It was an hour before they heard movement. The soft clank and rustle of gear being toted. And then the crunch of dry grass and rocks under feet.
The Chinese came into view, skin shiny with sweat, Russian carbines propped on shoulders or held loosely in unworried hands. Their heads were down, watching their steps. The Marines were gone; there was no reason to take any precautions.
They didn’t know four Marines lay in wait until they were nearly upon them.
Quick, clean kills, all fifteen of them.
That night, Will paused in the act of opening his meat and beans and glanced over at Finn. His best friend sat on his air mattress with his legs crossed, his head bowed. One hand fingered the can opener around his neck with the mindless reverence one would use to stroke a crucifix. In the other hand he held the small photo of Leena, its edges now papery, yellow, and folded. His lips moved, but Will couldn’t read them.
12
He gets a string of texts from an unknown number on his walk to The Grind.
½ price drinks 2nite @ the club
If ur interested
this is Tara btw
Smiling to himself, and trying not to walk into a decorative tree planted along his route, he types back: Is this my official invitation? How cute. I feel so special.
Don’t make a thing out of it, she sends back. R u coming or not?
I’ll try.
Bring Hal. She closes with no less than seventeen winking smiley face emojis.
She wasn’t at the house when he left, and he hopes that means she’s at school. Though she’s probably helping Dex test cocktail recipes. Luke feels, to his horror, that he ought to say something to her parents. That’s never been his style – he’s no rat – but at the moment, he can’t share a wink and a nudge with her and think “kids will be kids.” This kid has a bright future, and she’s squandering it.
He’s in line at the coffee house, grateful for the warmth and anticipation of caffeine, when his phone buzzes with another alert.
Tara again: Hal better know how 2 keep a secret.
She’s not placing her trust in Hal, though. Hal, at the end of the day, is a family employee, who no doubt knows his place. She’s trusting Luke here, as a friend. Maybe. A pseudo-friend. Maybe she has designs on secret-swapping: If you tell my parents about this, I’ll tell Hal you’re in love with him. Well, little late for that, girlie.
He can, he texts back, along with a thumbs-up emoji.
Ur so lame.
One latte and a hard-won window table later, Luke tucks into his shitty word count and resolves to quadruple it.
He writes fifteen-hundred words in an hour, and keeps going.
~*~
He’s still tinkering around with his…book, let’s just call it a book, he thinks…back at the apartment when Hal gets home, face flushed from the cold, eyes bright with something like gladness when they land on Luke.
“Oh good, you’re home,” Luke says before Hal can greet him. He shuts his laptop and looks up at Hal’s amused, expectant face. “How do you feel about night clubs? Because we have an invitation.”
~*~
A bald, beefy guard in a black Security windbreaker stands guard just outside the door of the club tonight. The line is only four-deep, girls in skimpy all-black outfits and too much eyeliner, who more than likely have fake IDs in their wallet.
“You on the list?” he asks when Luke approaches.
“Keller and Rycroft.”
The guy nods, scratches their names off, and waves them inside. “Have a good time.”
“Thanks.”
Beyond the dark confines of the hall, Luke can see flashing lights skipping across bodies; the music pounds through the floorboards and up the walls, dampened by the tight space around them.
He feels the warmth and weight of Hal’s hand at his waist, Hal’s lips brushing his ear as he leans over his shoulder and says, “Matt would shit a brick if he knew about this!”
Luke’s heartbeat accelerates, and it has nothing to do with the music.
He tips his head back, feels the scratch of Hal’s five o’ clock shadow up high along his cheekbone. “Which is why you’re never going to tell him!”
Hal sighs – his chest presses into Luke’s back – but he says, “Yeah, fine, I can keep a secret.”
“Good, ‘cause I don’t want you making a liar out of me.”
Hal snorts, right in Luke’s ear, and then his hand pulls away. Luke misses it immediately.
