by Aiden Bates
“I want to come,” I pleaded desperately. “Let me come in your mouth, Roman. I need to come inside your mouth. Please.”
Satisfied he’d got whatever he was striving for, Roman gripped my hips and almost violently took me entirely in. I could feel the press of his forehead against my pubic bone as he picked a pace too aggressive, applied suction too tightly, and threw himself into a rhythm too fast for me to stand for long.
Curling my toes against the sensation, I groaned once, and then let out the most high-pitched moan I’d heard myself make in a long time as I felt my cock tense, judder, and spill entirely down Roman’s throat.
“Fuck!” I cried as I sank back into the couch. My heart was pounding, my mouth was dry, I could hardly breathe, and my legs were shaking while also threatening to cramp from the odd position. Amidst all of the sensations competing for my attention, Roman joined me on the couch and pulled me onto his chest, rubbing my back as I settled onto him.
After I’d stopped trembling and was enjoying the afterglow, a low laugh rumbled in Roman’s chest.
“Now I’m not the only one squealing, huh? Fair’s fair,” he said, seemingly self-satisfied with a job well done.
I hit Roman’s shoulder with the heel of my palm.
“Ow? That’s a mean thing to do after I was so nice to you!”
I smiled mischievously at him. “You call that nice? How about I show you what nice is really like?” I went to shove myself off Roman so we could switch places, but in what was surely one of the most egregious displays of terrible timing ever to be recorded in human history, my phone suddenly buzzed where it lay on the coffee table next to us.
Both Roman and I side-eyed the phone as it buzzed insistently enough to move itself around the table a little. A phone call.
“Are you gonna get that?” Roman asked as we both sat up.
“Absolutely not, I’m busy,” I explained, gesturing at Roman as the phone stopped.
Roman grinned and palmed the bulge in his sweatpants, clearly understanding how busy I was going to be. I was about to slide to the floor and put myself between his spread legs, when my phone buzzed again.
Instead of a long series of buzzes indicating another call, this was a short burst, which meant a single text. I sighed theatrically, assuming it was likely Naomi or someone from work. Probably someone from heuristics who wanted to ask me a question they should have known the answer to. I reached for the phone to confirm my suspicions but found the message was from Bennet.
Late brunch?
Ah. Well, at least it wasn’t work. I didn’t have to answer Benny now, I could always tell him I was sleeping in when he texted me. If I explained my long days at work and that I’d simply missed his text, he’d understand.
I was about to replace my phone onto the coffee table when I felt it buzz in my hand once again. Just to make sure Bennet wasn’t having some sort of brunch-related emergency, I quickly checked the phone’s screen to read the message.
I saw Roman this morning.
Okay? And? I drew my eyebrows together at the enigmatic nature of the text. Or at least how enigmatic Bennet was trying to make it seem. It might have piqued my curiosity enough to respond if I wasn’t currently salivating over a half-naked Roman on my couch. I shook my head at Benny and was literally about to tell Roman what was happening when a third and final message came through.
I’m about to knock on your door so if you’re naked, you may want to put some clothes on.
My first impulse was to run for my bedroom, but I stopped myself just in time. If Bennet really was outside, I couldn’t exactly claim to be sleeping if I let him hear me sprint through the apartment, so I clamped my hand over my mouth and forced myself to sit still. Realizing Roman would wonder what the hell I was doing and ask, I quickly locked eyes with him, transforming my hand-on-mouth gesture into a shh gesture with my finger pressed against my lips.
Roman must have assumed something was seriously wrong because a look of horror crossed his face before it morphed into the steady, calm-but-tense attention of a soldier suddenly put on high alert pending further notice.
Shit. I held up a palm, asking for a moment before I explained it to him, and then fired off one of the quickest texts I’ve ever written in response.
Knock away, buddy. I’m not home. If anyone naked opens the door, call the cops. I tried to keep the conversation light and not at all evident of how panicked I felt at the moment.
