by Layla Reyne
Amusement vanished. Brax wanted nothing more than to comfort, and to do that, he needed to understand. “You don’t like the sirens?”
Madigan shook his head, a single, sharp movement.
“Not used to them?” Brax asked.
The sirens quieted, and Madigan exhaled. “That’s not it. It’s fucking ridiculous given my family…” His words drifted off, swallowed by a choked sound, half laugh and half sob.
Brax changed tactics. “You make it a habit to hide under beds?”
The half laugh won, a watery chuckle escaping Madigan’s lips before he sobered. “Only the second time.”
“The first?”
Madigan rotated his face toward Brax. He opened his eyes, and even in the low light, the pain in their dark depths was fathomless.
Fuck holding back. Brax reached out and grasped Madigan’s shoulder. “You don’t—”
“The day my parents died.”
Brax tightened his grip. “Fuck, Private, I’m sorry.”
“It was a Tuesday. The outdoor warning sirens in San Francisco go off every Tuesday at noon.”
“How long ago—”
“Four years.” His dimpled chin wobbled. “I had to fight not to crawl under the bed every week until I enlisted. Until I left.”
“And the sirens stopped.”
“More like changed, but these, they sound…”
Just like the ones from the day his parents had died.
Brax knew something about that sort of pain, about harmless associations that suddenly felt like crushing boulders. He drew his hand back and braced his weight on his elbows. Eyes closed, he recalled the sense memory he’d banished years ago. “You know those peppermint pinwheel candies you sometimes get with the bill at restaurants?”
“Yeah, you get them everywhere. They’re fucking disgusting.”
Brax smiled, impossibly, in the face of the memory of the worst moment of his life. “I used to eat them compulsively. Had one in my mouth the day I got the call. Lost my mom on 9/11. She worked in the Towers.”
A gust of air blasted the side of his face. “Fuck, Captain, I’m sorry.”
“Me too, Private.” On active duty status, Brax had had less than twenty-four hours to grieve his mother, his last remaining relative, before he’d been on a transport to what would quickly become a warzone without one of his most basic comforts. At the time, even the sight of the red and white candies brought him to the verge of tears. The taste, he didn’t doubt, would have triggered a full-blown meltdown. He’d had to find comfort somewhere else. His replacement addiction. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold-wrapped hard candy. “Switched to caramel.”
Madigan chuckled, and sensing the break in tension, Brax pushed into the opening. They needed to get to the armory before their absence was further noted. And investigated. “How did you get out from under the bed?” he asked. “How did you keep from crawling back under it?”
“My brother lured me out with a jacked-up laptop. Always kept it with me. Kept me busy.”
“Gamer?”
A sly smile turned up one corner of Madigan’s mouth. “Not exactly.”
“I saw your aptitude test scores. You’ve got some talent with computers.” Not as much talent as he had with weapons, but tech was a close second. And a skill set that was a whole lot safer than joining the snipers. “I’ve got a buddy in signal support. I can put you on his radar.”
Brax imagined the light that flared in Madigan’s eyes was similar to what his brother had glimpsed that day four years ago. Hopeful, Brax shifted onto his knees and held out his hand.
Madigan’s bear-sized paw enveloped his, then nearly crushed it when the sirens sounded again. The sheer strength of his grip set off a flood of inappropriate thoughts. Brax hastily shoved them into a tiny mental corner, slamming shut and locking the door on his id. Not the time. Never the time where an enlisted soldier was concerned. He gave a light tug, and Madigan scooted the rest of the way out from under the bed.
Brax helped him to standing. “I’ll talk to my buddy later today.”
The sirens stopped, and Madigan released his hand, eyes downcast as he wiped his face. “Why are you helping me? I wasn’t where I was supposed to be.”
“You were where you needed to be.” Brax stepped into the aisle and gestured for Madigan to follow. “Finish getting dressed, Private, quickly, and if anyone asks, I was having you clear the bunkhouse.”
The soldier snapped his heels together. “Yes, sir.”
Brax turned for the door. “I’ll be waiting outside.”
