by Laura Kaye
It was a nearly stunning admission, and he wasn’t sure why the fuck he’d made it.
Luckily, they’d arrived. Better yet, there was a possibly god-sent parking place available on the street in front of the gym.
Shayna wasn’t deterred by the fact that they’d made it to their destination. “What is ‘it’?” she asked in a quiet voice as he parallel parked.
Guilt. It’s guilt.
He didn’t give that answer out loud, of course, even though he heard her loud and clear. Instead of answering, he parked, killed the engine, and pulled the key from the ignition. Billy’s stomach tied in knots as he turned to her with the lie of ‘I don’t know’ on his tongue.
But then he saw her expression. And for just a second, he felt like he was looking into a mirror.
Shattered. Ashamed. Guilt-ridden. That’s how he would’ve described what he saw on her face.
Billy’s heart tripped into a shocked sprint.
Shayna looked away. And he would’ve done almost anything to make her look at him again, because he’d never seen another person so reflect how he felt. Why had she looked that way? He didn’t know, but the only thing he could think to do to find out was to answer her honestly.
“It’s guilt,” he said, nearly holding his breath.
Finally, those blue eyes swung back to his. The shattered shame and grief was gone from her expression, but it was there in those eyes. As if the mask she’d donned wasn’t quite big enough to cover everything she felt. “Yeah,” she whispered. “Me, too.”
Billy frowned, her words ricocheting through him. “What do you have—”
Knock, knock.
“Jesus,” he bit out, nearly jumping out of his skin. He looked to his left to see Sean and Mo standing on the sidewalk grinning like idiots. “My friends, such as they are.”
Shayna managed a chuckle, and there was a lot of relief in the sound of it. “Well, let’s do this.” She reached for the door handle, but Billy grasped her arm. When she peered back at him, he nailed her with a stare. “Can we pick this up later?”
She swallowed hard. “Maybe?”
He arched a brow, recognizing his own avoidance in her answer.
Her gaze nearly pleaded. “Your friends—”
“Can wait. Shay—”
“Okay. Later.”
Billy wasn’t sure why he’d pushed her. It wasn’t like he discussed this shit, like, ever.
But the idea that she might feel something similar made him need to know. Out of morbid curiosity. Out of a need to not just know but feel that he wasn’t alone. Out of gut-deep concern for her. Because Billy had survived something he shouldn’t have, while better men had died. He deserved the guilt he carried. He’d earned it.
“Okay,” he said with a nod.
She pasted on a smile and pushed out of the car.
What could Shayna possibly have experienced to make her feel anything similar?
The only tragedy he was aware of in her family was the death of her brother, Dylan, two years before. But he’d been killed by a drunk driver, and Shayna had been hurt in the accident, too. Billy and Ryan had been on deployment when it happened, and Ry had been gutted by the news but relieved as all hell that Shayna had survived, especially when his parents told him the cops said it was a miracle she hadn’t been hurt worse.
Of course, there was a lot about Shayna’s life Billy didn’t know. He really hoped she gave him the chance to change that.
“Hi,” Shayna mouthed as she rounded the hood of his car and reached to shake Mo’s hand.
Billy hauled himself out of the car. God only knew what his friends might say to her.
“So, this is the famous Shayna,” Mo was saying. Case in point. Billy wanted to beat him about the head and shoulders.
“Uh oh. Why am I famous?” she asked with a hesitant smile as her gaze swung from his asshole friend to him.
“Because you broke into his house,” Sean said, grinning like a shithead. “And he pulled his gun on you.”
Her eyes went wide, and he saw the question there. Did you tell them you saw me naked? Billy gave a single head shake and willed her to understand that he hadn’t told them anything else.
Finally, she grinned, and he hoped that meant the message got through. “That was me,” she said. “He was late, though, so I didn’t have much of a choice. Did he recount that part of the story?”
