Chapter Twenty-Four
SHANNON
“I’m on to you,” Lauren said, leaning into my shoulder.
She showed up at my office late this afternoon wearing a bold, bright smile, slammed my laptop shut, and informed me we were going out. Apparently, barking orders ran in the family.
“What was that, Drunk Girl?” I asked.
The tavern down the street from the office was one of my favorites, and since I wasn’t alone in loving The Red Hat, the place was packed. Matt tagged along, and was on the other side of the bar watching basketball.
“I said I’m on to you,” she laughed. “I know what you’re up to.”
I’d been preparing for this. After everything that happened over lunch, it was obvious Lauren had a good idea—if not the full idea and most of the details—which bare-chested military man was in my apartment, and she was going to kill me with kindness until I confessed.
“Oh, so you’re aware that I’ve been dropping engagement ring hints all over Patrick?”
Her eyes widened and she held up her finger. “We’ll come back to that one in a second.” She propped her hands on her hips and shot me a sharp look. “I hear you’re leaving town tomorrow. What’s the story, morning glory?”
This was the part I hated: keeping things from Lauren. She confided her secrets in me, and I dropped more than my share on her. She arranged my father’s burial when I was too distraught. She changed my brother’s life in too many ways to name. She brought Will into my life, and now…I wanted to tell her. This was like a jar filled with summer fireflies, buzzing and beating the glass to get out and live in a wide, open space, and my fingers were loosening the lid.
“There’s not much of a story, Lo. Seriously, it’s just—”
She waved her hands in front of my face and grabbed my shoulders. “Did you hear that?” she asked.
“What?” I couldn’t hear anything over the dull roar of crowd noise and music.
She made an exaggeratedly impatient face and jostled my shoulders. “You just called me Lo.”
Shit.
“You know who calls me Lo?” she asked.
I shrugged and studied my wine. White, chilled, average quality, not strong enough to get me through the beating she was going to issue any minute now.
“My brothers, most notably, my brother Will. My parents call me Lolo, and Wes, too. Everyone else calls me Lauren, or Miss Honey. Only Will—the one with the bone frog tattoo on his arm and the anchor on his chest—consistently calls me Lo.”
“It’s cute,” I said, sliding my phone out of my suit coat and studying the newest emails waiting for me. “It fits you.”
“It really doesn’t, but let’s deconstruct that one another day.” She squeezed my shoulders and hell, Drunk Lauren was strong. “Will is Scheduled Sex. You’ve been seeing him between deployments since…since when, Shan?”
There was an expression one of my torts professors liked to throw around—three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead—and I laughed out loud at the thought of it. This was never a secret. Riley, Erin, and Nick all knew the second night we were together. Everyone knew I was going somewhere and seeing someone. Tiel could draw his tattoos from memory.
There was no secret here, and there was some relief in that revelation. A shiver moved through my bones, and I didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh or cry. “Will is Scheduled Sex,” I confirmed. “And I’ve been seeing him since your wedding.”
“You’ve been keeping this from me for more than a year and a half?” she cried. “Shit, I didn’t think you’d admit it so quickly. Tell me everything, you dirty little slutbag.”
A rush of emotion was rising up in my chest, as if giving voice to these realities made them more real and tangible. Will was mine and I was saying that out loud. “I didn’t want to lie to you, but it just—”
“I know that I sound like I’m mad, and I’m not. I love you but I just feel the need to scream at you.” Lauren’s eyes narrowed. “Where is he right now?”
“My apartment,” I said. I tangled my fingers around my long seed-pearl necklace. Every text from Will today was in reference to this necklace, and the thoroughly perverted things he wanted to do while I wore it.
“Mmhmm.” She drained her drink and set it on the bar. “Mmhmm. Of course he is.”
“It’s not…” My voice trailed off, and I didn’t know what I was trying to deny. It wasn’t more than scheduled sex? It wasn’t going to happen again? It wasn’t getting serious? None of that was true, and now that I’d drawn back the curtains on the history of Shannon and Will, I couldn’t stomach another mistruth. I was going to stand there, twisting in my discomfort, and surrender to the reality that Will was mine.
Mine. Not for anyone else, not anymore, not ever again.
