The aquarium reminded Evy of the time Tessa and her been at the Blue Reef Aquarium back home, and the beach before that.
The ocean breeze had been calming, soothing Evy’s shattered heart. She’d applied for her dream job right out of college and had been turned down because she was not qualified enough and had been too bubbly in the interview. For days she’d hid out at her apartment until Tessa had dragged her out to a car, not caring how she was looking.
And it had worked wonders because after seeing the ocean Tessa had brought her into the aquarium and they’d spent the entire day there, complete with grabbing food, watching one of the shows and talking to strangers just for the fun of it.
What confidence had been shattered in Evy with the rejection letter Tessa had built up again with a simple visit to an aquarium.
As they parked, Evy couldn’t help but smile, thinking she and Tessa maybe should take the time to walk past the pools and deep-sea-windows, just reliving that day—and being friends again like they’d been back then.
“Ready?” Tank asked, pulling her from her thoughts, and she nodded, still smiling as they went inside.
* * *
Leila couldn’t get enough of anything. She was squealing, clapping, running left, running right and then back left again. Tank felt the stupid grin on his face when he chased after her, being surprised how good it felt to be responsible for someone so little, and how much the excitement could infect you, too.
“Loot!” She stood in front of the floor-length Bayside Aquarium windows, pointing fish and plants out in such a rapid succession Tank wasn’t sure what he should comment on first.
“They are all pretty,” he decided to say when she reached for his pants, holding one hand out. He picked her up, walking over to the sign on the side explaining which fish they were seeing.
“A star!”
Tank squinted, trying to figure out where exactly the girl had seen a star when he spotted a tiny starfish on the ground. Crouching down, he sat her on his thigh. “Those are called starfish,” he explained.
“Betause is in water?” Leila asked.
He nodded. “Yes. And you know what’s really cool about them? If they are in danger, because someone wants to eat them, they can leave one arm behind and just grow it new.”
Leila’s eyes widened. “A arm?”
“Yes. Some more animals can do that. It’s to save their lives. However, not many fish would probably eat a starfish because a lot of them are poisonous. That means if you eat them, you die.”
The girl on his leg shuddered. “I don’t lite fish,” she announced and he wasn’t the least bit surprised. He didn’t eat fish, either, so he understood her perfectly.
“You don’t have to, and here in the United States we don’t eat starfish anyway. But they are really cool. Sometimes they have babies all by themselves.”
“Tiny babies?”
He nodded. “Tiny babies that grow up to be big starfish. Very big. And you wanna know something else?” She jerked her head up and down so hard, her chin hit her chest. “Starfish have been on Earth for a very long time. A very long time. They are super old.”
“Lite memaw?”
He laughed, kissing her cheek. It was easy to assume she talked about her grandma, but even if not, he was sure no one was that old. “Older.”
“Wow.” Leila shook her head. “Older,” she echoed. “And that?”
She pressed her tiny finger against the glass as a shark passed them. Tank glanced at the sign again, searching through the many illustrations until he found the right one.
“It’s a tiger shark, but that’s still a small one. They can become this big!” He stretched his arms as far apart as he could.
“So bid?” she asked and he shrugged.
“Yes. They eat a lot of different things, you know, and if you eat well, your veggies and your meat, you’ll be really big one day, too.”
Leila’s mouth formed a tiny ‘o’. “Lite you?”
“Yes, just like me,” he agreed.
“Tool.”
She wiggled her legs for a moment, watching the shark as it slowly circled around in front of the window.
“Bid,” she then commented and he chuckled.
“Very.”
His muscles were starting to twitch from being in the crouched position for too long, but he refused to move. He liked the way they were, with him explaining him things he knew or guessed.
Starfish he’d read about because he’d once found one on the beach. It was funny how sometimes seemingly useless knowledge could impress someone else.
Suddenly a woman bent, touching Leila’s nose. “You and your daddy are adorable, little one. What’s your name?”
“Tant,” Leila whispered, cuddling closer.
“Her name’s Leila, and she’s not my daughter. She’s my girlfriend’s,” he told the woman, surprised how good it felt to say the word girlfriend.
