Damaged Desires: A Frenemy, Military Romance

by LJ Evans

  I shook my head. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  My whole body screamed I was lying, but I shut it off, shut it down, and turned my entire attention to the blond country star in front of me.

  “What business could you possibly have to discuss with me?” I asked him.

  “Well, listening to the others, I realized that I’m without a PR manager, and you need a job. So, I was wondering if you wanted it.”

  I laughed. “Brady, I know nothing about the music industry.”

  “It’s really the same thing you did for Senator Matherton. Image control. Setting up interviews. Looking for opportunities to widen my exposure. Some of the sources we use are even the same: magazines, social media. The other things, my manager, Lee, can help out with—at least until you get the hang of it.”

  “I’m quite certain your manager will not approve of you offering me a job without him being a part of the discussion,” I said.

  He looked chagrinned. “Probably. But he also knows that, after the shitstorm with Fiona, I’m a little gun-shy of having just anyone join the team. It’s why we haven’t hired someone before now. But you…you I could trust completely.”

  “Are you sure?” I smiled. “I might want to steal your guitar picks and sell them on an auction site.”

  His smile completely vanished, and he stilled. “How’d you hear about that?”

  My smile disappeared as well. “Wait, did she steal more than just money?”

  “It was a complete and utter mess, but you’ll have to accept the job and sign a nondisclosure agreement of your own before I can tell you anything more.”

  I’d never seen Brady this serious. Sure, I hadn’t hung out with him the way Ava and Georgie had. He was their friend, not mine, but I’d been around him a few times. Mostly at weddings. And I’d watched every episode of Fighting for the Stars where he’d gone from being a guest coach to a permanent one. The only time he was serious was when he was giving constructive criticism to one of the contestants. He even gave the feedback with a smile, a joke, and a flirt most of the time. Which all went to prove that whatever had happened with this public relations lady had really messed with his head.

  “I can’t accept it tonight, but if you think you want me, set up a time for me to talk with your manager.”

  His face broke out into sheer joy, and he hugged me.

  “I didn’t say yes,” I laughed against his shoulder.

  “But you will.”

  Nash

  EVERYBODY HURTS

  ”If you're on your own in this life,

  The days and nights are long.

  When you think you've had too much,

  Of this life…to hang on.”

  Performed by R.E.M.

  Written by Berry / Buck / Mills / Stipe

  “Tell me, Nash. Do you feel unable to control your emotions?” the psychologist, Dr. Inez, asked me as I sat across from him in his office on the naval base. It was quite the cozy office for a government job. Leather couches, a leather office chair, and a huge mahogany desk. He’d either spruced the space up with his own money, or someone here liked him a helluva lot. It was what I’d thought every time I’d stepped into his space since first hitting Dainty.

  Today, it wasn’t Dainty’s face I thought of when he asked about losing control. Instead, it was Dani’s face, thrown back in passion as I filled her. We’d moved together so beautifully it had been its own song. A rhythm I hadn’t found with anyone else.

  “Nash?”

  “No,” I said, focusing on relaxing my muscles and my face. Breathing in and out to slow my heart rate, to ensure I looked and stayed calm.

  I had to remain as impassive as possible in front of this man who had my career in his hands. I was on the opposite end of the scope now. It was his eye behind the barrel, and there wasn’t anything I could do except evade as much as possible.

  “Never?” he asked. “My understanding, from reading your file, is Dainty wasn’t the first person you lost your anger with since losing your team.”

  My eyes narrowed as he flipped through the papers sitting in front of him. All of our other meetings had been the standard ones up until now. He’d gone through the PTSD checklist. I’d denied any symptoms. Nightmares? No. Yes. Reliving the scene? No. Hell, yes. Drinking more? No. Yes. But I’d learned long ago if you wanted them to clear you for active duty, you denied every single symptom. You could discuss them with a trusted member of your team, and that was it. My trusted brother was dead.

  Everyone in the military knew what was happening—they asked, and we denied. But no one brought it up because, at the end of the day, you didn’t keep a highly trained machine sitting in a garage, covered with a tarp. You unveiled it and put it to work where it could do the most good.

  “Not sure what you’re talking about,” I said calmly.

  “I’m talking about the incident with Petty Officer White.” He watched me closely as he said the name to see if I’d react.

  The reaction I wanted to have was to laugh. As if he would ever be able to read me. It was a joke. Neither this man behind his big impressive desk, nor any man behind a desk at the Pentagon understood the hard, split-second decisions we made every time we put our M40 on our shoulder and moved through the shadows. We had to stay invisible no matter where we were, and we were damn good at it. I was damn good at it. Give me a completely treeless, bushless surrounding, and I still could blend in. It was more possible than people thought, blending in. But it took time and skill and patience.

  “I didn’t hit White,” I said. I might have if Mac hadn’t been in the room with us. I might have put my hands around his neck and squeezed until there was no life left in his spineless body.

  “There're more ways to hit someone than the physical, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I’m sorry, Doc. You’ll have to come out and say it. Us SEALs aren’t really into all the word games.”

  “Another lie. SEALs are some of the smartest men in the military. They have to be.”