The soft-spoken “thank you” behind him was way too gentle—way too tempting—for a man Madigan’s size. Brax’s id slammed itself against the locked door.
Chapter Two
Thirteen Years Ago
Brax pushed open the DFAC doors and immediately regretted not taking a shower first. The blast of chilled air that hit his sweat-soaked skin sent a full-body shiver rippling through him. Thankfully, only a handful of people were in the chow hall, none of whom seemed to notice his Casper impression in their haste to rise and salute. A couple of late lunching privates in the far corner, several specialists playing cards around a center table, and two junior enlisted soldiers on KP duty with the cook, Luther.
Brax bade them “at ease” and hustled to the buffet, afraid the lunch leftovers would be cleared before he got any. “Hold up, Teague. Let me at least grab some cold cuts.”
The private laughed. “Late transport again?”
“Third one this spring.” Third time he’d stood outside on the tarmac for over an hour in triple-degree heat, watching the wild poppies sway while waiting for a C-130 that never showed. Weather still existed in other parts of the world, and storms managed to fuck up all manner of schedules, including Brax’s.
“How late’s this one?” Teague asked. “And why’s it always on a Tuesday?”
“No idea. Fucking jinxed, I guess.” Brax checked his watch. “Over ninety now. Revised ETA in forty.” Which left him just enough time to scarf down the turkey and cheese sandwich he’d assembled. He snagged a bag of chips from the end of the line and a can of ginger ale out of the bucket filled with long-melted ice, the water lukewarm. When he went to set them back on his tray, two blondies drizzled with extra caramel were stacked on the corner.
Teague grinned. “Luther told us to save you a couple.”
“Makes the wait worth it,” Brax said with a grateful smile, and a “Thanks, Luther,” for the cook prepping vegetables behind Teague.
Little things like that made the transfer out of MP to his current duty worth it too. He liked being the officer soldiers wanted to see versus feared seeing. Also worth it, the difference he’d made in the duty of the soldier sitting by himself in the other half of the chow hall.
Protocol dictated Brax sit separately—officers and enlisted soldiers rarely ate together—but fuck it, there were no other officers there and barely any enlisted personnel. He approached the table slowly, careful not to startle the big man wearing his over-ear headphones. Madigan was hyperfocused on a game of solitaire dealt out on the table. Brax set his tray opposite the line of cards, and brown eyes shot up to his. The man followed suit, standing so fast he yanked the iPod attached to his headphones off the table. He caught it with lightning-fast reflexes and tossed it, blind, to his left hand in a perfect pitch and catch. He yanked up his right hand in a salute. “Sir.”
Brax didn’t know whether to laugh or ask one of the many questions in his mental file labeled Holt Madigan that kept him awake at night. Since Madigan had moved on from Brax’s command, Brax’s daily internal battles had waned, but the curiosities lingered. How did a giant Madigan’s size move so stealthily, so efficiently? And yet, also disregard—almost forget—his size half the time? Brax, however, didn’t think that was a conversation for forty minutes. “Sit down, Private.”
Madigan folded back into his chair and lowered his headphones to rest around his neck.
“You mind?” Brax gestured at the opposite chair. “I’ve got forty before the transport arrives.”
“Not at all. You want me to deal you in?”
“Nah, you keep at it. I’ll eat.” He sat across from the private and dug into his lunch. “How’s it going with the new gig?”
“Good. I like it a lot. Thank you again.”
“Heard you put on quite a show.” Word had gotten back to him that Madigan had cracked Camp Casey’s firewall in record time. Faster than Emmitt Marshall, the camp’s hot-shot cyber warfare CO. Brax wouldn’t be surprised if Madigan was moved from signal support where he’d been the past six months to Marshall’s team by the end of the year. The former was necessary to learn the systems and protocols, but Madigan’s skills would serve the latter better. And cowboy that Marshall was, from his Texas drawl to the methods he sometimes used to get the job done—and he always did—he would want a weapon like Madigan in his arsenal. “Colonel Ayers owed the tech teams enough favors to swipe you from the snipers.”