The woman arched a brow in surprise. “I would’ve never guessed. Well, you and Leila are doing amazing. We need more men like you, soldier,” she said and he glanced down at himself.
He’d forgotten he was wearing his army green again.
Obviously Leila couldn’t care less about what he was wearing and he kept forgetting it because he practically lived in it most of the time. “Thank you,” he replied, flustered. The woman left and he stood, placing Leila on her feet in front of him.
“You two are adorable,” an elderly man next to him agreed and Tank gave him a small smile. “Your child or not.”
“I couldn’t see myself without her. I’d probably still insist on seeing her even if her mother and I don’t work out,” Tank stated, meaning it.
The older man winked. “That’s the material fathers are made of, young man.” The guy patted his shoulder and then Leila’s head. She turned, hiding against Tank’s legs.
“Thank you, sir. I think I need to find something to eat for the little monster here. You have a great day.” He nodded as a way of goodbye and then nudged Leila along the huge window, his heart full of love for her—and worry for the time when Evy might decide he wasn’t good enough to be with her and her daughter.
“Thomas?”
He froze. He recognized the voice and it was the last place he’d expected to hear it. Maybe he could pretend he hadn’t heard it.
“Look, Lei, let’s go and get you some ice cream, okay?” Naturally the girl didn’t move when he wanted her to, so he picked her up again, ready to flee when a soft hand wrapped around his elbow.
“Son?”
He turned to his mother, eyeing her up and down. She was wearing clean jeans, a dark jacket and her hair was in an updo. She even wore makeup, and Tank knew exactly what that meant.
“You’re out to find someone to warm your bed, mother?” he asked, his voice cold, hostile. Leila seemed to sense the change in his mood and cuddled into him, not even glancing at his mother.
“Is that the brat you told me about?”
Tank had a hard time to keep his grip on Evy’s daughter light. “Her name’s Leila.”
“She looks okay for a child, I guess. I’m telling you, don’t tie yourself to a woman with a child. She needs you to fuck her, and maybe pay some money for her daughter, nothing else. She wants to bring her child up. You’re nothing more than a means to an end.”
“Is that what you did?” he snarled.
She smirked. “I didn’t bring them home because they didn’t need to see you. But yes, some men tried to tie me down by giving me money for my child, and I took it gladly. Their own fault for being so naive. Still, I wasn’t out for that. I needed someone to chase away the loneliness, and to remind me I’m a woman instead of just a mother.”
He gritted his teeth before licking his lips. “You were never a mother. You dressed me and fed me. Mothers love their children. You never did.”
He wanted to go. They had an audience and he knew it, but feared if he’d just walk away now she’d create even more drama.
“Have you ever been heartbroken, Thomas? Have you? Wept because of a girl who’d left you?”
He stayed silent because they both knew the answer.
She smiled smugly and he finally turned halfway away from her, pressing Leila closer to his body, wishing he could shield her from this talk.
“You haven’t, because I raised you right. It’s what mothers do. They teach their children,” she announced. “And I did a fucking good job. You never had to drown your sorrow in alcohol because you never felt any.”
“You taught me that human relationships are nothing but an annoyance, taught me to think girls were cheap and worth nothing. You taught me no one would bother loving me anyway so I shouldn’t even try. Yes, I never drowned my sorrow because I never knew how it was to be truly loved. And now I’m not sure I’ll ever know because I haven’t gotten anything I could compare it to. If you’ll excuse me, mother?”
He started walking then, hoping she’d just throw up her hands in anger and leave him alone.
Of course he had no such luck.
“You’ll see I was right, son. The woman will move over body, and even before the sheets have cooled, she’ll be out the door, never to return. Love’s not worth it. Love’s not real!”
He kept walking until he wasn’t in the same room anymore, and even then he kept walking until he felt he’d gotten as far away from that woman as he could.
“Tant,” Leila whimpered and he kissed her small head.
“I’m right here. I love you, little one, and I’m not mad at you, okay?”
She rubbed her nose against his shoulder and when he asked about ice cream again, she just shook her head.
