Page 8 of Walking Wounded

Luke is almost giddy. He feels like they’re boys again, the smell of fresh-cut grass in his nose and the taste of Bomb Pop in his mouth. Skinned knees and shared popcorn and crap movies on the Rycroft’s console TV. Luke feels like the three years and The Incident haven’t happened; that they are the truest and deepest of best friends again.

Maybe, he thinks, seeing their reflections in the fake-gold plating of the elevator wall, this is a new beginning for them. Maybe they can go back to the way things always were. Maybe he can convince himself that’s what he truly wants…the way things were.

The elevator arrives with a soft, tasteful ping and they walk down a white-carpeted hall, footsteps silent. The door numbers are gold, or some approximation.

“I feel like Jack Nicholson’s about to come through one of these doors with an axe,” Luke quips.

“Audrey just might,” Hal says.

“Who?”

“I have no doubt you’ll meet her soon enough.”

“And you aren’t gonna arm me with info before I do?”

“You can take care of yourself. You’re scrappy.” Hal tosses him a grin and unlocks the door of 204.

They step into a small, but tastefully appointed place. White-painted brick on the far wall, where a narrow window overlooks the street. Tiny kitchen, eating area with café table and two chair. Luke spies a bedroom through an open door. The bathroom sits beside the kitchen. When Hal flips on the lights, chrome accents flare like matches. Granite counters in the kitchen, craftsman cabinets, stainless appliances. A giant flat-screen TV dominates one wall of the living room, across from a plush cream sofa.

Just like at the airport, Luke is struck by a sense of adulthood. Maturity. A grownup lives here. A man who wears casual brown shoes and button-ups under canvas jackets. A man in charge of protecting a controversial senator.

“Like I said, it isn’t much,” Hal says. “I’ve only got the one bedroom, so you’ll have to sleep on the fold-out in the sofa.” He makes an apologetic face.

“Are you kidding?” Luke says. “That thing looks nicer than any bed I ever owned.”

Hal’s brows flick together with concern and Luke regrets saying it. Shit. He isn’t looking for pity here.

The moment holds the potential to spin into something uncomfortable, so Luke says, “So you know I won’t believe you can cook until I see it with my own eyes.”

Hal looks relieved. “Right.”

~*~

A half-wall separates living room and kitchen, and there’s a bar there with stools. Luke climbs onto one, well out of the way, and settles in to watch.

Hal is another person entirely. He rolls up his sleeves, washes his hands, slices open a chicken package with a wicked knife from the magnetic strip on the backsplash. He lays the chicken breasts on a wooden cutting board and cubes them with quick, practiced movements.

“This isn’t happening, right?” Luke asks with a laugh. “I’m inThe Twilight Zone.”

“Nerd,” Hal accuses, blushing. Blushingagain; this is twice now, counting in the car before.

Luke shouldn’t feel triumphant on that front, but he does, a little.

“Excuse me, I wasn’t the straight-A student of the two of us.”

“That’s because you didn’t try. Not because you aren’t a nerd.”

“I ought to resent that.”

“You should. You’re the sort of person who resents stuff.”

“Well one of us has to be a miserable little bastard, and you’re not that little.”

Hal chuckles and starts putting together a flour dredge in a casserole dish.

Because Hal is a guy who owns casserole dishes now. Green ones, with white ceramic interiors.

It’s such a simple, domestic, and yet intimate detail. Luke feels a sudden twist in his gut. He wants to know everything, suddenly. Every little tiny thing he’s missed that transformed his lifelong friend into this guy with mad culinary skills.

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