by Serena Bell
It means sending a guy home from combat if you know he’s not fit, a voice in his head said. Even if he’s your friend. Even if he begs you to give him another chance.
Shut the fuck up, he told the voice, but not before that same reptile part of his brain supplied him with the look of the platoon sergeant’s face when he visited Jake in the hospital, when the cold, hard knot of knowledge that Mike was dead took permanent root somewhere between gut and heart. Because you were too afraid to do what had to be done.
“But I didn’t want to or have to do anything,” Sam said.
“Sometimes it’s not a big thing that you want to do or have to do,” Jake said. “Sometimes staying put when things are scary is the hardest part. You stayed in that bathroom with your babysitter and you listened to what she told you to do, and that was what you needed to do today. And you did it even though you were scared, so that makes you brave.”
Sam got a faraway look on his face. “Do you think I could be a soldier someday?”
Oh, God, Mira was going to kill him.
He thought hard about his answer. “I think you would make a very good soldier if you decided that was what you wanted to do. But there are a lot of good things to do in the world, and being a soldier is definitely not the only way to be brave.”
“Is it the best way?”
I used to think so. “No. There’s no one best way.”
“What are some other ways?”
“Cops are brave. Firefighters.”
He thought of Mira. He didn’t know shit about childbirth other than what he’d seen in movies, but it didn’t seem like it could be any easier than combat. “Moms are brave.”
“Dads, too,” Sam said. “My dad is brave. If he were here, he would have done the same thing you did. He would have come and gotten me out of the bathroom.”
He almost said it. He almost said, “I’m your dad, Sam.”
But Sam had had enough for one day. He didn’t want to break the boy’s little brain. Or have Mira walk into the middle of a shitstorm.
“I’m really hungry,” Sam said. “I didn’t have lunch.”
Oh, Jesus. It was almost three now. The kid had been locked in a bathroom for an hour, starving. “I’ll make you some lunch.”
Sam wrapped his arms around Jake’s neck and squeezed. “Is my mom coming soon?”
“She’s on her way.”
“I’m glad you came. I’m less scared with you here.”
The irony of this struck Jake, suddenly. Because he was ten times more scared because Sam was in the world than he’d been before he’d known. Because shit like this happened, because there were madmen and unexpected dangers, because sometimes no one got there in time. Because there were terrorists and acts of destruction, and that was before you took into account things like the Cascadia, the mammoth earthquake that would someday, without warning, split the earth nearly under Sam’s house.
He’d heard guys talk about having a wife and kids at home, and he knew they were more fearful for it. It was one thing to know you might die, and another thing to know you were stranding the people you loved, the ones who counted on you. That was part of why he had never wanted a family.
He wondered how much that had entered into Mike’s freak-out. Mike had a wife and kids at home, and maybe he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about them when he was supposed to be fighting. Maybe that was what he’d been thinking about that day in the truck when he hadn’t slammed his foot down on the gas in response to Jake’s command, when he’d stared, frozen in space. When he’d delivered them all like sitting ducks into the maw of that explosion.
He led Sam downstairs to the kitchen and got out some bread and cheese to make him a grilled cheese sandwich. Sam sat at the table, swinging his legs and watching. He was hiccuping only occasionally now, and he hummed a little, something he did, Jake had noticed, when he was happy. Man, kids were resilient. He wondered how traumatized Sam would be by what had happened today. He wondered what he’d remember most vividly, whether he’d imprinted the inside of the bathroom the way Jake had imprinted the inside of that goddamned truck. The reptile brain thinking, This is my tomb, before the higher-order mind could even register, Danger.
He heard Mira’s car outside, and part of him wanted to flee. Because he didn’t think he could deal with how big her emotions were going to be.
Because he didn’t want to see her face—the worry, the suffering. The loveliness. He didn’t want to want to wrap her up. He didn’t want to want to comfort, succor, soothe. He didn’t want the ache in his chest or his balls.
She came into the kitchen and flung her arms around Sam. Jake personally would have played it a little lower key, given that Sam had recovered from his ordeal and was distracted. But Sam didn’t seem to mind. He buried his face in Mira’s chest and said, “Mom.”
Just that. Like it was its own mantra.
Jake hadn’t had much of that in his life as a kid. But his mom had woken up in the last five years and been there for him. Care packages in the army, letters, emails, and then—so many days, such a long vigil beside his bed in the hospital.
Stay alive. That’s my request.
For the first time, Jake registered fully that for his mother, his prosthetic leg was not the end of everything. It was the visible manifestation of the greatest blessing, an amazing escape.
And sometime in the last few weeks, sometime between when he’d felt the wind rush past his face as he ran with Sam and now, it had ceased to be the end of everything for him, too.
He made himself look at Mira’s face. At her relief, at her unveiled, unabashed love.
She was examining Sam now, scrutinizing his face, touching his arms and legs. “Everything okay? Sam, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Sam had clearly decided he was going to play the tough guy now, Jake observed with some amusement. He’d done all his crying in Jake’s lap, and now he was going to pretend to be all man for his mother. Jake couldn’t blame him. He probably would have done the same thing as an almost-eight-year-old, not that his mom had been much for Band-Aids and wiping away tears.