Sighing, he searched for a bench to sit down and did, Leila in his lap, just holding her since she dug her small fingers into his jacket, unwilling to let him go anywhere at all.
* * *
Never in her entire life had Evy been as mad as she was when Tank’s mother tried to embarrass him in front of all people. He held onto her daughter as if he could protect her from the world, from those cruel words, and Evy’s heart squeezed tightly, almost making it impossible for her to breathe.
How could some who’d been raised by a monster like that be the way with her Tank was? It did explain a lot though.
“You’ll see I was right, son. The woman will move over body, and even before the sheets have cooled, she’ll be out the door, never to return. Love’s not worth it. Love’s not real!”
Evy watched as Tank walked out of the room, and as much as she wanted to follow him, comfort him, she had a feeling he needed a few moments to calm down. Instead she went over to the woman he’d called his mother.
“Ms. Michaels,” she said pleasantly, “I’m the woman who moved over your son’s body and you won’t believe it, I’m still here. It’s called a girlfriend. I’m his girlfriend. We did the deed and I’m still here. Also, I don’t let him pay for my daughter because she’s my daughter until maybe one day he decides differently, and then she’ll be his daughter, too, because he will have adopted her. I’d say that’s what happens when you love someone more than your own life and you know how that feels, but you clearly don’t.” She took a deep breath, wondering if she should really go off on Tank’s mother, but then she remembered the way Tank had stiffened, the way he’d pressed Leila closer to his body, and couldn’t help herself.
“I guess I can be thankful your son didn’t turn out the way you wanted him to. He might have never felt heartache, but here’s a newsflash: you can only appreciate life if you know downsides. Lucky for you I don’t plan on ever showing him those. This guy, the one you just publicly embarrassed in front of strangers, is one of the most incredible people out there, and it’s your loss because you will never get to see that side of him. You don’t deserve that side.”
His mother stepped so close, their noses were almost touching. She smelled of cheap perfume and even cheaper hair spray, but Evy couldn’t deny she recognized Tank in almost every line on that face. The stubborn mouth, the steely blue-gray eyes, even the bleakness in her expression, it was everything Evy had seen in him before.
As if there was nothing to look forward to, nothing to wish for, nothing to live for. She’d seen the expression on him when she’d first met him, when they’d been out for burgers that night. The thing was, she was too far stuck in her own problems back then to recognize how much he seemed to suffer, too.
“My son will be back to see his mother the moment you break his heart. Women pretending to want something more than just a dick are liars. You’re the ones ruining society because men go on benders to repair their broken hearts. Love is not real. You’re all hiding in the illusion that another person would be willing to think about you the way you think about yourself, but it’s not true. If you don’t look out for yourself, no one does. I’m his mother. I’ve known him all my life, and Thomas will realize a relationship is not what he wants. The fighting, the discussions, the justifications; he was never one for those. You will see.”
Evy snorted in disgust. “You have never known your son or you’d be able to see that he needs nothing more than a person to have utter faith in him.”
Ms. Michaels cackled. “And you’ll be that woman? Risking that your daughter ends up heartbroken because there will come a point when he realizes she’s not his child? What if you two have a baby together? He’ll always put the second child first because it’s his blood.”
“You are a disgraceful woman. Jesus.”
Evy had nothing more to say. Someone living so far out of this world would probably never see reason.
“Fuck him as long as he’s still ready to be with you, girl, and then mark my words, you’ll see the world the way I do.”
Even while she walked away Evy shook her head. She had no idea where Tank possibly could’ve gone, but figured it would be as far away from his mother as possible. She kept walking straight ahead until the hall ended in a smaller room, and there, on the bench, she found him holding onto her daughter for dear life.
Evy went over, wordlessly leaning in as he looked up at her, and kissed him softly, gently, hoping he understood all she couldn’t phrase.
He wrapped one arm around her and drew her between his legs, pressing his face into her chest.
She rested her lips against the top of his head, staying where she was until he let go of her again.
* * *
“Wait here, I’ll be right back,” Evy announced, getting out of his truck to unbuckle Leila and take her into the house. The ride back to Hilary’s place had been a silent one, and she wasn’t the least bit surprised.