Lauren sighed, and I knew she wasn’t mad. She was disappointed, and I was well-acquainted with that reaction. It was how I felt when Sam proposed to Tiel. I knew it made me an asshole for withholding some of my happiness for him because he didn’t include me in his plans to get engaged, but we’d been through so much together. I was pissed that his life was changing in a way that excluded me, but I did the same thing to Lauren. I’d earned her disappointment.
“The first time it happened we decided you didn’t need to know about it,” I said, laughing. “The last thing you needed to hear on your wedding day was that your brother broke my vag…and the bed.”
“You two must think I’m about as sharp as a spoon.” My forehead wrinkled in confusion, and she continued, “He asked me a minimum of nine hundred questions about you while I was getting my hair done before the ceremony. And have you seen my photos? I had the photographer crop you two out of some of the images because it looked like you were molesting each other.”
“Oh…”
“And let’s not forget about that time when you two were at my house for dinner,” she said, pointing her glass at me. “It was like a game of strip poker.”
“He broke into my apartment that night,” I said.
“Of course he did,” she replied. “That’s the kind of shit he does. He knows everything, he’s bossy, and likes getting his way. I cannot imagine what the two of you see in each other.” She ran her hand through her hair, sighing. “It’s nice that he has some time off, even if he isn’t sharing that news with anyone.”
“I’ve been telling him to call you,” I said, shaking my head. “We’ve been trying to sort some things out, and…he’s a little stubborn.”
“There’s something to be said about pots and kettles, and birds of a feather, and taking one to know one,” she murmured. “In other news: you two are going somewhere?”
I nodded. “One of his friends is getting married. In San Diego.”
“Good,” she said, and I looked up to find her smiling at me. “Good. I like this.”
“That’s great, but please don’t announce it,” I insisted.
“Shannon, this isn’t my relationship to announce, and I’m a little insulted that you think I’d issue a press release or dump a long, babbling post on Facebook about my brother and my best friend. But please explain this to me: why is it a secret?”
I held out my hands to her, trying to conjure all the stress and drama of the past eighteen months into the space between my fingers. “We just wanted to disappear for a weekend, and then it turned into…I don’t even know what it is.”
“This is a ridiculous question but here goes: have you talked to him about this?”
“It sounds logical coming out of your mouth,” I said, “but in practice, it’s rather to difficult to have those conversations.”
“Don’t I know it,” she murmured. “Can I just say that I’m happy for you? I remember last November, when you came back from New Mexico. You saw him there, right?”
Nodding, I kept my eyes cast down, not wanting to see the joyful warmth in her expression. Any day now, he’d head out for another deployment. Things would return to the way they were before I knew what it was like to have him with me every day, every night. It wasn’t something I was looking forward to.
“You were glowing when you came back, but then I didn’t see that glow for a long time. Not until last weekend, when you came this close to slapping the shit out of Tiel.”
“Please don’t do this,” I said. “Don’t get invested.”
“Did you know Andy almost bailed on my wedding?” Lauren asked, a petulant scowl on her lips.
“Wait—what are you talking about?”
“You remember. She and Patrick were going through their thing, and they were pretty much separated. So, of course, she thought I’d take Patrick’s side because I was marrying his brother.” She gestured toward me. “What I’m saying is: you’ll always be my friend and my sister-in-law. I’m going to be happy for you and I’m going to get invested, but I can keep it to myself if that makes you feel better. I’ll just be over here, quietly cheering for you.”
Those words loosened the knot in my throat, and some stray tears spilled over. “You’re a bitch for making me cry in a bar,” I said.
“You’re a bitch for keeping this from me for a year and a fucking half,” she said, wrapping her arm around my shoulders.
“You’re a bitch for figuring it out,” I laugh-sniffled.
“You’re a bitch for making me beat it out of you,” she said.
Matt came up behind us and folded us into a hug. “Every time,” he muttered. “Every time you two go out, you get sloppy drunk and run a bar tab the length of my arm.”
“I totally thought you were going to say cock,” Lauren giggled. “It’s not your arm, but it’s still pretty long.”
“Your mouth, Mrs. Walsh,” he whispered. “Still shocks me.”
“You’re a bitch for talking about my brother’s junk all the time,” I yelled.