The hall opens up into the main part of the club, and it doesn’t look like the same place Luke visited in the daytime. Colored lights rotate overhead, beaming across the crowd like searchlights. The darkness and the high ceilings lend the room an expansive, hollow feeling, and despite the cold outside, the crush of humanity turns the club tropical; Luke can already feel sweat gathering at the small of his back and behind his knees. The bar, illuminated from underneath its glass top, shoots for futuristic, something that was hip in New York in the nineties. In fact, the whole place leans retro, just like Tara’s Goth/grunge makeup.
“Cute,” he says, mostly to himself, but Hal leans in to hear.
“What?”
“Come buy me a drink.” He hooks a finger in Hal’s belt loop and tows him forward.
When they get to the bar, and Hal is occupied ordering their drinks, Luke takes the chance for another stolen look at Hal. They are both wearing tight jeans, but Hal’s are just obscene. They look spray-painted on, dark wash, highlighting his adherence to leg day at the gym. His shirt – a dark blue button-up left open at the throat – is likewise too tight, and over it he wears a black motorcycle jacket Luke’s never seen before, but of which he definitely approves.
“Here.” Hal slides over a Jack and Coke and turns to put his back to the bar, ostensibly scanning the crowd, but angling his body toward Luke. Luke wonders if he knows that his posture screams that he’s here with someone, that he’s not trolling.
“Thanks.” Luke mimics his stance, with that slight angle.
Two sips into his drink, Luke remembers just how much he hates nightclubs. Mom likes to say he was born eighty-years-old, a theory never disproved by his avoidance of large, loud social gatherings. He likes to drink, and he likes music, and sometimes…sometimes….he likes to dance. But he likes a glass of Scotch to go with a good book. Likes to cut his angry scream-o rock with Otis Redding. Likes a slow dance, no music, just two lonely hearts swaying together to their own beat.
God, he’s a mess.
Something bumps his elbow – Hal’s elbow. He’s sliding in closer, cutting down that gap between them. He tips his head in as he says, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought you hated clubs.”
Luke forces himself to make a face, because that’s what he ought to do, forces himself not to reveal the way proximity is making his pulse jump. “I do.”
“So…?”
“Tara invited us, which is teenage girl speak for her wanting us to come.”
“You two are friends, then?”
“Friendly. I think maybe she just recognized someone else who didn’t fit in around her perfect family.” He glances over and sees Hal’s brows go up. “She wants to go to dance school.”
“So why doesn’t she? Matt offered to pay for it.”
“What? No, she said he…”
But Hal shakes his head. “Matt would send that kid to school in China if she wanted it. She wanted to stay in DC. That’s why the whole family spends so much time here. They have a house back in Virginia, too, you know. Most senators get apartments and leave their families in the home state. Matt brings his with him, and a lot of that is the girls going to school here.”
Luke is dumbfounded, and doesn’t get a chance to respond because the subject in question slips between them and leans up against the bar, Dex in tow.
“You made it!” Tara shouts over the music, gleam in her eye suggested that several drinks have been consumed. “Hal, this is my boyfriend Dex. Babe.” She slides her a
rm through Dex’s. “You remember Luke, and this is his boyfriend, Hal.”
Luke tries not to choke on his drink.
But Hal, to his credit, says, “Uh…hi, nice to meet you,” and shakes Dex’s hand. Luke can’t tell if he’s blushing, beneath the swinging blue and purple lights, but his crooked smile suggests he probably is.
“Same,” Dex says. “You guys have a good time, I gotta check in with the DJ.” He kisses Tara’s cheek, squeezes her ass, and slips off into the crowd, Tara staring after him a moment with a dreamy look on her face.
“Wow,” Luke says. “PDA. In front of the old folks.” He gestures between himself and Hal. “Comfy, are we?”
Tara swats his arm. “Oh my God, you are lame.”
“And yet you invited us.”
She grins, teeth glowing in the dark.
“You’re kinda drunk, aren’t you?”
“Yep.”
“Tara.” Hal leans in. “This guy Dex, is he–”
“Down, boy.” She rolls her eyes. “Dex is fine. And you’re gonna keep quiet about him. You promised.”