Bennet texted back a second later. Just kidding. Where are you, then?
Meeting.
What sort of meeting I might be having on a late Saturday morning I didn’t know, but as long as it was something related to work, the details would bore Benny out of his mind so I hoped I’d have plenty of time to come up with the cover story later.
While I waited for his response, I tilted my head fractionally in an instinctual attempt to perk my ears up. I stared at my front door, listening intently for any sound that might indicate someone was behind it. Roman watched me and must have followed what I was doing, as I saw him repeat roughly the same gesture himself. After a heartbeat of not hearing anything, Roman and I wordlessly turned back to each. Roman shook his head decisively as he must have a thousand times when he was on patrol, expressing his thoughts without having to say anything out loud. Nothing. I can confirm I hear nothing at the door.
I relaxed, accepting that Benny really wasn’t about to pound my door down. On one hand, that was a relief. On the other, it meant there was more reason to worry. If Benny was fibbing then he was up to something. But what?
“Did you see Bennet at the store this morning?” I asked Roman in an urgent whisper. Better safe and not make noise than sorry and have Benny double fibbing, and he really was at my door just waiting for me to give myself away.
“Uh. Why?” Roman whispered back, evidently still not understanding what was happening but continuing to take his cues from me.
“He said he saw you,” I said, only a little more loudly.
“Yeah. He lives close by so it’s not too big a surprise. What is this—” Roman cleared his throat and raised his voice to a normal volume. “Ted, what’s going on?”
“Nothing! It’s just—” My phone buzzed with another text.
Oh, alright. In that case, tell me where your meeting is so I can head over there. Maybe we can get lunch.
There was absolutely no reason for Bennet to be quite so considerate in his offer to come meet me for lunch. Benny would have already decided where he wanted to get lunch and would have told me to meet him there at his pre-determined, pre-planned location.
No, I knew Bennet Long, and this was a clear attempt to extract where my supposed meeting was taking place. He didn’t believe I was anywhere other than in my apartment, that was why he’d lied about being outside my door and then tried to play it off as a joke.
Nah, we’re actually wrapping up.
I thought about somewhere that was serving lunch, that was close enough to give me time to get dressed semi-professionally as though I really had been out and about, and that I could get to within a reasonably short period of time, comparable to the time it would take me if I were to have left from the office.
“A-ha!” I said out loud as I settled on a place that met all three characteristics.
Meet at Fishbone in half an hour or so?
The moment of victory was quickly soured though. I was pleased I’d thought on my toes, but even reading the name of the restaurant made me realize I’d forgotten to factor in a crucial, fourth consideration. My stomach was already turning at the idea of walking into Fishbone, much less at the thought of having to sit there for at least an hour while I attempted to eat normally in front of Bennet.
Nah. Let’s do the Bronze. Things are fishy enough as is.
Damnit. Well, I could definitely try admitting to something relatively minor instead of having to admit to the bigger truth. Sort of like taking a plea bargain.
If there was still any room left to d
eny anything, of course.
Sure. I texted back.
“Did you tell Bennet I was pregnant?” I asked, trying not to sound accusing but probably failing.
“What the… No, of course I didn’t. Why the hell would I do that?”
Fair point.
“I think he knows, anyway. I think he saw what you bought at the store,” I explained, uncurling my legs out from under me and getting to my feet. I had to start getting ready right that minute if I was going to make it to the Bronze and still maintain the plausibility of my cover story.
“What are you going to do?”
Roman sounded much less alarmed than I felt. Obviously, he had no idea I grew up trying to either strong-arm Bennet into confessing his childhood crushes or trying to avoid being strong-armed by him. Bennet and I had lots of practice doing this dance with each other, only the stakes were much higher now.
“I don’t know yet. I’ll figure it out on my way!” I called back, hopping as I struggled to get pants on. “Stay here in the meantime. Don’t go out, but if you do, don’t do anything incriminating!”
