I cleared my throat. “I got real busy. Kirill will tell you—we’ve been working like sobaki.” I raised my hand to the bartender. “What are you drinking, Kare?”
She flicked a baleful glance at my shot, which had now been refilled, then looked up at me in that way that always made me feel like a chastened schoolboy. “I’m not thirsty.”
“Hey!” Another hand landed on my shoulder, a blur of blond hair appearing. Whoever it was, I was about to embrace him or her as my savior from this awkward situation. I jerked my head toward the newcomer.
Gray. The babysitter. Well, she had said she’d have my back. And in this case, she was proving that very thing. The relief almost washed over me like a powerful ocean wave. She’d break the tension of this moment. She had a talent for that.
Her hand squeezed my shoulder in an unusual gesture. “Everything going good here?”
I blinked, and she threw a pointed look at Karen. So I did what was expected and introduced them. “Gray Barrett, this is my good friend Karen Freed. Karen, Gray is my, uh…”
“Personal supervisor,” Gray interjected quickly—too quickly. She’d already spent some time thinking that one up. If I weren’t feeling so crappy and anxious to scramble away from this meeting, I’d laugh at the irony of it.
Karen’s eyes flicked to Gray, but she didn’t smile. “Nice to meet you, Gray.” Then she turned back to me. “Ty—”
“You know,” Gray interrupted again. “I bet you two would love to get caught up in private. There’s a little room at the back with only a few tables in it. It’s a section they’ve closed up for the night. You’d have privacy there.”
I blinked at Gray. Throwing Karen and me together in a room alone when I was trying to avoid the hell out of her? That’s not what having my back meant.
I opened my mouth to protest when Karen chimed in with her enthusiastic acceptance of Gray’s invitation. “Yes. Can we do that please, Ty?”
I clenched my jaw, then relaxed it. “Sure. Let’s go.”
I pushed the second shot toward Kirill. “Call me in fifteen minutes,” I told him in Russian. “If I don’t answer, call again.” He barely nodded, didn’t even look at me. “And would you buy Keely a drink for me?”
This time, he did look at me. “That would be my pleasure.”
I turned back to Gray. “Lead the way, personal supervisor.” We locked gazes, and I added a heated glare to leave her in no doubt of my feelings about her intervention. I’ll deal with you later, little Miss Buttinsky.
She tore her eyes away and walked in front of us toward the back of the restaurant. Karen didn’t appear to see the people who were trying to wave at her and catch her attention, her eyes fixed on Gray’s back. Damn, she was upset with me. I rubbed my jaw, wishing I’d downed that second shot before we’d left the bar.
I so did not want to do this. Not here. Not now. There wasn’t even an optimal time or place I could think of, to be honest. But what choice did I have? My personal supervisor had intruded, sure, but could I have possibly blown off Xander’s widow in person, although I really wanted to?
I exhaled a long breath. Didn’t matter what I wanted.
One thing I’d learned from my years within the disciplined military structure—take what was coming to you. Accept it and don’t avoid it. Adapt. Improvise. Overcome. One of the many mottos used in the teams.
This meeting was long overdue.
I’d had to kill people at point-blank range—sometimes with my bare hands. I’d had to face the cold vacuum of space with only the thin layers of a vehicle or suit for protection. But now, a slightly built woman of barely five feet tall was causing me to shake in my boots. It was ridiculous, really.
I pulled out the metal chair for her, and she sank gingerly into it. I took a seat across from her at a now empty table. Gray waited for a moment. “Can I get either of you anything?” When we shook our heads, she vanished.
Karen produced her phone and began swiping through photos. She stopped and showed me a set. “AJ’s birthday party. We were hoping you’d call.”
She held up the picture for me to see, and I glanced at it, unable to stare at it for very long. AJ in all of his adorable, toothless glory, grinning at the camera in front of a cake with six candles alit. I was nauseated, and my eyeballs felt like they were starting to sweat.
I missed him…so much.
