by Teagan Kade
I’m still in a euphoric haze as I watch the ceiling, every muscle in my body limp.
Slowly, I sit up. My cheeks are flushed and a crease of hair is stuck to my forehead. I must look like I’ve run a marathon.
Gabe has his eyes closed. I wonder if, having come so hard, the emotion and sadness will rush back to him, but when they do open, there’s a smile on his face.
“Was that celebration enough for you?” I ask.
“Celebration?” he says. “No. That was something else entirely.”
*
I open my eyes looking sideways across my bedroom at the window. A solid wall of light stares back.
I hesitate to roll over. Is he still here?
Do it quickly, like pulling off a Band-Aid.
I roll over expecting nothing but disheveled blankets, but Gabe is there, sleeping like a baby but looking for all the world like some Greek god who actually fell from heaven to land bang smack in the middle of my bed.
I’m gloriously worn out from last night, and yes, while it did come from unfortunate circumstances, the connection we shared was so deep, so powerful I’m certain now there’s more to this than a simple agreement.
His eyes flicker open. He smiles. “Morning, beautiful.”
I lean on my elbow. “Sorry you didn’t get much sleep.”
“Who needs sleep when you can have that every night?”
Amen.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask.
He brings his arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling. “I am. She went peacefully, happy, and I think I can find some comfort in that. I was there. Not overseas, stuck in some remote corner of the world.”
He rolls up onto his elbow, hand under his chin to mirror me. He notices the clock to my right. “Jesus. It’s nine o’clock. Shouldn’t you be at work?”
I collapse back into the pillow. “About that… I was fired.”
“You were what?”
“Well, ‘let go’ was the term he used.”
“Who? Your asshole of a boss, if he fired you because—”
I sit up and place my hand on Gabe’s chest. “It’s okay, really. I’m over it.”
“What are you going to do?”
I let my hand run down between his legs, find his cock hot and hard. “I’m going to make you happy, and then I’m going to make you breakfast. How does that sound?”
He smiles. “In-fucking-credible.”
*
Afterwards, I leave Gabe in the shower while I feed the children and start making breakfast.
The smell of eggs and bacon is strong in the air as Gabe wanders in, his hair still wet, only jeans to clothe him.
He sits at the breakfast table. “It smells amazing.”
I’m wearing a blue ‘World’s Okayest Cook’ apron… and nothing else.
I give my butt a little flex, squeezing my cheeks together. “How about the view?”
His lips pout together. “Fucking amazing. Do I get this kind of treatment every morning?”
I return back to the frying pan, moving things around with a wooden spoon. “If you like. Is this your roundabout way of telling me you’re moving in?”
The children are loud down the back. “It sounds like you’ve got quite enough house guests already.”
I turn off the element and start to plate up. “True, but cute as they are, they can’t hold a candle to you.”
He looks down between his legs. “You just want me for my giant cock.”
I shrug. “Amongst other things.”
I take out utensils from the drawer, taking the plates over and placing it all down on the table.
Gabe looks distant as he watches me.
“It’s okay to grieve,” I tell him, “to take the time.”
He picks up his fork. “No, Mom wouldn’t have wanted me sulking around the place. She wanted to be remembered for what she was, not what she became.”
“That’s sweet.”
“That was Mom.”
The tense hangs there. Memories of Dad’s passing come back, but so much time has passed they no longer upset me. Like Gabe said, I think of him and only remember the good times, the happy memories made under this roof. I have no doubt he would have approved of Gabe—maybe not of his wild scheme, but definitely would have respected his service, his considerate manner.
We finish up and wash the dishes together.
Gabe leans against the sink. “I should really go see Matt. You saw at the hospital last night. He came and left almost right away. He’s taking this hard. I don’t want him to be alone.”
“Do you want me to come?”
Gabe shakes his head. “No. Honestly, it’s going to be a little awkward, and to be fair this is a family thing. You didn’t know my mother well. Hell, you don’t even know me that well.”
I don’t think he means for it to be offensive, but that’s how it comes across. Still, I smile and play it off. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it? It means there’s a lot to learn.”
He smiles back, his forehead creasing. “And I can’t wait to find out every dirty little secret you’ve got, Shannon Bailey, but for now my brother needs me.”
“I understand. I’m going to head out and drop off some resumes anyhow, drop by the bank. I got a severance package. Daryl allowed me that, at least.”
“You owe nothing to that prick.”
“I know, but it’s time for something better anyhow, a new chapter in the Chronicles of Shannon.”
“Sounds like Game of Thrones.”
“Well, I don’t know about dragons, but there’s certainly a lot of sex in it.”
He pushes off the bench to kiss me, his hand moving down to cup my crotch through the apron. “And more to come.”
Gabe leaves for Matt’s place. I take the time to skim over my resume, fussing over the smallest of details. Frankly, I need the distraction. I look for job leads, taking screenshots of addresses and potential workplaces with my cell. It’s going to be a busy afternoon.
By lunch, I’m ready to roll. I text Gabe on my way out the door, consider sending him something flirty, but I’m blushing just thinking about it, blushing thinking about the way I could barely control my body and how I came so hard this morning.