  The surprise registered deep inside, but I still didn’t react. We stared each other down before the doctor sighed and filled in the blanks himself.

  “It says here that White filed a formal complaint because you threatened his life and those of everyone he knew and loved. Is that not what happened?”

  White wasn’t in the military anymore. He was a private Joe. He’d gone to work for the same Congressional representative who’d been giving him kickbacks all along. The one who’d wanted to deal with the anti-tyrant party in Africa for the gold and recently discovered oil. That bargain had required the tyrant himself be put out to pasture.

  I moved slowly, adjusting my posture so it fit the image he wanted: a man with regrets I didn’t feel. “Well now, I’m sure I did. I’d just buried my best friend and three other brothers because of him. I’d just pounded Tridents into four coffins while he’d soaked up money for having Onewabi murdered. Seemed like someone had to assign some consequences to his actions.”

  “And you’re the one to do it? Assign consequences to those who you feel aren’t living by the same code of ethics you live by?”

  “If everyone lived by our code, I’d be out of a job,” I said with a small shrug.

  We both sat there, staring at each other, waiting for someone to blink. It wasn’t me.

  “I have one more question for you today,” he said, tugging at his tie. “What’s your plan for after the SEALs?”

  My heart came to a complete and utter stop. “After?”

  He nodded. “You don’t expect to stay in forever, do you?”

  I didn’t respond. Being a SEAL was who I was. Had been who I was before I’d ever signed on the dotted line. Before I’d attended the BUD/S training. Before the Naval Academy. Before Pierce Military School. But his question was the same one that haunted me from another male behind a big desk in a home I no longer called mine.

  He flipped through my file again
. “You're listed as a board member on your family’s business. Do―?”

  “Just stop. Don’t go there.”

  He looked at me with surprise. It was the closest I’d ever come to losing my shit with him, and it was still far away. For now, it was a simple warning. I didn’t talk about this with anyone in the military. End of story. If I didn’t discuss it with my uncle, I sure as hell wasn’t going to discuss it with him.

  Inez stared at me some more, and I still wasn’t the one to blink.

  “I’m recommending you be put on temporary medical leave.”

  “Say that again?”

  “It isn’t just losing your team or losing your cool with Dainty and White that’s bothering me, Nash. Your whole life has been a series of traumas ripe for developing and stimulating PTSD effects. I don’t think you’ve dealt with any of it. My suggestion: use the time to go back and reconnect with the people at home. Make connections with people who give you a reason to live. Otherwise, I can’t, with a good conscience, put a man out in the field who is looking for death.”

  “I don’t have a death wish,” I said calmly. Inside, I was slowly boiling. Pissed that this skinny-assed man who’d never even seen real sacrifice up close was trying to push me out. Trying to break me. Trying to get me to quit.

  It was a joke. He didn’t understand that BUD/S wasn’t even the worst of the SEAL training. I hadn’t quit any of it. I hadn’t cried like a baby at survival training. I hadn’t rung a bell, set down a rifle, or walked away. SEALs didn’t quit.

  Except Bull and Runner had.

  “You may not be wishing for death, but you certainly aren’t wishing for life, either.”

  He stood up, ending our session as his words whooshed around in my brain.

  “How long?” I asked.

  “Until you can tell me you have a reason to live.”

  “I can do that now.” I had a whole list of reasons. Tristan and Hannah being right at the top. After all, who would look out for them if I died? I had no intention of being another casualty in Tristan’s life. If I did, Darren would be on the other side, breaking me apart.

  Inez was shaking his head. “I’m not talking about the whole ‘I want to save people. I want to protect our country and our world’ bullshit you SEALs spout. I’m not talking about the ‘For Something Greater’ punchline. That’s a movie theme; it’s not life. It’s not a reason to wake up and get up and smile each day.”

  Our SEAL motto from his lips was enough to make my blood explode. Him thinking it was a punchline proved how little he understood. Those words were a cadence that had been the saving grace of every SEAL I knew over the years. Those words allowed us to enter live gunfire without looking back. They were the reason, and now he was demanding I find something else.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  The bar was crowded and loud, making the hair on the back of my neck stick up with every loud crash of glass. Some group at the back was celebrating by breaking the bottles as they emptied them. A weird twist on the Jewish wedding ceremony. A huge tub was on the ground, and every time they finished, they’d stand up, shout at each other, and toss them in.

  It was something stupid my friends and I might have done years ago when I was seventeen and thought I knew everything. Thought I’d seen everything. Thought I knew what it was going to take to get my bird―my Trident―when I’d known shit.

  I was three drinks in by the time Mac joined me, his naval uniform making the women in the bar chase him with their eyes, unaware of the gold band that was on his ring finger and the woman at home who commandeered his body and heart. He sat down next to me and ordered a beer, saying nothing until he had his bottle in his hand.

  “To sacrifice,” he finally said, raising his beer toward me.

  I clanked mine with his. “Hooyah.”

  “To what do I owe this unexpected Nash visit?” he asked.

  I wasn’t in D.C. much. I avoided it like the plague on most occasions, but I’d had limited choices after I’d left Inez’s office. When I’d gone back to the academy, the officer in charge had called me in and informed me I was officially placed on leave until Inez cleared me. I’d intended to make the drive back to Church Beach and hole up in Tristan’s basement like normal, but instead, I’d found myself on my way to D.C., calling Mac.

