Medley

by Layla Reyne

  Jacob hesitated a second, then whatever Josh said on the other end of the line must have been more distressing than Bas’s presence. He resumed his pacing, and Bas leaned a shoulder against the wall, out of Jacob’s way but still there for him. Not leaving him alone.

  “He needs to go to the clinic,” Jacob said, then after a beat, “Yes, yes, put him on the line.” He pocketed the tags and braced his hand against the wall, angled slightly away from Bas. “Hey, Dad,” he said, voice wiped clean of anger, eerily flipped to calm and upbeat. To see him though, was a different story. Back straight, shoulders tight, and jaw clenched, the pup was barely holding it together. “No, no, it’s no trouble. Tell me about work today.”

  The psychology of the cue was impressive. Jacob hadn’t directly asked how his dad was doing or how he was feeling. Instead, he’d offered an innocuous prompt, aimed at getting to the details and series of events he wanted to know more about. Bas employed similar tactics at the tattoo shop and had tried the same on Jacob, to no avail.

  This was more of the pup’s story than Bas had ever gotten before.

  Bas could tell when Jacob’s father reached the part of the story Jacob wanted to know. Or maybe didn’t want to know. Inhaling sharply, the pup curled in on himself, spine bowing like he’d been punched in the gut.

  Bas couldn’t take the distance any longer. Clearing his throat to signal his approach, he stepped across the alley and put a hand to Jacob’s curved back. Jacob startled at first, then leaned into the touch, chasing it. Bas flattened his palm against Jacob’s spine, cementing the connection and support.

  “What do you want to do about that?” Jacob asked his dad, and after a moment, nodded. “Good, that should help you rest. And I’ll call Doc.” Davis’s objection was so loud Bas could hear it. “Okay, okay, not tonight,” Jacob cajoled. “You’ll call in the morning. And you have your support group tomorrow evening. You’re going to that, right?” Whatever answer Davis gave caused Jacob to relax, a little, the tension slowly ebbing from his frame. “Good, call me after.” There must have been a handoff on the other end, Josh coming back on the line. “Can you stay there tonight, cuz?” Jacob asked, relaxing a little more into Bas’s touch, closer to his body. “Great, thank you, and I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier. That was uncalled for.”

  They exchanged a few more words before Jacob ended the call. He shoved off the wall, forcing Bas back a step so he could spin and slump against the stone, hands clutching for hair that was no longer there.

  Bas rested a shoulder next to him, close but not touching. “Tell me about your dad’s day,” he said, using Jacob’s own method.

  For a change, Jacob cut right to the chase. “My dad’s a combat vet,” he said, arms falling to his sides. “Afghanistan. Came home with PTSD.”

  “That’s why you were worried about leaving,” Bas said, connecting the dots. Jacob nodded. But there was still a piece missing. “What about your mom? She’s not in the picture?”

  His scruff-covered jaw clenched again. “She split five years ago,” he gritted out. “I asked her to stay, to give him more time and to help me, but she couldn’t handle it anymore. We’ve been on our own since.”

  Jacob’s words from the tattoo parlor rattled around Bas’s head. And heart.

  “I put myself first once. It didn’t end well.”

  A fourteen-year-old kid dealing with his father’s postwar trauma. Everything aligned—the hyperobservation, putting others first, never asking for what he needed. Because the one time he had asked, he’d been left behind, by his own mother, to fend for himself and take care of his father.

  “Christ,” Bas hissed. “That’s why you went to UT? To stay close?”

  “I’m lucky they have a top-notch swim program.” Jacob pushed off the wall and resumed his pacing, hands flailing as he spoke. “He hasn’t had a flashback in over two years. Not a single one since Josh and I have been at UT.” His words tumbled faster and faster, as did the dog tags in his hand. “But then I leave, to where I can’t get back, to where I can’t be there for him when he needs me. He gave me these—” he brandished the tags “—to keep me safe, but he’s the one who needs them. I should be keeping him safe, but I’m a fucking ocean away and I can’t!” His gaze bounced around the alley as his breaths grew shorter and thinner, on the verge of hyperventilating.

  Bas moved in front of him, cutting off his circuit. “Pup, you need to take a second and breathe.”