A shiver snaked through Madigan, not unlike Brax’s when he’d first entered the DFAC, except there was no AC blasting in this part of the chow hall. “I’m much happier with my current assignment.”
“Good.” Brax took another bite of his sandwich. “You don’t look nearly as sunburned either.”
“Small mercies.”
Brax chuckled, and Madigan relaxed further as he gathered up his cards.
Brax ripped into the bag of chips. “And the team there?”
“They’re good too.”
“But you didn’t want to play with them?” Brax tilted his head to the other half of the DFAC where he’d recognized two other signal support specialists among the group around the center table.
Chin lowered, Madigan reddened as he riffled the cards. “Can I tell you a secret?”
Brax swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. Was there a problem on the team? Or did he—No, he wasn’t going to speculate. “Sure.”
Madigan glanced at him through criminally long, red-gold lashes. “I’m really fucking terrible at cards.”
A bark of laughter erupted out of Brax, the answer so far from what he’d expected that the tension evaporated on a dime. “I never would’ve figured.”
“No one does. Apparently my being a genius at ones and zeros does not translate to these.” Madigan fanned the deck out on the table. “My brother gives me endless shit for it.”
“Older?”
Madigan raised two fingers. “By two minutes, and he never lets me forget it.”
“Twins?” Brax leaned back in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, bag of chips in hand. “There are two giant Madigans out there?”
Madigan rolled his eyes, but the gesture was belied by a fond smile. “Yes and no. Hawes isn’t much shorter than me now, finally hit his growth spurt, but he’s still leaner, all sharp angles. Our mom—” His voice cracked, and he closed his eyes a moment longer than a blink. For an interminable second, Brax fought the urge to reach out, crushing the bag of chips to stop himself, and then it passed, and Madigan opened his eyes and cleared his throat. “She used to joke I took up all the space in her womb, so Hawes came out first, screaming and squished.”
Brax discarded the crumpled bag and snagged a blondie. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Of course it’s not. But somehow I got stuck with ‘Little H’ as a nickname, and he’s ‘Big H.’ Our younger sister, Helena’s, doing.” He riffled the cards again. “But Hawes is a giant in other ways. He’s never been afraid to be himself, even when I had to help fight off the bullies.”
“Because he was smaller?”
“And gay.” The casual ease with which Madigan dropped that fact, the lack of any sort of judgment in his voice or interruption in the cards he was dealing, loosened a knot in Brax’s chest. “For real, though, I think I played lookout for him more than protector. He was always getting into shit and fucking around with guys. And Helena’s trouble with a capital T. Flirts with anyone and everyone and is smarter than me and Hawes combined.”
The knot loosened more, almost loosened Brax’s tongue enough to ask about Madigan’s sexuality. Or more tempting, to confess his own. Both would be completely inappropriate and illegal under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
Madigan saved him the infraction. “That’s another reason I tend to keep to myself.” He lowered his chin again, and if not for the blush, Brax would have thought he was just focused on the game of solitaire he was butchering. “Not really here for the whose chick is hotter convo.” He stopped midreach with his next card as if realizing his slip in candor. “Shit, sorry.”
Too flustered for words, Brax waved him off and shoved the rest of the blondie into his mouth, preventing himself from committing infractions.
Welcome back, internal battles.
“Can’t really have the whose guy is hotter conversation either.” He cringed. “Shit, I’m sorry again. I’m from San Francisco. Not talking freely about this stuff is weird, especially given my siblings.” He swept up his cards, the game lost. “It’s frustrating.”
Brax wiped off his hands and mentally guesstimated how many hours this new Madigan puzzle piece was going to keep him awake tonight. “I’m from New York, so I get it, and maybe you just haven’t found the right person yet.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged one shoulder, chin still lowered. “In any event, I’d rather not get into the middle of”—he gestured toward the other table—“that, for multiple reasons.”