She wasn’t sure what to say as long as her daughter was around, and doubted Tank would know where to start.
“Tant, mommy?” Leila asked and Evy walked around the car, opening the driver’s door. Tank unbuckled himself and turned in the seat, pulling Leila in his arms. She sloppily kissed his cheek.
“Good night, little one,” he whispered.
“Love you,” Leila replied and Tank smiled, but it was tinged with sadness.
“Love you, too.”
Evy took her daughter back, kissing her child’s cheek before going inside.
“Hilary?” she called, waiting for a few seconds. It would be just her luck that Hils wasn’t home that night. Not that she wanted her friend to always stay home, but that evening she needed her to take Leila again.
“Evy, I… what’s going on?” Evy had no idea what was written on her face, but Hilary seemed to sense her mood.
“We met Tank’s mother at the Aquarium. I’ll tell you tonight, okay? For now can you please just watch her for a few hours? I have a feeling this night would end in a lot of alcohol for him and I’d kinda… I want to avoid that.”
Hilary took Leila from her, Hils’ expression going soft. “Go and take care of your boyfriend. But I want to know what’s up, okay?”
Evy kissed her cheek. “Thank you. I’ll see you tonight.”
She turned and Hilary called after her, “Take two blankets from the hallway closet. You might need them.”
Evy liked that suggestion and grabbed two blankets and a spare pillow for good measure, then she went back outside, placing the things in the backseat before slipping into the passenger side again.
“What’s going on?” Tank asked and she turned to him.
“Let’s go somewhere,” she whispered and he licked his lips, shaking his head.
“I’ve had enough emotional talks for the day,” he insisted.
She took his hand, kissing the back of it. “Come on, baseball stadium view?” she suggested and he sighed in resignation.
She didn’t say anything until they were parked and he got out wordlessly. She followed, grabbing a blanket and a pillow and then asked him to place her on the hood again the way they had done just a few nights ago.
“I might not have been friendly to your mother, exactly,” she began and felt him wince behind her. She pulled his arms more securely around her, making sure he wouldn’t pull back.
“I had hoped you wouldn’t have heard anything. I mean… Obviously I should’ve known but… It’s not you. I swear it’s not you that’s her problem,” he whispered, kissing her cheek.
“I never thought it was, but… I have a feeling we need to talk. She never hit you, did she? Let you go hungry?”
“Evangeline.”
She could count the times he’d called her that on one hand and it hurt her heart, but she needed him to open up.
“Tell me,” she insisted. “I’m your girlfriend. I want to know everything about you. I need to know everything about you.”
He shifted, clearly trying to get away, but she didn’t let him. “What for?” he snapped. “So you can decide if I’m worthy of your time and attention?”
She would’ve normally been hurt by his defensiveness, especially because she hadn’t attacked him, but since she knew where it came from, why he doubted each little thing she said, she wasn’t mad.
She knew he doubted himself, not her.
She turned in his arms, not surprised when he didn’t look at her. Cupping his cheek, she waited until Tank brought his eyes back to hers. “I need to know so I can prove to you whatever you think about yourself is not true. I need to know your dark corners so I can shine light into them. You know my deepest secrets, my darkest fears. Give me the same insight, please.”
He lowered his lashes, resting his forehead against hers. “You’re not gonna drop it, will you?” he asked and she shook her head.
“You’re my boyfriend, she repeated as if that would make any difference. “You want to be part of my life, so let me be part of yours.”
He stayed silent for the longest time, then tucking her into his side before clearing his throat.
“The first time I realized things were different was when mom dropped me off at preschool. Every mother kissed their child goodbye, but not mine. She just reminded me to not let anyone tell me what to do, and to remember that friends hurt us.”
She sighed. “I cannot decide if your mother is afraid of commitments, or heartbroken.”
