W

by Anne Leigh

  “I’m a prophet. I can predict these things.” Liam lifted his head from his phone where I thought he was a hundred percent focused on to the Strategy Game app that he was addicted to. “I see the way you look at her, with googly eyes and shit. You’re not that subtle. When she’s in the room, I can hear your teeth chattering from wanting to be with her and when she’s out of your sight, you’re a Gentoo, looking lost.”

  “What the hell’s a Gentoo?” I asked, mortified that he might actually know more facts than me. This was a man who stayed up for reruns of the Korean soap opera, Secret Garden, then discussed the Weinberger-Powell doctrine with me, which by the way was the guiding force before any military action should be done.

  “Jeeeyzus brother, you really need to expand your knowledge of trivia.”

  You couldn’t blame me if I rolled my eyes and hit his head this time around.

  “Aw fuck on a poodle shit, what was that for?” He pretended to rub the back of his head that I’d just slapped. “Here I am tryin’ to compare you to a gentle creature, a Gentoo penguin, and once again, you prove me wrong by being the oorah prick that you are.”

  I was from the SEAL. “I don’t oorah you douche.” He was taking a jab at me, he was trying to be hilariously annoying.

  “Fine. Got me there. Ooyah brother.”

  Hooyah was the Navy’s battle cry.

  “Anyways…” He put his right leg over his other leg. We were sitting down on a park bench overlooking the The Coffee Cake and Bar where Athena and her dad were having brunch.

  They’d invited us, but as usual we had to say no. Apart from wanting to give them time alone together, we always had a vantage point when we could see the whole picture of the situation from an outsider’s POV instead of the other way.

  Liam spoke again, “You look lost when she’s not around and I don’t mean that in the northwest, southeast-looking-for-directions kind of way. I know you’re a master of the compass. But when she’s not there, your eyes look a tad dimmer and your smile’s just a bit smaller.”

  A loud pop sounded off when my hand hit the back of his neck again.

  “Fuckity fuck off a whiny poop!” he whisper-screamed. “Why you gotta do that? Now I have to call Mimale for an appointment.”

  I didn’t even want to ask who Mimale was.

  “She’s my massage therapist.”

  My shoulders couldn’t help it. My will definitely couldn’t stomach it.

  I laughed, and laughed, and laughed until my chest hurt.

  With all the shit that we’d been through. The hundreds of hours standing guard in the Afghan desert, then fighting off Al Qaeda, and the midst of it all, Liam stood by my command and often gave me a breath of fresh air, away from the reality of wars.

  He seldom talked about his family and when he did, he didn’t talk of them fondly.

  When you were there, out in the battle field, you had to give full trust to the men who swore to protect the same flag that you did. Everyone else was a potential enemy, a probable traitor.

  And in the rare cases that you did, you found people who’d give up their lives for yours.

  Liam was one of those.

  He would take a round of bullets for me and I would for him, without second thoughts.

  “You mock me Dub-ya, but she’s the best.” He admonished, while shaking his head left to right, “I’d marry her if she didn’t have a ton of baggage.”

  “Baggage? I thought you’re not supposed to talk during massages?”

  “I don’t. I asked her afterwards. I proposed to her the first time she massaged me, but she rebuked me saying she was happily married with three kids. Yada yada yada.”

  I shook my head, “That’s her baggage?”

  “Dude, you need to lay off those steroids you call power bars. They’re messin’ with you. I can be okay with the three kids. But I’m not okay with the husband part. So yeah…baggage.”

  “Power bars aren’t steroids, you doofus. And a husband’s not baggage. She’s married so of course, he’s gonna be around.”

  “Baggage, I say.” He reiterated, “If she wasn’t married, I’d have taken her to Vegas and married her in front of Elvis.”

  “Good for you man. I’m glad you had it all planned out.”

  “Yep,” he said, and went back to playing the game on his phone.

