Grudge (Virtue & Vice Book 5)

by Cait Forester

  “I’m not just a pretty face,” Taggart said. He took one hand off the steering wheel to slip it around Martin’s shoulders. He grinned. “So, remember that trip up here?”

  Martin laughed. His laugh became more of a purr, and he reached for Taggart’s jeans and worked them open.

  Taggart let out a long, satisfied groan as Martin’s mouth closed over him, and pressed that gas pedal almost to the floor.

  This boyfriend thing definitely came with perks.

  The ride back was long, but Taggart didn’t mind. They stopped once when Grunt got antsy, and sure enough he had been close to ruining the back seat and making the rest of the drive very unpleasant. Other than that little bump, though, Taggart turned up the radio and mostly just enjoyed being in the car with Martin.

  “You know,” Martin said, “I don’t know that it’s something we could do anytime soon, but my friend Charlie is on this epic road trip with his boyfriend. Or fiancé now, I guess. All over the US.”

  “That’d be something,” Taggart agreed. “We could screw in every corner of the good ole’ US-of-A. I think I’m probably owed that much, actually.”

  Martin rolled his eyes, but the more Taggart thought about it, the more he kind of liked the idea.

  They got out, and Martin leaned against the Camaro while Grunt nosed around and found a spot to pee. “I should probably get home. If I don’t sleep soon, I’m gonna be miserable tomorrow.”

  Taggart hid his disappointment. “Well, I don’t want you slacking on my PT, so probably that’s a good idea, I guess.”

  Martin wandered around the Camaro, trailing his fingers over the hood. “I’d invite you over, but my landlady has a bunch of rules. It’s basically just a room in her attic.”

  “Well,” Taggart mused, “you know I sleep on a hard bunk but the futon turns into a passable bed.”

  “Are you asking me to spend the night?” Martin asked. He trailed a finger over Taggart’s chest.

  “This weekend was good,” Taggart said. “I could get used to it. It’s not . . . technically no longer the weekend.”

  Martin snorted and looked at his phone. “Sure. We’ve got five more minutes.”

  “You don’t have to stay,” Taggart said. “I know you’ve got work, and all that.”

  But Martin looked passed him, and at Grunt, who stood by them waiting to be led inside and out of the night chill.

  Taggart smirked. “It’s the dog, isn’t it? You just can’t resist. He’s a better bed buddy than you, you know. Too small to hog the bed.”

  “You’re gonna regret saying that,” Martin warned him. He shook his head ruefully, and slipped past Taggart. “This is gonna turn into a habit, you know.”

  Taggart laughed, and caught up to Martin at the door to let them in. “You promise?”

  38

  It did become a habit. Martin slept at Taggart’s house Sunday night, and again after they got back from Willow’s End Monday night, and the next, and the next.

  They went up together for the following weekend as well, and true to his word as always, Taggart did finally take Martin out. It was to a Taco Bell, but it was beyond the confines of a kitchen all the same.

  Martin didn’t care. They could have gone to a drive through donut shop and ate in the parking lot for all it mattered to him.

  That had been going on for three weeks when Martin got the news.

  “Where is Taggart Coulson on his PT?” Scott asked Martin during lunch.

  Martin looked up from his half-eaten sandwich. “He’s making progress,” he said. “Maybe eighty percent?”

  Scott whistled. “That’s a pretty impressive estimate. Are you sure?”

  “He can’t sprint yet,” Martin said. “But he’s got full range of mobility pretty consistently, now. He’s off the cane, and he can ambulate regularly at a walk or a jog. Tissue’s responding at the surgical site, he’s in less pain. I think that leg has something to do with it. It’s just really advanced.”

  “Yes,” Scott said. “It is also very expensive, and was paid for by the defense budget.”

  Martin raised an eyebrow. “Wow. Well, that’s good they’re putting money where it matters.”

  Scott nodded. “Yeah. It takes time to train a Marine. If they can fix ‘em up and redeploy them, that’s a huge benefit. You think he’ll be ready to pass a physical in the next, say, two months?”

