by Marie James
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?” I feign confusion as I watch her in the reflection of the mirror.
“That thing where you disappear into the 1950s.” She grins back at me. “Life isn’t like that these days. Men suck. They’re too fickle and want instant gratification. Men aren’t made for the long-haul anymore. Wanting perfection is only going to lead to heartache.”
“So what are you suggesting? Should I just be alone for the rest of my life?”
“You’d probably be better off dating women.” She says it with a smile on her face, but I know deep down she believes it. Melissa, however, didn’t grow up in a loving home surrounded by other couples dedicated to their spouses. Devotion is all I know, whereas, heartache and pain are all she’s experienced. Our world views are completely different.
I laugh at her blasé response. “There are still good men out there.”
“Like Griffin?”
My fingers stop their path through my hair, and I turn to glare at my friend.
“Why would you bring him up right now?”
She knows I’ve struggled with my unrequited feelings for my childhood friend. She also knows how hard it was for me to take a step back and accept that things will never be more than they always have been with him. Even opening myself up to the possibility of dating John and not shoving him in the friend zone as I’ve done with every other boy who has spoken to me has been difficult.
“Look,” her face falls as she shifts her body, so she’s sitting up on the edge of my bed, “I didn’t mean anything by it. I just know you’re pining for him, and I don’t want your obsession with the hot Marine to interfere with you possibly having a good thing with John.”
Confusion draws my brow in. “You just told me I’m better off dating women. Now you’re telling me John may be good for me?”
“I think putting yourself out there is great.” She clasps my hand in hers. “John seems like a great guy. He’ll—”
A knock at the door interrupts our conversation, and honestly, I’m grateful for the intrusion. Sometimes Melissa’s negative outlook on life frustrates me, and I know she feels the same way about my positive view of lasting relationships.
“Look at you,” Delilah says with a wide grin after I pull open the door.
I would spin and show off a little for my oldest friend, but her fiancé Lawson is right behind her, and I’ve never been completely comfortable around members of the opposite sex. I want to do nothing more than turn right around to Melissa and point in his direction, showing her a good man that will do anything to make his woman happy for the rest of her life, but I refrain. Bringing outsiders into our argument won’t help in the long run.
“What’s up?” I sweep my arm toward the living room, urging them inside the tiny apartment. “You usually call before showing up.”
Tension tightens my muscles when I see Delilah twisting her fingers before she speaks.
“What’s wrong?” My mind immediately runs down the list of bad things that could’ve happened to the ones I love. I know this has to do with the family. Even though we’ve been in Providence for three years, we’ve mainly just stuck to each other. I only recently branched out in the last year because Delilah moved in with Lawson after they got engaged, and I had to find a new roommate.
“It’s Griffin.”
Mentally I’m an immediate wreck. A lump so big I’m certain it will never dislodge forms in my throat, and my muscles seem to lose their ability to hold me up. On the outside, I’m stoic and resigned. I always knew this could be a possibility. Fighting our nation’s enemies is a dangerous job. The United States loses soldiers every day in battle.
“Have they recovered his body?” I also know that in deep fighting sometimes it takes a while for remains to be collected and sent back to the states.
“What?” As if she’s just now following my train of thought, Delilah’s eyes widen, and she lunges for me. “No! He hasn’t been killed.”
My head shakes, my hands tremble uncontrollably. Even though I should feel relief at her words, my body isn’t as readily able to shut down the path it was already traveling.
“Gigi called me. Griffin got into trouble on the base in San Diego. Your dad and uncle went to go get him.”
“Get him? That makes no sense. You don’t just show up on base and take someone home. What did he do?”
Delilah looks back at Lawson before turning her sad eyes back at me. “He was selling drugs.”
As if slapped in the face, I take two steps away from her. It’s all the space I’m allowed before my back slaps against the wall. “Drugs? That’s impossible. He’d never even use drugs, much less sell them.”
“I’m just telling you what Gigi told me. They left two days ago to get him.”
“Two days?” I screech. “Why am I just now hearing about it?”
She shrugs. “I came as soon as she called, but she’s got the baby and Hound just made it back. She’s been distracted.”
“I have to pack.” I turn away from her and head toward my bedroom.
“I thought you were going home next month,” Melissa says as I pass her.
“I have to go now.” I pause a second before turning back to Melissa, Delilah, and Lawson. “Why don’t we all go?”
I plead with my eyes, knowing I need a buffer where Griffin is concerned. Delilah has always been a great one, and I know she won’t travel without her man.
“You’ve always wanted to visit,” I remind Melissa before turning back to Delilah and Lawson. “And you guys were just talking about a trip out there to see the baby.”
Sad smiles cross Melissa’s and Delilah’s faces, but they both nod in agreement.
“I need a little time to make arrangements at the shop, but I bet I can swing a long weekend,” Lawson says as he looks down at his woman for confirmation that this is actually what she wants to do.
“I think a long weekend is exactly what we all need,” I agree. I head into my room to pack, knowing I won’t be back to Rhode Island for a while.
The text I send to John to cancel our date is short, explaining I have a family emergency and don’t know when I’ll be back.