  I could see Athena and her dad busily talking. Her face was radiant and she was beaming with joy. When her dad had spoken in front of the Senate about the current bioterrorism threats that the county was facing, she had placed her hand on mine. Liam and I had been granted entry, I didn’t use it that much but when I did, I liked to alert them first. Cooke was the Head of Security handling the ins and outs of the Chamber. I didn’t know him personally, but I’d contacted him under the vetting of Joseph and some of the friends we personally knew in D.C. He’d responded within an hour, granting us three, Liam, Athena, and I, access to the closed door meeting.

  The whole time her dad was speaking, Athena had looked away once. I knew because my eyes might have been looking forward, but my senses were attuned to hers. And that one time she’d looked away? It was to look at me and give me a smile. A smile that told me how happy she was that her brilliant father had the stage.

  “Go for it, bro,” Liam advised, as I scanned the perimeter.

  It was safe to say that Felipe’s men didn’t travel with us.

  “She’s better off with Denton,” I said, finally admitting what I’d been keeping to myself.

  “Why?” he asked, his eyes remained on the screen of his phone. “Because he’s way more attractive than you?”

  I could care less about that shit.

  “Fuck you.” It was a term of endearment.

  “I’d love to fuck myself because I’m damned good-looking.” His brown eyes hovered over his phone before glancing my way. “Denton’s a pretty boy, but you got some chops too, bro.”

  “I don’t even wanna go there,” I chided but kept on going. “He’s closer to her age. He goes to the same school as her. He’s got way less baggage than me. Plus, I gotta stay focused on keeping her safe.”

  He tore his gaze away from his phone and eyed the area where Athena and her dad were sitting. It looked like they were now having dessert.

  “You don’t have to pay me for this and I’m only gonna say this once,” he sounded off a warning, it was almost comical because his face grimaced as if something left a bitter taste in his mouth. “You’re a hundred times better than Denton. He’s chummy and all but you – you’re one of the best, bro. I see the way she looks at you and if a girl looked at me like that, forget Vegas, I’d ask her to go to the nearest town hall and marry me. Even when she’s sleeping, she turns towards you, I have pictures to prove it.” There was only one time she slept on me when Liam was around, on the plane ride from LAX to here. “The one thing I’ve learned from our missions was that we got one life. You don’t get to live it twice. You’ve gone to hell and back more than anyone I know and I know a lot of repeat ‘hell-and-back’ folks. Here’s your chance, Webb. Take it. She likes you. Probably more than she should, but she really does.”

  “She’s my detail –”

  “So? It won’t be forever.”

  “It’s going to cloud my judgment –”

  “Bullshit.” His tone held the kind of confidence that made a person believe that everything was going to turn out right. “Do you care for me?”

  “What does that have to do with this?” He was going off on tangents again.

  “Do you care for me?” The insistence in his voice was the one I’d heard on the frontlines. The one that made him a great soldier. The one that didn’t back down.

  “’Course I do,” I replied, still not getting his point. “You’re a brother to me.”

  “Did you protect me when we were out there, fighting for our lives?” A lesser man would have dropped on request (DOR) if they couldn’t go through Hell Week. Liam had graduated top honors in his class so that wa
s a lot of grit right there. “Weren’t you the one who saved my ass from being shot at how many times?”

  I remained muted.

  “You can care for someone and guard them with your life, bro. You’ve done that with me. You’ve done that for the people you protected under your command.”

  I stared ahead, trying to sort out the validity of his argument while keeping a stoic face.

  “You can do that for her, too.” He’d seen me at the best of times and had saved me from the worst. He was telling me it was okay and I was starting to believe that maybe he was right.

  “You like her right?” he asked, his right hand tapping on his phone. He was back playing his game.

  “I do.” Very much. “I just don’t want her to be left unprotected if my emotions start to cloud my judgment.”

  “That’s why I’m here. I’m here to help you and let you know when you’re getting in too deep or outta line.” I’d asked him to fill in for me when I had the appointment with Lauren and he’d stayed because the threat against Joseph was getting bigger and I needed another set of eyes once I’d learned that El Padre was at the helm of the attack against Joseph. I could have had more agents at my disposal, but for now, Liam and I were handling the situation.

  “She reminds me of sunshine.” My chest burst with relief. I’d been holding it in for so long that now, I felt like I could somehow breathe.

