Page 60 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
Damn, that had been a wild evening. They’d put out the flames with buckets of water, but explaining the scorched patch to Rex was more of a challenge. In the end, they’d used sunshine on a glass bottle to relight the fire the next morning, put it out again, and been hailed as heroes. Smoke and mirrors, quite literally.
“Remember when your dad found weed in your backpack and you swore some other kid had planted it there?”
“You mean the time he sued the school for failing to enforce its anti-drug policy?” Phae rolled her eyes. “Who could forget?”
She held out the joint and Marc took it, the first time they’d touched outside of a war zone in a decade. Residual sparks shot up his arm as he took a drag.
“You found a dealer here? That was fast work.”
“Brought it with me.”
“They didn’t search you at the airport?”
“I have a private jet and diplomatic immunity.”
“Oh.” What was he even supposed to say to that? “Congratulations.”
She shrugged. “They’re just tools.”
“Because you can’t bring your guns on a commercial flight?”
“Something like that.”
And Marc had used one of those guns to kill a man. Until he fired, he hadn’t been sure he could pull the trigger, and although the man’s death replayed over and over in his head, he didn’t feel as upset about taking a life as he’d expected. After all, he still regretted the handful of bucks he’d shot as a teenager. But yesterday, it had been that terrorist or Phae, and the choice was an easy one to make. Afterward, a guy who looked more like a surfer than a soldier had shown up and taken charge, and he’d told Marc to gloss over the details of the incident if anyone asked questions, so he had. And nobody had mentioned the body in the forest. Nobody had swabbed his hands for gunshot residue or threatened him with arrest.
“Are you in trouble?” he asked Phae, and she barked out a laugh.
“No more than usual.”
“I mean, will you face any charges?”
“No.”
Good.
“Will I face any charges?”
“Also no.”
She sounded so relaxed about the situation, or at least, as relaxed as Phae got. Curiosity made him ask, “You do this type of thing often?”
“I don’t think you’d like the answer to that question.”
“So it’s a ‘yes.’” He held out a hand for the joint, took another deep inhale, and then coughed. When was the last time he’d smoked? About two months after he moved to California, probably. His grumpy landlord—who also happened to live next door—had banned smoking in the apartment, and Marc figured it was a sign he should get healthier. “And to think I worried the Army would break you.”
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
Two could play at quoting Nietzsche. Marc took a step closer to the woman he’d adored since the age of thirteen. “And every profound spirit needs a mask?”
“Be careful, lest in casting out your demon you exorcise the best thing in you.”
Another step. “Silence is worse; all truths that are kept silent become poisonous.”
“Become who you are.”
An invisible string pulled them still closer, the same energy he’d felt the first time he laid eyes on her. He’d been in Nebraska for a week, shipped off to live with a grandma he barely knew after his mom died in a car wreck. Booker had been the first friend he made in Abundance, and even though a couple of other kids warned him about Rex Roebuck, he’d accepted Booker’s invite to shoot some hoops. And that was when he’d met Phae. The first words she’d spoken to him? If you’re smart, you’ll leave.
He hadn’t heeded her warning then, and he couldn’t heed it now. Not when she was as much a part of him as his own limbs.
