Kiss Kiss

by Various Authors

  Unfortunately, nothing explained the anger he felt when he watched Milo kiss her or the sharp stab of pain in his chest when Milo opened the small, velvet box that day in the bar and showed him the diamond ring.

  But Garrett had become an expert at compartmentalizing his feelings over the years. If he didn't admit it out loud, it wasn't true. He wasn't in love with one of his best friends because he would never say that out loud.

  So he went on with his life and slept with random women to chase away his feelings and everyone had a good laugh about what a player he was.

  He pretended that he imagined the looks of jealousy in Parker's eyes when he brought yet another new girl into their circle, and he most certainly knew he imagined the way she sometimes stared at his lips when he talked or sighed his name when she slept on the couch in his room while she and Milo were fighting.

  Garrett was fully prepared to be Milo's best man and to give Parker away at their wedding since she hadn't spoke to her dad in twelve years. He lied through his teeth when he told them he would be honored to have such an important task.

  He resigned himself to the fact that this was his life, now and forever...until his best friend was killed in action.

  The shock slowly wore off and Garrett and Parker started to learn how to live their lives without Milo. Garrett hated the fact that every time he looked at her, he wondered “What if?” Milo didn’t deserve that kind of betrayal from him. It was too late to go back in time and make her his.

  But she was never his to begin with, was she? You couldn't take back something that was never yours.

  When Garrett found out things about Milo and the Dominican mission weren’t adding up, and that there were rumors his death wasn't an accident, he knew he had no other choice. As much as he didn't want to leave Parker so soon after Milo's death, he had to do this. For both of them. They needed closure.

  His best friend had been gone for a month and Garrett still struggled every day to believe it was true. The past four weeks he’d spent every waking moment waiting for his phone to ring and to hear Milo’s boisterous laugh on the other end telling him it was all one big misunderstanding. But that call never came, and Garrett realized he couldn’t sit around waiting for it to happen. He reported back to work a few days earlier than planned because Parker threatened to beat the crap out of him if he didn’t. Under normal circumstances he would have laughed at her for thinking she could even attempt something like that, but her face was entirely too serious when she said it, and Garrett was a little worried she might actually attempt it and hurt herself.

  Since Garrett never took a day off, he had accrued enough time to be able to take at least six weeks off. After two weeks he was climbing the walls. But he refused to leave Parker’s side, and even with her continued reassurance that she would be fine, he stuck by her like glue for another two weeks before she finally put her foot down.

  “Garrett, you need to go back to work,” Parker told him one night over dinner.

  It had been twenty-two days, two hours, and forty-seven minutes since the knock on her door informed Parker that Milo was never coming home. It had been twenty-one days since Garrett had slept in his own house, preferring to sleep on Parker’s couch instead. And it had been fourteen days since Parker hadn’t been irritated with him at one point or another for hovering over her like she was on the verge of suicide or a nervous breakdown.

  At first his concern was sweet, and she was grateful to him for helping her pick up the pieces and figure out how to live without Milo, but now he was just getting on her nerves. He refused to take his own advice of moving on and living again. She could see it in his eyes. He’d lost someone too, but he acted like she was the only one hurting. She was tired of him keeping everything bottled up inside. She knew he was avoiding the grief and the sadness just to make sure she was okay. She would never be okay again. She’d lost her best friend and a huge piece of her heart when Milo died. She was slowly coming to terms with that and trying to live one day at a time, just like everyone told her to do. It was time for Garrett to do that as well. He couldn’t stay home from work and sleep on her couch forever. She needed to figure out how to do this on her own, and she couldn’t do that with Garrett keeping track of her every breath.

  “Seriously, it’s time for you to go back,” Parker repeated as Garrett sat across the table from her not saying anything.

  He gently set his fork down next to his plate and looked at her face, studying it to see if she was serious.

  “I still have another two weeks before I need to go back, don’t worry.”

  Parker sighed in exasperation.

  “I’m not worried about your time off. I’m worried about you. You’re going insane sitting around here day in and day out.”

  Garrett shook his head and tried to laugh it off, but Parker knew him too well.

  “You need to move on too, Garrett,” she told him softly. “I’m not the only one who lost someone. I know your work is therapy to you. It clears your head and you love doing it. I’m not going to let you put your life on hold any more for me. I’m going to be okay. It’s time for you to go.”

  As much as it pained Garrett to leave Parker, he knew she was right. Neither one of them could move on if they were sitting around her house lost in memories.

  Two days later, Garrett went back to work.

  An hour into his day and he was still busy going through the emails he missed while he’d been out when a Navy messenger came up to his desk and set down a bin full of mail.

  Garrett looked up from what he’d been doing with a confused look on his face.

  “That can’t all be mine. I’ve only been out for a few weeks.”

  Garrett stood up and pulled the bin toward him and glanced inside.

  “Actually, sir, some of it is yours and the rest is Lieutenant JG Roberts’. The receptionist thought you’d know what to do with his things.”

