“Fuck, that sucks.” Zack shook his head. “You probably shouldn’t have gone the public route—”
“You’re seriously going to go with that?”
“I’m not saying he was right.” Zack’s voice was all defensive. “He was an ass to you. But maybe he didn’t want to be gay—”
“Dude.” Pike had a feeling they weren’t discussing Roger right then, but he was going to cut that argument right the hell off. “It’s not a choice. There is no ‘want to.’ If dick turns your crank, if it makes you hard, if you beg someone for it for years, you are not straight. Pan, maybe. Bi, sure. Gay, possibly. But not straight.”
Zack bent forward like Pike had punched him, mumbling something Pike couldn’t make out. Pike was too fired up to ask him to repeat himself.
“What he was, was a liar—and not just to me. To himself. And sure, I probably shouldn’t have sprung a public prom-posal on him, but he could have trusted me more. Told me he wasn’t ready to come out or whatever.”
“Maybe it was himself he couldn’t trust,” Zack whispered, words cutting right through Pike’s tension.
“Maybe,” Pike allowed. “But he’s married now, couple of kids, and I heard through a mutual friend that he’s on some hookup app, looking for ‘discreet straight’ guys to jerk it with. Still hasn’t changed.”
“Some people can’t.” Zack’s voice was a bit harsher now.
“Some people won’t.” Pike took a vicious bite of his now cool pizza.
“So he’s why you don’t kiss straight guys?” Zack looked up at him, resignation in his eyes. And why that made Pike sad was something he refused to consider. “But you flirt with them.”
“What can I say?” Pike gave a bitter laugh. “I like showing people what they’re missing out on. But no, never doing a straight guy again.” He tilted his head, giving Zack a considering eye, wondering how hard to nudge here. “Closeted—sure, I wouldn’t like that, but I could cope for a short-term thing. And I’ve been with several bi or pan guys. But I’m not going to be a part of a lie someone tells themselves.”
Zack opened and closed his mouth several times, until Pike’s breath caught and he leaned forward, put a hand on Zack’s shoulder, trying to bolster him for saying whatever he needed to. Please stop lying to yourself. It’s killing me to watch. A little cough and then—
“Fair enough.” Zack nodded like that was the end of that, and Pike guessed it was. “Want to play something after we finish eating?”
Hello, friend zone, my old pal, how I’ve missed you never.
“Sure.” Pike shrugged, because really what else could he do? At least if they did a few raids together, he might feel less like tossing the pizza box and all Zack’s overtures of friendship through the window.
* * *
“Come on out,” Pike demanded, sweat dripping down his back. Stubborn, stubborn SEAL. “I can’t help if you stay in there.”
“Almost...there.” Zack gave a mighty heave and the stuck pantry door came flying at Pike. They’d been working in the kitchen since Zack had woken Pike at the crack of dawn. At least he’d had the decency to start the coffee before he’d come rattling Pike’s door. And if Pike had been in the middle of a distinctly unfriend-like dream about Zack, well, that was his own damn business.
In the dream, they’d been kissing again, this time in Pike’s bed, endless soft touches and deep kisses, and Pike still felt the tendrils of the dream licking at his senses hours later. An intractable hard-on wasn’t the most conducive to cabinet painting. By having them paint the cabinets, the senior chief was doing a cost-saving rehab fix Pike was well familiar with thanks to his mother. The older man’s relentlessly cheerful pregnant wife had dropped off all the supplies they needed earlier in the week. Hopefully by the end of the day, all the drab ‘70s oak would be glossy white. But removing the cabinet doors had proved tricky as they fought through decades of grime around the screws.
“Okay, now I’ll start cleaning the frames in here and you can start the doors out on the deck. Then after the cleaning, we can prime.” Zack didn’t even look at him as he gave the orders. The guy might be a rehab newbie, but he had decided opinions about letting Pike run the show. Indeed, he seemed incapable of not taking charge of things, whether it was cleaning up the pizza last night or building the bed or organizing the cabinet work today.