The guys laughed, and suddenly it was as if the three of them had known each other forever with how easily they fell in and got along. Billy followed them inside, not minding being the odd man out so much when he heard Shayna laugh at his friends’ antics.
The three men signed in on the clipboard on the counter, and then Billy made arrangements for Shayna’s seven-day visitor’s pass. When she was done filling out her paperwork, they went down one level to a large rectangular gym space. Blue mats covered the open part of the floor, and two eight-sided cages dominated the far end of the space. A few people had already arrived and were spread out on the mats, stretching and talking. Tara and Dani waved, and Billy threw a wave back.
Sean winked at them. Well, probably mostly at Dani. No doubt because it would irritate her and, sure enough, she flipped him the bird. It’d been that way between the two of them the whole time Billy had belonged to WFC. He wasn’t sure if it was actual hatred or foreplay.
“Don’t be an asshole,” Mo said to Sean as he eyeballed the exchange.
“I gotta be me,” Sean said, winking at Shayna.
She chuckled. “Oh, I see. So you’re the one who lives to get under other people’s skin.”
Sean’s expression went total who me?
“She’s got your number, Riddick,” Billy said.
“Uh huh,” Mo said, chuckling.
“I thought we were friends, Shayna,” the guy said, making her laugh again.
They dumped their belongings onto the benches at the side of the room, and Billy took the opportunity to introduce Shayna to a few more people as they arrived—Coach Mack, Leo, Colby, and Noah among them.
“Heard a lot about you, Shayna. Nice to meet you,” Noah said.
“Have you now?” Shayna said, giving Noah a sweet smile that turned suspicious as she directed it at Billy.
Noah laughed—and it was a helluva different look on the guy. The former Marine had worked his ass off to get better, and seeing him had Billy thinking of the conversation he and Shayna had nearly had in his car. A conversation about grief and shame and survivor’s guilt. Well, at least, that was the source of his own guilt.
Now, seeing how much Noah had changed held a mirror up in front of Billy, making him face the reality that he hadn’t done all the hard work he had to do on himself yet, had he?
Which made him more than a little bit of a hypocrite, given how Billy had once pushed Noah to confront his demons.
“Don’t worry,” Noah said. “Everything I heard was great.”
Shayna grinned. “Well that’s good. Nice to meet you, too, Noah.”
“Okay, let’s warm up,” Colby was saying from the front of the room.
Billy turned to Shay. “That’s my cue. We’ll be done in about 90 minutes or so.”
She nodded and hiked her small gym bag up on her shoulder. “Sounds good. I saw the cardio machines on our way in.” She retraced her steps across the training space, and Billy watched her go as he found a spot out on the mats.
“She’s a fucking cutie,” Sean said. “No wonder you’re into her.”
“What?” Billy pulled a face. “I’m—” Not into her.
At least, those were the words he’d meant to say. But they wouldn’t come. They wouldn’t pass between his lips. Because they weren’t true, were they? He’d been into her almost from day one. Hell, minute one. When she’d had a gun pulled on her, dropped her towel, and proceeded to make jokes about it.
“I’m not after her, Riddick.”
Sean held up his hands as Colby guided them through a variety of stretches. “Whatever you sa
y, man.”
Billy forced himself to think about the stretches, his breathing, how his beat-to-hell body felt as he forced it to move. Truth was, he felt like shit. Clearly his body was registering its protest that nearly a week with little sleep and almost no horizontal time in an actual bed was all kinds of unsatisfactory.
To be thirty-three and feel this fucking old was a bitch. But he was never going to be the man he’d been before, was he? At this point, that wasn’t really a newsflash, though it was never fun having that reality driven home in yet another new way…
That was one of the reasons he made a point of attending WFC almost religiously. People here got it. They lived it. Many of them had it worse.
The day he’d met Noah, Billy had asked him what his damage was. It wasn’t a question of whether someone here was damaged in some way, it was a matter of how damaged they were. And in what ways.