  Garrett thanked the man and started leafing through the envelopes. Most of it was interoffice Navy mail: forms, letters, and other paperwork that went back and forth between Navy offices on a daily basis. Garrett piled those things off to the side so he could look at them later and see who they should be sent to or which ones he could file himself.

  He flipped quickly through the mail, nothing urgent catching his eye until a white envelope stuck out like a sore thumb in the middle of all the manila-colored interoffice ones. Garrett pulled that out of the stack and was confused when he saw it was a cell phone bill for Milo from T-Mobile. Garrett knew for a fact that Milo had Verizon, just like he and Parker did because they all shared the same Family Share plan.

  After a quick phone call to Parker to confirm that Milo did indeed still have the same phone and plan before he left, Garrett tore into the envelope. He didn’t recognize the cell phone number listed at the top of the bill and briefly wondered if maybe the Navy had given Milo a phone for work-related purposes. That didn’t make any sense, though, since Garrett, Milo’s superior, would have had first-hand knowledge of this information and would have been required to sign off on the expense.

  Garrett scanned through the bill, noting that every phone call Milo made or received was to the same phone number with an 809 area code. After a quick Google search, Garrett found out that area code belonged to the Dominican Republic. According to this bill, Milo had been receiving or making at least twenty phone calls every single day the month before he left on his mission.

  Garrett double-checked the date on the bill, wondering why it was just now being delivered since it was dated four months ago.

  He picked up the phone at his desk and called customer service. After fifteen minutes on hold, and being passed around to countless people, he finally found someone who could help him.

  “I’m just trying to figure out if this account was set up as a business account,” Garrett explained to the operator.

  He heard the sound of typing keys through the line and waited.

  “It looks like that acc
ount was opened by a third party and it is classified as personal.”

  Garrett had no idea why Milo would ever need a second personal phone.

  “Can you tell me who this third party was?” Garrett asked.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t give you any more information than that due to privacy laws.”

  Garrett sighed in exasperation.

  “Milo Roberts is deceased. Isn’t there some sort of statute of limitation on the whole privacy thing once someone is dead?” Garrett asked.

  “Unfortunately, no. Unless you can send us proof that you have the power of attorney for Mr. Roberts, I can’t give you any more information.”

  “Can you at least tell me why this bill is just coming now, when it was from four months ago?”

  A few more seconds of typing and the operator spoke again.

  “It looks like those bills are normally sent elsewhere, but there was a glitch in the system, and Mr. Roberts received that month’s bill by mistake.”

  Garrett had thanked the man for his help and hung up the phone more confused than ever.

  He still couldn't figure out why Milo would have needed a separate phone. And more importantly, who the hell had bought and paid for it if it wasn’t the U.S. Government?

  Garrett would go to the Dominican and do what he did best. He would dig and he would question and he would use every skill he had ever learned in the Navy to get answers.

  When Milo and Garrett first began the Naval Academy, Garrett had no plans to be career military. He would put in his time, keep an eye on Milo, and then get out. After graduation and their first few months in California, Garrett often wondered why he was doing this. In the words of his late friend, “Do you have any idea how much pussy you’ll get as a Navy SEAL? You have to do it so I can live vicariously through you.”

  The thirty months of Seal training were the most grueling, mind-fuck of a situation he had ever been in. But he made it and was surprised to realize he liked it. He had been on a handful of extractions with his SEAL team, and though he got a rush and a sense of accomplishment with each one, he knew this wasn't what he wanted to do forever. He preferred sitting behind a computer, analyzing reports, finding backdoor ways into secure websites and developing military code for top secret government programs.

  Garrett earned his master’s degree six months before his completion of Seal training, and due to his nature of study, he was assigned as a Technical Surveillance Analyst. He could still be called out on extraction missions, but more often than not, his expertise was better served on the home front. While Garrett sat behind a desk all day, Milo went all over the world on Special Operations.

  Garrett was a nerd and he wasn't ashamed to admit it. He would use his geekiness to figure out what really happened on Milo's mission, and if all hell broke loose, at least he had his SEAL training to keep him alive.

  Garrett had lived through boot camp, Hell Week, SEAL training, and suffered through extreme conditions in several third world countries during special reconnaissance missions. He had prided himself on being strong, not letting his emotions show, and not breaking when his will was tested to the limit. He had held firm when he got the call that his best friend had been killed in action and had been the rock that Parker needed these past six months.

  But now, standing there watching his best friend's eyes fill with tears, would be the one thing that broke him.

  Chapter Three

  "I'm going to the Dominican Republic. I leave tomorrow at oh-eight-hundred."

  Parker fought down the wave of nausea threatening to empty her stomach of the evening's dinner.

  "Why the hell would you ever go there?" Parker asked angrily.

  Garrett sighed and looked down at his shoes. It was bad if he wouldn't look her in the eyes. Garrett knew she could read him like a book and that she would see everything he was feeling.

  "It wasn't an accident," Garrett said quietly, his eyes suddenly fascinated by a rock on the ground.