“Says the girl with the broken vag,” Lauren said, smirking at me. “See? You’re already getting me back for it.”
*
San Diego was Boston’s opposite in every way. Where San Diego was sunny and bright, Boston in November was routinely gray. Everything here glistened and shined with newness, and my life back home was dedicated to preserving things that counted their age in centuries. The Pacific was a serene, sparkling sapphire when we touched down at the airport, nothing like the choppy, blue-green of the Atlantic. Despite the drought, bougainvillea vines edged the freeway, and there wasn’t a barren tree in sight.
Just as Boston was all mine, San Diego was Will’s, and I could have scooped a cupful of his happiness right off him the minute we stepped into the terminal. The entire cab ride from the airport was filled with half-complete stories about friends, beaches, high school, and SEAL training, each one piling on top of the other as he interrupted himself with a new memory.
“So you’re serious about staying at your parents’ house?” I said when we stopped in front of a classic bungalow in Coronado Village, complete with a white picket fence, Spanish tiles, and overflowing hibiscus bushes.
“They’re on a freaking safari until the new year,” he said, hauling our luggage to the curb. “If they weren’t too busy petting giraffes for Judy’s blog, they’d tell you that they want us to stay here.”
“Yeah, and you technically live here,” I added.
“I haven’t been in one place for more than a few weeks since…since I was in college, Shannon. There’s no reason for me to move out. I believe you’d classify that as unjustifiable expenditure.”
“Yeah, but…” I gestured to the American flag waving in the light breeze. “It’s your parents’ house. We’re in our mid-thirties. People in their mid-thirties don’t shack up at their parents’ houses.”
“People in their mid-thirties don’t wing limes at each other either,” he muttered. He produced a set of keys from deep inside his backpack, and unlocked the front door.
I ducked under his arm and into the house. “Would you just let it go?”
The sun-washed walls were pale yellow with bright white moldings, and there was no missing the nautical theme. Seashells, sand dollars, starfish, anchors, ship’s wheels…everywhere, but it was homey and wonderful and I loved it. An entire wall in the family room was arranged in a mosaic of photographs starting with Will, Wes, and Lauren as babies and fanning out to their college and military graduations. The white and navy kitchen opened up to a small patio overflowing with squat trees, vines and flowers, and a babbling terra cotta fountain.
I was staring at one of the trees when Will found me. “I don’t get it,” I said, pointing at the fruit.
He wrapped his arms around my waist and dropped his chin to my shoulder. “It’s a fruit salad tree. Lemons, limes, and grapefruit, but don’t get any ideas.”
“That’s amazing,” I said.
Will’s lips traveled up my neck and my eyes drifted shut as I melted into him. “Amazing would be getting you naked right now,” he whispered, “and keeping you naked until it’s dark, and then coming out here and fucking you under the stars.”
“That might also be amazing,” I said. “But I’m still taking a picture of that tree before I leave.”
Will hauled me up, slapped my ass, and marched through the house. “Some people come to California and admire the beaches and ocean. My girl wants to photograph a fucking fruit tree.”
He stopped inside a bedroom painted blue-gray, and sent me flying through the air. I shouldn’t have been surprised that he threw me on the bed; picking me up and tossing me about was as routine to him as putting his jeans on one leg at a time.
“Such a meathead,” I murmured.
Will laughed as he crawled up and tucked me into his side. With my head on his chest, I studied his room. It was simple and neat, and seemed to function more as a guest room than shrine to Will’s formative years.
“I want to take you to the beach. I’ll catch some waves and you’ll decide you can’t live without me and the Pacific Ocean,” he said.
“It’s a package deal? You and the ocean? I can’t have one without the other?”
“You won’t want to.”
I pointed to the ceiling. “Riley would love all these exposed beams.”
Will grabbed my hand and pressed it to his hardening cock. “Yeah, I’ve got an exposed beam for you right here.”
I gave his shaft a squeeze and shifted to straddle his lean hips. “What’s the agenda?”
“First, you’re getting naked,” he said. “Then you’re putting your legs over my shoulders and insulting my moves while I fuck all that stress right out of you. After that? I’ll show you around the island. Get something to eat. Do it all over again.”
My hands traveled over his chest, mapping the hard lines beneath his t-shirt. “I’m not stressed.”
