by Willa Okati
Cade motioned backward. “Someone in the bar said he wants to see you.”
Jesse didn’t move. Yet. He’d dropped into a crouch to settle the keg where it needed to go, and his arms ached from the strain of lifting it, wood and steel hoops and all. They didn’t do pretenders or knockoffs at the Hart and Hound in Folly’s Bow. Good plain beer, plain folks, and a plain town where they looked out for their own.
He wasn’t one of their own, but they’d let him in anyway. “Did you recognize him?”
“Nobody I’ve ever met. Says he’s a friend of yours.” Cade dropped the damp apron into a wheeled bin and fetched a clean replacement from the shelf by the door that led around to the pub proper. He was the kind of guy who crackled with life and energy even when standing still, and it made Jesse miss Helena. She got the job done with no muss and no fuss. Tired eyes, tired smile, kind heart. No questions asked of a man who’d gone to war and come back with more scars than skin, jumping at shadows. She’d given Jesse a job in the back of the tavern when her brother, his old buddy, had asked it of her.
Jesse didn’t have sisters. Helena made him wish that’d been different.
Thoughtful, he reached out to rumple one of Dog’s silky-soft red ears. The big wolfhound-setter mix didn’t wake up, but his long fringed tail swept the cobblestones with a happy thump-thump-thump. A headache that’d been building for the past few hours, gathering weight and strength behind Jesse’s eyes, made thinking harder than it should be. Than he remembered it used to be.
Petting Dog helped, usually. God, but he’d grown. Seemed like yesterday he’d fished a puppy out of the dumpster where he’d heard it crying. Good thing, too. He and Dog had saved each other’s lives. Helena called him a service dog to get around the rules for having animals in the tavern.
Jesse stroked the gentle slope of Dog’s back now, grounding himself. Strangers didn’t come looking for Jesse. Everyone who mattered—for now—already knew him. Maybe. He forgot, sometimes. Both things and people. “Should I look and see if I recognize him?”
“If you want,” Cade said with a casual shrug. He kept one eye on Jesse while he tied a knot in his new apron and stepped to one side, nodding at the door. “If you go just far enough to peek through the galley window, you’ll see him. He’s with that big group from the road crew.”
Jesse knew most of the road crew by sight. Decent guys, most of them. Rough around the edges but they wouldn’t hurt a fly, and they liked Dog. He patted Dog’s neck and murmured, “Stay.”
Dog yawned.
Cade laughed. Too loudly, but he meant well. “Somebody’s got to teach that hound how to relax,” he said as he crossed paths with Jesse and knelt by the big dog’s head, rumpling his ears. “Go on. I’ve got him.”
Jesse thought Helena must have given Cade the rundown on how to treat him. Handle with care. He’d be humiliated if he wasn’t grateful. He nodded a clumsy thanks to Cade as he slipped past him.
It wasn’t often that Jesse ventured even so far as the Hart and Hound’s kitchen. He wasn’t good with crowds, either, but as long as he stayed as far back from the noise and lights of the colonial-era tavern, he managed. It wasn’t far. No one saw him except the short order cook who did the burgers to go with the beers, a small man who shot Jesse one incurious glance, shrugged and visibly dismissed him.
The stranger amongst the road crew had settled himself at a good angle to be seen through the galley window. Smallish for a guy, but wiry. Dark hair, so dark it nearly shined blue under the low lights. Tanned from hard work.
He should be pale, Jesse thought. Clear as moonlight.
Why did I think that? I—
A throb of not-quite-pain, more than discomfort, pounded its fists behind Jesse’s left eye. He hissed and pressed the heel of his hand over that eye to block the light. It’d kept him awake the night before, and surfaced at the worst times during the day. Though given how mixed-up his body signals were after taking that lot of shrapnel, it might not have been pain at all. Might have been some sensation he no longer understood. “I don’t recognize him,” he said. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Cade said, approaching from the right side. “If you were hurting, you should have said.”
Jesse massaged his forehead, raised one shoulder, and said nothing. His wrist gave a twinge. Must have pulled it manhandling that keg. He chafed at the joint and shook his head.
Words wouldn’t come, but Cade understood him all the same.