  Jacob’s chest rose and fell faster, green eyes filling with panic. Not on the verge, then; already gone. Bas stepped closer, and Jacob slammed into reverse, backing into the wall. Bas kept coming, not letting up. He lifted his hands and grasped the sides of Jacob’s face, holding him steady.

  “Breathe, Jacob,” he coached.

  Mint green dimes snapped to him, but Jacob’s breaths were still too fast and short. His brain needed to move past the panic so his body could fall in line.

  “Your dad’s okay now?” Bas asked.

  Jacob nodded. A short inhale.

  “Your cousin, Josh, is taking care of him?”

  He nodded again. Another short inhale.

  “Josh is a psych major, right? You said that the other day.”

  “Yeah,” he wheezed. “Aunt’s also a nurse.”

  “Okay, someone’s got your father, then. Multiple someones.” Bas inched closer, bodies brushing as his thumbs swept over Jacob’s cheeks. “Your dad’s gonna be fine. He’s safe, and so are you. I’ve got you, you’re not alone, but I need you to breathe, baby.”

  Jacob’s eyes fluttered closed as he choked on a strangled breath.

  “You can do it,” Bas said. “Just like we do in the water. In and out.” Bas exaggerated his own breathing so Jacob could feel the rise and fall of his chest, could hear the exchange of air, could mirror both with his own.

  Finally, Jacob began gulping air, his swimmer’s instincts enough to break through the panic. One, two, three big inhales, followed by measured exhales.

  Bas continued to breathe with him until Jacob’s chest no longer heaved. “That’s got it,” he said, moving to step back.

  Jacob’s hands shot up and wrapped around Bas’s wrists, holding him in place. When Jacob’s eyes opened, they were no longer brimming over with panic. They were the warmest shade of cool green Bas had ever seen. Molten mint. Impossible, and yet right there in front of him, scorching.

  As was the single word that passed through his parted lips. “Stay.”

  Not scorching.

  Wrecked.

  Like he had been in that tattoo parlor.

  A wave of heat, blazing off Jacob, slammed into Bas.

  “Stay,” Jacob whispered again, rougher and more urgent.

  The plea raked down Bas’s spine, making him tremble with things he shouldn’t want. Things he shouldn’t do. Others had left Jacob. He’d leave Jacob; it’s what Bas did. It’s what he’d done before, hurting someone he’d cared about and costing his team the gold. This, if he closed the distance between himself and Jacob, would be a terrible repeat. He’d be breaking his promises, to Alex and to Jacob, acting in no one’s best interest.

  But fuck, with Jacob looking at him like that, crooked teeth digging into his full lower lip, and sounding like that, a plea on a whimper, Bas felt the pull all the way to his balls.

  Jacob like this—like always—was beauty Bas couldn’t turn away from, same as in the tattoo parlor.

  He rationalized away the rational; even if he couldn’t make it better for Jacob in the long run, he could make it better for him now. Jacob needed him to stay. To make him forget all that worry, at least for the span of a kiss. Bas wanted to help, to comfort, and he wanted to taste that beauty.

  Desperately.

  He tightened his grip on Jacob’s face, palms scraping against Jacob’s scruffy jaw, the short hairs at the nape of Jacob’s neck tickling his fingertips. Bas drew him in, erasing the distance between them, chests pressed together and other parts hardening, until they were m
addeningly close.

  Jacob’s eyes fluttered closed again. “Bas,” he breathed, the motion brushing their lips together.

  Bas shifted his head, angling for more than a mere brush.

  A taste of beauty, of Jacob, was so close.

  Then so far away.

  The pub door slammed open behind them, and Bas shot out of Jacob’s hold, stumbling backward across the alley. His back hit the opposite wall just as Dane came around the open door.

  “Hey! Alex wanted me to check on you two. We’re getting ready to head back to the academy.”

  Hands behind his back, Bas clawed at the cold stone wall, trying to scour away the enticing sensation of rough stubble and warm skin. He cleared his throat, hoping his voice didn’t sound as strangled as other parts of him felt. “You good, Pup?”

  “Yeah, fine,” Jacob said, heading for the door. “Had to take a family call.”

  “Everything okay?” Dane asked.