Will shot a doubtful smile at me. “Says the girl who wants the agenda,” he said.
“This is a first for me. Never been in a guy’s childhood bedroom before.” I nudged his ribs. “How many girls did you sneak in?”
“That would be zero,” he said, planting a sweet kiss on my forehead. “My father would’ve had me doing fifty-meter dive drills until I passed out on the beach if he caught me with a girl up here, so…” He dragged his fingers down my belly and popped the buttons at my waist. “It’s a first for me, too.”
“If you didn’t bring girls up here…there was a backseat. I’m guessing a truck.” Will’s hands slid up my thighs, squeezing as they moved higher.
“There was a backseat. In a truck.” His hands traveled down and then up, faster now. “And you? I’m thinking there was a lacrosse player. Maybe tennis.”
I twisted away from him, immediately regretting this topic. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. It came out in an angry wail as I vaulted off the bed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Will watched me, his arm bent under his head. He nodded slowly, and though the twitch in his cheek told me he wanted more, his expression stayed calm and steady. “You don’t have to be tough all the time.”
“I’m not being tough,” I said, dragging my fingers through my hair. I needed a shower. Something to wash off the grime of air travel. “I just don’t want to talk about it. There are certain things I’d rather not discuss.”
“You don’t have to,” Will shifted to sit on the edge of the bed, “but someday, you’re going to tell me who hurt you.”
Intent on stripping off my clothes, I turned my back to him while I stepped out of my jeans. “It’s not like you can do anything about it,” I said under my breath, and before I could yank my shirt over my head, Will’s arms came around my waist.
“Because he’s dead,” he said. “I can’t do anything about it because your father’s dead. Right?”
It all came back to me like echoes bouncing off a cavernous space, and the memories—the worst ones, the ones I’d fought to forget—cackled through my mind, mocking, haunting. The disgusting sounds Angus would make as he invaded me. The names he called me. How he threatened to touch Erin whenever I’d resist. They rolled in like smoke, rising up around me until I was choking. My breath caught in my throat, and I was powerless to respond, tentatively bobbing my head instead.
Will’s forehead dropped to my shoulder as he exhaled. “Every time you mention that bastard, I want to dig him up and kill him again. I hope he died peacefully because believe me when I say that’s not the end he would’ve gotten from me.”
I shivered, and he folded me into him until all I could feel was hard muscle and heat. In Will’s arms, I was safe—I believed that above anything else—but a shimmer of doubt lingered along the edges. This wasn’t information I disclosed freely. My brothers didn’t know, and after all this time, there was no reason to tell them.
The one time I’d shared my history with a man I was dating, he buckled under the weight of it. He tried to look past it, but it was the only thing he could see, and he couldn’t comprehend my desire for intimacy, especially the harder, rougher sort I favored. I was supposed to be damaged and I was supposed to find sex revolting, traumatic, and painful, and that was the only narrative he could abide. Everything else was evidence of my issues.
Will wasn’t handing me the victim treatment, and I adored him even more for it. He held me, and not because I couldn’t stand on my own, but because he wanted me to know that I didn’t have to. He was mine to lean on, and right now, I knew that leaning didn’t make me any less strong.
“Before he died,” I started, “I told him that I forgave him. That he was a sick, sad man but he didn’t take me down with him. He took a lot of things from me, but didn’t break me.”
“No, peanut, he didn’t,” Will said. “Not even close.”
*
I’d forgotten the crisp pleasure of escaping with Will, and escaping to his town was even better than our previous destinations. Our nights were spent drinking and laughing in the backyard or tangled around each other in bed, and our days belonged to his favorite beaches, hiking trails, and taco shops.
We ventured to his preferred surfing spot—the southern end of Black’s Beach—though he didn’t mention anything about the breakneck cliff trail we had to descend to reach the shore until we were there. I didn’t need new reasons to crave Will’s body, but watching him emerge from the sea, surfboard tucked under his arm and water running through the deep cuts of his chest and abs, gave me a few more.
We argued about the existence of ghosts after he converted me to the splendor known as the Thanksgiving buffet at the Hotel Del Coronado. We joked about making this an annual trip, and each laugh we shared turned the words into small promises. Next year was starting to sound possible. Even likely.
