Page 5 of I Promise You
I just need some fucking sleep…
Lopez will be giving me a ride back to my house. It’s dark when I close her door.
A strong breeze refreshes the heat on my skin. It’s getting colder. It’s fall heading into winter.
I’ve been there since the beginning and yet Danny has the most incredible privilege to have kissed her…Feel her. Take her.
I slide into the car, slamming the door.
“Fuck, man, you’re covered in blood… Is that—”
“Ari’s blood?” I intervene for him, looking at him, aggravated.
He stills, looking at my face and then my hands, probably picturing what we went through.
“Yes,” I finish, clicking on my seat belt.
He clears his throat awkwardly and reverses his car. Streetlights and porch lights flash and disappear across our faces as we drive away.
“What the fuck happened, man? How is she doing?”
I shake my head, looking at Ari’s Bronco as he gets closer to the end of the street.
“I don’t know.”
The day I met her still feels fresh in my mind, like it was yesterday. I can’t help it, but my mind drifts to the first day I laid eyes on her, knowing it felt forbidden.
December - The Day of Paul’s Funeral
Bloomings, North Carolina
“This doesn’t feel real,” I rasp. My throat feels like there’s a rock inside. No matter how many times I try to swallow it down, it’s there, threatening to break me.
Paul is dead, and they finished putting him under the ground. I don’t want to accept that we’re burying one of our closest friends. It hurts so fucking much and to see the way everyone is taking his loss hurts me even more.
Two women sit by the closed casket. In my heart, I feel that Paul’s girls, mother, and sister are the closest to it. I know it’s them because they haven’t stopped crying and they have the same long black hair. It’s a different color than Paul’s. Even so, I know it’s them.
His mother holds onto the American flag presented to them by the Honor Guard. She’s squeezing it tight underneath her knuckles while his little sister has her hands over her shoulder, soothing her. She’s comforting her mother, who has lost her only son.
I’m sweating even though it’s fucking cold. It’s the middle of December and still, with the harsh, freezing winds, it isn’t enough for my body to adapt. My emotions always get the best of me and I’m hot.
I feel defeated because I’ve never been the type to hold in my emotions.
Do I really want to keep doing this job? Do I really want to go to more funerals or end up attending my own, cold and dead, in my casket?
Rooker and Grim are both leaning on Grim’s all-black F-250 truck. Grim has been drinking, training in the gym, and sharpening his shooting skills at the gun range since Paul died and hasn’t been able to stop. Rooker has been doing the same thing except for drinking. Even though he’s been heavily tempted to, his old lady won’t let him.
While I’ve been playing soccer and getting lost in books, with a hint of liquor.
Grim has his hands in his pockets, and he’s devastated…and he’s hurting. He won’t show it, but I’m his best friend. Paul was Grim’s best friend, but Grim is mine. When I showed up as the new guy on the team a few years ago, he was cold and it felt like he wanted nothing to do with the new guy on the team.
Eventually, we grew close after a couple of deployments and barbecues at Rooker’s house and he’s taught me everything he knows.
I know when he’s hurting. He’s been different since the night Paul passed, and I don’t blame him.
Grim fucking Reaper is what everyone calls him. He’s the team leader, and we all have faith in the Navy’s most merciless, dangerous asset. The most distinguished and secretive team in the military is led by my boss. Operator Grim is the number one special operator.
It’s a team assembled by selecting only the best of the best Navy SEALs, and Daniel Rider was chosen to be in the most stressful position any SEAL can be in.