I coughed into my fist.
“Did he get my present? I hope he liked it. I bet he’s rocking that new big-boy bike.”
She didn’t answer, instead yanking the phone back from me, searching for another picture. “His first day of school this year.” This one, I could barely look at. Instead of a grin, he looked very serious, his hazel eyes—Xander’s eyes—staring out at me from a child’s innocent face. His hair was slicked down, and he wore a perfectly pressed school uniform, carrying an Avengers lunchbox. That lump in my throat grew exponentially. I fidgeted in my seat.
Karen laid the phone on the table, and it clicked off, mercifully. “Last year, for kindergarten, he was so sad because his dad couldn’t be there. Remember? And you always filled in when Xander was away for work. When I told him you were both going to be in space at the same time, I think it broke his heart. Because then ‘Uncle Ty’ couldn’t fill in for his dad.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger, awash with shame. Guilt. You name it, I was feeling them all. Spin the Wheel of Torture and whatever it landed on, that’s what I was feeling.
God forgive me.
“Karen…” I began in a shaky voice, not even sure where I was headed.
She leaned forward, laying her arms across the table, palms up in supplication. “We need you, Ty. AJ. Me. You haven’t been there for us.”
I promised I’d watch over his wife and child.
I blinked. “I-I’ve tried my hardest. I’ve sent—”
She shook her head and made a sharp cutting gesture with the blade of her hand. “Can you honestly say that? You’ve tried your hardest? And I don’t care about your money. Guilt money.”
I sucked in a breath, sat back, and stared at her. So the gloves had come off and so quickly too. Well, Karen never was one for holding back on her honest opinions so I shouldn’t be surprised, but goddamn, this was hurting more than I had even suspected it would.
“What the hell is going on in your head? You’re out there trashing your life and forgetting about the people who care about you—whom you love. Unless you never cared for us at all. You lost your best friend, I get it. But you didn’t have to lose his entire family—who was like your family—unless you actively choose to do so. And yet, that’s how you keep choosing.”
My jaw was clenched so tightly my head began to ache. Fuck. Just hold it together, Tyler. I couldn’t lose it. I couldn’t unleash on Xander’s widow, no matter how low the blows, no matter how much she was pissing me off. I fought for a breath, marveling at how much tighter things felt in my chest.
“I do care about you and AJ. I love you both. And I promised Xander—I promised him that I’d take care of you.”
Her eyes snapped to mine. “For God’s sake, stop burdening yourself with that obligation. Whatever Xander asked of you when he was minutes from dying wasn’t fair of him to ask.”
I swallowed a huge lump in my throat. How could we talk about fair? If life were fair, Xander would be here right now, sitting at this table instead of me.
My fist clenched. “I’m very serious about that promise, Karen. You can’t give me ‘permission’ to let it go.”
Her face flushed and her features hardened. “We don’t need the money or gifts sent from over a thousand miles away. We need your presence in our lives. You can’t take care of us. You can barely take care of yourself. Drinking. Womanizing. Getting violent and hitting people. The motorcycle accident and the trashed hotel room—”
I rubbed my forehead, more ashamed than I had ever been in the past year for my irresponsible behavior. The hero who couldn’t
even be heroic for his dead best friend’s son.
Pain blossomed deep inside my head. “I-I’m not in a good place right now.”
She let out a tight breath of exasperation. “Well, no fucking duh. You were fired from NASA. There’s a lawsuit from some flat-earth nutjob who keeps talking to every news outlet in town that will have him. It doesn’t have to be like this. Come back here and stay. We can all heal together.”
I buried my face in my hands, resting my elbows on the table to support my head.
“Ty.” She reached out and wrapped her hand around my forearm.
I pulled back and dropped my arms. “I can’t. I have no future here, Karen. You know that as well as I do.”
She frowned. “Burned bridges can always be repaired and rebuilt. One incident with one jerk harassing you—or even your lapses in judgment over the past year—are all your grief. The world has watched us all grieve—very publicly. It’s time for us to take our lives back and not live for the public anymore. And NASA will forgive.”