An entire day drifted away while we wandered through the gardens at Balboa Park. It was sunny and balmy, and I was free to drag him into a shady grove and kiss him like I was a lust-hungry teenager.
“You can’t wear that,” he grumbled from the hallway while I straightened my hair in the bathroom. We were leaving soon to meet some of his friends at a bar near the base.
Gesturing to my skinny jeans and loose v-neck sweater, I said, “Be quiet. This is perfectly adorable.”
“Yes, peanut, you are really fucking adorable.” Will took the flat iron from my hand and set it aside, then slipped his hand down the front of the sweater. His thumb passed over my nipple, circling it until it peaked for him. “But if one of the guys gets an eyeful of tit, there will be a volume of bloodshed tonight.”
“That’s why you have balls. Just give them a twist whenever you think you’re going to do anything homicidal,” I said as I nudged him away.
“I’ll remember that,” he said. He dropped to the lip of the tub, his forearms braced on his thighs. I was a little obsessed with those forearms. Thighs, too. “Although, it is worth stating that I prefer when you give them a tug.”
Will observed while I passed one section of hair after another through the straightener, and his gaze left my skin tingling. It was intimate, him watching me, almost overwhelmingly so. Less than an hour ago, I was flat against the shower tiles while he pounded into me. Now, I was fully dressed and making careful work of singeing my hair while our eyes met in the mirror, and I couldn’t look away.
There was no urgent passion pumping between us, no timer ticking away the seconds until separation and distance robbed us of kisses, glances, skin-to-skin. This was different. It was everyday affection, and as it surrounded me, I knew it was sweeter and more satisfying than scheduled sex could ever be.
I wanted to tell him this, and show him that I was finished pushing him away, to explain that I was experiencing other feelings, but I wasn’t the girl who lived for dramatic monologues or sentimental gestures. And there was no sense tweaking the rules of engagement, either. We shoveled a lot of shit at each other, and maybe it meant I was a new and improved brand of demented, I didn’t want that to change.
“I like that shirt,” I said, tilting my head toward Will. “I mean…I like it on you.”
He looked down at the light blue Oxford, and smirked. “Was that your attempt at a compliment? That was rough.”
“Yeah. I’m a lot like whiskey,” I said. “Few can handle me, and even fewer can get it up afterward.”
Will pushed off the tub and stood behind me, and I couldn’t read his expression as his fingertips slipped through my hair. His hands tracked down my back to my waist, and when I expected him to lob an antagonistic barb in my direction, he dropped to his knees.
“You are the finest whiskey,” he breathed. “Only the barrel proof.”
My jeans and panties were skimming over my thighs before I could turn the straightener off, and Will’s palm settled between my shoulder blades, bending me over the countertop. His lips mapped my backside, his short beard was hot, ticklish torture on my skin, and it only intensified when he widened my stance and ducked between my legs.
He traced my folds, licking just enough to leave me moaning and clawing for more. Rising up on my tiptoes, I arched back as his hand anchored me in place and his tongue speared inside me. His groan rumbled through me before I heard it, and that dark sound sent all the electricity in my body straight to my clit.
“Oh, fuck,” he growled. He tugged me between his teeth, sucking and nipping, and I was rushing to the verge. Slack-jawed, cross-eyed, and teetering on shaking legs, that glowing ball of orgasm was throbbing low in my belly and ready to burst open. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I can taste myself, inside you, and… I fucking love that.”
Glancing down my torso, I could see Will’s bent legs. His impossibly thick erection was trapped against his thigh, under his clothes. “Take it out. Stroke yourself,” I said, “but don’t stop licking me.”
“Like I could,” he said.
His belt rattled as he whipped it open. He dragged his cock free, giving himself a slow caress down his length, twisting at the crown, and then jerking back to the base. With a strangled grunt that vibrated across every inch of my pussy, his hand flew back and forth over his cock in the purest definition of beating off I’d ever imagined.
Will’s tongue matched that pace, and all of this—the naughty position, the filthy sounds, the hand holding me down, the lingering evidence of his last orgasm—had us careening toward the finish in minutes. My orgasm blasted through me, heating everything from my toes to my scalp, and leaving me breathless and quivering. He managed a few guttural noises that bore no resemblance to words before closing his teeth around my inner thigh and coming on the blue and white striped bath mat, and watching from my spread-legged vantage point was a new level of dirty.