“You promised,” Luke echoes, squeezing Hal’s shoulder.
Hal sighs and lifts his hands in a helpless gesture. “Fine. Sure. I promised. Just…”
“Yeah. Uh-huh.” Tara pats him on top of the head – quite the reach – and then leaves them, no doubt to look for Dex.
Luke feels the weight of Hal’s glare and turns to him slowly, playing with the straw in his drink. He’s expecting one accusation, and gets another.
“You already met him?” he asks, indignant. “You knew she was dating this…this…”
“Dumbass douchebag?”
“Yes!”
Luke bites back a laugh, giddy that it wasn’t the boyfriend comment that angered him, quelling that thought with the knowledge that, yes, Dex is a douchebag.
“She’s not my kid,” he says, holding up a placating hand when Hal starts to protest. “And she trusted me with her secret. That’s important. I told you, I’m not going to betray her to her parents.”
Hal makes an unhappy noise that carries over the music.
“It’s a phase,” Luke says. “She isn’t gonna attach herself to someone like him in the long run. She’s smarter than that.”
“Yeah, but what if she gets pregnant? What if she’s that committed to going against her folks?” Hal wipes a hand down his face.
“When did you get to be such an old man?” Luke asks with a laugh.
Hal shakes his head.
“Hey.” Luke sneaks in even closer, so they’re pressed together, shoulder to hip. “She’s okay.”
“I know,” Hal grumbles. “But I feel…”
“Guilty?”
“Yeah.”
“Give it a minutes. It’ll pass.”
Hal elbows him and he laughs.
“Seriously, though,” Luke says. “You know this isn’t gonna last. She’ll drop his ass. Sooner rather than later, I’m guessing. She’s not a stupid kid. Or a bad one.”
“I know that.”
“Have a little faith, then.”
Hal drains his drink in one long gulp, his mouth shiny afterward in a way Luke doesn’t want to think about. “Want a refill?”
“Why not.”
~*~
Perhaps because he’s so tall, or perhaps it’s a trick of genetics, but Hal is one of those people who, if he takes it slow, can drink steadily for hours without showing its effects. He drinks his way through every football game, through every Christmas party, every wedding reception. And except for the slightly glassy look in his eyes, or the blush along his cheeks, no one would ever know.
Luke is not one of those people.
Luke has three martinis, and winds up dancing shirtless on top of bars. Or finding his way into compromising photos.
He isn’t proud, but he isn’t really able to stop it from happening, either…not once the alcohol is in his system. He could always abstain from drinking – and a lot of the time he does, these days – but tonight Hal’s sliding drinks toward him, and there’s a reckless voice in the back of his head telling him to keep going and see what happens. See if he’ll wake up next to Hal again. See if they take it further this time.
“Are you sweet on her?” Luke asks when he’s taken the first sip of his third Jack and Coke. They’ve got a little table on the edge of the dance floor, watching people who seem decades younger than them grind beneath the dizzying lights.
Hal sits with his elbows braced on the table, leaning forward into the middle of it, shoulders miles wide inside his blue shirt. “Who?” He frowns, confused.
“Tara.” Luke flicks a glance toward the DJ booth, where she’s snuggled up with Dex.
“What?” Hal barks a harsh, humorless laugh. “No. Dude, no. She’s my client’s daughter, for starters. And I’m not interested, for seconds.”
When Luke looks at him, he finds his friend staring at the table, shaking his head, brows knitted together. “Well that’s dramatic.”
Hal lifts his head, frown harsh now. “I’m not sweet on her,” he says, firmly, and Hal’s a bad liar, so Luke knows he means it.
“Okay.”
“I’m serious.” His stare bores into Luke.
“Okay, okay. Damn. I was just asking.” He didn’t mean it all that seriously, was just asking. But Hal looks troubled, toying with his straw, grooves bracketing his mouth. “What about Maddie?” he asks, tone light and teasing.
“Ugh.” Hal sags back in his chair. “She wrote me a note, you know.”
“No!”
“She didn’t sign it, but I know it was her. She said I was ‘super cute.’”