Obviously, she believed like everyone else, like NASA wanted everyone to believe—that I’d been let go because I’d drunkenly punched an asshole.
If she only knew…
But she had no idea about the real reason NASA had sent me packing. No one did. It was my burden to bear alone.
I shook my head, unable to reject her ideas in words. It hurt too much to talk to her, to speak about her loss. To know that I was to blame, ultimately, for it all.
“Kare—”
She slammed her hand down. “Don’t shake your head. It is possible. For God’s sake, stop it with this guilty burden you insist on carrying around. Xander died doing what he loved. It wasn’t your fault. Stop acting like it is.” Her face flushed scarlet, her breath quickening. Much as I wanted to, I didn’t look away. I owed her that much, to acknowledge her words.
She spoke in ignorance of the truth, and she was a grieving widow.
And I had to find a way to overcome this and be there for her. My feelings weren’t important in the face of hers. But how could I fake it when inside, it honestly felt like I was falling apart?
She shook her head, now fighting tears. “I want you back in our lives, Ty. Come back to us.”
I hesitated, trying to choose my words wisely. No more promises I couldn’t keep. I was already breaking the ones I’d made to her dying husband. “I’ll try my best. I’ll see what I can do.”
She stared at me as if I’d spoken Russian to her. “That’s all you have to say after I poured my heart out to you and begged?” She scowled and stood up, shocking me. I sat back and held her accusing gaze, swallowing more lumps in my throat. She threw down a 3x5 card on the table between us. “Get help, Ty. You need it.”
She turned and walked into the hallway toward the front of the restaurant, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. I buried my own face in my hands the moment she disappeared. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
That had gone about as well as I thought it would—or remarkably well, considering the circumstances. I wondered what Xander would say if he were here right now, sitting where his widow had been, watching me with an accusation in his eyes.
Why are you alive when I am not? When I had so much more to live for than you did?
I flipped over the card Karen had tossed down on the table before storming off. It was AJ’s school picture. He was smiling but with sad eyes. His father’s eyes.
My stomach bottomed out, and I could not tolerate the emptiness a second longer. I needed alcohol to numb this pain. Immediately.
I kissed that photo before tucking it into my wallet, then I wandered back inside. Without seeking out either fake girlfriend or former friends with sympathetic ears, I made straight for the bar, knowing the crowd would soon form around me.
It always did.
Chapter 14
Gray
This side of the restaurant may have been crowded with NASA personnel, but the ladies’ room was deserted, and I took full advantage of this quiet place to gather my thoughts and slowly wash my hands after using the toilet. It had been ten minutes since I’d led Ryan and Karen Freed to that quiet corner in the back to have their chat.
Having recognized her the instant she’d entered the space, I’d witnessed her immediate approach to Ryan. I’d taken it upon myself to facilitate something between them that wouldn’t be so publicly awkward, as I suspected it might. And one glance at Ryan’s face the minute he’d turned and seen her there had been enough to tell me my hunch was right.
And yes, the man had made it more than clear with his heated glares and the rest of his body language that he was furious with me. I’d deal with that when I had to. But I liked to think I’d helped him avoid an uncomfortable incident, and maybe—just maybe—he’d come around and appreciate that.
Well, I could always dream, right?
I’d been watching him closely as he drank at the bar with Kirill, and when Karen had approached him, I recognized her instantly from the plethora of interviews and the one documentary I’d watched about the accident. She’d been a frequent interview subject.
Ryan’s usually stoic demeanor had immediately radiated intense stress. So I’d jumped into action.
After drying my hands, I pulled out my phone to check and see if he’d replied to my text yet. My green bubble was the last thing on our conversation stream. Are you ok?
I couldn’t even tell if he’d seen it yet. He was probably still deep in conversation. I was tucking the phone back into my pocket when someone else burst through the door and headed straight for the farthest toilet stall in the row.