“I don’t think she’s either. Her parents raised her to not count on friends or others to forge her happiness. They taught her to rely on herself and take what she wanted. When one of her ‘take-what-you-want-nights’ turned out to have an unpleasant result, she excelled in making sure I stayed away from people. She’d tell me how everyone would try to steal my toys. In kindergarten I didn’t have friends. When I went to elementary school, I wasn’t exactly a social guy anyway and had never learned to share. Of course people didn’t like when I took everything from them, and my mom started telling me that this was what love did. If you counted on people to like you, you would only end up hurt. And I did. I’d been an asshole child, but I didn’t understand that… probably until I met you for the first time, although joining the Army helped a lot too. Not helping me see the error of my ways, but, you know.”
He shrugged and she kissed his nose.
“Up until today I still don’t know how I ended up with Jazz as my best friend. We’re like day and night.”
Evy didn’t agree. “You’re not. The difference between you and him is that by the time you met you’d been through eighteen years of hearing you don’t need friends and that since people disappoint you anyway, you should just take what you need. Luckily he saw right through that. You are just as kind, and sweet, and as beautiful inside out as he is. He probably saw that in you. He knew there was a loyal soul under the asshole attitude.”
He chuckled, but there was no humor in the tone.
“When I got into high school a girl I really liked—or thought I liked—took my virginity. She rode me in the locker room. It was an affair of what? Two minutes? Three? It was my first year, I think even my first week, and when I met her in the hall afterward she looked at me and told me all she’d needed had been that round of sex.”
Evy gritted her teeth. “Proving exactly what your mother had been trying to tell you. Don’t get attached, they don’t want more.”
He nodded. “When the guys I hung out with the football assholes, I started dating girls for four weeks or so, I started tumbling into beds, walking away from the girls. I was good at sports, I was decent in school, and I was handsome—”
“Still are.”
“Huh?” He blinked.
“You still are, Tank. Handsome.”
Finally a small smile came to his lips. “You don’t need to charm me. I’ve already fallen for you.”
Which was a surprise to begin with. With everything he knew, everything he’d been taught from his mother she couldn’t believe he was the way he was around her.
“I’m serious, not charming you. But yes. Why me? And why… I mean… why the change?”
“Jazz is like my brother. We’ve traded punches before. We’ve fought over stupid things, but Jazz always stood by me. Through basic training, through everything after, he was always by my side. Always. It was when I started to wonder if maybe there was more to friendship than my mother ever let on. However, when he met Tessa, the way he was, I felt as if maybe—”
“Your mother had been right? You thought he’d abandon you,” she concluded.
He nodded, but then shrugged. “I figured maybe if I was putting effort in, he wouldn’t leave. I was ready to try once. And then I saw the way Tessa changed him, the way she held him. The way he looked at her and for the first time in my entire life I’d been seriously and downright jealous. I knew the girls I fucked weren’t like Tessa, but I also knew everyone around here knows me, knows my reputation. When you came, I figured I could see how I was with someone who didn’t know me. Someone who’d not heard about me.”
She brushed her fingertips along his arm. “I was your experiment?”
He laughed softly. “No, you were the one thing that could change me for the better. You were my one shot at a happy life, because when I saw Tessa and Jazz together I knew I wasn’t happy. Not sappy-happy like Jazz was.”
She giggled. “Sappy-happy. I like that.”
And she really did, because he was with her, and it was exactly what she felt.
* * *
Tank lifted his hand, entwining their hands with a soft smile. “Sappy-happy is when you grin like stupid, you know, and if someone says anything negative to you, you just grin and shrug. Nothing can touch you. And then you told me about your asshole one night stand and I knew I didn’t want to be like that guy.”
Anymore. Maybe he should’ve added the word, but then he knew no matter what, he’d have at least paid for his own child, and that already made him different from Ian Lanestrong.
“You never were like that guy, Tank.”
He kissed her fingertips. “Not with you, but I was.”
God, looking back at that time now made him wonder how he’d not been able to see it earlier. “When Jazz left, the devastation in Tessa, the way she paled… I wanted that. I knew I’d have to change and try, but… with Jazz gone, I didn’t exactly have a role model any longer.”
He was friends with a lot of the soldiers at the base, but none he trusted the way he’d trusted Jazz—still trusted Jazz—and it had been sobering.