Luke cackles.
“I didn’t even know it was in my bag,” Hal continues, beet red in the face. “And we were at the gym, and it fell out on the floor…”
“Jesus Christ,” Luke gasps, wheezing now.
“It’s not that funny.”
“Beg to differ.”
Hal rakes a hand through his hair, messing up the neatly-gelled spikes, a move which turns Luke’s laughter to sawdust in his throat. “Mitch picked it up…and kinda read it to everyone.”
Luke chuckles, still, but the hilarity of the situation is dying away. “Aw, poor you. Little girls think you’re super cute.”
Hal makes a face. “Oh, come on. Girls think you’re cute.”
“Hmm.”
“Remember Natalie?”
“Natalie Duncan?”
Hal nods. “I know for a fact she had a crush on you junior year.”
Luke doesn’t believe that. He doesn’t think he does, anyway. He remembers Natalie as blonde, busty, and a little bookish. She’d liked thick cable-knit sweaters and Jane Austen. They’d sat beside one another in Lit and worked on a paper together once.
“Just because you weren’t interested in girls doesn’t mean girls weren’t interested in you,” Hal says, smiling a little.
“Gay or not, she was too hot for me.”
Hal’s grin widens. “Nah. Don’t sell yourself short. You have a look.”
“A look?”
“A look.”
Warmth moves beneath his skin, little bright fizzes and leaps, like bubbles. He doesn’t recognize the sparkle in Hal’s eyes, but he likes it. He thinks about going to the gym, Hal’s hands gentle against his damaged face. Thinks about waking up this morning tucked beside him on the same pillow. Thinks about Tara saying boyfriend, and Hal not protesting.
“Come dance with me,” Luke says, voice a little rough.
Hal takes a breath. “You know I can’t dance for shit.”
Luke jerks a thumb toward the dance floor. “Neither can any of them. Come on.”
And Hal comes.
The floor is an island, its own nation, out under the dancing colors, foggy with sweat-smell, and perfume, and body heat. Sliding between couples is like entering another dimension, one in which Hal’s hand rests on his hip, keeping them together as they find an open place just for the
two of them.
Luke would never say he was a good dancer, but with whiskey in his veins, and music throbbing inside his bones, Hal strong and solid at his back, he trusts his hips to do the work, his muscles to relax and fall into the rhythm.
They settle into an open pocket of floor. Hal’s hands rest tightly, possessively at his waist, fingertips digging, palms warm through Luke’s shirt. He leans backward into the touch, moving into the heat of Hal’s body. Connected at chest and back, hips and hips. Luke feels overheated. Small, and sheltered, and cared-for. And he feels electrified: turned-on, and hungry, and aching inside.
He expects Hal to pull back. But Hal shifts in close, closer, leans into the points of connection between their bodies. His mouth brushes the top of Luke’s ear, warm breath and soft lips.
Luke tips his head back, rests it against Hal’s shoulder, and he can just see Hal’s eyes, lit up with club lights, impossible to read.
One of Hal’s hands slides forward, settles low on Luke’s stomach. It’s so easy to imagine what this could mean, to pretend that Hal means what he’s doing. That he wants the way Luke does.
Luke turns his head. Seeks…
“Oh my God!” Someone crashes into them, shattering the moment, the touching, all of it.
It’s Tara, wet tears sliding like crystal down her face, lip quivering, the whole shebang.
“What?” Luke asks, pissed off beyond belief.
“Tara, what’s wrong?” Hal asks in a more normal tone. But his face is flushed, and his chest heaves as he breathes. Luke’s eyes dart to the front of his pants, but it’s too dark to see anything.
“That asshole!” she rages, waving her hands around. “He…he…”
Dex appears, shoving his way through the crowd, and behind him lingers a slim, young blonde girl, hanging onto his elbow.
Oh shit, Luke thinks.
“Babe,” Dex says. “Don’t–”
“He wants a three-way!” Tara yells, loud enough to draw the attention of other couples on the dance floor. “With this skank!”
Walking Wounded Page 17