Chapter 3
Griffin
“Can you keep my shit until I find a place to stay?”
Cannon slowly blinks at me but nods eventually.
“Dad is going to want to see you.” His tone is hopeful, and I know he wants to hang out. We haven’t spent much time together in the last four years.
More importantly, he wants to ask the millions of questions swarming around in his head that he didn’t ask on the trip back from San Diego. At least he’s mature enough now to hold that shit in until we’re alone. Unfortunately for him, I have no damn desire to ever speak about what has happened in the last six months.
“Where do you plan to go?” I watch Dominic and Kincaid as they climb out of the SUV. “You have your room here at the house.”
Ignoring his second statement, I palm my keys and head toward my bike. “I need a drink.”
The roar of my bike and the fresh New Mexico air on my face doesn’t bring the calm it always has in the past. I’m nearly thirteen hours away from the base, a lifetime for some people, and yet the tension in my muscles is still there.
Jake’s is a welcome sight, and I can’t get my bike parked soon enough. The hole-in-the-wall bar has been around forever, and my parents used to come here to drink decades ago. Thankfully, they tend to stay closer to home these days.
As I make my way to the front door, I observe that there are only a few cars and no bikes in the lot.
“Thank God for small favors,” I mutter as I tug open the heavy wooden door.
No one turns my way or yells my name when I step inside. They don’t pause their conversations to include my arrival back home in whatever they’re celebrating tonight. Not one person stands from their stool to ask why I’m here, or to interrogate me on what happened back on base. Yet, shame and cont
empt for every one of my choices weigh heavily on me as I cross the floor to the stool on the far side.
I don’t recognize the middle-aged bartender, and he doesn’t recognize me as I order a beer. Whiskey would work better, but as much as I hate where my life is right now, I’d never cause my parents more grief by wrapping my bike around a telephone pole. The disgrace I’ve already brought to my family is enough to last a man a lifetime.
“I’ll have what he’s having.”
“Fuck,” I hiss just as I feel a friendly slap on my back.
“You come into town and don’t even call me?”
I give my oldest friend the best smile I can manage and turn to shake his hand.
“You know better than that.” He shoves my hand away and wraps his arms around me for a hug. I tolerate the embrace, grateful he releases me after only a few seconds.
“Hey, man. I was going to call you,” I lie.
James rolls his eyes as he takes the empty stool beside me. His attention stays on me as if he’s trying to read my mood even when the bartender slides his beer across to him.
“How long are you back this time?”
My beer bottle holds all of my attention, my fingers working on a loose corner of the label as I decide whether to lie or tell him a partial truth.
“I’m back for good,” I say without further explanation.
I could’ve easily told him a few weeks and then made plans to move away, but just the thought of leaving my hometown crushes my soul. I’ve already given up so much already, and pure selfishness will keep me here.
“What happened?” he asks with a huge smile on his face. “Decide taking orders wasn’t what you wanted after all?”
He’ll never know how true those words actually are, but he also doesn’t know that it’s not the screaming of commands in my face and the motivational yelling in boot camp I have trouble with.
“Something like that,” I mumble as I turn up my beer bottle and wish it was something ten times stronger. “What are you doing these days?”
Hoping the classic diversion technique works, I plaster on another fake smile and try to seem interested in his civilian life.
“I’m engaged, believe it or not. Ava and I are getting hitched.”
“Ava Richfield?” I ask with honest surprise. “The girl you dated through high school?”
He grins, that sparkle in his eye the same as when he tried to convince me in junior high that the girl of his dreams just walked into his life. At the time Ava wasn’t much to look at, but by the time we graduated high school she was absolutely gorgeous.
He smiles around the mouth of his beer bottle and gives me a wink. “The very same.”
“That’s great, man.” I offer my hand in congratulations, and thankfully, he takes it this time rather than wrapping me in another friendly hug.
“Since you’re back in town, you have to be there. Bachelor party was last week. We had a hell of a time. Hate that you missed it.”
“Yeah, sorry.” Why I apologize for missing something I knew nothing about, I don’t know. “I’ll be at the wedding.”
Common courtesy forces those words out of my mouth, but my brain is already working on excuses as to why I’ll miss it.
“How are things at the compound? I bet your family is glad to have you back home safe and sound.”
“The clubhouse,” I correct for the millionth time. My friends all throughout school had a fascination with the Cerberus MC. No matter how involved the guys were in our school and the community, some parents were still leery of letting their kids associate with dirty bikers, assuming the club was some sort of cult or haven for miscreants.
James is one of the few people I ever invited to come hang out at my house. I never felt like I had to worry about him running his mouth or saying something ignorant around the guys.
“I don’t think I’ll be staying at the clubhouse or my parents’,” I explain. I normally wouldn’t even bring this up to him, but James is one of those hometown boys. He knows everyone and everything that’s happening.
“So you’re looking for a place to stay? Westridge just opened up three new buildings.”
And this is why I mentioned it to him. Finding a place, not on my parents’ property, is going to be easier than I’d hoped.
