Page 134 of Outside The Wire

“And what about Jade?”

I hung up my coat and turned to Chase with a frown. “What about her?”

“She’s all alone.”

“And?”

He rolled his eyes, frustrated with me for sure. “And she’s your wife.”

“No, she was my wife. She gave up that right when she tried to kill herself. We’ve been over this.”

“Why are you being so obtuse about this? You loved her. I saw it with my own fucking eyes! I was there for all of it!”

“Right,” I said calmly. “You were there for all of it. You remember what happened. Look at me now. Really fucking look at me. Do you see me?”

“Yeah, I’m looking right the fuck at you.”

“And what do you see?”

“A man who’s lost his way.”

I laughed at him, grabbing my coffee mug. “That’s what you want to see.”

“No, that’s really what I see.”

“Chase, your version of happy is only if you’re holding a gun and chasing down the bad guys.” I leaned back against the counter and took a sip of coffee. “This is the simple life. Do you know how I met Holly?”

“Please, enlighten me.”

“She was measuring a rug by rolling around on the ground in the store.”

“And that endeared you to her?”

I still smiled when I remembered that moment. “Absolutely. And then I went out to my truck and she slipped on the ice. Her cart went rolling away and she yelled at it to stop. She actually yelled at it. Cutest thing I’ve ever seen. It rolled right into mytruck and dented it. Then she left me a note apologizing for not catching the cart in time and left her name and phone number.”

“Is there a point to all this?”

“Yeah. It was normal. And then I ran into her again on Valentine’s Day at a fast food restaurant and we had a meal together. It just progressed naturally. I took her out on dates. We spent time together, got to know each other. I didn’t sleep with her for weeks. She was frustrated with me for taking so damn long.”

He huffed, his lips quirking up in a smile.

“She makes me laugh, Chase. All the time. I’ve met her parents and they were normal. Well, her dad is a conspiracy theorist, but he’s not part of some criminal organization. He didn’t sell off his daughter to me. And her mother made us lasagna last night and invited me over for dinner to try and get us back together. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

He sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Yeah.”

“It was never going to work with Jade, not in the long term. We didn’t choose any of that. But this is my life and I’ve found someone I want to be with. And I like having a normal job. I like being a mechanic and working with normal people.”

“Are you saying we’re not normal?” he asked, his face pulled down in a frown.

“Chase, you work in a missile silo. Do you remember our first time going to OPS? We jumped out of a plane and I nearly fell off a mountain. I slid on a parachute with Scottie. I don’t know many people who do shit like that.”

“Don’t you miss it at all?”

“Honestly? I haven’t had time to miss it. I haven’t thought about it. Right now, I’m just enjoying having a life for once.”

“But you’d consider coming back.”

I shrugged. “That’s something I’d have to talk about with Holly. That would be a major change in my life. I don’t know if she’d be okay with that.”

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