Karen Freed. Well, that hadn’t taken long. In fact, less than fifteen minutes. There were obvious tears on her face, and her cheeks were streaked with mascara. She promptly shut herself into a stall and let out some muffled sobs, as if weeping into her hands.
For a moment, I stood frozen, watching myself in the mirror as I figured out what to do. I could leave her alone and go look for Ryan.
Or I could do what I’d been trained to do and at least offer some help. Some small comfort, maybe, where I could. And though I was concerned that their encounter had obviously ended unpleasantly, I knew I couldn’t just walk out of here to find Ryan.
My eyes gravitated to the tissue box on the marble counter of the bathroom. I snatched it up and walked over to her stall. “Um. Hey. I have tissues…so you don’t have to use that crappy TP.”
I slid the box under the stall door, and there was a long hesitation before she picked it up. After a moment—and a nose blow—she thanked me quietly.
“Are you… Is there anything I can do to help you? Anything you need?”
Another long pause. “No.”
“Okay.” I cleared my throat before slowly stepping back, unsure how to proceed. “Did, uh, did Ryan go back to the bar after you two…talked?”
There was a definite pause. “Thank you for that, by the way. He probably wouldn’t have left the bar to talk to me if you hadn’t suggested it.” Her voice seemed stronger, as if she was no longer crying.
“Please, don’t mention it.” And because it was getting weird talking to her through the stall door, I stepped away. “I’m going to go see if I can find where he wandered off to.”
I turned to go but stopped when I heard the latch being undone. She opened the door to the stall and stared at me.
I frowned, wishing I had pockets to stuff my hands into. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to help you out?”
She stepped toward the trash can and discarded a wad of used tissue, putting the box back on the counter. “Actually, there is something.”
I waited.
“Can you keep an eye on him?”
I almost—almost—laughed at the irony of her asking me to do that. Had I not introduced myself to her as his personal supervisor? From the expression on his face, he’d loved that one.
I nodded. “Absolutely.”
“He’s…” She shook her head. “We used to be go
od friends. Close friends. I have no idea what’s going on with him these days. I watch the TV and read the horrible stuff in the tabloids like everyone else.” Her voice choked up, and she grabbed a fresh batch of tissues.
Instead of interjecting or protesting, I nodded. This was far from a counseling session, but I’d learned long ago that if a person wanted to talk, the best thing you could do was listen.
“He’s taken on a lot of the blame for what happened, you know? I’m just—I’m worried about him.”
I approached her slowly. “I am working with Commander Tyler now. He’s pulling it together. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but we’re still at the very beginning. He’s very motivated to fly again. He’ll do whatever it takes.” I smiled. “But if you want, we could stay in touch. I’ll give you my phone number. You can text or call me whenever you want to know how he is. I’ll have to respect his privacy, of course, but I’m glad to put your mind at ease if you need it.”
I held up my phone, and she took it, dialing her own number so that we’d have each other’s info. Then she handed it back to me and went to the mirror to tidy up her face.
“Thank you. I don’t know what we would do if we lost him too.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “I mean, he doesn’t come to see us anymore, but I worry. We were like family.” She turned on the faucet to splash some water on her face, then dabbed at it again with a paper towel.
“He was never like this before—the partying, the women, the fighting. And all that drinking.” She frowned. “All the stuff I see in the tabloids.”
“A lot of that is exaggerated.” I thought about saying more, but it was a tricky area, to respect his privacy—and I didn’t want to lie to her. Hadn’t I told him to his face that his life was a shitshow?
I put a hand on Karen’s shoulder. “And you? Are you getting the help you need?”
She looked at me with guarded eyes. “I get lots of support. Lots of attention. And I’m right here in my support network. I never left. My family’s here. Xander’s family is here. NASA has been amazing to us. And all our friends. I—” She swallowed hard, and her eyes filled with tears.
High Risk (Point of No Return Book 1) Page 17