  Martin had gotten stuck on the word redeploy. He put his sandwich down. “Sorry, I, what do you mean, redeploy? Why would they want to do that?”

  “That leg is military grade,” Scott said. “You think they’re just gonna hand out fancy legs? Do you know what kind of funding this place gets? Some places they’re laying people off at VA hospitals and sending vets to the opposite side of the state. Believe me, some of these vets are practically itching to get back out there. Get me an evaluation after you see Taggart tomorrow, I need to take the candidate list upstairs by Monday. And good job, Martin. Really — if this is any indication of what you can do, I think you’ll outgrow the VA in no time. And,” he lowered his voice, “I suggest you do. You can make a lot more in the private sector.”

  Martin stared at Scott’s back as he left. His appetite was gone. Was that true, what Scott had said? Worse, had Martin just put a target on Taggart’s back? Taggart didn’t want to go back to the service now. Not with everything they had going on, and the nightmares starting to calm down, and —

  “Once a Marine, always a Marine,” Hal had said. Not that his father knew the first thing about being a marine. He’d been Army Reserve for eight years and never seen a real tour.

  But what if he’d been right? He knew Taggart had some messed up feelings about only feeling normal back there but he wouldn’t actually go, would he?

  That question lingered over his head for the rest of the day, and followed him out of the hospital, scraping at the back of his head.

  39

  Taggart watched the clock. He did that a lot more, he realized; like time had started to mean something again.

  His little house had changed. It didn’t look any different, really, in ways that you could see. The differences were hidden. One of the drawers in his dresser had Martin’s clothes in it. Just a few things. They were both pretending that Martin wasn’t basically moved in. Martin insisted that he keep paying rent on his little loft room, and that moving would be too much of a hassle and that, beside, they weren’t ready for that, were they?

  It seemed crazy to Taggart that he would start wondering about that before Martin did. But there were other problems than just the hassle involved. If Martin’s address changed to Taggart’s, it would almost certainly give them away at the VA hospital.

  So, Taggart watched the clock.

  His phone rang while he was out in the yard with Grunt, taking in the last of the day’s light while Grunt compared the angle of the sun with the relative rotation of some distant star and the direction of the wind to figure out where he should shit this time. Apparently they were complicated calculations.

  He didn’t recognize the number, but answered anyway. He wasn’t the sort of person telemarketers called and beside — he wasn’t doing anything else. “Taggart,” he announced when he put the phone to his ear.

  “Bumfuck,” a familiar voice said. “How you doing, man?”

  “Holy shit,” Taggart laughed. “Portland? What the hell are you on my phone for? Aren’t you knee deep in sand and shit, still?”

  “Nah,” Portland said. “I got pro-moted. Recruitment. Did my tour, and I guess something opened up. You know I took shrapnel in a nerve. I was good to go but they shipped me out, stuck me in an office. I’m not far from you, I hear. You’re up in Columbia?”

  “I am,” Taggart said. “Where are you at?”

  “Close,” Portland said. “Jefferson City. These country boys all wanna be big bad Marines.”

  “Hoo-rah,” Taggart agreed. “How long you been out here?”

  “Few months,” Portland said. “So, the
y give you the news yet?”

  Taggart snapped his fingers a few times after Grunt finished, calling him toward the door so they could go back inside. “Nobody calls my crippled ass, you kidding me? What news?”

  Papers shuffled on Portland’s end of the line. “I got a missive here for rehab and redeployment at your VA. I saw your name, thought I’d give you a call, see how you’re coming along.”

  Taggart stood in his living room, confused and paralyzed for a moment. A thrill stirred his chest — a mix of excitement and dread. “Hang on, nobody’s said anything to me about anything like that. Where are you getting this from?”

  “You got one of those fancy prosthetics, didn’t you?” Portland asked. “The kind with rockets in it and shit?”

  “My leg ain’t got rockets,” Taggart grunted.

  “I told them they should put rockets in it,” Portland sighed. “Still, it’s some fancy gear, word is. Courtesy of Uncle Sam, to get you back on your feet and in your boots.”