  “We all need sun in our life. Staying in the dark isn’t good for anybody.” The comical barb in his statement was obvious. “Keeping out of the sun can make you moldy.”

  I chuckled, “I’m guessing you have experience in being moldy.”

  “Shut up,” he countered, his hands busy fighting off enemy lines on his phone. “Just don’t forget to name your first child after me.”

  Shaking my head, I said, “Slow your roll. First marriage, now babies? I haven’t even said anything to her.”

  “Oh, trust me. The minute you say something to her, you’re gonna be doing lots of bumping and a whole lotta grinding.”

  I smacked his head for the third time, this time more lightly than the other two.

  He lifted his hand away from the phone and delivered a jab to my right arm.

  “Fuck.” It didn’t hurt, but I was using his own Lebron-worthy acting skills.

  “You can also name your second child after me,” he said, eyeing Athena and her dad who were now standing and ready to leave the restaurant.

  I stood up and stretched my legs, waiting for Athena to come out.

  “Liam, Liama, Liama Jr.,” he chanted as he stood up, following my lead. “Those are great names, bro.”

  “Not a chance in Hell,” I answered, he was my brother, but I had to draw the line somewhere. “Hell would freeze over before I named any of them after you.”

  “There’s climate change happening.” His retort was amusing, he always had something to say. “Ya never know – Hell might actually freeze.”

  I moved to follow Athena and Joseph, all the while wishing that it didn’t take that long before Athena would be amenable to me asking her out. I’d said no one too many times that maybe this time, she’d say no because she had gotten tired of me.

  Hopefully she hadn’t frozen over me.

  Hopefully she’d be okay with going out with me.

  Hopefully…

  Hell would not have to freeze before she’d let my lips touch hers again.

  And this time, I wouldn’t put a stop to it.

  This time, I wanted to stay in her sun and never look back into the lonely, sad darkness.

  “You didn’t have to come, my dear.” The shiny tears glossing over her eyes was exactly why I had to come.

  “I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” I replied while she pulled me into a hug. “It’s not every day that my mom celebrates her birthday.”

  I’d missed several, I wasn’t going to miss this one.

  With a kiss on my cheek, she waved a hand, “Oh stop, you’re going to ruin my makeup before lunch.”

  “What time are we heading out?” Because of traffic, I was an hour behind the original time I wanted to be here. She had a birthday celebration with her closest friends, Madeline and Sylvie, that I had totally planned on crashing.

  “You’re coming to lunch with us?”

  “If that’s cool with you, Mom.”

  “Of course it’s ‘cool’ with me.” Her hands made air quotes and I couldn’t help but laugh. “I thought the Navy would have gotten rid of your ‘cool’ ness.”

  My mom was through and through a lady. She used to tell me stories of Opa Karl and Oma Marie dancing with the royal family. I’d never met my grandparents. They passed away before my mom and dad met, but I’d heard tons of stories about them, and sometimes I wondered how great it would’ve been to have met them.

  Anyways, when I started hanging out with my surfing buddies, I assimilated surf speak. From benny’s to gnarly to cranking and hanging ten, it couldn’t be helped. I was with my friends ninety percent of the time so I had started to talk the way they did. My mom hated it with a passion. She’d always ask me to speak the way a proper gentleman would. She couldn’t really say, “like your dad would” because dad’s mouth came straight from the Marine gutter.

  “The Navy made me cooler, Mom,” I replied, whipping out the daisies I’d personally trimmed from our place in L.A.

  Instead of just yellow, the bouquet of flowers had a smattering of purple and white daisies. I didn’t do it myself, Athena had seen my sorry big-ass hands trying to bundle them up together devoid of any artfulness that she’d grimaced and took the flowers away from me. She didn’t ask who they were for, she merely rearranged them, placed them on a wicker basket that she’d gotten from Vero, and where she found a plastic wrap and ribbon flummoxed me. After she’d done the nifty flower arrangement, I thanked her and informed her that I’d be gone for a day. I hadn’t received any alarming intel and Liam reassured me that he was more than capable of guarding Athena, so here I was.