Because war…hell…war damaged you even if your body came back whole. There was absolutely no way to experience crisis, trauma, and violence—or even the threat of it—without it changing the way you viewed the world.
PTSD didn’t just happen to those who’d been physically injured, it could happen to anybody whose situation constantly forced them to confront the fragility of life and the capriciousness of death. As all soldiers had to do. That fragility, that capriciousness…it became a warrior’s reality. And most civilians’ real world where everyone was safe and people were good and you could protect the ones you loved—that became the fantasy world.
Even if you had enough insight into your own head to know your thinking wasn’t fully rational, there was no convincing a central nervous system that’d been trained to survive threats that those threats were now gone.
So the veterans who came to WFC were scarred, all right. In ways that were both visible and invisible. For Billy, it was some of both. His PTSD was nowhere near as bad as some, but he still had nightmares and that nearly suffocating survivor’s guilt, and he didn’t fucking like fire. No big surprise there.
All of which had him thinking about Shayna again. What was her damage? And fuck, it killed him to think she had any at all.
“All right,” Hawk said, taking over the lead when they finished stretching. “Everyone into child’s pose.” Yoga as part of WFC had seemed strange to Billy at first but was old hat to him now, and he had even occasionally worked on some more demanding yoga positions on his own time to stretch out his stubborn scar tissue.
The point of WFC wasn’t to teach you to fight, it was to provide an emotional outlet, offer community, and teach people to think, not just react, in stressful situations. It put club members in a controlled situation of being attacked, and through the rigor and training of various mixed martial arts, made you realize the value of using your head before you used your hands.
As with so fucking much else, fighting was a head game. And yoga helped teach all of them how to slow down, take a breath, and think.
Billy breathed into the position and, face to the mat, let his grimace show when he felt the pull at his muscles and back.
Because fuck. He was raw in all kinds of ways, wasn’t he?
After moving through a few more poses, they got paired off to practice technical skills. And because they were pretty evenly matched, Coach put Billy and Noah together to run through kicking drills.
“Start with handshakes,” Coach yelled as people began putting on their shin guards and spreading out over the mats.
“You can go first,” Billy offered, squaring off in front of Noah.
The guy went from zero to focused in no time flat, assuming a fighting stance—hands up, elbows close, lead leg forward. This drill was meant to improve accuracy of the roundhouse kick, which meant that Noah directed his leg in a controlled slow-mo against Billy’s ribs, and Billy caught it so the other man could assess where the ‘hit’ had landed. Noah did a number of handshakes with his right leg against Billy’s left side, and then he switched.
On the fifth practice kick against his scarred right side, Noah’s foot landed with a little more pressure. Billy sucked in a breath through his teeth.
“Shit, man. What happened?” Noah asked.
Billy rolled his shoulders. “Nothing. You’re good.” He gestured for him to keep going.
Noah crossed his arms and nailed him with a dark-eyed stare. “You gonna bullshit a bullshitter?”
“I’m just achy. Pulled a week of surveillance and haven’t seen a real bed all week until last night. I’m good. Let’s go.”
Eyes narrowed, Noah didn’t push him, but the roundhouse kicks that followed were so controlled that the guy stopped his rotation before his shin came anywhere near Billy’s body.
Billy might’ve been impressed given the guy’s occasional equilibrium problems, a consequence of his TBI, but he was too fucking annoyed at the limitations of his own body at the moment.
So, gritting his teeth, Billy glared. “Cortez, if you don’t take off the kid gloves, I’ll take them off for you.”
“Uh huh. Try it, old man,” Noah retorted. The fucker. Like their six-year age difference was that big.
On the next kick, Billy grasped Noah’s leg in a tight hold against his ribs and twisted.
Noah nearly got knocked off balance. But on a surprised laugh, he caught himself by rotating his upper body in a move that resembled the body kick mobility drills they sometimes did. “Okay, asshole.”
“Not too old after all.” He allowed Noah to twist his leg back to the roundhouse position and released him.