  Jacob paused over the threshold, shooting a smoldering, inviting look at Bas. “It will be.”

  When he was sure his body wouldn’t betray him, Bas unglued himself from the wall, only to meet a wall of red-headed Southern nosiness. “Not your problem, Big Red.”

  “You’re Alex’s best friend. You’re on his team. His problems are my problems.”

  Bas liked that for Alex, but not so much for himself right now.

  “You turned out all right, Ellis,” he said, deflecting. With Dane momentarily stunned, Bas slipped inside past him. Up front, Alex was herding the team toward the exit. “Go back to your man,” Bas told Dane when he caught up. “I’m right behind you.”

  Waiting at the bar, Bas watched as Leah hovered close to Jacob, the two of them shuffling along with the departing crowd. The pup smiled at her, making some assurance or other, his easygoing mask back in place. For her sake, never for his own. Bas wanted to go after him, to tear away that mask and give Jacob a safe place to let the truth out, to find a true calm instead of an affected one, but his common sense had returned. Bas knew where those intentions would lead—to anything but safe. He couldn’t do that—not to Jacob, not to Alex, and not to his team.

  He did right instead and climbed onto an empty barstool.

  “Not going back with the team?” Ernie asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Another cider, or something stronger?”

  “Stronger.”

  Though Bas doubted even the strongest thing here would wipe from his mind those molten green eyes or that needy whimper.

  Jacob stood in the corner of the L-shaped, on-deck cubby tower, waiting on a call from Josh. Seven hours ahead of Texas, he’d forced himself, against every instinct, not to text until afternoon Central European Time. Josh had texted right back that Jacob’s dad needed to check in with his doctor first. That was thirty minutes ago, and Jacob was about to crawl out of his skin waiting for an update. With only five minutes until afternoon practice, the call window was closing, fast. If Jacob had to get in the water while still in the dark about his dad, he’d be even more useless than he’d been this morning.

  Two words into another text and his phone finally vibrated, Josh’s face filling the screen. Time short, Jacob didn’t waste it on greetings. “How’s Dad today? Did he sleep? What did Doc say?”

  “Yo, cuz, chill. Everything’s fine.” His cousin sounded relaxed, like he was kicked back at the kitchen table enjoying his morning coffee.

  Jacob tried not to sound as if he wanted to strangle him. “Yo, cuz, details.”

  “Yeesh,” Josh muttered, and Jacob knew he’d failed. “Uncle D settled after you talked to him yesterday. Ate fine, took one of his pills, and passed out in his chair watching the Astros get clobbered by the Giants.”

  “Did he sleep through the night?”

  “All the way. I was on the couch, across the room from him.”

  Guilt washed over Jacob, his murderous impulses quelled. If Josh was kicked back this morning, he deserved it after a night on that lumpy old sofa.

  “No more nightmares,” Josh added, and Jacob breathed a sigh of relief.

  It’d been a nightmare that had set Davis off yesterday. He’d dozed in the garage office, a nightmare took hold, and when the new shop guy had tried to shake him awake, new guy found himself on the floor.

  Jacob had made that mistake once, right after his dad had returned home from his last tour, when none of them realized how bad it had been. Jacob had wound up on the floor too. Josh’s dad had pulled Davis off with seconds to spare before he ran out of breath. Jacob suspected that had been the beginning of the end for his mother, having to scream across the street for her brother-in-law to come save her kid. After a year of ups and downs, medicines that had caused manic and depressive episodes, and nightly fights over money and therapy that Jacob had heard through the walls, she’d left. Jacob had seen the wear on her—he’d felt it too, understood it was hard—but he’d been terrified of taking on his father’s recovery alone, at thirteen, so he’d asked her for what he’d needed. To give his father a little more time. To stay for him. She’d told Jacob he could come with her, but Jacob wouldn’t leave his father, the hero who’d done more than his share to keep him and their country safe.

  “I want to talk to him,” Jacob said.

  “Can’t. Uncle D’s in the shower, and you should wait until the scheduled time later.”

  Head bowed, hand wrapped around the back of his neck, Jacob paced a circle around the tiny corner. “What’s he doing today?”

  “Doc cleared him to go to work.”