“Don’t be a noble idiot, huh?” Cade scolded, kindly enough. As if Jesse were his brother. “There’s no need to suffer when you don’t have to, you know. Take some aspirin, take Dog, and get on home. Ah-ah-ah. Not a word.” He pointed firmly at the door. “I’ll tell whoever he is that you’re not selling what he’s buying, but don’t you worry about it. Understand?”
* * * *
“Whose round is it?”
“Not mine,” Daniel said, pushing the crew foreman’s shoulder as he leaned back in his chair. He’d worked two weeks for the man, and though he wouldn’t have said they were friends, they got along well enough. Good thing, too, in case he needed a full-time job out here in the future. “I’ll get the next one.”
The foreman rolled his eyes. “You’ve got balls, kid, I’ll give you that.” He dug for his wallet, and forgot all about Daniel between one breath and the next.
Good. Daniel had other things on his mind. He tilted his head, fixing the galley window in his line of vision, hoping for just one more look.
Jesse. It had been him, after all. Daniel would have staked his life on it.
He’d changed, though. More so than the picture showed, the one he’d gotten from Jesse’s old war buddy. Well, he would have. They were teenagers the last time—the only time—they’d met face-to-face. Jesse was taller, for one thing. Thinner, too, and he’d been a gawky eighteen-year-old back then. He’d grown his hair out to nearly shoulder-length, but it was still all the colors of autumn, brown and red and gold, and no one could mistake that nose.
Jesse. Mine. My soulmate. My Jesse.
Scarred. Daniel hadn’t gotten much detail from the picture or from the passing glance, but he’d seen the pale lightning-bolt lines on the side of Jesse’s face. Shrapnel, the letter had said. That, and a warning not to let it put him off. It didn’t.
Could have been worse. Though how so, Daniel would be hard put to say.
One look at him, and Jesse had ducked out of the galley window as if he were on fire. Daniel hadn’t come to the Hart and Hound expecting a bear hug and a kiss hello. Still, it stung. More than stung, and the worst part was Daniel didn’t understand it. In his pocket, the letter from Jesse’s war buddy crinkled when he shifted his weight. Daniel had read it more times than he could count. Worn the paper almost tissue-soft, thin. He’d put it in a new envelope, one with corners still sharp and neat.
Were the scars why Jesse didn’t want Daniel to see him? Daniel frowned as he looked at his hands. He had scars, himself. Years and years’ worth of nicks and scrapes from working road crews and construction. His skin had grown weathered from his constant, careless exposure to the sun and wind, thinking it didn’t matter. Back then, he’d believed that the single letter his teenaged self had gotten from overseas wasn’t a mistake. That Jesse had been killed in action, and wouldn’t go to college after all. Daniel had decided he wouldn’t, either.
Had that first letter truly been a mistake? Daniel didn’t know that either. He hadn’t been able to find out. He and Jesse weren’t legally bonded. Weren’t really even soulmates. Not without a mark.
I should have kissed him like I wanted to, back in that diner. I think he might have wanted me to. Maybe then…
The guys he’d come with, all of them road crew—some still in their vests and dust-choked canvas trousers—raised a ragged cheer at the sight of beer approaching. Daniel chuckled, amused by their enthusiasm, and absently rubbed at his wrist. They’d had him on a Bobcat earlier, proving his worth, and the levers
had stuck, but he didn’t mind. Come what may, he wouldn’t be sorry he’d picked this part of the path for his life. Good men. Plain men. All mouth, all heart.
“Keep those hands to yourself,” their waiter scolded, flicking one man’s ear. “If you’re interested, you ask like a gentleman.”
“What’d happen if I did?” the crewman asked, his grin wide and playful. Just pulling pigtails, both of them.
“Then I’d shut you down like a locked box,” the waiter shot back. He winked, to take the sting out of it, and the road crew whistled and catcalled in appreciation.
He’d been the one Daniel had chosen to ask to pass word to Jesse. He hadn’t been sure the guy would do it. Not even a little, until he’d seen Jesse peeking out at him.
Had Jesse sent any message in return? That was the question. Daniel waited as patiently as he could, watching the waiter pass pint glasses around until he got to the last. To him. Then he couldn’t help it. He looked up at the man as he took the glass, knowing hope betrayed itself in his eyes.
