CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GABE
I’m at a The Hole staring across a table at a dead woman. It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but there’s no denying this is Triss—flesh and blood, real as the glass of whiskey before me.
Her hair’s still raven black, her wide-set eyes full of mystery.
The table we’re sitting at is one of those high-back numbers with the bench that goes the whole way around. It reminds me of a poker table.
I notice she has new scars, a deep, jagged line under her left eye. She looks leaner, wilder than she did before, and I can guess why after what she’s been through.
But it’s her civilian clothing that’s really throwing me off. We met in the military, toured in the military, fucked in the military. Here, back home, she’s a stranger.
She taps her nails, filed short, on the table. “I suppose you want to know what happened?”
I take a hit of whisky, wondering if the burn of it will snap me out of this dream, but when I open my eyes, Triss is still there. I place the glass down. “That would be a start.”
“We can get to that,” she says, her voice throatier than I remember. “But how are you? How’s civilian life?”
“It’s fine,” I reply. “I’m fine.” I can’t let it go. “I need to know what happened, Triss.”
She looks up to the ceiling and exhales. Clearly, she doesn’t want to talk about it, but I need answers.
“I thought you were dead,” I tell her. “I saw, watched…” I can’t bring myself to speak the words.
She pushes a Coke and Beam between her hands. “Alright. You want to know? I’ll tell you.”
I try to brace myself for what comes next.
Her amber eyes look deep into mine, casting for a reaction. “After that bitch blew up, I was injured. I was bad, unconscious, buried under rubble. I came to with fucking concrete in my mouth, but I wasn’t out in the open. I was in a cell.”
I shake my head. “Shit.”
“Yes, shit. Suffice to say, it wasn’t Disneyland. Mickey Mouse wasn’t home.”
I don’t know if I’m ready for the details, and it’s obvious Triss isn’t ready to provide them.
“In short,” she says, “bad things happened—to me, to the others that were there. Some didn’t make it.”
I ask the obvious. “How did you get out?”
Her eyes flicker with life, specks of gold alight. “A mercenary detail raided the place—Eastern European, mostly. I took one of them down with a pencil I stole from one of the guards, almost killed the poor bastard until I realized what was going on. They dropped me off at a hospital, left me a card.”
I pick up my glass again, a sip becoming a gulp. I place it down and turn it slowly with my fingertips. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“I got in touch,” she says. “They’re going back in.”
“The mercenaries?”
“No, the fucking Brady Bunch. Yes, the mercenaries. No one knows I’m alive and I’d like to keep it that way, work as a ghost. I’m sure you can understand the unique opportunities that provides.”
I can.
“These guys operate independently, no red tape or bureaucratic bullshit to weigh them down. They’re fucking lean, baby. No room for fat on a squad like that.”
‘Baby’ throws me, even as I see the burn in her eyes that drew her to me in the first place.
“I don’t want to sit here yapping all day. I want you to go back with me,” she says.
It’s like a sucker-punch to the gut. “You what?”
“Come back with me,” she repeats. “There’s plenty of action, the pay’s fucking amazing, and the chow… They’re living like fucking kings.”
“I can’t. There’s my mother, Matt… I’m done with that life, Triss.”
She laughs in my face, her back straightening. “No, you’re not. A SEAL is never ‘done’ with that life. You can only live out of the ocean for so long before you need to go under again.”
“Triss…”
“Don’t tell me this is about that Shannon girl?”
I’m confused. “How do you know about Shannon?”
“Your mom filled me in,” she says nonchalantly, examining her fingernails, “gave me the full rundown on your recent, and I must say surprising, engagement.” I can’t tell whether she’s going to reach across and stab me in the neck or congratulate me. “Seriously, baby?”
I go to take another swig of the whiskey, but there’s nothing left. Triss wolf-whistles to the bartender and holds up my glass. She’s never been shy.
I breathe slowly. “Look, it just happened, and she’s a nice girl.”
“‘Nice’?” Triss laughs. “Fuck me. Since when do you even use that word? From what your mom told me, she’s like something out of fucking Enchanted.”
The bartender arrives with the whisky, placing it on the table. I look into the glass, Triss reflected in it a hundred different ways.
I’m having trouble consigning myself to the fact that Triss is alive, right here in front of me. I could reach out and touch her if I wanted to.
But I don’t. That’s the cold, hard truth of it.
Triss starts to slide her way around the table. I watch her until she’s sitting right beside me.
“Sorry,” she says, flashing the smile that won me in the first place, when I found her single-handedly changing a tire on a Humvee. Five minutes later we were fucking in the bunker down back, Blackhawks whipping overhead.
A lot’s changed since those days.
“It felt so impersonal sitting over there like a stranger,” she continues, placing her hand on my thigh.
I let it sit there, not sure exactly where’s she going with this.
“Are you angry at me?” I ask her. “Because you should be. It’s my fault.”
She shakes her head. “No, baby. I didn’t join the Rangers for the five-star cuisine. I joined to fight and serve my country, just like you. I knew what I was getting myself into and I was glad for it. I know what happened out there isn’t you fault. I take full, fucking responsibility, you hear?”
I nod once.
Her hand slides between my legs, the palm of her hand pressing tight against my crotch.
Her lips brush against my ear. “Now,” she whispers, “how about we get out here and you can fuck me through the wall like old times?” She bites my earlobe to solidify the message, bites harder than she should. “I knew no civvie girl slice of apple pie could take care of your needs like I can. Is that what you want? Your big, hard cock in my mouth? I know I do.”
There was a time I would have gone for this routine. It wasn’t even that long ago, but miraculous resurrection or not, I think of Shannon and can’t allow myself to head down this road again.
There’s a certain living-on-the-edge madness civilians simply can’t understand. Triss does. That’s what drew me to her—the fine line between life and death overshadowing everything we did. Shannon can never understand it, couldn’t even begin to comprehend what I, what we, have been through.
But does it matter?
I’m fighting with myself for no good reason.
I peel Triss’s hand away and shift to the side. The space between us may as well be a chasm now. “I understand what you’ve been through, Triss, but I can’t do this.”
A biting tone enters her voice. “Can’t or won’t?”
“Look, I’m happy you’re alive, more than you know, but I just need…” I have to take a moment to consider precisely what it is. “Time,” I finish. “I need time to process this.”
I see Triss’s posture relax. She nods. “Fine,” she states, as much life in the word as the concrete walls around us. “I get it.”
She’s obviously hurt, no doubt expected a grand reunion. It kills me to disappoint her, to disappoint anyone, but it’s not right leading her on.
For now, she’s backed off, and maybe it will be alright, I think. Maybe this will work.
She takes my glass and tilts her head back, downing the whiskey completely. She wipes her mouth, her fire-flecked eyes like a lost djinn. “So, tell me about this Shannon chick.”