“I’m skinnier,” Pike countered, because hey, his experience mattered. Not that he needed to prove his worth to Zack or anyone else, but damn it, he was good at this. “I can get into the tight spots to do the frames easier, Muscles. And it’s harder to screw up the cabinet faces—it’s a good first painting project.”
Zack made a growling noise, opening his mouth to no doubt protest Pike’s assertion that he should do the easier job, but was cut off by a trilling cell phone.
“Fuck.” Zack pulled it out but made no move to answer it. “Sorry.”
“Ex?” Pike guessed, as Zack’s pained expression was the same one Pike made when a friend-who-wasn’t-anymore called.
“Don’t have one of those.” Zack held the phone like it might detonate at any moment. “It’s my mom. She’ll text in a second and then I can see what the deal is.”
Sure enough the phone beeped thirty seconds later. Zack’s tense face relaxed as he read whatever the message was. “Thank God,” he muttered.
“Problems?” Maybe it was nosy, but that had never stopped him before.
Zack sighed. “You have brothers or sisters?”
“Nope. Just me and my mom. She’s one of six, though, so lots of uncles and aunts and cousins.” Pike laughed. “But I unloaded my drama on you last night. Feel free to rant about your siblings.”
Zack grabbed a rag and cleaner for getting the grime off the cabinet frames. He crouched low, starting with the lower cabinets. Assuming he was dismissed, Pike grabbed a stack of rags and container of cleaner and headed for the door to the deck, but Zack’s voice stopped him. “My older brother’s kind of a fuckup. I’ve got a sister too, but she’s way younger, still in middle school. Danny, though, he’s a royal mess.”
“My mom’s brother is too.” Pike kept his voice low and light, trying to commiserate without spooking Zack. He knelt to begin cleaning the large expanse at the end of the cabinets, so that he wasn’t looming over Zack. “My uncle’s been in and out of rehab and has had a bunch of DUIs.”
“Exactly the same as Danny.” Zack blew out a breath. “He just got another DUI last night. Mom texted earlier this morning. But it looks like they were able to get his bail together. I know I should have answered my phone—”
“Hey, you don’t have to justify to me. I get it. You didn’t want to get sucked into the drama.”
“Yeah. That and...” Zack paused, jaw working hard while he seemed to think about what to reveal.
“Yeah?” Pike tried to send nonthreatening vibes. He liked Zack opening up to him, liked learning more about his life.
Finally, Zack took a breath. “Do you ever get tired of being an only? Trying to meet everything your mom wanted in a kid?”
“Huh.” Pike slowed down his scrubbing to think. “I’m not sure my mom really has expectations, to be honest. She wasn’t exactly looking to have a kid when I came along, and she’s always pretty much let me do my own thing. But I guess I do feel some...pressure to be awesome. To make up for her giving up some of her own dreams and whatnot to have a kid she wasn’t counting on. It makes me want to take care of her.”
“Pressure to be awesome.” Zack laughed. “That’s exactly what it feels like living in Danny’s shadow. He’s such a disappointment to my folks that it’s like I’ve got to be extra good to make up for it.”
“That’s why you became a SEAL?” Pike guessed.
“Part of it.” Zack shrugged as he worked on the thin strip of wood dividing the spaces for the draw
ers. “I was obsessed with military history as a kid. Read all about the frogmen who came before SEALs and thought they sounded pretty badass. I had all these stupid fantasies that if I were a SEAL then Danny wouldn’t pick on me. You know, stupid kid shit.”
A dull ache bloomed behind Pike’s ribs. He did see. Parental pressures plus a bully of an older brother. Zack’s insistence that he wasn’t gay. It all went together, and it all made Pike hurt for Zack. “Doesn’t sound that stupid. And you made your goal come true. Lots of people can’t say the same thing.”
“Danny still gives me hell, which is why I was screening the call. Don’t want to talk to him if I can help it. And my mom gets extra needy when he acts up, all up in my grill about...gir—everything.”
“Are they really conservative?” Pike wasn’t sure that he needed to phrase this as a question and sure enough Zack laughed.
