Page 19 of Jacob

“I did come visit you.”

Her eyes widened with shock. “You came—when?”

“During basic training, the Navy realized that I was a natural and that soldiering was something I was really good at. So I did a kind of accelerated training, but didn’t—couldn’t—take any time off. Then I was deployed for a year. Abroad. I literally couldn’t come back to the States. It would have been desertion. I applied for SEAL training and was admitted and was given a week off before BUDS began. I headed straight to Cambridge.”

He’d come from deployment in an FOB and had been filthy and exhausted, with an unkempt beard, long hair and unwashed BDUs. Twenty-four hours before, he’d been under fire, living in bare bones barracks.

Their FOB had been particularly primitive. They slept on cots in converted shipping containers, had been allowed two-minute showers. There were dust storms almost every day. They burned their own shit because there was no sewage system.

They took mortar rounds constantly.

Jacob was so used to the living conditions that it hadn’t even occurred to him to clean up, buy some decent civilian clothing, get a haircut, hell, take a shower.

All he knew was that there was a drumbeat in his head, so loud it drowned out everything else, to get to Alex. He’d been offered a ride in a C-130 and he grabbed it. C-130s were freight flights, noisy, with sling seats strapped to the bulkhead. You pissed in bottles.

He didn’t care. He had a free week, and he was going to see Alex. Two hitched military flights and he was in Boston. The cab driver who let him off in Cambridge wouldn’t take any money from him, thanked him for his service, and kindly suggested he take a shower.

He found himself on manicured grounds, among old, beautifully kept brick buildings. It was a bright fall day and students filled the paths and were sitting on the lawn and on low walls.

Every single kid there was good looking.

Jacob knew that they were his age, but he looked years older. He’d had thousands of bullets shot at him and he’d shot thousands of bullets back. He’d killed five men. He could field strip all his weapons blindfolded but wasn’t always sure which fork to use. He was as different from these kids as it was possible to be.

They were like another species. A more evolved one.

He’d downloaded a map and was heading for the student information office, noticing the strange looks he was receiving. He might as well have come from Mars.

“I walked around, wondering how I could find you, and then I saw you. You were deep in conversation with three other people. Two peeled off and you were left with one guy. Tall, handsome, blond. Elegantly dressed. I hated him on sight. You put your arm through his and walked right by me, the two of you laughing. You were turned toward Mr. Rich and Blond and didn’t even register my existence. I felt like a mangy dog in a fancy restaurant.”

He’d stood there, stunned, for maybe half an hour. Alex had walked right by him and hadn’t recognized him. Though, to tell the truth, she hadn’t looked away for one second from the handsome, patrician face of Rich and Blond.

Alex set her jaw. “I can’t know what day that was, but it was my sophomore year. I graduated early from high school. I do know who you are talking about. Charlton Fitzweiler.”

What the fuck kind of name was Charlton Fitzweiler? Jacob had spent the past fourteen years hating the guy and he hated him even more now.

“We met our first day at a mixer and became really good friends. I was younger than most of the other students and didn’t come from a privileged background and I was feeling really lost. Charlton did come from the right background. He was a legacy, back when those were still possible. He came from a rich, very religious family in the deep South and spent years in therapy. He was an incredible friend, a major support in that first difficult year. I loved him, but not in the way you think. He was gay and his family made him struggle with that.”

“Was? Was a good friend? You’re not friends anymore?”

“He committed suicide four years ago.”

Well.

Jacob kept his mouth firmly shut. There wasn’t anything he could say that wouldn’t dig him deeper in the hole he was already in.

He trusted his judgment, always had. He never second guessed himself. But now he realized he’d fucked up badly, all those years ago. He’d have forgiven himself because he was young, but that wasn’t it. He sometimes thought he was born a hundred years old. He’d never felt young.

No, what it proved was that Alex was his weakness, his melting point. The one thing that could bring him down.

He’d made the wrong call all those years ago and he’d wasted precious time. What might have been a chance to reconnect had been tossed away out of hurt pride.

Alex crossed her arms. The tears had disappeared from her eyes and her features were tight. She’d gone back to anger after the hurt. Those seemed to be her major emotions regarding him. Anger, and pain. “Are we done here? Done digging up the past? Because I have a big problem, right now.”

They weren’t done here, not by a long shot. But Jacob recognized when to retreat.

“You’ve got a big problem, yeah. And it just so happens that my company is specialized in big problems. Gnarly, dangerous ones, where things can go wrong. I told you I know just the guy to call. Nikolai Garin. He knows that part of the world well. He can put together a good team.”

“That team will include me,” she said steadily.

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