In fact, that’s what he’d do in a minute when Mira turned her attention to him to ask what had happened. He’d be all male nonchalance too.
“Did the police want to talk to me?” She tipped her face up to look at him. Cheeks pink, mouth red, skin porcelain. He could see down her blouse, and he made himself not look.
“Yeah,” he said. “They want your statement. I told Cindy to go home. I told her you’d call her if you wanted her to come back.”
She sighed. “Crap. I can’t believe I have to look for yet another sitter. This is absurd.”
“You don’t need another sitter. You have me.”
A look crossed her face that might have been relief. Then she shook her head. “I don’t need you.”
He felt a surge of desire for her. Because she wasn’t afraid of anything. Because she gave as good as she got.
Because the curve of her breasts inside that silky shirt was like a promise and a dare.
“I can watch Sam.” He crossed his arms.
“I don’t think—”
“I can watch Sam,” he repeated. He used the voice he’d used when his guys had tried to argue with him. The don’t bother voice.
“Mom—”
She silenced Sam with a hard look, then turned it on him. Eyes narrowed in a way that shouldn’t have made his heart rate pick up but did. “This is my decision.”
He wouldn’t want her to be any other way, he thought. He wouldn’t want his son’s mother to be meek and obedient.
“Of course it’s your decision,” he said quietly.
She turned away, into the corner, as if the answer were written there. Then she turned back. “Okay,” she said. “But it’s just for a few more weeks. The rest of the summer. After that, Sam goes back to school, and then he’s in before- and after-school programs.”
“Deal,” he said. “Now. Sit down and put your
feet up. I’m cooking you guys dinner tonight.”
Chapter 15
She frowned at him. “Um, what ever happened to ‘Mind if I stay for dinner?’ or ‘Hey, Mira, how would you feel about me cooking you dinner?’ ”
“Not my style.”
“And rolling over and showing my pale white belly isn’t mine,” she said, and then was sorry, because he shot her a look that made her pale white belly, and parts south, flame.
The thing was, she wanted him here. She knew Sam would want him here. And besides, the stress of the day had exhausted her, and she loved the idea of not having to cook.
“Thanks for asking, Jake. I’d love it if you cooked us some dinner.”
He grinned, and she could see from his expression that he felt like he’d won a round. Damn him.
“My kitchen isn’t exactly well-stocked. I do have some cubes of beef in the freezer. I was going to make a stew at some point, and then I didn’t.”
“I’ll make chili.”
“Where’d you learn to make chili?” She was trying to picture him cooking for other soldiers.
“My mom taught me. When I was a kid. It’s been a long time, but I think I remember. We had it a lot in my house, and whenever we ate it, I made it. Besides, it’s one of those things you can’t ruin. You can throw in pretty much everything in the entire kitchen and it works out somehow. It has to simmer a while, though.”
“We could play a board game,” Sam offered.
Jake tilted his head to ask Mira, Okay?
“Sure,” she said.
“Monopoly.” Sam ran to get it.
Mira groaned. “He’s going to beat us.”
“I don’t believe it,” Jake said.
“He’s gonna take us down.”
“Nah,” Jake said. “I might, though. Take you. Down.”
His eyes were still on her face. Considering. His smile spreading a little.
She felt color flood her face, sudden heat, and she saw him register it, his pupils widening, one eyebrow diving.
She wasn’t sure whether or not they were still talking about a Monopoly game. She only knew she wanted him to keep looking at her that way, as if he had a specific, dirty plan for her.
Uh-oh.
Sam came back with Monopoly.
“I’ll get the chili going; then we can play,” Jake told him.
“Go read in the living room for a bit,” Mira said, and Sam went.
Mira watched Jake as he browned beef and cut up onions, admiring his ropy forearms, his strong, serviceable hands. She watched the bunch and movement of muscle under his T-shirt as he opened cans of tomato products and beans, the way he strode from corner to corner in search of ingredients and tools as if he owned the place. It was the same way he’d kissed her, with mastery. Without hesitation.
She wondered if that was how she was when she painted. She’d taken out her watercolors and paper the day after he kissed her, as if being with him had reminded her of her long-ago lost self. She’d covered the kitchen table with paper and spread out the tubes, setting Sam up across from her with his own kiddie row of paints.
“What are you drawing, Mommy?” he’d asked.
“I’m not sure.”
She’d made some sketches, but none of them satisfied her.
She had put the paints away without using them. But she’d taken them out every night since, after Sam had gone to bed.
While the chili cooked, they played Monopoly—which Sam indeed won—and then Munchkin, an absurd card game that made Sam belly laugh and Jake smile a near-full smile that twisted her heart.
The chili was amazing—rich, thick, and tomatoey. Not too spicy, the meat falling-apart tender. She eyed Jake covetously as he spooned chili into his mouth. Hunched over slightly, as if he’d had one too many army meals he’d had to eat quickly, ravenously, shoulders working, forearms lean and twice as edible as the dinner. The way he ate was not so different from the way he’d kissed her, like she was something he had to get enough of before she got snatched away from him.