“Do you remember that night when you were all there, and we’d tried to keep them apart, and he called her because he couldn’t drive anymore?”
“Because of the fallen soldier?”
“You weren’t there, at the base. You didn’t see her, Ev. The way she sat, not caring about anything but holding Jazz together… I hated her that moment… and him, for having that. She’d been amazing and sweet, and I realized there was no one I could’ve called, no one I could’ve spoken to. No one who would’ve bothered coming over just to hold me, even risking me not wanting to see her.”
Evy nodded against his shoulder and he rested his cheek against her hair. “She knew he was the one. She’d known it from the moment she sat across from him at the airport.”
“I wanted to see you that night. So bad.”
The confession left her silent for a few seconds.
“I know.”
Now this left him speechless. “You do?”
She nodded. “I’ve been wondering if you’d ever mention it. That call.”
The drunk-dialing he usually wouldn’t do and yet had been tempted to do many more times with her.
“I didn’t say anything bad.”
“Agreed, you didn’t,” she confirmed, making him exhale quietly. “However, we talked for ten minutes. Maybe a little more. You don’t remember anything of it, do you? Not at all?”
He wondered if he could lie, but chances were she’d realize that before he’d even said a full sentence. “No, I don’t. I knew I’d called you because you were in my call log the next morning.”
“Did you ever wonder why I stayed in contact with you even after going back?”
He hadn’t, no. He’d simply hoped it was that he had finally found a way to act right toward a girl. “Not really, no. Now I think I should start worrying.”
She laughed, touching his chin and turning his face toward her until she could kiss him. He closed his eyes, enjoying the sweet way her lips lingered on his, then pulled back. “Tell me.”
“I remember your very first sentence, word for word. You said you wished you could change the world because you knew in this one you weren’t the guy for me. You went on about not being the one for yourself, either, which didn’t make sense, and you also talked about how you wished that just once someone would reach out to touch you without the intention of getting fucked. You wanted to be touched for the sole reason of that person wanting to touch you.”
Jesus, he’d obviously been more than just a little emotional. “Tell me I didn’t cry.”
She chuckled. “Just for the fun of it I should say you did, but no. You were surprisingly sober in the way you spoke, as in yes, you slurred the words something fierce, but your thoughts seemed to… I don’t know, as if for the first time in your life you were seeing clearly. You were heartbroken, Tank; shattered, crushed, and no one was there to pick up your pieces. You were so lonely, you called a woman you barely knew, had seen less than a handful of times. I cried for you that night.”
He let that sink in, and she didn’t say more. He wished he could recall that talk, only to remember all the sweet words she’d probably said, all the soul-soothing she’d tried.
“If I’d had a car that night, Tank, I would’ve come. I would’ve come even if you’d have regretted seeing me, had pushed me away. I would’ve come so you’d have seen the world isn’t a lonely place.”
“You don’t mean that,” he rasped out, wondering how different the last year could’ve been had she been able to get her hands on a car.
“I considered calling a cab, but—”
“Not at night as a lone woman,” he instantly protested and she laughed.
“Exactly. You sat with me when I had one of the worst evenings of my life, and I wanted to extend the same courtesy to you. You deserved it.”
“Not back then.”
She twisted in his arms again until she could look at him. “That night. The first night. Every night after. You always deserved it, Tank, and you always will.”
She framed his face and he kissed her, held her, and didn’t let go until he had his emotions under control again.
For a brief moment he wondered if she’d noticed the single tear rolling down his cheek, but she didn’t comment on it.
“I love you, Evangeline Jackson. Have for so many months. Never thought I could, but I do.”
She smiled, kissing the tip of his nose. “I love you, too. Probably have for a while already, but I was too afraid.”
“I would’ve been, had I listened to you fucking someone in a back alley.”
“Never again,” she insisted.
He grinned. “Unless it’s you.”
She laughed. “Okay, that might be negotiable.”
He drew her in again, kissing her another time and yet, although everything seemed perfect, he couldn’t deny that suddenly he worried the worst was yet to come.