“Somebody has a fucking bee in his bonnet today,” Noah said as they switched so that Billy was the one practicing his kicks.
After the admittedly assholish stunt he’d just pulled, he remained on alert for Noah to catch him off guard next. But the guy let Billy do his thing, practicing a dozen kicks on each side. At first, every movement took a concerted effort, but the more he got his blood flowing, the better he started to feel.
Ah, adrenaline, my old friend.
“Okay,” Coach called as he walked around, surveying everyone’s form. “Kick attack and footwork drill. Round kicks only to the legs. No other strikes or targets are permitted. No checking the kicks either—your only defense is evasive footwork.”
Noah grinned, and Billy smirked and said, “Bring it, jarhead.”
“You’re just sad you Ain’t a Real Marine Yet,” he retorted with one of the most tired taunts in the book.
Billy took up his fighting stance as they squared off. “How many years did it take you to learn how to spell ‘army’? Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
Noah surged at him with a kick that Billy dodged. They were both fast on their feet, which served to push both of them harder, faster. Billy rounded with a kick that caught the outside of Noah’s knee. The key was to stay agile and evasive, but to remain close enough that he could quickly counterattack when he saw opportunities.
They’d been at it for a few minutes when Coach Mack came by. “Don’t drop your guard, Noah. Hands and eyes up even though you’re not punching or needing to protect your head. Make it a habit.”
Noah nodded and tightened up his stance, then he came at Billy with a vengeance.
“Good,” Coach said, clapping. “That’s what I want to see.”
Another ten minutes of the fast footwork had both of them breathing harder.
“Take a break and then we’ll run the tag team grappling match drill,” Coach called out.
“Nice work,” Billy said, offering his hand to Noah.
The guy nodded and clasped hands with him. “You too.” But when Billy went to let go, Noah held on. “I feel like something’s going on with you.” He let the words hang there for a moment before he continued. “You were there for me in some of my darkest fucking moments, Parrish. I want you to know I’m here. Just say the word.”
Billy gave him a single nod. He appreciated the sentiment. A lot.
And, begrudgingly, he even appreciated the fact that Noah was
pushing him when Billy had made it pretty clear that he wasn’t into sharing. The two of them had gotten close over the past few months, but it was the first time that Billy had really felt the kind of brotherhood with the guy that he’d had with his Ranger brothers.
Christ, how he fucking missed having it.
But as powerful as that revelation was—and it was—there was only one person who Billy had the slightest interest in opening up to. Shayna Curtis. Mostly because he wanted her to open up in return.
He just needed another chance to pin her down.
Chapter Nine
After forty-five minutes on the elliptical, Shayna was drenched in sweat and her legs were noodles. Yet, despite the good work-out, her internal voice still hadn’t stopped screaming, Why in the world did you tell Billy you felt guilty, you freaking cockburger?!
So much for exercise instilling any sort of peaceful calm…
On a sigh, she wiped down her machine and then toweled off her face. When she wasn’t berating herself, it was only because the memory of Billy’s voice intruded.
“Can we pick this up later?”
This. Meaning their conversation about the guilt that built up inside both of them, apparently. And probably also meaning the question Billy had tried to voice when they’d been interrupted by his friends.
“What do you have—” To feel guilty about… She knew without question that those were the words he’d intended to say.
Which meant that there was a one-hundred-per-cent chance that if she kept her word to resume their conversation, she would have to talk about the night Dylan died. And that Shayna really didn’t want to do.
No part of a fresh start involved telling the people new to her life about her biggest, worst, and most unforgivable failings.
Shayna didn’t want Billy looking at her with disappointment or accusation in his eyes. And she also didn’t want him telling Ryan anything she might say if she were foolish enough to give into such a conversation.
Refilling her bottle at the water cooler, Shayna muttered, “Why didn’t you keep your mouth shut?” It might’ve been the tenth time she’d asked herself that question, but that repetition was more out of a stunned shock at herself than from a lack of understanding.