  My mom’s blue eyes refreshed with a flow of tears. “Your father used to bring me flowers. When he was deployed, I got a delivery on the seventeenth of each month. And when he was home –”

  I slowly took the flowers from her hands and hugged her. My father was a good man, a great soldier, and a better husband and father. Mom could have remarried. She didn’t have a shortage of suitors the years after my dad passed away, but she lived and loved in his memory.

  “He was the best, Mom,” I said, my eyes scanning the living room where I’d spent my childhood. Pictures of me, Mom, and Dad adorned the walls. “He would want you to celebrate your birthday in happiness and not in tears. He’d kick my ass if he saw you crying right now.”

  An elbow nudged my ribs. “Watch your mouth.”

  “Ass is a word, Mom. It’s even in Merriam-Webster.” In my defense, I tried so hard not to curse in front of my mother. And I did try to tone down on the surfer speak back then. It was difficult but I tried.

  “Merriam and Webster don’t live in my house.” Neither did I, but I had no doubt that my mother would kick me to the curb if I even dared to point it out. I may have been roughed up and toughened by the SEAL, but in her eyes, I was still the 9-lb., 2.4 oz, baby that she’d brought into this world.

  Spotting the grandfather clock against the wall, I spoke, “Mom, we better get going. I wouldn’t want to keep your friends waiting.”

  “You sure you want to have lunch with a bunch of old ladies?”

  This time, it was my turn to reprimand, “Old? Mom? Who you calling old? Old doesn’t live in this house.”

  She started laughing and this time, I knew that the tears falling from her eyes were of genuine joy.

  Dad, I know you’re watching us from up there. I’m making her smile. You would be proud.

  “Do you remember Chloee, Webb?” Madeline Waterford, one of my mom’s best friends, asked.

  I took a swig of the Paul Hobbs’ 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon and tasted the rich t
exture bursting with the flavors of blackberry and black cherry fruit. I wasn’t a wine connoisseur, but the server had explained it so thoroughly that even my mind took notes.

  “I do, Mrs. Waterford.” I remembered her alright. She was a big flirt and a reckless driver. She hit on me so many times in high school, and when I turned the other way, she hit on my friends too. Sad news for her because while we were interested in girls, Prince of Persia and Call of Duty gaming marathons took the top spot. She was cute, but her ditziness was a huge turnoff. An even bigger turnoff was when she ran into Markus’ new car while his car was parked. She’d said that she was trying to fit into the parking space beside him. Yeah, that would have been a plausible excuse except that there weren’t any cars parked beside Markus so it couldn’t have been that hard to get into the space.

  “She graduated with her Masters from FIDM,” Mrs. Waterford’s light brown eyes honed in on me, like a shark waiting for its prey. I loved my mom but her friends? I’d rather do underwater brick workouts for a day.

  “Madeline, are you trying to arrange marriage between my son and your daughter again?” Mom interrupted the matchmaking scheme. Mrs. Waterford had been doing this since…I’d forgotten already because every time she saw me, she brought up her daughter, Chloee. That’s right C-H-L-O-double-E.

  Mrs. Messing, Sylvie, wasn’t any better.

  “Oh you hush about Chloee. My daughter, Dee, is back home, Webb. She just finished her internship with Watson and Bella.”

  Was Watson and Bella supposed to be on my radar?

  From what I recalled, Dee had amazing double-D’s, but those assets couldn’t compensate for her air headedness and what she lacked in personality. I had never been friends with Dee or Chloee and I doubt I ever would. Our moms may have everything in common, but I had nothing to say to those girls. They didn’t interest me in high school and right now, the only woman I was interested in was in a cramming study session with her classmates.

  “She’s a lawyer now. Right Sylvie?” Mom interjected, a small smile grazing her face. Her blonde curls were cut loose today. Turning fifty-five looked good on her. Happiness casted her features. So while I couldn’t stand her friends’ matchmaking attempts, they made her happy. They were her companions when I wasn’t around and they were responsible for my Mom’s rapid ability to pick up the pieces when she was at her lowest point. Those were big enough reasons for me to endure Mrs. Waterford’s and Mrs. Messing’s company.