“Incriminating. All I did was buy pickles,” he grumbled quietly enough that I almost missed what he’d said.
Almost.
“I can’t just hide out here forever. Anyway, you’re putting away pickles and waffles like there’s no tomorrow. I’m not going to have enough provisions to camp out here for too long.”
I rolled my eyes as I rehearsed what excuses I could use with Benny.
21
Roman
Teddy left quickly after Bennet texted, and I was at a loss as to what to do around his house considering he wasn’t here to enjoy it with. I decided there was no point in wasting the whole day wandering around the apartment aimlessly, so I showered and dressed before heading out the door.
I didn’t want to go back to my place, so walked over to the VA Hospital. Besides my own check-ups and physical therapy, I’d been coming here every couple of weeks for a completely different reason. I’d gotten so wrapped up in my own life in the last month, however, a visit with Marcos and Pedro was way overdue.
The ward they had Pedro in was a long-term coma ward. Pedro had been thrown by the IED that killed Jason, took Garret’s arm and burned me, and he’d never woken up. It was always eerily quiet on the ward. Often the only noise came from the soft-soled shoes of the nurses and the constant whirring of the machines attached to patients. I took a deep breath. Ever since I was a teenager, hospitals had made me uncomfortable. In the years before I’d enlisted, my mama had been helping take care of our uncle, Ari. After dad died, Ari was the closest thing Silas and I had to a father. Eventually, he’d gotten sick, and I’d doubled down on going into the Army. Mama was working two jobs at the time, and I couldn’t stand the notion of her working her hands to the bone when I was able to contribute. Still, I’d made this trip as often as I could because, in the end, Marcos needed someone who understood.
Pedro’s room had been the same for the last year, so it wasn’t difficult to find. It wasn’t shocking to find Marcos there, curled up in the corner of the room in a chair. Marcos looked rough. He never looked completely healthy—too much time spent inside had made his skin sallow and the constant worry of his brother had given his face permanent lines from stress. But, even for Marcos, he looked rough. His hair was messy, his face more drawn than usual.
“Marcos! Hey, man! How are you?”
Marcos smiled as I approached, and I took his hand and shook it.
“Roman. It’s so good to see you.” Though he’d smiled, I could hear the sheer exhaustion in his voice. The dark shadows under his eyes told me he hadn’t slept properly in days, and from the look of the hospital room I could see why. Marcos went through phases where I was pretty certain he was basically living in the room with his brother. It looked like now was one of those times.
“Any change?” I asked. I’d asked the question so many times over the last year I didn’t need to provide any other explanation.
Marcos just looked down and shook his head. “None, and I don’t want to talk about it. God, I’m sick to my back teeth with talking about it. To nurses, doctors, my parents. Jesus, my parents.”
“What’s going on with your folks?”
“They want to take Pedro off of life support. Can you believe it? I’ve been running interference on that gem for months now. My mom keeps talking about how she thinks it’s Pedro’s time and a bunch of other bullshit I don’t want to hear.”
“What?” Dumbfounded, I looked over to Pedro. It was still so hard to see him there, motionless. Pedro had always been so active, so vital. Just like the rest of us, we’d all been in peak fitness, all young and healthy when we were serving together. Now, Pedro hardly looked like himself. But in reality, that was all of us.
“Yeah, that’s what they want.”
“What do you think?” I asked.
Marcos sucked his teeth. “No way, man. No way. I don’t know how to explain it, Roman, but I just know Pedro is going to wake up. I just know it, and I want to be sure I’m here when he does so we can rub it in everyone else’s faces.”
I nodded, trying to imagine what I’d feel like if it were Silas laying in a hospital bed or worse, Teddy. What sort of decision would I come to if I were in Marcos’s shoes? What kind of decision would I make? Could I even make one in the first place? It was an impossible position. Even though I couldn’t really understand, I did empathize with Marcos and what he was going through.
“But anyway, I heard somebody got a new job,” Marcos said, mouth pulling up into a lopsided grin.