“Shannon…” he sighed, his head resting on my thighs. “I want you. For a long time. A long fucking time. If you don’t, I need you to lie to me, because there’s a real possibility that I’ll cry right now if you say no.”
“Can we talk about this when your face isn’t between my legs?” I raked my hands through his hair. “And since when is crying a commando tactic? I didn’t think you even had tear ducts.”
“We can grow them on demand, and I can’t imagine a better way to have a conversation with you. You’re amenable to most things when I’m licking your pussy.”
“William,” I said, my tone firm. “You’re kneeling in a puddle of jizz, and I’m pretty sure I have a perfect impression of your teeth an inch from my clit. I promise you we’ll talk about all the things you said, but not now.”
He sighed, and I was certain he was pouting. “I didn’t mean to bite you that hard.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I kind of liked it.”
“You’re the toughest little peanut I’ve ever met. You’re barely five feet tall, you weigh nothing, and you’re small, but fuck, you are scrappy,” he murmured as he pulled my clothes into place and carefully folded the bath mat. “I’m gonna wait for you outside. I might maul you if I stay in here much longer.”
I required a few minutes to recover, and a few more to finish getting ready. By the time I met Will on the sidewalk, it was dark, and a heavy covering of marine layer was drifting in. It was a brief walk through Coronado Village to the tavern, and Will devoured the distance with rapid-fire stories about his teammates.
“Should I expect to see knife throwing, or kung fu and arm wrestling tonight?” I asked.
He paused at the tavern door. “Probably not,” he said with some reluctance, “but it isn’t impossible. There’re always a lot of team guys here. Some I might let you meet.”
“Let me,” I repeated. “It’s funny because you think you’re in charge here.”
He squeezed my fingers as we approached a group clustered near the bar. “Oh, I like this,” Will said, rubbing his hand over a man’s head. “Keeping it high and tight for the big day?”
“Halsted,” he roared, swallowing Will into a back-slapping bear hug. “Always good to see your ugly mug.” A slow smile broke across his face when he spotted me behind Will. When Will noticed, he stepped away and tucked his hand into my back pocket. “Gus Granovsky. The pleasure is all mine.”
“Shannon Walsh,” I said, meeting his outstretched palm.
Gus glanced to Will, his hand still clasping mine. “Are you blackmailing her? There’s no reason why a nice lady like this would have any use for a frogman,” he said. “What’s he got on you, honey?”
“A little bit of everything,” I said, laughing as Will placed his free hand on Gus’s chest and pushed him away. “He’s always catching me in weak moments.”
At that, Will gazed down at me, smiling, and mouthed, “Showerhead.”
“Don’t go there,” I laughed.
“Where’s Viv?” Will asked. He craned his neck around, and it was then that I noticed the bar was packed with men just like him: big, chiseled, and with little more than posture and gaze, quietly broadcasting that they were the baddest of the badass motherfuckers.
“With her sister. You know, doing chick shit because you’re not supposed to see the bride the night before the wedding,” Gus said. He pointed at me. “Can I get you something to drink, Miss Walsh? Halsted has the manners of a dumb goat, and I hear he fucks like one, too, but I am a gentleman.”
“Is that what your mother said about me?” Will asked. He brushed his hand down my back with an eye roll. “What’ll it be, peanut?”
“I’ll go,” I said, nodding toward the bar. “You play with your friends.”
The bar was a true SEAL haven. Black and white photos lined the walls, all featuring sailors engaged in beach drills or standing in formation, and there were cartoonish murals with frogs holding machine guns. A handful of men were gathered around a dartboard where they were talking an exceptional amount of trash, and the others were standing together, offering Will the same hearty greeting he received from Gus.
There were plenty of women, too. Some were in the wife or girlfriend category, and they were easily identifiable as they usually had one of those huge motherfuckers pawing at them. The rest were what Will liked to call tag chasers, and the decidedly predatory look in their eyes—plus their tiny scraps of clothing in spite of the damp chill rolling off the ocean tonight—made them equally easy to spot.
Also: three of them were leering at Will like they hadn’t seen fresh meat in months.