  Parker knew exactly what Garrett was talking about; there was no need to question him. Part of her wasn't shocked by what he said. She wasn't stupid. She knew there were military cover-ups all the time. Milo had gotten increasingly distant and short with her in the months leading up to his departure to the Dominican. He spent most of his time at home locked in his office or taking phone calls on his cell at all hours of the night. He snapped at her when she questioned the change in him, and they fought constantly about what he was keeping from her. The biggest fight they ever had in eight years occurred the morning after he told her he was leaving. Parker had been cleaning the house and picked up a fax that had just come in over the machine in his office. Milo came up behind her, smacked it out of her hand, and shoved her against the bookshelf, screaming at her, telling her she had no business looking at his things.

  She knew all too well his job involved confidential information she wasn't privy to. They were more alike in that manner than anyone knew. But when it started trickling into their home life, and he got violent with her, it became a problem.

  When Milo walked out the door the morning of his flight after repeatedly apologizing to her for his earlier outburst, Parker fought the overwhelming fear that she might never see him again. She chalked it up to nerves about him being so far away this close to their wedding and how things just hadn't been right between them lately. But each day he was gone, the feelings grew until she couldn't stand to be in her own skin anymore. Something didn't feel right, and the one and only time she talked to him on the phone after he left, he sounded scared.

  Parker accepted the news of Milo's "accidental death" because she had to. She had to plan a funeral, pack up his belongings, cancel wedding plans, and try to keep it together so she could function and work. She didn't have time to dwell on conspiracy theories. Garrett never questioned Milo's death, so Parker didn't either. She trusted Garrett to always be honest with her, especially after Milo’s death.

  “How are you holding up, Park?” Garrett had asked, inadvertently using Milo’s nickname for her as he walked into an empty viewing room at the funeral home where Parker had sneaked away to for some peace and quiet.

  Parker felt like the walls were closing in on her, and she couldn’t handle one more insincere apology or condolence from someone she didn’t even know.

  All of the hugs from strangers, the pats on the back, and the looks of pity made her want to scream or punch something. As soon as those feelings started to bubble up inside of her, she knew she needed to get out of that room and away from the closed casket that held her fiancé.

  “Why in the hell do people send flowers when someone dies? I mean really, who do they think they’re doing it for? Milo’s never going to appreciate them, and obviously these people never had anyone close to them die before. If they did, they would know that the smell of flowers will always make the people left behind think of death from now on. Every time I smell a carnation I get the chills.”

  Parker couldn’t stop the word vomit even if she wanted to. When she was nervous or upset, she talked. A lot. She felt Garrett walk up behind her, and when he placed his warm, gentle hands on her shoulders and started kneading the stress away, she forgot what she had been complaining about and lost herself in his touch. Her tattered heart skipped a beat when Garrett’s fingers grazed the bare skin of her collarbone in the black, scoop-necked dress she wore. Garrett bit down on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from sighing at the feel of Parker’s smooth, soft skin and the way she leaned back into his touch as if trying to get as close to him as possible.

  They stood there for several long minutes. Parker stared out the window at the overflowing parking lot of people who came to pay their respects, and Garrett patiently waited until she was ready to talk again. He had done nothing but worry about Parker since she called him four days ago and told him his best friend was gone. It was easier to be concerned with Parker’s well-being than to dwell on what was going on inside of him.

  Parker had been
running on all cylinders the past couple of days, and Garrett feared that she was going to break at any moment. She was carrying too much around inside that head of hers, but no matter how many times he asked her to talk to him, she wouldn’t do it. His friend was strong and she would never let him see just how much she was hurting. But he knew it was only a matter of time before she would need to talk. He knew he was driving her crazy by hovering over her night and day, but he wanted to be there when she needed him. And to be honest, it gave him something else to think about rather than wallow in his own sadness.

  “Do you really believe it was an accident?” Parker asked, breaking the silence with her quiet question.

  Ever since the knock on her door the other morning, she’d tried not to dwell on the “accident” they said Milo had been in. But the more she thought about it, everything that went on during the last several months made her doubt everything she’d been told. Milo had been involved in something dangerous. She knew that deep inside her soul. Something was eating away at him, making him secretive and scared and angry. Parker never told Garrett about all of the fights they were having and how angry Milo got when he found her in his office before he left on his final mission. She felt like a fool that the one man she was supposed to trust with her life didn’t trust her in return.

  “The military said it was an accident, so it was an accident. What would make you question that?” Garrett asked.

  She hated keeping something like this from Garrett but it wasn’t the time to bring up Milo’s flaws. Garrett had always been Milo’s champion. It never seemed like the right time to tell Garrett that his best friend had been far from perfect. His funeral definitely wasn’t the right time either.

  “No reason. I just wondered what you thought. Forget I even asked,” Parker replied, turning around to face Garrett.

  “Milo never mentioned anything to me about this mission or what it entailed. The last time I talked to him before he died, he never said anything was awry over there. It was an accident. These things happen all the time. You know that.”