Page 11 of Betrayal & New Beginnings

“I didn’t interrupt anything important, didI?” she asked, but that sly grin on her face told me she knewElliewas in here and her yelling was her version of a heads up.

“What do you need?”Iquestioned her, my voice a little gruff.

“Just wanted to let you know the alcohol delivery came andIsigned for it.It’sall in the stock room, butIknow you said you wanted to know as soon as it got here.Goingback to the bar now.Letme know if you need anything else,”Sheturned and walked back to the front of the restaurant, smirking the whole way.

My office was now quiet with only myself inside.Whatthe hell just happened?I’mmad at myself for getting caught almost kissing an employee.Whatbothered me more was how disappointedIfelt at not having the opportunity to kiss her.

Needing to change focus,Imoved my line of sight back to the payroll paperwork in front of me.Theidea of assemblingIKEAfurniture without instructions seemed more appealing than this.Ineeded to hire someone to deal with this paperwork.Billsand invoices were not my thing.Plus, it was getting harder and harder to do administrative paperwork for the pub and also work for the security business.

RangerShieldSecuritywas taking off, with clients starting to pour in.Mostof them were cases of a husband or wife looking to dig up dirt on their spouse ahead of an impending divorce, or picking up some high dollar skips, which we passed off toVincesince his dad was a bounty hunter and had taught his son everything he needed to know.

The uptick in clients was good, but withJackstill deployed, we needed to think about hiring an extra hand or two.Theguy at the bar the day before,Diego, was someoneI’dhad had my eye on.He’dfinished active duty and was currently on reserve.Hewas a tech whiz, and from whatI’dlearned, his role in the military had been gathering intel, so he would be a great addition to the company since tech ops weren’t reallyVince’sstrong suit or mine.Jackhad some skills in that, but with him being away, that didn’t help us much in the short term.

I also needed to reach out to my sister,Willa.Sheworked as a forensic accountant, but that meant she worked with a lot of skilled tech people, and she’d mentioned interviewing someone for an open tech position at their office.Ifshe didn’t hire the person, maybe we could.

Willa and her husbandPaullived here inGeorgia, too, thoughIdidn’t see them as much asIshould.Shewas older than me by two years and had marriedPaulright out of college.Theyhad two kids—CharlieandHaley.

I wanted what she had, a family, butIknew that would never happen for me.Notbecause of my job but because of the monsterIcould be, sometimes without warning.Whichmade me think back toCandace.

During my first tour,ImetCandacewhileIwas home on break.Wehit it off and decided to keep in touch each timeIcame home between deployments.Itwasn’t anything serious, but we enjoyed each other’s company.Especiallynaked company.

WhenIwould come home on leave between deployments, we would grab a bite to eat and head back to either one of our apartments, but we never stayed the night.Shesaid she liked sleeping in her own bed, andIdidn’t like the seriousness it conveyed to women whenIstayed the night.

I didn’t want a relationship whileIwas overseas in case something happened to me.Isaw it happen to many other guys.Butone night, it was storming really bad, soIlet her crash at my place.

That night,Ihad a nightmare and apparently elbowed her hard in the side while sleeping.Ifelt terrible, and even slept on the couch the rest of the night.Thenightmares had been coming increasingly frequently since my last mission overseas.Ilost men during a special ops assignment went bad inJalalabad,Afghanistan.Theexplosion killed two of my men, and injured two more.

I knew this was likelyPTSDbut hadn’t wanted to see a therapist because then people talked, andIdidn’t want to leave my men stranded because the brass had pulled me off a mission for being weak.

I didn’t want to risk hurting her again, soIstuck with my rule of not sleeping together.

A few months later, she happened to be at the same barIwas at with friends.Sheonly lived three blocks away, so we walked back to her place.Iblame the alcohol, because after a few rounds of sex, we both must have fallen asleep, andIwoke up to her scream afterIhad another nightmare and punched her in the shoulder and neck.Ileft her place feeling horrible and was walking back to the bar to get my car when a text from her came through, saying to please lose her number.

I didn’t blame her.Icouldn’t control whatIdid during my dreams.Eventhough it had been unintentional,Icouldn’t bear the thought of hurting a woman.

So, whileIwasn’t swearing off women entirely,Ijust didn’t have sleepovers, and that ultimately meant no relationships since, after a while, women tended to want that.AndIwas too messed up for that.

The nightmares have become less frequent now thatIstarted seeing a therapist, but they weren’t zero.Untilthen,Iwasn’t going to take a chance with staying the night with a woman.Andwhile the therapy as helping,Iwasn’t sureIwould ever get to the point of zero nightmares.Thatwas whyEllieandIwould never happen.Ihad to shut that thought down.

It also didn’t help that ifJackknew thatIwas thinking of his sister naked, he would likely cut off my balls.Orworse.Elliewas also the type of woman who deserved a relationship, andIcouldn’t give that to her.

So,Iput all inappropriate thoughts of her away, no matter how hard that was.Withthat said, it didn’t meanIhad to help other guys have a chance.So, for now,Iwasn’t going to giveDiegoor any other guy at the pub any help withEllieeither.

Selfish?Definitely.

DidIcare?Notone bit.

5

ELLIE

It was loud.Louderthan usual, even for aFridaynight.Waybusier than we were a few nights ago whenIworked briefly withWade.TammyandIwere behind the bar, and even though it was busy, she andIhad developed a great flow between us that made the shift go so smoothly.

She was friendly and quick-witted, andIgenuinely enjoyed working with her.Wegenerally split the bar down in half, and each picked a side to cover while also filling drink orders from the waiters and waitresses, but on occasion, we would cross over the middle line if one of us got busy or we knew the people on the other side.Really, it was just ifTammyknew them becauseIstill didn’t really know anyone here, at least not anyone that would come visit me at the bar.

“You mind ifIgrab the good-lookin’ one with the goatee and tight black shirt in the corner over on your side?”Tammyasked, pointing at a man who looked about her age.

“Sure, no problem,”Itold her. “Youknow him?”

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