  “You sure that’s the best thing?”

  “Burrows!” Coach hollered behind him. “You know the rules. No calls on deck.”

  Jacob muted the phone and glanced over his shoulder. After his miserable showing this morning, the last thing Jacob wanted to do was draw more of Hartl’s ire. “Family emergency,” he said. “Just need to be sure it’s settled.”

  Coach’s irritation dissolved into concern. “You need more time?”

  “No, I’ll just be another minute. I’m sorry.”

  “Pup, if you need—”

  Jacob shook his head. “It’ll be fine, Coach.”

  “Don’t start that shit with me. I’ve already got ‘Mr. I’m Fine’ over there,” he said, jutting a thumb at Alex.

  Jacob couldn’t help but laugh. “My cousin’s handling it,” he said, some of his tension easing. “But with the time difference, I just got ahold of him.”

  “Okay then, finish up,” Coach said, walking on by. “Medley relay’s up first.”

  Unmuting the line, Jacob brought the phone back to his ear. “Sorry, Coach interrupted.”

  “You need to go?” Josh said.

  “Yeah, and you and Doc are right about the routine, with work and the calls. I’m sorry. I’m just . . . out of sorts, being unable to help from here.”

  “It’s fine, cuz. I understand it’s frustrating.” He really had no idea, but Jacob appreciated the sentiment, and his cousin’s patience. “Uncle Beau’s going to keep a close watch at the shop today.” Beau was the third brother and owner of the garage where Jacob’s dad worked. “You’ll call Davis after your practice, and I’ll take him to his support group tonight after dinner.”

  Jacob ran a hand over his head, as relieved as he could be under the circumstances. “Okay, thanks. Call or text if there’s a problem.”

  “There won’t be.”

  Jacob hoped like hell he was right. They finished up, and Jacob shoved his phone, towel, and flops in his designated cubby.

  “Yo, Pup,” Kevin said, coming around the side of the cubby tower with Sean. “What’s up with your boy today?”

  “My boy?”

  Kevin nodded toward Bas at the other end of the pool, and Jacob prayed he didn’t blush too noticeably. Was his crush on Bas that obvious? Or had Dane seen more than he’d let on last night and told others on the team?

  “Your mentor,” Kevin went on. “He wasn’t at morning practice or lun
ch, and now he’s stomping around like an angry tattooed bear.”

  Jacob tried not to look too relieved, or too confused, as he eyed Bas stalking the far end of the pool. There was no other word for it. Gone was the ever-present tablet, Bas’s fingers white-knuckling goggles and a cap instead. Gone were his relaxed shoulders and easy bearing, his body rigid and his gait jerky. Gone was his smile and laid-back manner, replaced with a virtual thundercloud over his head and a storm brewing in his blue eyes.

  Approach with caution.

  Or more accurately, Do Not Approach.

  “I don’t think he came back to the academy last night,” Mike said, joining their slow stroll to the other end of the pool. “His key was still at the security desk this morning when we left to run.”

  “Did he, Pup?” Sean asked.

  All their eyes swung to Jacob.

  “I don’t know,” he lied. “I was out pretty hard after we got back.”

  The rumor was true; Bas hadn’t come back last night. Jacob had stayed awake into the wee hours, waiting for Bas to accept the invitation he’d thrown out there in the alley, then worrying when it became clear he wasn’t going to. Add to that the heavy guilt of leaving his father and the swirling doubts over competing in Madrid, and he’d felt like a castaway on a rickety ocean raft—hopeless, nauseous, and frustrated without even a volleyball to squawk to. They were two days from the Olympics, and everything was unravelling. And it was all his fault.

  “I saw him flirting with that bartender at the pub,” Kevin said, as they huddled to a stop.

  “According to Ryan,” Mike said, “he broke up with his boyfriend at the start of the last Olympics, then fucked his way through the next two weeks, women and men.”

  Kevin nodded. “That’s the reason they silvered in medley relay. Bas and his ex, Team Spain’s rock star who also swam at USC, got into a big fight opening night. Bas was out with someone new that night and every night after. Alex covered for him, but they were still off. Fucked the other guy up worse. He was the favorite in his events and didn’t medal at all.”