Page 19 of Leave

At one point, when the four of us were alone, Kevin said, “I’m surprised you brought a man home, honestly.”

“Yeah, me too.” Riley wiped a hand over his face. “Hope springs eternal, I guess. I thought if they actually saw me with a boyfriend…” He trailed off as if he couldn’t muster up the energy to finish the thought.

“Give them time,” Kevin said. “They’ll get there.”

Riley glared at his brother. “How much time? I’ve been out for over half my damn life.”

Kevin winced and broke eye contact. Laura grimaced, squeezing his hand.

Riley and I exchanged looks, and the frustration in his eyes wasn’t half as pronounced as the fatigue. As if he were feeling every last one of the years he’d been patiently waiting for his parents to come around.

I just squeezed his hand.

Before I could say anything—not that I’d thought of much that didn’t sound useless and stupid—their parents returned, and the brothers let the subject drop.

When we all got up to head to dinner, Riley stalled a little under the pretense of needing to respond to a message from work. I hung back too—I knew damn well his command wouldn’t reach out to him while he was on leave unless it was a dire emergency—and as soon as we were alone, I turned to him, eyebrows up.

Riley touched my knee and looked right in my eyes. “Promise me something?”

“Does it involve stopping you from committing violence?” I growled. “Because I’m not sure I can promise—”

He laughed, which was what I’d hoped for. “No. No.” Turning serious, he said, “Just… after get back to the hotel tonight…” His eyes were intense, burning with more feeling than I’d seen in them all day. “Put your dick down my throat and make me forget about everything.”

I gulped. “I, um… Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”

Can we go back to the hotel right now? Hell, I’ll blow you in the car if—

“Promise?” he whispered.

“Absolutely.” My voice came out hoarse. “So, uh, whenever you want to take off tonight, just say the word.”

He laughed with some actual enthusiasm, winked, and headed into the kitchen.

I followed, my head spinning. I was relieved I could give him something to look forward to now.

That would give both of us something to get through the rest of this evening.

The next morning, Riley suggested getting breakfast at the café across the street from our hotel instead of at his parents’ place. I was kind of surprised, but I didn’t argue because I was also relieved; being around his family was exhausting.

It had been hard to concentrate on the conversations because of all the little comments and expressions. One twitch of someone’s mouth, and whatever was being said may as well have been muted by a bout of tinnitus. Even now, less than twenty-four hours later, I struggled to remember anythingelsethat was said outside of the odd dig tucked beneath a veneer of “niceness.” It was weird. In a way, it reminded me of a briefing years ago where we’d been told our unit would be deploying in the coming months; if someone put a gun to my head, I wouldn’t have been able to repeat anything else from that lengthy briefing. My brain had record-scratched at“mobilizing to Afghanistan,”and nothing else had registered.

That didn’t seem like the reaction someone should have after a friendly sitdown with the people who thought he was dating their son.

So… skipping breakfast at their place—fine by me.

Riley was unusually quiet as we waited for our food. He stared into his coffee, and didn’t seem to really be there at all. And he had that look—the slight pallor, the circles under his eyes, the“I’m fucking done with humanity”expression—that he sometimes had after spending the night on duty. Especially if he’d had to stand watch for most of the night.

That didn’t seem right after a day of visiting with his family. Mine, sure, but he hadn’t indicated there were any ugly secrets or dark histories here.

On the other hand, if I was struggling this much just to recall conversations outside of homophobic microaggressions, I could only imagine how he felt. And he’d lived with this for half his life? No wonder he was ready to bail.

I tapped his foot with mine under the table. “Hey. You good?”

He jumped, then shook himself. “I… yeah. I’m…” Sighing, he lifted his coffee and took a long drink. As he put the cup back down, he said, “I’m fine.”

I eyed him.

He met my gaze, and he must’ve seen the“don’t bullshit me”in my expression, because his shoulders dropped and he nudged his coffee away. “I’m just not sure I’m ready to do this again.”

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