“I need something a little more secluded. Preferably someplace I don’t have to sign a lease. I don’t know what my future looks like.”
I also don’t want my parents to have to settle or clear my messes if I end up leaving town, but I don’t express this information to him.
“Last week at the bachelor party, Jared was asking if any of the guys wanted to stay at his grandparents’ place. I don’t think he wanted to ask much for rent. Said he needed someone to stay out there more as a deterrent to looters since it’s so secluded.”
“Jared Franklin?”
James nods. “His granddad died last year, but he’s under contract with his company and stuck in Santa Fe for the next two years.”
“Here.” James flags down the bartender and asks for a pen before jotting a number down on a napkin. “This is his number if you need it. Let me text him right now. It’ll be easier.”
“Thanks, man. I’ll be right back.”
While James bends his head down over his phone, I head to the bathroom. I knew coming to Jake’s ran the risk of running into someone I know, but my best friend from high school, the guy I used to tell all of my secrets to is a little too close to home.
I’ve been to war, and my childhood friend is a homebody and only ever leaves town for vacations. He’s probably one of those people who thinks there isn’t any fighting going on, and that I’ve spent the last four years scrubbing toilets with my toothbrush like he’s seen in military movies. He has no idea how lucky he is to not have experienced the shit I have.
I sigh in relief when I step into the restroom to find it empty. The last thing I need is a chatty drunk, especially after the brief trip down memory lane I just took. After splashing my face with cold water, I look in the mirror, focusing on the new lines around my eyes and at the corners of my mouth. I look much older than my twenty-three years, and I feel damn near geriatric. War takes its toll on a person, but more than the constant moving and the lack of sleep, it’s the carnage soldiers leave behind that ages them so quickly. We have a job to do, and even on a good day when a rogue lieutenant isn’t forcing your cowardly hand, the things we do in the name of our country weigh us down.
Blue eyes look back at me, almost identical replicas of my father’s, and just the realization makes me sick. I’m not my father. If he had been given the same choice I was three months ago, he would’ve bled out in the Syrian sand. It would’ve been one of the easiest decisions in his life.
The restroom door is shoved open, and I pull my face back from the mirror, watching the drunk guy as I run water over my hands as he disappears into one of the stalls. When I make it back to the bar, James is talking with the bartender.
“This is the address.” He shoves another napkin in my direction. “Jared said the key is under the mat. The only thing he asks is that you sleep in the guest bedroom. Said it’s too weird to imagine anyone sleeping in his grandparents’ bed.”
“Perfect.” I shove the napkin in my front pocket without looking at the address. We went fishing on Jared’s family’s property when we were teenagers, and I’ve always had a good memory, so I know exactly where I’m heading.
“No one’s been out there for the last couple of months, so he said to let him know if anything is wrong with the house.”
“Sure thing,” I agree.
I don’t bother sitting down. If I get out of here quickly, I can make it to the liquor store and be one step closer to passing out drunk tonight. I hold a twenty out for the bartender to take for my beer, but he waves me away.
“Veterans drink for free.” He gives me a quick smile, one that turns my stomach and walks away to help someone else.
“If that isn’t en
ough reason to do a couple of years in the military, I don’t know what is.”
I nod in what I hope looks like agreement before shoving the twenty-dollar bill in the tip jar. I’d like to wave the guy back down and force him to take my money, but that would only cause a scene and raise suspicion, neither things I want to fuck with right now.
I say my goodbyes to James, reassure him one more time that I will be at his wedding in a couple of weeks and leave the bar.
Farmington may be too crowded to stay after all.
Chapter 4
Ivy
“If we had gotten my dad to pick us up, we’d be home right now,” I complain, my eyes drilling into Lawson’s back at the counter like doing so will make things move faster.
“We needed a car,” Delilah says with a grin I can tell she’s faking. Patience with her isn’t always strong.
“There are half a dozen vehicles at the clubhouse you could use,” I remind her. “Heck, you could’ve taken the Ford Focus they offered.”
“Have you ever tried to—?” Delilah’s eyes widen as if she’s just now realizing who she’s talking to and her statement ends abruptly.
“They’re not comfortable getting kinky in a vehicle owned by someone they’ll have to face,” Melissa says with a huge grin on her face. My friend doesn’t even know Delilah well, and she’s already figured out what was going to be said.
“I think your dads know you’re having sex. You’ve been living together for almost a year. You don’t need a car to do…that.”
“Vehicles are…sort of our thing,” she says with a mischievous grin.
My nose crinkles with the thought that someone could’ve had sex in the vehicle we’re waiting to rent.
The side door of the tiny rental place we’re in opens, pulling all of our attention. Lawson’s smile is genuine even though we’ve already been delayed for an hour because they didn’t have the full-sized SUV he wanted. This man is nothing like the angry teenager that showed up at the Cerberus clubhouse five years ago. He’s matured beyond anything I would’ve expected, and I’m so happy for my best friend. That she’s not only found the love of her life, but also found someone her parents love beyond measure as well. Their relationship also gives me hope that if something ever happened between Griffin and me, we wouldn’t be cast out with claims that the family bonds are too close for something like that.