“Oh hell yeah. Our little suburb of Little Rock is about as red as it comes. They’d go nuts if they knew about...you know, Ryan and Josiah and my other friends here.”
“And me,” Pike guessed.
“And you.” Zack groaned. “And not living on base. And not going to church out here. And beer in my fridge and about a hundred other little things. It’s like the more Danny fucks up, the more Mom picks on me, expecting me to be perfect.”
“You don’t have to be.” Pike couldn’t touch Zack with his cleaning-spray-coated hands, so he tried to keep his voice soft and warm, a verbal hug for a guy who seemed in desperate need of one. “You’re pretty awesome, just as you.”
Zack colored the same pink as the backsplash tiles. “Thanks, man.”
“I mean. And if they can’t see that, fuck ‘em.”
“Ha.” Zack glanced over at his phone. Pike bet that he was already formulating what to say to the family who heaped so much on him. It really wasn’t right, a great guy like Zack with so many expectations weighing down on him. And why did Pike suddenly care so deeply? He glopped on more cleaner, trying to outscrub his growing soft spot for the overburdened SEAL.
Chapter Nine
“All right. Until Harper gets medical clearance, Nelson, you and Cobb handle the inventory for tomorrow’s skills exercise. I shouldn’t have to tell you to clean anything that needs it.” Lieutenant Commander Barnes, a tall man who had a good half foot and ten years on Zack, stared him down as he handed out assignments for the rest of the day. As the newest team members, Zack, Cobb and Harper got all the shit jobs.
But Harper had taken a nasty header off the grinder obstacle course earlier that day and was under concussion protocol over at the medical center, leaving Zack alone with Cobb. They started in the gear cages of the storage bay. It didn’t matter that the numbers were unlikely to have changed from the last time they were assigned inventory—if the lieutenant said count, they said how many. And the inventory business would get more serious as they ramped up for deployment next year.
Even for training, clean gear in good repair was essential—and potentially lifesaving. Zack wouldn’t have minded the task one bit if it hadn’t been for Cobb’s presence. Sure enough, they hadn’t been in the equipment lockers for more than ten minutes when Cobb knocked over a bucket full of carabiners that Zack had just finished counting, taking out a stack of ropes in the process.
“What the hell?” Zack whirled on him. “Why’d you do that?”
“Better get to cleaning it up.” Cobb used his foot to fuck up the ropes further, making a tangled mess out of the neat coils.
“No way.” Zack was determined not to take Cobb’s shit for once. “You made the mess, you deal with it.”
Cobb gave a harsh, unforgiving laugh. “So Harper says you’re hanging out with queers lately. Sounded right freaked out.” His Georgia drawl always deepened when he was picking on Zack.
“Harper’s full of shit.” Zack’s heart beat double time.
“Oh? You’re not rooming with a fudge packer?”
“You shut up.” Zack took a step forward, jaw firm. “Some things aren’t your business.”
“Yeah, see, that’s what I told Harper. Not his business. Not like you’re queer.” Cobb’s voice was mocking now.
“You wanting a thank-you card?” Zack’s spine stiffened as he waited for whatever price Harper was about to exact. Any niceness from him always came with a price tag.
“Nope. But Harper, I know he’s your boy and all, but he’s all spooked now. Sure would upset him to know you want his ass.”
“You’re a fucker, you know that?” Zack stared Cobb down. The urge to punch the guy was strong, but he knew that somehow Cobb would turn things around and he’d be the one in deep shit. Danny had been the master of that particular trick.
“Gonna hit me, little wimp? That what you going to do?” Danny held Zack’s favorite atlas over the fireplace, just enough over the screen to make Zack’s pulse lurch.
“Come on, Danny. Put it down,” Zack whined.
“Say you’ll do trash for the next month.”
“I won’t.” Zack was so tired of Danny always getting his way.
Danny dangled the book closer to the fire. Zack balled up his fist, drew back and...hit his mother’s favorite vase, not Danny’s mean mug.