‘How R U managing?’ I text.
A reply comes back a minute later: ‘Matt is OK. There is a lot to do though. C U 4 dinner?’
Or maybe dessert. ‘Sure,’ I text back, ‘just stepping out go get my dream job.’
‘Go get ’em, beautiful,’ he replies, with a kiss emoji.
Swoon. And he’s all yours, kiddo.
My teeth are hurting he’s being so sweet right now. I’m starting to feel like this could be an actual thing.
Is it? My head retorts. Perhaps. The poor guy’s just lost his mother. He’s in the middle of something extremely painful whether it’s showing or not. Perhaps it’s best not to read into it too much.
I smile to myself as I lock the door for being so sensible today. I feel productive, alive. I feel like I can take on the world.
I start to walk down the street. It’s a beautiful day. I half expect a bluebird to land trilling on my shoulder.
I’m not thirty feet from my door when I notice a woman walking towards me. As she gets closer, I go to smile and walk on, but she stops in front of me, blocking the path.
“Shannon, right?” she says.
I pull up. “Yes.” She has shoulder-length black hair, a collection of small scars on her face, a larger one under her left eye, but she’s otherwise beautiful in a don’t-fuck-with-me kind of way. “I’m sorry, have we met?”
She puts her hand out. “I’m Triss.”
Oh, crap.
I take it, her grip firm. I swallow before speaking, sure she can see it. “Nice to meet you,” I splutter. I want to ask her why she’s here, but there’s only one thing we have in common.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” she says.
Bingo.
She smil
es, but it’s unnatural, forced. “I just wanted to come here and apologize.”
I didn’t expect that. “Apologize?”
“For keeping Gabe out the other day. Nothing happened, of course, but I do want to get to know you.”
“Oh? I squeak out.
“For sure. I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d swing by. Do you have plans for lunch?”
I’ve got a folder under my arm, my ticket out of this awkwardness, but I am curious about Gabe’s past, even if this does feel unsettling.
Maybe she’s genuinely trying to be friendly, bury the hatchet.
I’m not sure there was a hatchet to begin with given we’ve never met, but somehow I picture it buried in my back.
“I’ve got time, sure,” I reply, against better judgement.
And there’s that crazy smile again. “Great. We have so much to talk about.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
GABE
I’ve never been in a funeral home in my life, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything. The well-suited man in front of me is speaking slowly and quietly, with reverence, as he runs us through the paperwork.
“Yes, sign here. Thank you. And here. Wonderful. Yes, very good. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
I’ve watched a lot of boxes being loaded onto planes abroad, bodies, or what was left of them, sent back to loved ones. But seeing the coffins arranged around us here, a showroom of death, I’m suddenly numb. I try to search for an emotion, but I’m blank inside.
Matt offers to pay, of course, but I won’t have it. You save up a lot of money when you’re holed up in the middle of a desert with nothing to blow it on.
The home is small, quaint, but it somehow seems suitable. Matt told me Mom made it clear she didn’t want a fancy coffin or unnecessary expense, didn’t even want a funeral—frugal to the end, not wanting to be a burden on her sons. She wanted to be cremated, couldn’t even handle being an encumbrance to the earth and soil itself.
But I can’t let her death go unremarked. The funeral will be small, but at least Matt and I will be there to celebrate her, respect the woman and mother she was.
Our next meeting is with a lawyer downtown. His office is the complete antithesis of the funeral home, his desk filled with family photos, a bright, abstract artwork framing the wall behind him.
He smiles at us while he works through the papers.
Matt is looking out the window. He’s been distant all day. I know he’s struggling with this. After all, he spent a lot longer with Mom in her final weeks than I did, saw the full measure of how the disease systematically broke her down.
At least in battle it’s usually over quickly—a bullet to the brain or an RPG turning you to mist. Cancer, with its slow creep towards death, is a fucking monster.
“Are you aware your mother didn’t have life insurance?” says the lawyer.
I nod. “We are, but the funeral’s been arranged and paid for.”
The lawyer smiles back. “Excellent. Now, onto the matter of her estate.”
Matt brings his attention back to the lawyer.
He looks from Matt to I. “To put it bluntly, there’s not a great deal here. She rented. There’s the car, a 1971 Toyota Corolla, a few personal effects and so forth.”
“It’s alright,” I tell the lawyer, trying to make it clear neither of us are here for a cash grab. “She wasn’t that big on fancy things.”
He shuffles the papers together. “Yes.” He’s looking back down at the paperwork. “Actually, Gabriel, there was one, final amendment here…”
*
Matt turns to me in the elevator. “I suppose you don’t have to keep this charade with Shannon going any longer then.”
It hadn’t even occurred to me. “I suppose so.”
Matt faces the elevator doors, hands in his pockets. He’s wearing the same clothes he was in last night. I feel like I have to add something. “Shannon… She’s not what I’d ever look for, consider, but I guess...” I don’t know where I’m going with this.
“What?” snaps Matt. “No more short-term stripper girlfriends and Navy girls? No Major Payne pussy like Triss?”
“Easy,” I warm him, starting to bristle.
