Page 14 of Four Calling Birds

“She got out, and now works as some kind of Pyrotechnics expert for theme parks and concerts.”

I covered my mouth, stifling a laugh. “That’s so perfect for her.”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

He tilted his head and gave me a half-smile. It was a sweet little boyish smile. The one that used to make me swoon in my little girl heart.

“You know, she tried to call you,” he said, stuffing his hands into his pajama bottom pockets. There were wrinkles on the corners of his mouth that hadn’t been there before. Frown lines.

“I know, I just…” What excuse could I make? What could I say? “But I had just started with Brett and…”

“I get it,” he said, lifting his hand to stop me. “I don’t need to hear it.”

He turned, looking at the stove with the charred black frying pan. The conversation was done, and we were back to walking on eggshells. Or… more, aptly, the floor was made of lava, full of topics that threatened to break apart the tentative peace we had between us.

8. Fuck Brett

Mack

IwishIhadlet Brett die in the Florida phase of Ranger School. Strange weather had meant that we did the Swamp Phase in freezing temperatures that year. Five guys died of hyperthermia. The training accident was deemed a tragedy, but because this was the 90’s, there were plenty of hard-chargers, and heinous assholes who said that the five training deaths were because the guys couldn’t “hack” it.

Armchair warriors are, without exception, some of the biggest blue falcons on the planet. Blue Falcon was code for a Buddy Fucker, or a person who stepped on their comrades in order to get themselves ahead. They’re the same as spotlight rangers, bar-room storytellers, and anyone who describes themselves as “practically special forces”.

I can confirm that Brett and I had survived by the skin of our teeth.

Brett and I had talked each other through it, keeping each other’s spirits up, and, quite frankly, cuddling, to keep ourselves warm. I am not ashamed of it either. Alive is always better.Always. Even if I had to get half naked and cuddle with another straight man.

But if I had known he’d be a wife-stealing son of a bitch, taking Lotte away right at the moment when she and I should have been working on our marriage… I would have let the fucker die. I would have buried his face in the swamp at Camp James E. Rudder, and never felt an ounce of guilt for it.

I’d kill him with my bare hands if I could.

Did I think my wife was having an affair? No. That wasn’t her style. But the moment she took that job as a freelance agent for Brett and his cronies, the countdown on our marriage began. She had a way out, and she took it with both hands. No kids, no ties. And my Dad was no fucking help on that either, always asking when we would have kids, and telling me that a wife was useless if she didn’t give me babies.

The fights we used to have were within a hair’s breadth of turning into a family brawl. All of this shit poisoned her away from me.

Had I insisted that we have kids before we got married? Yes! I wanted us to have enough to populate our own little league baseball team! I wanted enough kids to fill in the room of a big, old Victorian house like this. I wanted to have dogs, cats, and a white picket fence, and to be elbow-deep in diapers.

The first miscarriage was tough. The second was tougher. The third and fourth… when I almost lost her, I didn’t care anymore. I just didn’t want to lose my wife. I didn’t want the woman I loved to kill herself for the possibility of a kid that might not even happen. I just wantedher.

But then I lost her anyway. To another man. The same man who was dangling her in front of me and calling in a favor to do it. Oh, and he was somehow responsible for the new scars on her body, and a fucking knife wound between her ribs.

I didn’t care what the mission was, and who wielded the knife. If I knew my wife, that guy was long dead anyway. But Brett also had something to do with it.

Brett was on my hit list. After this marker was done, if he showed his face on my property again, I’d put two in his chest, and one in his head.

“Mack?” I heard her whisper from behind me. Her hands were out, like she wanted to embrace me. Andfuuuck, I wanted that so much.

A hug from her could calm down my temper. She was always free with her hugs and cuddles. Her hesitance now was just more proof that we weren’t man and wife. We weren’t one flesh, one body, one soul anymore. We were something else entirely, and I hated it. I felt like I had one foot in the grave, and another on high ground. And I wasn’t sure which way to go.

“I’m sorry, Mack,” she whispered. One of her slender hands reached out, touching my chest, right above my heart. Her palm seared through my skin, down my nerves, all the way to my cock that I had been trying, and failing, to keep down ever since she stepped out in my white sheets. What was it about a woman in a white sheet that looked so fucking sexy? What was it about Lotte wearing white…

I had purposely only given her clothes in dull beiges, and neutral tones. They were the least flattering on her yellow-tanned skin. I really needed her to look… well, notugly, but… less luminous. Less vibrant. Less like a break in the clouds, letting in a ray of sunshine.

I wanted her. I always wanted her. Now more than ever.

I had never wanted her to see this house. Her fingerprints are all over it. I drew it with every fucking renovation. With every bit of furniture that I made. Could she see it? Could she see my obsession? Did she see that I had carved her name into everything I built? If she did, then she was still choosing to walk away whenever the threat on her was gone. So, nothing I did mattered.

“Look,” I meant to sound calm and reasonable. But anger leaked into it. “Will you handle dinner? Everything’s in the kitchen. The setup is not that different from the North Carolina House.” The final home we had together. “And I got all the ingredients I just…”

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