“Moooooom, Zack broke something.” Danny dropped the book into the fire. “And he almost knocked me into the fire!”
Zack’s arms still remembered two solid months of trash duty to pay back his mother’s vase. Cobb’s grin was every bit as nasty as Danny’s, and if anything, he was even more devious. But still, Zack gritted his teeth, kept his voice firm. “And what makes you think Harper’s going to believe you?”
“You’re shacking up with a cocksucker, man. What other proof do you think Harper’s going to need if I tell him he makes you sprout wood? Damn, sure am glad you haven’t tried that shit with me.”
“Like anyone would want your fat ass.”
“Shut your trap.” Cobb got right in Zack’s face. “And if you don’t want the whole team knowing you’re just as queer as your roommate, I suggest you get to cleaning.”He gestured at the mess.
Zack didn’t move to hop to, even as his pulse thrummed and his hands sweat. Then Cobb fished out his phone, a cruel smile on his face. “Guess you wouldn’t mind if I texted Harper over at medical. See how he’s doing. See how he’d feel—”
“Fuck it.” Zack knelt and started picking up the carabiners with angry movements.
“Yup. That’s what I thought.” Cobb’s laugh was so much like Danny’s as to be spooky.
He had to hear that laugh a lot as they worked the remainder of the afternoon. It was just like back home trying to do some chore with Danny making sure that Zack did the lion’s share of the work and berating him the whole time. And yeah, he knew he could report Cobb to the lieutenant or the senior chief, but a guy didn’t make it through BUD/S by being a crybaby or a snitch. The military might frown on harassment, but the real risk was from the rest of the team if Zack went above them to report Cobb. Nope, the only option, just like growing up with Danny, far as he could see, was to suck it up.
And speaking of Danny, he was finally free of Cobb and his crap and walking to his truck when his phone rang. Fuck. His mom. Again. And now she wanted him on board for Danny’s latest “intervention.” Like the first however-the-fuck-many had helped.
“I don’t think me talking to him will help.” Zack scrubbed at his hair. He’d last talked to his mom late Saturday after they were all done with the cabinets. She’d tried to guilt him into contributing to Danny’s latest rehab stint, but Zack had held firm that he didn’t have much cash to spare. He knew eventually he’d give in and send something, but the longer he could hold off the better.
“Oh, but you guys are so close.” His mom had spent twenty-three years manufacturing that fiction. “Remember how you used to share a room and everything
? You were best friends.”
“We didn’t get along,” Zack said wearily. The room sharing was one of Zack’s worst memories, years of verbal abuse and being picked on while he was too scrawny to stand up for himself. But his mother had always refused to see it his way.
“Sure you did. And a word from you now—from his brother the SEAL—would mean the world to him, I’m positive.”
Zack rubbed the bridge of his nose. He started his truck, cranking the AC. “I’ll text him,” he said at last, because he knew that was the only way he was getting off the call fast.
His mother sighed and Zack could picture her leaning back against the fridge in her kitchen, pinching her nose like he just had. “A phone call would be better, but I suppose that would help too—”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“You know, while you’re sending messages, send one to Leslie, will you? She keeps asking about you at church. She said to tell you she’s praying for you.”
“That’s...nice of her.”
“It is. You know, a military man needs someone to come home to. He really does. I’ve seen research on it. And she’d make such a nice navy wife—”
“Mom. I’m twenty-three. Nowhere near ready to get married.”
“I had Danny by the time I was your age,” his mom reminded him. “And your dad to come home to. You need someone to come home to.”
Unbidden, Pike’s face jumped into Zack’s brain. Someone to come home to. Hadn’t it been nicer lately, coming home to see what Pike had done to the place while he was on duty, eating Pike’s attempts at cooking or the takeout he picked up on the way back from campus? He liked that so much more than he should.
“No, I don’t.” Zack kept his voice firm. Fuck. What a shit day. He managed to get his mom off the phone with some more mumbled promises to text Danny and Leslie and to call later.
Off Base Page 8