  “Can’t I just want to see my friend? How was the honeymoon?” I smirked.

  Mac’s face broke out into a smile so huge and bright he could have stopped a whole herd of deer in its shine. “Worked damn hard the whole time,” he said.

  “Worked?”

  “Worked at making a baby.”

  I paused with my bottle halfway to my lips. “A baby?”

  “Yep.”

  “Mac the Daddy. MacDaddy.” I couldn’t help a laugh. “Shit, watch out, world.”

  “Well, hell, I figured if you can take care of Hannah, I sure as hell can raise my own.”

  My smile disappeared.

  “Did she finally kick you out?” Mac asked as he watched my face sober up.

  “Tristan? Nah. I’ll head there after this.”

  “How many have you had?” Mac asked, looking at the pile of money I’d stacked up next to the coaster.

  “Not enough to put me under for the night.”

  Mac was silent for a moment. “Did you ever consider that having you there only makes it harder for her?”

  His words stabbed at me. They might as well have ripped open the wound I’d incurred on that god-awful op and let me bleed out. Did I make it harder for Tristan? The idea had filtered through my brain a million times. I wasn’t an idiot. I was the guy who’d come home when her husband had not. But we were also a family. We’d been a family for almost as many years as I’d been with my actual family. And we both understood what had been lost. The better human being. We shared that grief.

  More importantly, I was determined to be there whenever she needed me to help pick up any pieces of her life that she couldn’t deal with. Pick her up when she fell apart, even when she rarely let me see her that way.

  Right now, it was me who was falling apart.

  “They put me on leave,” I said, the tightness in my chest only increasing.

  After a long moment, Mac breathed out, “Hell.”

  His eyes grew soft, and I couldn’t face it. I turned back to the bartender, waving my empty bottle. I hadn’t even gone on leave when I’d first come back with the dead bodies covered in flags. Instead, I’d gone straight into the inquiry with Mac at my side. Then, I’d gone on to the review board, and from there, to a special committee on The Hill. In between, I’d buried four men. I’d taken a short leave to help Tristan and Hannah move back to Delaware. I’d taken another short leave when she moved out of her parents’ house into the rental place in Church Beach. That was it.

  They’d reassigned me while waiting for a spot to open up on a team. I’d supported training sessions at the sniper school, BUD/S, and the academy. The academy was what had stuck the most. Maybe because it was a chance to make sure those kids were as ready as they could be for what was coming for them. No one could ever truly be ready for the hell that was Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training or the trainings that came after, but my being tough on them now was a leap in the right direction.

  But I knew—just like Mac knew—being put on a mental health leave now, a year later, didn’t bode well for my military career. The only thing saving me from discharge was the amount of time and money the Navy had put into me.

  “I don’t have a fucking death wish,” I muttered to Mac as well as myself. “None of us do. I can’t be thinking I might die every time I go into an op. That shit would lock me up cold, but I also can’t be afraid to die. Knowing and accepting are different than wishing for it.”

  Mac was nodding. “Absolutely. What did he say to that?”

  “Said he’d put me back on active duty once I had a reason to live and threw our motto in my face.” I was still pissed about
it.

  We drank in silence for a while more before Mac put his hands out in a sign of peace before saying, “Have you thought about getting out? About what you would do in civilian life?”

  I shook my head. “I’m a lifer, Mac. You know that.”

  “Civilian security pays a boatload more than what you’re making now.”

  “Since when has money been my motivation? I have no desire to work for one of those shitty companies trying to do our jobs and failing. They always end up getting in our way. That’s a cop-out.”

  “You don’t have to go back overseas. There are plenty of security jobs here.”

  I laughed sarcastically. “Yeah, you see me wearing a suit and aviator glasses?”

  “I’m serious. Dani was just telling me how they’re beefing up security for Brady. Some of the guys wear suits; some of them wear all black to blend in as roadies,” he said. I heard the words, but I’d almost shut down after he’d said Dani’s name followed in the next breath by Brady’s. Images of the two of them laughing as they’d danced at Mac’s wedding haunted me. My body reacted to it. Denial. Possessiveness. Resignation. She couldn’t be mine.

  “Why does Dani know what’s happening with Brady O’Neil? She cave and become one of his groupies or something?” I tried to say it casually. I tried to sound like I was just extending the conversation, but her name and I didn’t have a good relationship. Her name made my voice go down a half an octave and had me coursing with desire. When I looked at Mac, I could see the tiny narrowing of his eyes as he watched me and my response.

  I didn’t blink.

  Finally, he answered. “She got a job as his public relations manager. She’s been traveling back and forth to New York the last couple weeks, learning the ropes, prepping for his tour kick-off.”

  “And this requires a lot of security, does it?” I couldn’t help the smirk at the thought. Mac smacked me on the back of the head, and I growled at the Gibbs move. He just grinned.

  “Well, I guess there have been some threats from a disgruntled employee. I haven’t been read in because there’s a nondisclosure agreement in place about the whole topic.”