part of us. And now thanks to the birth of the baby we were all staring at, he was going to continue to be a part of all of us in a new way.

I wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

Levi shared the baby’s weight and length and all the other stuff new dads boast and brag about. I was only half listening. I was studying the kid. He didn’t look like much. Tiny. Red. Wrinkly. I didn’t see a family resemblance in either direction, but I suppose that would come with time.

I could only pray he didn’t resemble Gavin—our Gavin—too much. That would just be weird. Plus it could be hard on Harper and her parents. What would they be feeling right now? If I was still struggling with this shit, it must be ten times harder for them. Would they see this baby as an extension of their son? Would they be able to differentiate between the two? Crap, I couldn’t even imagine.

Strange as it sounds, I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off the kid. He looked like he was sleeping, and he was pretty much wrapped up like a burrito and had a small knit hat on, but he was oddly hypnotic to watch. Hard to imagine how just a couple of hours ago, that baby was still inside Harper. Yikes. Not an image I needed to have. A full shudder wracked my body when suddenly it felt like everyone was staring at me.

“What?” I asked, looking at the three expectant faces staring at me. “What’d I do?”

“Have you been listening at all?” Levi asked.

“Uh…” Declan and Sebastian each turned away and snickered, and suddenly I was suspicious. How much could they have said? I wasn’t staring at the kid that long, was I?

Levi motioned for Seb and Declan to turn around, and then they were all facing me again. “Look,” Levi began, “we needed to talk to you about something, and we all agreed that this was the perfect setting because you aren’t allowed to freak out here.”

“Says who?” I snapped. As soon as my voice rose, it seemed like there were a dozen people shushing me from every direction.

Declan chuckled. “Seriously, you need to hear us out and keep yourself in control and remember where we are.”

Now I was more than suspicious. I was pissed. I was being set up for something, and by the sound of it, I wasn’t going to like it. Straightening, I took a deep breath and then ground my molars until I was sure they were going to crack. “Fine.”

“Obviously, I’m not taking any cases for a while. Harper and I discussed it, and I want to be home with her and the baby for at least the first month. Seb has Ali’s graduation, and then he has vacation time coming to him. And Dec…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I huffed. “I get it. New case. It’s mine. Whatever. Spit it out, Levi. What’s the situation?”

Now it was his turn to sigh as if bracing himself, and if I wasn’t mistaken, Sebastian and Declan moved closer to him—as if they were presenting a united front against me. Shit.

“Hollywood actress…”

“No.” I interrupted. “No way. Uh-uh. Get one of the new guys. I’m not babysitting some spoiled diva, sprinkling her with glitter and carrying her tiara and shit.”

“Dude, do you even think before you let the words come out?” Declan asked. “Tiara? For real?”

“What? It’s a thing.”

“Yeah, the only difference is she’s not a Disney princess. Get serious.”

“Fine. Whatever. Why am I the one who has to do this, rather than one of the new guys?”

“Because it’s an important case,” Levi said seriously. “Yes, she’s a Hollywood actress, but she’s also a childhood friend of Sebastian’s.”

“So why can’t he do it?” I demanded. “I mean, I already know about Ali’s graduation and their vacation, but seriously? Shouldn’t he be the one to do it?”

“Conflict of interest,” Sebastian interjected. “There’s no way I could do this objectively. You know that.”

Yeah, I did. But I didn’t have to like it. “Whatever. So… what? She needs someone to stand by her door and make sure her adoring fans don’t bother her? I’m telling you now, if she has one of those stupid, tiny, yappy dogs, I’m not carrying it!”

“Somebody’s been watching too much TMZ.” Declan snickered.

“Fuck you.”

“Okay, let’s reel it in here.” Levi interrupted. “It’s not just a simple case of needing a bodyguard. She already has one. The problem is… things are getting through to her that shouldn’t.”

“Like what? Publisher’s Clearing House bogging her down? Fan mail she doesn’t want to deal with personally?”

“Threats,” Sebastian said firmly. “Things have been happening while she works, and things are showing up at her house that are suspect. We’re definitely dealing with a stalker situation, and her staff isn’t getting anywhere. She’s scared, and she needs the best. That’s you, Cole.”

“Flattery isn’t going to help here,” I growled, hating every detail about the case already.

“I don’t give a shit about flattering you. I care about Evangeline.”

“Evangeline? That’s her fucking name? Who does that to a kid?”

“Look, forget about her name,” Levi said with some exasperation. “She’s going to be in Baltimore filming a movie, and you need to be there to secure the set and see if you can find what her security team is missing. Obviously, they’re not on top of it like they need to be, and that’s why things have escalated to this point. Evangeline is starting to get freaked out. Her safety is our top priority.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No. There’s nothing for you to say here,” Levi said in a tone I knew meant he was done listening. “It’s a case that needs to be kept out of the press because we don’t want a media circus, and I know that’s right up your alley—keeping things out of the spotlight. I need to know you’re committed to this, Cole. No fucking around.”

“I’m not going to put up with some diva and her crazy-ass demands,” I said. “I’m not making sure her dog has a raincoat or… or… or she only has blue M&M’s in her candy dish or that her dressing room smells like fucking sunshine. As long as none of that shit is in my job description, we’ll be fine.”

Although I couldn’t tell who it was, someone chuckled. “Fine. We’ll be sure that all those things are clear. She arrives in town Tuesday. That gives you a couple of days to get yourself together and do a walk-through of where they’ll be filming. Sebastian has the file with all the pertinent information.” Once he was done, Levi turned toward the nursery and once again motioned for the nurse. “Now if you guys will excuse me, I’m going to see if my wife is awake so we can have some time together with our son. Feel free to come back up in about an hour. I’m sure she’d love to see you.” And with that he was gone.

Sure, he gets to walk away and toward his perfect life.

Bastard.

“The file’s out in my car,” Sebastian said, coming up beside me. “Why don’t we go down to the cafeteria and grab some coffee and talk a little more about the case before coming back up here.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to flip him off and leave. After all, I didn’t ask for this, and I certainly wasn’t in the mood for it. Just like I wasn’t in the mood to come back up here and make goo-goo faces at a baby. But I liked Harper. Plus Gavin was like a brother to me, so I kind of felt obligated to do it.

Do it for me.

Yeah, yeah, I said to myself. I’d do it. I’d hate every second of it, but I’d come back up here and do what was expected. I’d even try to look like I was enjoying myself by plastering a smile on my face. Maybe I’d stop in the gift shop and buy a teddy bear or flowers or some shit to really hammer the joy home.

But once I left here today, I’d consider my obligation filled. They all got to leave here—Declan, Sebastian and Levi—and go home to their happy little lives, while all I had to go home to were empty rooms and memories.

And to start my research on some pampered diva with an overinflated ego who was probably just mistaking an adoring fan for something more dramatic. Probably a publicity stunt, no matter how much she claims she wanted it kept out of the press. Well, she was in for one hell of a surprise, because once she got a look at me and heard what I had to say, she’d realize that I was not a babysitter to the rich and famous, and I didn’t do coddling.

And I certainly didn’t care about making a scene.