At least the waiter didn’t pull his punches. “Says he doesn’t know you, friend,” he said, tucking his tray under one arm. “Nice try, though.”
“But—” Daniel sat up straighter, frowning. He’d seen Jesse looking at him. And the way he’d reacted, surely…
The waiter patted his shoulder amid the razzing from the road crew, who were decent men but liked a good joke as much as anyone else. “Better luck next time. Anybody want anything else?”
* * * *
Jesse didn’t pack up and clear out as fast as Cade had hinted he should. He didn’t do anything quickly anymore, and nights like tonight went slower than most. The weatherman had said there’d be rain. Best as Jesse had been able to figure, the building pressure during storms did something to his head.
Could be worse. Doctors tended to peer over the rims of their glasses at Jesse, looking from his scans to him as if challenging him to start making sense. The shrapnel he’d taken should have killed him, or so said all the pictures they took of his head. Other doctors, less worried about the body and more about the mind, said he should count himself lucky he’d come home alive.
Jesse knew that. He did. And storms on the way gave everyone headaches, not just him.
No soulmate? They’d asked him as they made notes and ticked off boxes in their charts. Hmm. Shame. Wounds tend to heal quicker with bonded men. Any chance…? No? Trouble sleeping, too, hmm. Bad dreams? No dreams? Tsk-tsk-tsk.
“I’d start looking for a soulmate,” one doctor had told him, either bolder or just more done with nonsense than most of his kind. “The sooner the better. ”
Jesse let their advice go in one ear and out of the other. Silence was a good enough answer. They’d take the meaning they wanted. He couldn’t explain it, anyway. That he did, and he didn’t, have a soulmate. That he’d walk through a field of IEDs before he let Daniel see him like this. Not as brave as Daniel was.
The memory almost made Jesse laugh. Sixteen years old and bold enough to cross half the country on a bus, no one the wiser, just to meet him? God. He’d only met the boy Daniel once, but that was enough to be sure Daniel deserved better.
When he got better, Jesse had promised himself, then he’d go and find Daniel. Then. Not before.
Apron off and into the bin. Jacket on, taken from the wooden peg by the staff door. He flinched once when a chorus of laughter louder than most raised itself to rattle the rafters, but it faded soon enough. Cade, shaking his head, crossed from one side of the door to the other, not noticing Jesse as he went.
Must have told that road crew guy I wasn’t interested. Jesse grimaced to himself. Sounded like that’d gone over great with the man’s buddies. He crouched to tie his shoe and make sure the knots were sturdy. Knots had been the hardest thing to relearn. One of the hardest.
Cade didn’t have to make a show out of it, he thought. No doubt Cade would have given the man’s answer to him straight. No sense in false hope.
And yet… Jesse shook his head in the way he’d learned, a tiny motion of his chin that just barely made his hair swing against his collar. And yet, what? He wasn’t sure. And yet…
He didn’t know the man, but he’d looked nice. Like someone who should be treated with more… Just more, Jesse thought, frustrated. Of something. He rubbed harder at his head. God, but he needed to get out of there for the night.
Dog whined softly. He’d woken when Jesse had jerked away from the noise, but he didn’t judge. Just sat on his blanket tucked into the corner and watched Jesse patiently, his tail fanning the floor in whispering swaths.
Jesse held out a hand to beckon the hound. “Ready to go home?”
Dog woofed happily and stood up to give himself a good shake. Jesse chuckled. He’d grown up fast, but in some ways he still acted like a puppy. Good. He wouldn’t take that from Dog if he could have.
“Man’s best friend,” Jesse murmured. He kneaded the heavy fur around Dog’s neck. “Leash or not tonight?”
Dog shook himself again, the tag on his collar clinking a brisk rattle against the buckle Jesse had clipped it to. He trotted toward the door and stood there expectantly, tail wagging, looking up at Jesse with his mouth open in a doggy grin. He jumped a few inches—no, pranced was the word. Pranced like a puppy.
“What’s gotten into you?” Must be squirrels out in the park tonight, Jesse thought, opening the door. Dog bounded past him, battering Jesse companionably with his tail as he went. Man’s best friend, indeed.
