Page 75 of Holding Out

“I need to talk to you,” Griff said.

His boss raised an eyebrow.

“If you have a minute,” Griff amended.

Jake turned back into the office and gestured for Griff to follow.They sat in the waiting room in comfy chairs, which were a little too deep for actual comfort, the arm rests a little too high.So Griff stood again, and paced.

Jake watched him, patient, curious.Big, badass Jake with his one “meat” leg—as he called it—and the other one, prosthetic from the thigh down.Jake, who—long before the incident that had taken his leg—had gotten a medal for dragging some guy to safety under a rain of PK fire.

No two ways about it, Jake was a hero.Bravest guy Griff knew.

But there were all different kinds of brave.Like CJ driving because he thought Griff needed him to.

And Becca showing up and powering through with Jed.Killing it, really, the way she’d killed everything she’d taken on since she’d decided to slough off Old Becca.

“You know why I lost that hotel job?”

Jake stood up, then, too, and leaned against the wall.Watching Griff, not saying anything, just waiting.

It was still, after all this time, tempting to back off.Until the words were out of his mouth, he didn’t have to say them.But he wanted to say them.He wanted to be as brave as Becca deserved for him to be.

“I flashed back because a metal door slammed shut, and scared the shit out of a bunch of guests.I did it earlier today, too—minus the big audience—in Home Depot.Next thing I know a guy’s shaking me and telling me I was threatening him with a fucking hose nozzle.”

Jake just nodded.“Yeah.I thought it might be something like that.”

Griff’s mouth fell open.“You knew and you never asked me about it?”

“Figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”

Griff closed his mouth and nodded.Then he opened it again and said, “Guess I am.”

“Same flashback every time?”

Griff nodded.“Battle in the mountains where we got woken out of a dead sleep by a surprise attack that shouldn’t have been a surprise.The kids were off.Quiet.Not out playing.You know?”

Jake closed his eyes.Griff had heard him tell that part of his story enough times to know how well and how personally he knew: The kids could tell you everything.Kids where they shouldn’t be, no kids where they should be.“Something bad was coming.I told my platoon leader—” There was a tight band around Griff’s chest.“He convinced me that we were all jumpy from nothing happening for so long, that I was looking for something that wasn’t there.He dismissed it.And—I let him.I didn’t—”

His voice cracked.

“I should have trusted my gut.I should have stood my ground till the end of time, dug myself in so deep Knapp would have had to listen.Or gone over his head.Talked to someone whowouldhear me out.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.I knew.I fucking knew, and I didn’t stop it—”

This—this was what he’d been trying to avoid, being weak in front of Jake, in front of anyone, but all Jake said was, “I’m sorry, Griff.”He didn’t say anything else, just put his palm flat against the center of Griff’s back while Griff hunched over and got the rest of his grief out, in shudders and sobs.

When Griff pulled it back together and swiped his sleeves across his face to mop up the worst of it, he felt purged, like he’d hurled up bad food instead of years of held—whatever.And Jake looked as unsurprised and unconcerned as ever.

So, thought Griff,thatwas what he’d been afraid of all this time.Opening his mouth and losing his shit, and—the world hadn’t, in fact, ended.

He took a deep breath.“Six men.”

Jake nodded.“I’m sorry, Griff.”

They had kind of an impromptu moment of silence then, or something, Griff remembering:Toff, Hanamalu, Mike, Jay, Regis, Teo.

Maybe the first time he’d let himself tick them off, one by one, like that.Mourn them all.

---