He’s not done. He puts his hands up. “Fine. I apologize. How is she, Triss? Is she… all there?”
The door’s open. We step out into the underground garage.
“I’m not sure,” I reply. “She wants me to join this mercenary group with her, a contractor thing.”
Matt stops, tugging on my arm. “Fuck that!” he shouts, his voice echoing around us. “You just got back, just like that.”
I don’t know where this sudden anger is coming from. “Matt—”
He shoves me away, his eyes wet. “No, fuck that. Shit, man. I just lost Mom. I don’t want to lose you too.”
I’m not sure what to say to that, so I simply turn and keep walking to the car. “Come on.”
I drop Matt off and head home, standing in the middle of my apartment. Boxes are still piled by the doorway, unopened, like I’m still in transit.
There’s only one thing I think of doing.
I call Shannon.
She doesn’t answer. I text her instead.
I fix a snack—the world’s saddest spaghetti—and try Shannon again, but she’s still not answering out.
Probably out securing that dream job.
I let it go for another hour before calling again. It’s unlike her not to reply.
Three hours more and I’m getting concerned.
This is probably how she felt the other day trying to get hold of me, and where was I? With Triss.
You’re not needy, I remind myself. You are not that guy.
In truth, I don’t know what I am anymore without mortars flying overhead and bullets zinging past.
I tell myself she’s probably in an interview or something, unable to reply. It makes perfect, logical sense, but even so, a terrible sinking dread begins to swell up inside me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SHANNON
I hear laughter, but it’s distant—way off.
Someone, or something, is slapping the side of my face.
I come to, my head sloshing from side to side, my sense of direction lost.
My eyes start to focus.
Things fill in real fast after that.
I’m groggy, my head is pounding, but I know danger when I see it.
I’m not at lunch with Triss anymore.
I vaguely recall we were having a good time. She drove us to this trendy burger bar with skateboard decks turned into tables and a young, fashionable crowd. I ordered the mushroom burger, a soda. We talked about Gabe… I think. Triss was kind of cool about it all. It gets mushy after that, my memory disjointed.
The burger bar is gone. I’m bound to a metal chair in what appears to be a small warehouse of some sort, holes in the roof and pallets piled high against the walls. Triss is standing in front of me smiling smugly. The scar under her left eye looks darker.
She crouches down to my level. “Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty.”
“What’s going on?” I ask, but the words slur, my tongue thick and numb in my mouth.
She smiles wider, little, sharp teeth showing through. “I guess lunch didn’t agree with you. So we’re clear, though, I drugged you.”
“You what?”
“I slipped something into your drink. Thank God for the dark web, right?”
She’s not beating around the bush. No, Triss seems like the sort of person who says exactly what she means… and means what she says.
She licks her lips, staring down between her boots.
“Please, what’s happening?” I ask.
“I didn’t want to taser you,” she continues. “It’s nasty stuff, leaves a mark. I didn’t club you over the head either. You’ve got to be thankful about that.”
She’s insane, I think.
I go to move my hands, but they’re handcuffed together
, my ankles bound to the chair legs. I’m not going anywhere.
“As abductions go,” says Triss, still crouching, “I’d say this is all pretty humane. If you’ve been where I’ve been…. Holy shit. They don’t fuck around in other parts of the world.” Her face folds with concern. “Do you have a headache?”
I nod.
“It’ll pass. I kept the dosage low.” She laughs to herself. “I didn’t want you fucking dying on me. I’m a bitch, but I’m not that fucking nasty. Well, not yet.” She laughs again, a low-pitched ‘ha, ha, ha’ that doesn’t gel with her outward appearance.
Stay calm, stay calm, I tell myself, but I’m freaking out. Triss has training. She’s probably done this before, in the Rangers. She’s killed people, no doubt, and she’s clearly unhinged. Whatever happened to her overseas has messed with her head.
The temperature is mild, but I’m sweating hard, my breathing uneven. What I do know is that I have to figure out what she wants with me, and fast. I can work from there, try to make her see sense.
I come right out with it, my head pounding. “What do you want with me?”
Triss stands, a finger on her chin. “Hmm, what do I want? What do I want?” She clicks her fingers. “Really, Shannon, I’m doing you a favor here.”
“I’m sorry?” The way my back is being forced against the chair hurts. Panic’s pressing to take over, but I force myself to keep it at bay.
“Gabe and I are meant for each other,” declares Triss, calm as if she were reading from a recipe book. “We’ve seen things together, done things together, done things you can’t even begin to imagine. What could you possibly offer him, a fucking civilian? Besides, we have debts to pay, the two of us. Gabe will see that, see what he’s doing here, the mistake he’s making.” She starts to pace. “There’s a question of trust, too, because Gabe’s ultimately going to hurt you anyways. He always does. I mean, fuck, he hurt me worst of all, but then I can take the pain. It’s almost like a friend now. After the shit I went through I’ve got a whole new tolerance for it.” She crouches. “As for you… I’m guessing you can barely stand to break a nail.”
“Triss, please. Let me go.” I know how it sounds, but I have to try.
She ignores me. “I’m here to open his eyes, and yours—literally, if I have to—make sure everyone is on the same, pretty page.”
