Page 26 of The Moments You Were Mine
Hours before we’d loaded into the helicopters, Will had been told his kid’s baby mama was dead, and the shitty-ass news had brought him to his knees. I’d tried to talk him into removing himself from the mission, but he’d said he wasn’t about to ring the bell now any more than he had when we’d been at BUD/S together.
For the first time since we’d become friends at the Naval Academy, I’d gone behind his back and asked our commander to pull him. After my request had been denied, I’d tried again to talk Will out of going. I’d even told him I’d gone to command, and he hadn’t even been pissed. He’d said he understood why I’d done it, but I shouldn’t worry. That he was good to go.
Except, he hadn’t been. I had no doubts the distraction had cost him his life. We could have lost the entire team if I hadn’t taken the bomber out before he’d detonated the second device.
Now, I was a tangled mess of emotions. Pain and loss. Anger and frustration. Doubts. So many goddamn doubts. About my unit, my career, and my life.
I had to get it all in check.
I had to find a way to keep it all locked up because I had somewhere I had to be. A responsibility I had to fulfill. And just how the fuck was I supposed to do that? What the hell had Will been thinking?
The coffin disappeared inside a hearse, the doors shut, and it rolled away.
A seagull dove down with a loud screech before heading out to sea. Helicopter blades whirred into action. A jet took off.
Life moved on.
Our commander directed a dark look over our formation. “Debrief at thirteen hundred. No one talks to anyone, not even with a “Honey, I’m home” message, until we’ve concluded this mess. Get your shit and meet me in the ready room.”
He turned on his heel and walked away, his shoes snapping along the runway like far-off gunshots. I had to fight the urge to toss him to the ground and beat him bloody. It had been his decision, more than any other, that had ensured Will had gone into combat like originally planned.
A hand clamped down on my shoulder, and I turned to findSweeney eyeing me behind the dark glasses. “If you intend to become a ripe old Bull Frog, Baywatch, you need to learn to deal with this shit.” The nickname Will had been responsible for giving me was just another reminder of what I’d lost. “You’re going to lose more people in our line of work. Some will be on our team, and others will be military friends. Loss is part of the job.”
He squeezed my shoulder and then walked away.
I barely bit back my reply.No loss was acceptable.
But as our squadron leader and a veteran SEAL, Sweeney was right. If I wanted to be a Bull Frog, like I’d promised my grandpa, I had to pull my head out of my ass.
I needed to talk to my dad.
Even more than that, I needed to talk to someone who would bring some damn light into my life instead of darkness. A sunny blonde with eyes that glowed gold. I needed Fallon’s fire to burn away the dark.
But the truth was, now more than ever, I couldn’t call her. Not only because I was routinely driving a wedge between her and the asshole boyfriend I’d resigned myself to her having, but because I’d only drag her into the dark with me. I had to figure out how to handle the heavy burden that had landed on my shoulders on my own.
What the actual hell had Will been thinking?
That single thought had been on repeat inside my head since our commander had handed me Will’s letter. Will had known I didn’t want kids. That I didn’t want a child growing up receiving only scattered bits of my time. That I didn’t want anyone worrying about whether I’d come home or not. Knowing my parents worried was bad enough, and yet he’d still left me in charge of his son. A four-year-old who’d just lost his father and his mother in a matter of days and didn’t even know it yet. A kid who had no other family but mine.
My stomach jackknifed.
As I picked up my duffel from the stack tossed on the tarmac by the plane and followed Sweeney, I attempted to push back the overwhelming sea of emotions I was wading through. I had to get my shit together. The only way to do so was by handling it like I’d dealt with every single challenge on my path to becominga SEAL—by focusing on one objective at a time. That meant attending the debrief, calling Dad, and finding Theo.
? ? ?
I was still rolling with anger when I slammed the front door shut on my 1940s, two-bedroom cottage twenty minutes from base. The silence that always greeted me after a mission seemed heavier than normal. I actively hated it now, when normally it was just a scab I picked at in the dark of the night.
Ignoring the pile of mail waiting for me, I showered, changed into civilian clothes, and went to the refrigerator, hoping to find something to coat the acid lining my stomach. Nothing was there but condiments and two bottles of beer.
The beer would only add to the bile, but I found myself smacking a cap off one using the edge of the counter anyway. I’d swallowed half the bottle before the paper pinned to the outside of the fridge had my throat closing and sent me choking and spitting into the sink.
I turned back, touching the crayon drawing held in place with a Lucky Shot magnet. Two stick figures with guns and sunglasses swung a kid between them. Theo had given me the picture the last time Will had brought him by the house before we’d deployed. He’d been so damn proud of the drawing. Proud of his dad and his SEAL buddy.
I leaned my forehead on the refrigerator and yanked my phone from my back pocket.
I wasn’t sure how to tell my parents about Will. They’d pretty much adopted him since his parents had died. Mom had helped him through all the paperwork, Dad had helped him with the funeral arrangements, and I’d held him up every time he’d drunk himself into forgetfulness. Since then, every holiday and leave, we’d spent time with my parents. Will’s son had never met his biological grandparents on Will’s side, but my parents had tried to stand in for them.
We were a family. My parents were going to take his loss as hard as if it was me who’d died in that goddamn village.
