Sweat trickles from his hairline, down his forehead and cheeks. “Thanks, Mom.” Mom. I’ll get over it eventually.
“Great game, bud,” Gavin says, scruffing up the mop of blond curls atop his head when he removes his ball cap.
Noah beams. “So, we’re going to Lily’s Pizza, right, Dad?”
The look on Gavin’s face lets me know he’s not used to the new shortage of letters when he’s being addressed, either.
“Yeah,” Gavin replies before looking at me apologetically. “I promised because I didn’t—”
“It’s fine,” I say with the wave of my hand. “I’ve got yard work waiting and—”
“How’s the job going?” Gavin interrupts as if he’s been dying to ask the question.
“Pretty good. I mean it’s boring as hell, but it’s better than nothing.”
Gavin nods, his eyes covering me in a long sweep. “Good, that’s good.”
“Yeah,” I say with a shrug, “well, it beats the former routine, right?”
Noah’s voice cuts in. “Can Mom come for pizza too?” he asks, steepling his little hands beneath his chin. “Please?”
Unable to bear hearing my husband come up with an excuse for why I can’t, I decide to beat him to the punch. “Mommy’s busy tonight—” I start before he cuts me off.
“She’s coming,” Gavin replies. “If you want?”
“Yeah?” My pulse races. “You sure?”
His hazel eyes hold mine in an intense stare. “Yeah,” he answers, his lips tipping up slightly. “Positive.”
We find ourselves at home later that night, the three of us. Noah was on such a high, neither of us could deny him when he asked if Gavin could have some of the cake I baked earlier. It’s his favorite, and after the easy conversation at dinner, I didn’t want to part ways either. He must have felt the same because after cake we find ourselves playing Farkle until Noah damn near falls asleep at the table. I make myself busy cleaning up the dessert dishes as Gavin carries him to bed.
“You going to wash that dish all night?” Gavin asks as he walks over, taking it from me.
“You make me nervous, Captain,” I admit.
My reply stuns him, and he looks over at me as he runs water over the plate.
“In a bad way?”
“No,” I say. “In an ‘On a scale of one to America, how free are you tonight?’ way.”
Pain mars his features as I quickly apologize. “I didn’t mean I was trying to pick you up, I just feel like—”
“Like we’re strangers,” he says low.
“But I don’t want to be,” I tell him truthfully.
“I think we’re working on it,” he replies, grabbing his keys from the counter.
“I agree,” I say eagerly at his back. “You don’t have to go…unless you want to.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay,” he says, his voice painfully frank.
“Okay.”
“Goodnight,” he says, closing the door behind him without looking back at me.
“Fuck you, heart, don’t start with me,” I mutter as I twist my lips painfully. “Please fucking stop.”
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
There are things I’ve done in the past eight months that I can’t erase. There are things I’ll always regret. Things I could’ve done to make the lives of those I love easier. I can’t change them, but what I can do is battle with the woman I’ve become to stop hiding. And as my front door flies open, and I chase after Gavin, I do the one thing I can do now.
“Gavin,” I say on a breathless prayer as he opens his truck door, looking back at me with earnest eyes. It’s then I know that for once, I’m making the right call.
“Can we talk?”
Gavin watches me pace the porch as I recall every detail of my deployment, from the minute I left him to the second he saw me at the airport. Sometimes he’s silent, and I can see his mind is racing. Sometimes he throws out a question, cringing at my reply. But the worst of it is when I explain in detail what happened in that bunker. All the blood leaves his face as I describe the first day and Mullins’s death. I spare him nothing about my relationship with Chris, and he visibly flinches with each fact I unearth. The tears between us are endless as he joins me in my pacing and then sits helplessly on the stairs as I kneel at his feet, giving him the details of the day they tore a piece of me away I’ll never get back. We cry. We argue. Twice I thought he would leave, but each time he cements himself back to where he stands and runs his hands through his hair before urging me to keep going. By the time the sun rises, we’re both destroyed as we console each other with whispers and apologies, mostly mine.
It’s one of the darkest nights of my life, but I relive it all for him, for myself, for the truth our relationship deserves, and when he finally gets back into his truck, I see something I haven’t seen in his eyes in a very long time—respect.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Briggs
I have one last promise to keep.
Geared up, I rest against the wall behind my single bed, with my earbuds in, and insert the disk while the guys rally around me, amped up for our mission.
We’re heading out soon, just waiting on the call. Infantry is the bottom of the totem pole. To put it simply, we follow orders, strapped up with ammo. I keep the adrenaline at bay for the moment as I sink into the support of my mattress. An hour in, I’m tossing my head back in laughter when one of my buds is pulled from my ear.
Henley glances at the screen before looking down at me. “What the fuck are you doing, man?”
“Have you seen this?” I say, choking on the sight of Cuba Gooding, Jr.’s bare ass as he proclaims he’s all heart.
“Jerry McGuire? Who the hell hasn’t?”
No wonder they were fucking laughing at me.
Damn you, Scottie.
I can’t help my smile. “Me. Damn, man, Cuba shoulda won an Oscar for this.”
Henley looks down at me with a chuckle. “He did. Where the hell were you?”
It’s Scottie’s question, and it stings, but I laugh through it. “I have no idea. The movie’s old, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s older. I guess I need to rephrase the question. What the fuck are you doing watching Jerry McGuire before we roll out?”
“Simple. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.” I put my earbud back in as he gauges my ‘fuck off’ vibe and takes off with a shake of his head. It’s only minutes later that the raw ache starts to take the place of the laughter, and I sink into no man’s land.
You matter. You matter. You matter so much.
I can’t ignore it anymore. No matter how hard I try to reason with myself that the way we left it is the way it should be left, I can’t accept forever without her. Eventually, I’ll have to, but the agony in her voice tortures me. She deserves the same type of declarations from me. Often, I replay her last words in my head—filled with desperation and love—and I wonder if what she hears when she thinks of me are the hurtful words I spit at her.
If I die tomorrow, is that all she’ll remember?
Tossing the remote, I make a beeline for the communications tent and steal the last available space. My fingers fly over the keys. I hear Henley call for me just after I finish up and hit send. Stepping away from the desk, with my heart laid bare, I grip my tags and squeeze, making peace with it before tucking them into my jacket.
Fifteen minutes later, we have our orders. I fasten my helmet, rushing out to join Henley, Tucker, and Dunn at the Humvee.
“I’m driving,” I say as he eyes me.
“Help me, help you,” he mocks with a chuckle.
“Fuck yourself,” I say as he climbs in next to me, riding shotgun. I can’t help my chuckle as I start it up.
“What’s your fascination with that movie, Sarge?” Henley asks.
Dunn speaks up on my behalf. “It’s not the movie—it’s the girl.”
“Intuition will do you better where we’re going,” I snap back in the rearview. “Make sure you use that shit today.”