  “Portland,” Taggart said, “slow down for one goddamned second and . . . am I going back out?”

  “You still have to pass an eval,” Portland said. “But, basically — yeah. You and about a hundred and fifteen others in the region. Probably more, but I only get the papers from Missouri and Arkansas. This was all in the papers you signed for the leg.”

  “Shit,” Taggart breathed.

  “You did read those papers,” Portland laughed. “Didn’t you? Man, you never learn.”

  Taggart fell into his chair, and stared at the blank television.

  “You don’t sound excited,” Portland pointed out. “Tell me you don’t want back out there. Man, I itch every single day. Being back here is . . . well, anyway, I know you got the itch, too. We all get it.”

  He wasn’t wrong, exactly. Once you were in the corps, it was in you, and it never went away. The thought of going back to Iraq — or wherever; Marines only ever went where they were likely to get shot at, and one place was as good as any other — was terrifying. But it always was. You didn’t ever get over being scared to go into combat, you just got used to ignoring it. Everything that wasn’t that tamed fear, though, that was pure adrenaline, just out of reach. Back to the life that made complete sense, day in and day out. No gray areas. No complicated problems or talking about your fucking issues. Just a man, an M16, and a band of men and women who were more than just brothers and sisters in arms. They were an extension of one another. A unit.

  “When —when do they want me back?” Taggart asked.

  “Don’t know exactly, but they’re looking to start re-acquisitions in the next few months,” Portland said. “I’ve already signed off on six. One dude lost both his arms. They got him some kind of wired up hands that can grab stuff and everything. It’s full on Bladerunner shit.”

  “Fuck,” Taggart muttered. “That’s . . . not long.”

  “Nope,” Portland said. “Probably we’ll see each other real soon. Man, I wish they’d let me out of this glass box. I had to go to a mall, Bumfuck. A shopping mall.”

  “Yeah that’s a waste of a sniper,” Taggart agreed. “Well thanks for giving the heads up, brother. I figured I was down and out, you know?”

  “I hear you,” Portland said. “I’ll check up on you soon. Hoo-rah, motherfucker.”

  “Hoo-rah,” Taggart called back.

  They hung up.

  Taggart shook. From head to toe, just once. He looked down at his leg. They really thought he could be a soldier on this thing? Well, maybe he could. He closed his eyes, and for a moment felt the surge of fear and adrenaline and focus that came on just before an operation. It was like a drug.

  But, so was Martin.

  Taggart opened his eyes, and looked down at Grunt, who was whining softly and pawing at his leg. He reached down, and pulled the puppy onto his lap, and held him close.

  And Taggart watched the clock.

  40

  Martin sat in his car in the driveway for a few minutes when he got to Taggart’s place. Grunt was probably already losing his mind at the sound of gravel and Martin’s engine, so Taggart knew he was here. But he just couldn’t quite go in yet.

  He couldn’t keep what he knew from Taggart. There would be no point. The VA was going to inform him directly, probably tomorrow. For all Martin knew, Taggart didn’t even have a choice. The government didn’t hand out gifts like that prosthesis without any strings attached. Even if Taggart did turn them down, if he could, would they just take it away? There was no way Taggart could afford to replace it with anything nearly as advanced.

  That didn’t mean there were no options, though. Right?

  He had to get out of the car eventually, so he did, and trudged up to Taggart’s door. He fished his keys out, and unlocked everything. Taggart had finally been convinced to take the chain off the door entirely, once Martin convinced him that having keys was good, and certainly made him feel special and welcome, and all that — but the chain kind of made that a moot point.

  Grunt crashed into Martin’s legs when he opened the door, and he bent to ruffle the puppy’s fur, partly to delay having to look at Taggart in the eye.

  “Hey, baby,” Taggart said. “Did you make any more cripples walk, or blind men see today?”

  “Just a routine resurrection,” Martin said, trying to muster a smile.

  “That’s my boy,” Taggart said. He stood up from his chair.

