Page 19 of SEAL Mates

“No. If they come and work for me, then what the fuck am I supposed to do.”

“Rest! Get a hobby. You can come join me at yoga on Wednesday nights. Do something other than work. Life is too short.”

I closed my eyes for a second and thought about the apology that I had to make, and the tiredness and hungriness inside of me wasn’t going to allow me to do it the way I should do. So, I opted to close up shop for the night.

“Help me with this car. Let’s go to the Steak house for a bite to eat and then I’ll do it first thing in the morning. Scout’s honor.”

He shrugged, “If I keep eating there then I’ll look like a damn steak. I was there only yesterday with Derek.”

“Oh.”

A wave of jealousy crept inside of me. Sure, Derek and Alec were best friends, but sometimes I felt as if he paid more attention to him than I.

“Yeah, I’ll tell you about it later. For now, let’s finish the car.”

Alec was right, I really needed to get a life, because I was a grown man and I was thinking about who my brother had spent time with, even though we had spent the best part of life apart.

He winked at me, confirming that big bro’ had something up his sleeves, he had me intrigued and I thought moving back here and being a cop had made him boring. I could see by the dirty smile on his face, that I was completely wrong about that, and he wasn’t all straight tied and had a life outside of this town and being an ex-SEAL.

Naturally, we started to work on the car together, memories of our dad working with us flashed through my mind. God rest his soul, he would have been proud of us, that part I was certain of.

He used to love connecting with us both when we moved to the States.

“Remember the first time dad asked for us to work on the Rover?”

Alec pointed with the spanner.

“I thought it was a Golf. Shit, I remember I’d never done anything like that and I used to be jealous of the way that both of you looked at the car, and knew exactly what was wrong with it.”

I shrugged, because looking back, I remember feeling exactly the same.

“It was like being a kid. Dad was cool and it was great having him around, but I remember before you guys showed up when I was sixteen, it was just mom and I. She came to my games, she did everything as if she was both parents. Others had parents, some didn’t back in school, but it was cool cause I had the best mom in the world. I knew I had a brother but it was out of sight out of mind kinda thing. Then you showed up and everything changed.”

I rested my hand on the front, thinking about what he was saying and decided to tell him exactly how I felt back then. I’d told him parts, but not all of it.

“Everything in London is different, from the climate to the people. I had this vision of Americans running around and shooting each other. Fuck, in South London, if someone got stabbed it was no big deal, but guns were a whole new thing.I did my G.C.S.E’s1, then dad said it was time to leave. I never knew he was sick. I never knew that was the real reason for the move. I was fine being an only kid. Suited me just fine.”

He crossed his arms, probably shocked by the revelation.

“Then mom got sick too and it was as if we had to get along. We had no one.”

He tilted his head to the side. “That wasn’t true. We still have family.”

“Yeah, just cause we’re blood doesn’t mean that we have to get along.”

I nodded, thinking about the generations of families here. People who had lived with their parents, and had no intention of moving out.

A life, we couldn’t even dream about back then, let alone now.

“Can you imagine living with Uncle Phil?”

He shock his head and then burst out laughing.

“Nope. We would be bankrupt either because of his drinking habits or his gambling problem. Shit the man’s the bad apple of the family. Yet, grandma just keeps bailing him out!”

“I think that’s the part that pisses me off the most. Are we going to fix this car or what? Hey, there’s that new Japanese restaurant that opened up last month. We could eat there?”

He nodded in agreement. I wasn’t one for eating sushi, but I realized Alec was right. I wasn’t living for pleasure, I was just taking it day-by-day and it was time to make a change. But it sure as hell didn’t mean that I was fucking signing up for yoga.

1 General Certificate of Secondary Education. An exam taken when kids turn sixteen to continue higher education in England.

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