“So you’re Will’s Shannon? I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I turned, narrowing my eyes at the man seated two stools down. “Is that so?”
He wore a baseball cap pulled low and offered a lopsided smile. “Yes, ma’am. Lucas Quadros, but you can call me Quad.”
I looked back at Will. He was deep in conversation with two men while his fan club engaged in all manner of hair twirling and come-hither glancing. He didn’t seem to notice. “And what have you heard, Quad? Anything good?”
He nodded to the empty stool beside him, and I sat. “I heard about you for three days straight. If Halsted hadn’t been talking my ear off, I probably wouldn’t have made it out of that godforsaken desert.”
My smile flattened. “I don’t know that I follow you.”
He pivoted, extending his leg out in front of him. A quick yank pulled the leg of his jeans up, exposing a thin metal pole where a skin and bone should have been.
“Lost my leg in our last go-round. Helicopter went down.”
I didn’t know what to say, and what could I say?
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, and it was possible that words had never been as inadequate as they were right now.
“We lost nine guys in that crash. Halsted got us out. The hostage and me. He ripped nine inches of shrapnel out of his shoulder with a pair of pliers, rubbed some dirt in the wound like a beast, and then dragged us through the desert for three days. Bitched and moaned about my lacking survival skills, and how he’d kick my ass out of the teams if I died.” He laughed—that was some gallows humor right there—and I could only respond with a nod. “He was due home after that mission, and he made sure I knew it.”
I leaned forward, my arms folded on the bar, and studied him. He was young, probably no older than Riley was, and blessed with a soft baby face. He saw it as a curse, I was sure, and was growing a thick, dark beard to prove that plenty of testosterone flowed through his veins.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. I didn’t want to seem flippant or disinterested, but I didn’t know how to handle this information.
“Halsted and I made a deal in that desert. I wasn’t going to bleed out, and he was going to introduce me to the woman he wouldn’t stop talking about.”
I scanned the room for Will, and when I found him leaning against a booth, his eyes flickered to me, steady and unsmiling.
Why didn’t you tell me?
“It was an ambitious mission by all standards,” Quadros continued, his fingertips running through his beard as he spoke. “He should have been commanding the op from base, but one of our guys rolled his ankle and Halsted refused to send in the rookie. The mission was high-value hostage recovery, and it had been scrubbed and rescheduled more times than I could track before the green light came in October. We had to act fast; all the intel pointed to the captors pulling the hostage’s card any day.”
He paused to sip his beer and I turned back to Will, my brows pinched in confusion.
Why didn’t you tell me?
“It started with a long-range infil, which is a nice way of saying they dropped us on the far end of West Nowhere, and we had to get our asses to the east side without anyone noticing. We launched an attack on the hostage’s location, got him out, and made it to the exfil site to meet the helicopter without as much as a sneeze. We weren’t in the air more than a minute before the RPG blew us right out of the sky. Not my first helicopter crash, but…” He nodded toward the prosthesis. “But probably my last.”
I glanced back at Will while this story unfolded, and we stared at each other across the room. Something passed between us…acceptance, forgiveness, understanding…something.
“He talked the whole fucking time. Said you’re a damn smart lawyer and ass-kicking business lady. That you’d probably kick his ass for not getting home on time, and he’d probably like it, too. That me bleeding out in the middle of the desert would mean he was stuck carrying dead weight, and that would just take him longer so I wasn’t allowed to die. Not on his watch.”
You should have told me yourself.
“He should’ve left me there,” Quadros continued. “He should’ve tied off my wound and gotten the hostage to safety, but he knew the insurgents would swarm the helicopter. He knew I’d be dead and he didn’t give it a second thought when he tossed me on his back and got us the fuck outta there. It screwed up his shoulder and for that alone, he probably won’t see combat again.”
Those scars.
“I understand why he’s retiring. I know it’s not public knowledge yet, but…I’ve heard and I understand. This life…it takes a lot out of you. And he’s given a lot. I don’t know any more dedicated, hard-driving sailor than Halsted. He just gets shit done, time after time, and when it isn’t getting done, he’s there fixing it himself until it’s right.”
For the second time in a matter of weeks, I wanted to hold him close, and then I wanted to slap the shit out of him.
“If you’ll excuse me…”