“Now, where’d you hear that?”
“Garret’s always been a gossip for all that mean-mugging he does. That sad bastard act doesn’t fool me one iota. Damn, though. Working under Master Sergeant O’Rourke. That has to be fucking hell, man.”
I sat back in my chair and huffed out a big breath. “Fuck, you have no damn idea.”
“You remember that time he made Jason run in his underwear in the middle of that rain storm?”
“Of fucking course I do, dumb bastard. Why did Jason think O’Rourke wasn’t going to notice he just shoved all his fucking kit into his locker?”
“Probably because your dumb ass told him to do it,” Marcos replied, snorting laughter. It felt good to talk about Jason like this. Like he was still there. Don’t get me wrong. We all knew he was dead. One look in the mirror every morning reminded me of what had happened. But, still. It felt good to laugh, good to remember him as something other than a picture on a mantel. “And then, Pedro. What the hell was he fucking thinking?” Marco asked, still laughing quietly.
“No idea. Even I wasn’t stupid enough to suggest anything to Sarge, let alone second guess him. God, the look on Pedro’s face when O’Rourke told him to get out there and start running with Jason. Holy shit, we were all so damn cocky. Thought we all knew exactly what the hell we were doing all the time.”
“Didn’t take us long to get over that, now, did it?” Marcos shot a look over at his brother’s bedside.
It was quiet for a minute as we both reflected the ways in which we’d both learned that lesson.
“You know though, it’s not bad. Working with O’Rourke. It’s helped, you know? It helps me feel like I’m back to what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s important.”
“I understand that. It’s hard not to feel…displaced? I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m right where I belong here with Pedro, but sometimes I sort of, I don’t know, miss deployment. Does that make sense? Is that weird?”
It probably would have sounded weird to anyone who’d never done it for themselves, but I understood exactly what he meant. “No, I don’t think it’s weird at all,” I answered. I thought for a second to try to collect my thoughts before continuing. “I get it. I tried… Well, I tried to go back, but my injuries made me a liability out on the line. I miss it as well. Things were simple, you know? It was all about executing someone else’s plan, someone else�
��s orders. All you had to do was buckle in and—”
“Execute,” Marcos said, finishing for me.
“That’s right. Sometimes I go to a damn grocery store and just stare at things. It’s strange having options for so many things that, ultimately, deep down, don’t matter one fucking bit at all. There are so many other things that are vital, so many other things that can transform your life, and then nothing else matters except that one thing, and then…”
Marcos had gotten very still. He was looking at me intensely, and I realized I’d somehow said too much. Marcos wasn’t stupid, and his next words proved it.
“Alright, Roman, cut the shit. What’s going on?”
I dropped my head for a second and pinched the bridge of my nose. I couldn’t lie. Not to Marcos. I know I promised Teddy, but I felt like a pot about to boil over.
“Look, if I say this, can it stay here? Just us?”
“Of course, Roman,” Marcos replied. “Well, if Pedro will keep his big mouth shut, anyway.”
“We’re doing gallows humor now?”
“One, you know as well as I do Pedro would be laughing his ass off about that. And two, would you stop stalling and tell me what the hell is wrong with you?”
“I made a mistake. Well, fuck, not a mistake. Aw, shit. I mean, dammit. Alright, it’s a mistake, but like a happy mistake. One I didn’t even think was possible…”
“You got somebody pregnant,” Marcos stated matter-of-fact.
“Yeah. I did. Jason’s brother.”
“Oh, shit. You knocked up Teddy?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck. You don’t do anything by halves, Roman. Jesus. I don’t wanna be you when Sarge catches wind of this.”
“Ha. You’re telling me.”
“You reckon his aim is still worth a shit?”
“Hell yes, it is. And I’m nowhere near as fast as I was before I became a human tiki torch.”
“Now who’s using gallows humor? My therapist would say that’s bad coping.”
“Would they?”