  The television wasn’t on. That was Martin’s first clue. There was no music. Taggart had been sitting in a quiet room, in his chair. He hadn’t been reading — he didn’t like to read.

  “Are you okay?” Martin asked.

  Taggart nodded. “Yeah, why?”

  “Because it looks a lot like you were sitting in that chair ruminating or having a panic attack,” Martin said.

  But Taggart’s smile was genuine and easy enough, not forced like it sometimes was when he was on the verge of an attack. “Just waiting for you to get home. Or, you know, here.”

  It was a slip up he’d had a few times, and it normally made Martin smile. Just then, it nearly broke his heart.

  “Has he been out?” Martin asked.

  Taggart glanced at the clock. “It’s been a few hours. I’ll take him.”

  “I got it,” Martin said. But Taggart came with him anyway. They didn’t talk outside, just followed Grunt around, and kept his attention on the task at hand. There was a weight in the quiet between them.

  Once they were back inside, Taggart leaned in to kiss Martin.

  Martin couldn’t do it. He turned his head away. “Can I ask you something?”

  Taggart’s face went still, and he straightened, and took an unsteady step backwards — it was harder with a prosthetic leg, and a skill that they were still working on. Would that make a difference?

  “Of course you can, baby,” Taggart said. “Anything, anytime. What?”

  “If you got the chance to go back,” Martin asked quietly, “would you?”

  Taggart was quiet, but his breathing wasn’t. He rubbed his arm, and turned so that he could sit down. “Shit,” he said.

  “Would you?” Martin asked again.

  Taggart looked up at him. Instead of saying what Martin wanted him to say, he shrugged weakly. “It’s not something I can explain.”

  “Did you know?” Martin sank onto the futon. Grunt looked from one of them to the other, wary of expressions he wasn’t used to seeing. “About the prosthesis? Why they gave it to you?”

  “I didn’t,” Taggart said, and Martin believed him. “But I got a call. I guess they want to evaluate me, probably do a physical or something. And, if I pass, I guess I’m eligible for redeployment.”

  “Eligible,” Martin said. Not forced, not recalled or whatever the term was. Eligible, like it was something you’d apply for and wait anxiously to get picked.

  “Baby, listen,” Taggart sighed.

  But Martin didn’t think he could. He stood up from the futon, his keys in hand. “How can you poss
ibly want to go back after what happened to you? After everything you’ve been through? After what we’ve been through?”

  “Lots of soldiers have family over here,” Taggart said. “It’s not like everyone who goes doesn’t come back.”

  Martin stared at Taggart until Taggart figured out exactly what he’d said wrong.

  Taggart closed his eyes tight, and rubbed his forehead. “Fuck. Martin, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking about . . . I didn’t mean to say it like that, I —”

  “I know what you meant,” Martin said. He made the decision. “I — I can’t stay here right now. I don’t want to do this if you’re going to go back there, Tag. I can’t go through that again.”

  “Martin, come on,” Taggart rasped.

  But Martin was already leaving. He held his breath to keep from crying, and held it until he got to his car. By then, the urge had gone, and a painful numbness had sunk into him, switching everything off to keep anything from blowing a fuse.

  To be fair, Taggart had warned him. Martin just hadn’t listened. He thought he could fix everything, somehow.

  And now he knew — some things, you just couldn’t fix.

  41

  Taggart didn’t sleep well that night, and he felt like shit in the morning. He went through all the usual morning routine stuff. He made decaf coffee because the caffeine tended to set him off. He took Grunt out front for his morning where-to-crap meditations. He fed the dog, and put out fresh water. He showered, sitting on the bench in the tub and staring at his prosthetic leg, maybe only just now seeing it for what it was.

  A paycheck. A price tag.

  He went through all of it in a familiar state of autopilot.

  Routines were like that on deployment. You woke up, knew exactly what you had to do and did it without thinking. You saved all the thinking for when you were on operation.

  He kept expecting to hear from Martin. Martin had become part of his autopilot. He even made breakfast, and realized he’d made too much. They’d been basically living together for only a few weeks. How had he slipped something like that into his routine so quickly?