Jake had made cornbread, too, which they slathered with butter and honey, and she ate so much of it there was an ache high up in her stomach. She’d read once somewhere that if your body wanted something it couldn’t have, it would compensate with excessive hunger in other areas, which was why it was important to get plenty of sleep and drink plenty of water and have plenty of sex if you wanted to lose weight.
Or conversely, important to get lots of sleep and eat well if you wanted to resist sexual temptation.
She consumed another, ill-advised, piece of cornbread, but it didn’t make any of the hollow spots go away.
Because he’d cooked dinner, she made him chocolate chip cookies. When she took them out of the oven, he ate them straight off the cookie sheet, the soft cookies sagging over his fingers, chocolate everywhere. He licked his fingers clean and it was too much, the juxtaposition of her two hungers. She had to not look or she’d be sucking chocolate off him before she got Sam into bed.
She had to get rid of him before that. That was going to be the key, if he was going to babysit and she was going to keep things platonic between them. No inviting him to stay for takeout, no sending Sam upstairs to brush his teeth and giving them those few, dangerous moments together that had led, last time, to that ill-advised, marvelous, never-to-happen-again kiss.
“Well,” she said, pushing her chair back, rising from the table. “Thank you. Thank you for everything today. For coming to our rescue and making us dinner, and—”
“Sam,” Jake interrupted.
“Yeah?”
“Go brush your teeth and get ready for bed, please.”
She glared at Jake, but he gave her a smug smile and waved Sam off.
“That wasn’t your place,” she said, when Sam had gone.
“You were trying to get rid of me,” he said. And he gave her the same look he’d given her when she’d accidentally mentioned rolling onto her back and showing him her vulnerable parts. Said vulnerable parts tingled, hot and fierce, like the traitors to the cause they were. “Do you want to get rid of me?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Really?” He pushed his chair back and stood, and she had to retreat.
“Yes. We talked about why this can’t happen. You’ve got places to go and enemies to shoot. I’ve got a life to make for myself and Sam.”
“This doesn’t have to disrupt any of that. This can be Sam, and sex. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.”
The way he was looking at her was melting her resolve. Quickly.
“I don’t think it works that way,” she said. “I think we tried that once. I don’t think we do simple. We do complicated.”
“We’re older now. Smarter.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. I think we make each other stupid.”
He was in her space now, backing her up. She could feel the heat of his body. Smell soap and musk, which called to the most primitive part of her brain: You want this.
“Fine,” he said. “Let’s be stupid.”
Chapter 16
He took her hand. Threaded his fingers through hers.
She made a noise. “It’s just holding hands,” she said. “But it’s totally messing with me.”
“Yeah.” He moved his fingers between hers, and that, too, he felt everywhere—all over the surface of his skin.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve had sex that isn’t this good.”
She startled a laugh out of him, and she turned her head to look at him. “Did you just laugh?”
“I did. Isn’t that allowed?”
“You don’t do it much.”
“I haven’t felt like laughing in a long time.”
“Well, then, I’m going to allow myself to be flattered that you did. But I’m still going to kick you out.”
“No, you’re not,” he said.
“Jake—”
“Com
e here,” he said, and pulled her in.
He kissed her.
Friction. Heat. Pressure. And the sweet, silky feel of her mouth opening under his, of her tongue teasing his. A slick back and forth, a satisfying slide, a request, a demand, an ode to whatever current ran between them and always had. A heated rush for union, a dive into the deep, dark heart of stupid. He was bent on showing her exactly how stupid he was. How stupid they were going to be.
And how fucking great it was going to feel.
He was like some kind of short-fused missile right now, his control a rope slipping out, scraping his hands as it played. Or maybe it was just the alchemy of Mira. The flowery scent of her hair, and the softness of it against his face. The curves of her body, pressing his in all the right places, activating some primal grab impulse that made his hands range over the surface of her clothing, finding secret passages under hems.
She lifted her face, exposing the pale line of her throat, and he kissed her there, kissed down her throat and the bare expanse of her chest, journeyed back up to kiss her mouth again because he craved it, craved the heat, the avidness of her response, the way her breath quickened and her hands sought him, the way his sought her. It was impossible to deny. He wanted to lift her up so he could notch himself there, but he was afraid of losing his balance and dropping her.
He hated the sensation of being afraid. He always had, but he’d tolerated it when the thing he feared was death. Fearing himself was intolerable.
“Jake?”
Now it was a question. Where’d you go?
He’d gone back into his head. Just for a second.
And she knew somehow. She knew well enough that she said, “Come back.” And put both her hands behind his skull, her fingers weaving into his hair, and pulled him into the currents where the chatter faded into the dull roar of want. Kiss after kiss, quick ones now so they could breathe and moan and touch each other’s faces with a dreamy, early wonder.
Then:
“Mommy!”
A small but demanding voice from upstairs.
She pulled away. Breathless, flushed. Gorgeous. All wrong. All right.
“Mommy, did you forget? I need you to snuggle me.”