Outside, the cooler air broke open around Jesse in a soothing wave. He exhaled long and slow so that he could take in a deep breath that smelled like ozone and green, growing things. Better. So much better, even with a storm on the way. One good thing about a small town. One of the good things, including a park with grass like velvet, where no footsteps were louder than the thumping of Dog’s tail, and traffic died down to nothing after ten p.m. Some nights Jesse stayed in the park rather than going home, and laid on his back to watch the stars go by.
The thumping in Jesse’s head calmed as he breathed deeper still, easing from as fast as his pulse to slow, matching the rise and fall of his chest. Better. Peaceful. Peace was worth almost any price. He’d learned that, if nothing else.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the man from the bar crossing the park—and Dog, ears back, tail high—running full blast after him as if chasing the best squirrel ever, with not a single bark of warning.
Damn it. That wasn’t like Dog. What’d gotten into him? “Dog!” he called. “Dog!”
“Dog!”
Daniel looked up sharply at the call. The silence in the park that’d struck him as so strange at first had gotten more familiar than he’d realized, and breaking it reminded him of gunshots and snapping branches.
“Dog!” came the shout again. Daniel turned on his heel, sweeping the park for—
Two oversized paws planted themselves on his knees, followed by a silky red muzzle and a puppyish bark. The dog’s tail swished like a wind sock as he jumped higher, the paws leaving muddy smears on Daniel’s jacket this time.
Daniel laughed out loud. He didn’t have a hearty laugh, but a quiet one. Too many years alone. Isolation either made a man hush or howl whenever he got a chance to speak up. He caught the dog by its collar and gave its head a good hard rub. “Dog, I take it?” He looked up, the smile lingering. “Was that his name, or a warning?” he asked—or rather started to ask, but it died around the fourth word.
Jesse.
The dog barked again and pulled a U-turn, galloping back to Jesse. Jesse’s hand came to rest on its head, settling so comfortably and familiarly into place that Daniel knew who the animal belonged to. It settled—as much as a dog like that could settle—at the touch, tail going at five miles an hour instead of fifty. Jesse looked up at Daniel, shading his eyes with one hand even though the only lights out were the moon and a scattered sprinkling of lantern posts. “Did he hurt you?”
Daniel’s voice was still
stuck in his throat. He coughed to clear the knot away, or tried to. Jesse’s voice sounded different to the one he heard in his memory. Huskier. As if he didn’t get much practice speaking either, and maybe he didn’t. He almost wondered, for a moment, if he’d identified the man incorrectly…but there was that nose, and the tug at Daniel’s heart. He swallowed again. Easier this time. “Don’t worry about it. He’s fine.”
“He’s a big puppy,” Jesse said. “I thought he was after a squirrel.”
“Maybe he was, and I just got in the way.”
“That’d be like him. Big goof,” Jesse said. He kept a wary eye on Daniel as he approached, Dog stuck to his side like a burr.
Daniel kept his eye on Jesse, too. The way he walked, one slow and careful step at a time, Daniel would have expected to see a limp with each pace forward, but no. Walking on eggshells for another reason, then. Why?
He thought he had his answer when a faint ripple of light flashed behind him. He craned his neck to check over his shoulder and sniffed at the air. Ozone, and he knew lightning when he saw its reflection.
Jesse flinched and looked up at the cloud cover rolling in. He recovered from the flinch fast enough, though, and touched the tip of his tongue to his upper lip. Working himself up to say something, maybe. Recognizing him after all? Hard to say. Daniel braced himself, waiting for it.
“Sorry about earlier,” Jesse said. He still had the sleepy, hooded eyes Daniel remembered. Same warm hazel color. He shifted his weight and pushed his hands into his pockets, as shy as the newly-minted soldier had been.
The memory made Daniel smile the way Jesse had, that once upon a time. “I said don’t worry about it,” he told Jesse. “It’s okay. I promise.”
Jesse took hold of Dog’s collar. He eyed Daniel up and down. “That wasn’t what I meant,” he said. Faint hints of color touched his unscarred cheek. The other stayed pale. “Earlier, as in at the tavern earlier. I heard what happened after Cade…”
“I’m not that thin-skinned. I’ll live.”