Page 49 of Triple Threat

“Because Bobby didn’t have a personality other than smoking cigarettes and acting like he was hard as iron and Dolly was a wallflower,” he said. “Could you give me and Roan a few minutes?”

“Sure,” she murmured, looking at him wistfully, and beaming a little bit at the same time. She cast a backward glance in my direction and dutifully drifted inside.

He waited until the door into the mansion was shut firmly behind her before turning his attention toward me. I braced myself. The last confrontation had not gone my way, and I didn’t want this to get violent. Not again. “Relax,” he finally breathed out. “I don’t want to fight.”

“Aye, I’m glad,” I said.

“I’m not a monster, Roan. I just sometimes lack impulse control,” he said. “That’s nothing new.”

“It’s not, you’ve always been the point of the spear, first man through the door,” I admitted.

“And as long as I’ve known you, as long as we’ve worked together, I’ve never worried about my six, never looked over my shoulder. You’ve always had my back.”

“You had mine when we were in rehab,” I countered.

“Rehab, I was there because I was half faking a heart arrhythmia, and my old CO was a little concerned that I was a little too good at killing people and not having a moral crisis.” He scoffed. “You needed a bannerman, and that wasn’t a role I was familiar with. That might have been the only time I was halfway decent about it.” He was unusually introspective, and this was far deeper than he usually ever went.

“I did the best I could then, and it got easier, then I think I started slacking off, taking things for granted,”

“What are you talking about?” This was getting into unfamiliar territory with a man whose middle name could have easily been Arrogance.

“Where did you take Sadie today?” he asked.

“Down to the Blue River District, the Stove Plant warehouse, then Burger World,” I said.

“And you hid it from me.”

“Aye, I thought you would get angry and possessive, start calling her Shady and making fists again.” I crossed my arms across my chest. This was where he was most likely to throw off the charade of being calm, cool, and collected.

“How bad was it, where she was staying?”

“Not as bad as outside of Kandahar, ten times worse than the bridge at DC.”

“I think that DC was the worst of the two. I like to think that after we rolled out of that hellhole, things started to improve. But the people living under the bridge, seeing that here, here almost on our doorstep…” He sighed. “I’m not surprised. Sadie was always quick witted, and definitely a survivor. That’s why I brought her here, to stay.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” My curiosity had been piqued.

“That is a good question, what does it have to do with it? A lot. You know I care for her. You’re the only person who’s come close to what she means to me, and you’re my brother, Roan.” His eyes held an unusual intensity. He put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re my brother.”

“She cares for you, too,” I said.

“She cares for both of us, for you and for me,” he said. “I need her to be safe here. This is hard, but I need her here with both of us.”

“Both of us?” I winced internally. I was repeating the last words he said, something I had called Sadie out for doing.

“I know you have feelings for her, it’s obvious. If you deny it, I might revoke the no fists thing,” he said with a smile that was half-joking, and half-serious. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be serenading her with your duck confit and the high thread count sheets.”

“Aye, I do care,” I admitted, hesitantly.

“I also feel that there’s an,” he stumbled over the words, “apology, due.”

“It doesn’t have to be said.” I nodded.

“So, what do we do about this? She has nowhere to go, no one but us to miss her. We have to share her. Like, a timeshare…” He squared his shoulders, gripping the cigar tightly.

“Now that’s a thought. It’s a shite one, but itisa thought.” I scowled.

“It’s not ideal, but we’ve always been able to share everything in the past. Vehicles, guns, we’ve even shared blood. Remember when the doctors said you were still anemic, and you needed that transfusion? They hooked us together. For a short amount of time, we technically shared circulatory systems. Circulatory is blood, right?”

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