“Fair enough.” Wanting to see his eyes again, Brax offered a bit of his own truth in return, trusting he could give it to Madigan. And he wasn’t exactly violating the law. “Not really one for the whose chick is hotter convo either, and not only because it’s sexist as hell.”
That did the trick. Madigan’s gaze darted to his, brown eyes wide with surprise. Then with an acceptance Brax had forgotten how much he missed. The small smile and affirmative nod that followed confirmed he understood the implication. And it felt good—so fucking good—for someone there to know and accept that part of him.
Before Brax could say more, his radio crackled with word the delayed C-130 was inbound. Fifteen minutes early. He confirmed he was on his way, then stood. “Good to catch up,” he said to Madigan. He put the leftover blondie on a napkin, slid it across the table, and lowered his voice. “You ever need to talk, or not, I will beat you at cards any time.”
Madigan grinned. “Those soldiers arriving today are lucky to have you.”
“Thank you.” Brax let loose more of the warmth in his voice. “You know, I think this is the most we’ve ever talked, Private.”
Madigan pointed at the patch on his shoulder. His smile grew, the freckles colliding, much like Brax’s insides. “Specialist now.”
“You were a private under my watch.”
Madigan snatched up the blondie and lifted it as if in a toast. “And you, Major, were a captain.” He winked before shoving the treat into his mouth, and Brax didn’t even want to think about how many hours that wink was going to add to his sleeplessness.
Chapter Three
Twelve Years Ago
“Outta the way.” Tray held aloft, Luther shoved aside Teague, who Brax had been congratulating on his promotion to culinary specialist. “Got a special order for this one.”
Luther’s Flatbush accent usually comforted Brax, but today it only worsened the homesickness that hung over him like a storm cloud. He wasn’t often prone to the longing for home that plagued so many soldiers. He’d been in the military seventeen years, fifteen of them deployed, and had no family left back home. He didn’t consider himself religious either. But always at this time of year, always at the start of Hanukkah, he missed the tiny apartment his mother and grandfather would trim in silver and blue, making sure he didn’t feel left out in a building otherwise festooned in red and green. He missed the soft light of the glowing menorah and the rich aromas that would waft out of the kitchen. Hanukkah wasn’t a
s big a holiday to Jews as Christians made it out to be, but Hanukkah food was Brax’s favorite. Beef brisket, pan-fried latkes, sufganiyot, and more. He missed his favorites so much he was hallucinating them, the familiar scents tickling his nose. Smells that intensified when Luther handed him the tray.
“What’s this?” Brax asked.
“Like I said, special order.” Smiling, the cook tilted his head toward the other half of the DFAC, toward the table Brax had shared almost every Tuesday the past year and a half with Holt Madigan.
The Monday after their first lunch together, Brax had received a message.
Oski15: Hey, it’s Holt. Same bat time, same bat channel tomorrow?
Roger that, Brax had replied before he’d been able to talk himself out of it.
He had arrived that second Tuesday to find Holt eating a sandwich and cutting two decks of cards. They’d eaten and played double solitaire, Brax winning every hand, Holt explaining how his call sign was a nod to the mascot of the school where his twin was in college, plus the jersey number of his favorite Toronto Raptors player who had since left the team. It was still one of the funniest rants Brax had ever heard Holt go on during their lunches.
The same routine had repeated itself each week they were both on base and unoccupied. Occasionally, Luther, Teague, or the KP soldiers on duty would join them, and they’d change the game to hearts, which Holt loved the most despite being dreadful at it. Yes, Brax was well liked on base and appropriately social with his fellow officers, but there were few among them he considered real friends. None among them he trusted enough to be his real self around.
Not like he did Holt Madigan.
Lunch, though, wasn’t typically waiting for Brax. Usually he threw together a sandwich or, if he was lucky, cobbled together a plate of lukewarm leftovers. Nothing about today’s lunch looked thrown together or lukewarm. He set the tray on the metal rails of the buffet bar and peeked under the metal warmer covering the dinner plate. The sight confirmed the smells that had teased him. Beef brisket, latkes, and chopped liver. He lifted the napkin draped over the smaller plate. Sufganiyot.