by Lissa Kasey
“I’m not going anywhere,” Kade promised.
I clung to the doorway of the bathroom, afraid of the cycle starting over. For years I’d tiptoed around Nathan, learning to wake him from the nightmares that left him screaming or carefully break him from the stony silence and blank stares that told me he was lost in the past. Twice he’d hit me. Accidentally, of course, and he never remembered afterward. He had gotten angry when I wouldn’t tell him how I’d been hurt.
He’d attended therapy and taken medication at my insistence. Which was why his death had been so shocking. He had been adapting, sleeping without nightmares, and learning to breathe through the memories. And while the tension never completely left his shoulders, in the end he’d seemed more at peace, more in control. Maybe that had all been an illusion, a pretense just to ease my troubles.
My heart pounded in fear that I’d just gotten Kade back only to lose him to a disease that tore apart lives with invisible fingers.
Kade’s curse knocked me out of my brooding. He practically fell out of bed, his cane too far to reach, but caught himself on the nightstand. I rushed to his side. He held out a hand to keep me from touching him. He pushed himself up. I swallowed hard, wanting to hold him and scream and run at the same time.
“Just let me get to my remaining foot, okay? It’s not you. Just let me try. Please,” Kade pleaded. He was unsteady, and the muscles in his arms strained until he could reach the cane and finish balancing himself. He held out a hand to me, and I took it without debate, letting him draw me close. I was careful not to put any pressure on him that would topple his precarious balance.
“Don’t shut down on me,” Kade said as he pressed his lips to my forehead.
“I can’t do it again.” My voice broke. “You said I wouldn’t have to do it again.”
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m going to call my therapist. Head therapist,” he clarified. “I’ll get in ASAP.” He looked down. “Might need some help getting there, but I’ll go.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked hesitantly.
“No. But I probably should. That doesn’t mean you have to be the one to listen.” He wobbled again but sank down on the bed, dragging me to sit beside him. “Probably should call my physical therapist too.” He glared at the stump. “You think they make bionic limbs? It’s either double canes or I find a prosthetic. I don’t think my right arm is strong enough to balance out the loss. And my left is still a little weak. I broke that, right?” He frowned as though trying to remember. “I just need some time.”
“Whatever you need,” I said.
He sighed, turned my face toward his, and brushed his lips across mine. “I need you, Ollie. The leg is nothing.”
I snorted because it wasn’t nothing. It was huge and scary. And I could only imagine the amount of work he would have to put into using a prosthetic. “I’m right here.”
“I know. But I want you to know I’m working on me. I’m not planning on checking out. In fact, I have some new shit to fight for. Answers to find.” He sucked in another breath and squared his shoulders. “I think my family, maybe my dad, maybe one of my brothers, had Nathan killed.”
Since he’d already said this in a drug-induced haze, it wasn’t as shocking as it might have been if it was the first time hearing it. Though finding him repeating it with a completely clear head was another thing. I wasn’t sure what to think of any of it.
“Why do you think that?” I tried to remain neutral. Hope was a painful thing when shattered. The idea that Nathan hadn’t killed himself, that he hadn’t just left me because his fear got the better of him, was a tempting dream. Better to be angry at a stranger who’d murdered him than at someone I loved for whom I hadn’t been enough to save him. Nothing would bring him back. Would learning some alternate truth was reality really make my pain any less?
Kade shrugged. “I don’t have anything solid yet. Just little hints. I was pretty heavily drugged. But I’m gonna do some digging.” He looked me over. “So long as you’re okay with me going through Nathan’s stuff.”
“Jacob’s in that room,” I told him like I was divulging a secret.
“Yeah? You and him getting along okay?”
“Sort of. He’s doing a lot of therapy. Blames himself for you being taken.” I left a lot unsaid because I was still sorting through my own thoughts on Jacob’s presence. Parts of me wanted to hate him. Memories still angered me, but the pain had faded substantially. I could blame him for a million of my own demons or let it all go. My choice on the matter changed day to day, and sometimes minute to minute.
“Yeah ’cause any of us saw that coming.” He wrapped his arms around me and settled his cheek to mine. “God, you feel so good. I have to make up for lost time.”
“You could move in,” I said without thinking.
He laughed. “I already live here, remember?”
“No. I mean up here. Move all your stuff up here. This could be your room too. Not just mine in which you occasionally join me.” I glanced toward the closet, which was half-filled with his clothes anyway. “Or your room, which is bigger. You hate the shower up here too, so maybe we should just move into your space.” This room had been a space meant to be separate from Nathan’s. Almost an apartment to itself. An island where I could lock myself away from the world. But I wasn’t looking for a hidey-hole anymore. Even when I wanted to be alone, I still needed to know that Kade was going to be there when I emerged into the light again.
“I love you so much,” I told him. Was there any way to really prove to him how much?
His smile was sweet. “I know, baby. And you know I love you more than anything.” He put his hands on my face to look me straight in the eyes. “You’re sure about this? Us sharing a room full-time? What if you need time to yourself?”
I shrugged. “Then I tell you and you leave me alone for a while. But really, how often does that happen?” Once a month maybe.
“My room needs some work. Paint mostly. Some insulation.” He ran his fingers through my hair, seeming to stare at the way the strands fell. His room was mostly bare, just his bed, a bookshelf, and a dresser. His giant white bathroom still gave me chilling memories of the attack that had almost killed me there, but the new bathroom was just across the hall. “How about I hire someone to do that stuff, and then we’ll move in down there. We’ll move your bed and the chaise. God, I love the chaise. You pick whatever paint color you want.”
I nodded, though really I couldn’t have cared if he wanted to decorate it like a circus tent, so long as he was there with me. He had a giant walk-in closet, and the room was almost twice the size of mine, since it had originally been two rooms, but the previous owner had ripped out the wall between them. It would be much easier for him to navigate one flight of stairs rather than the three levels required to get to the third floor. It made sense, though my heart still squeezed in fear. Change. It was never easy.
He reached for his phone, which sat on the nightstand. “Let me call my therapist, and we’ll start a plan for what’s next. Okay?”
“Okay,” I told him because what else could I do? Fear was eating at me. He didn’t need my fear and pain when he was battling so much of his own.
Chapter Eleven
KADE SOMEHOW got both appointments scheduled for the next day. He also had a couple of friends come in to work on his bedroom. I didn’t even get the chance to meet them as he gave Jacob instructions for letting them in as we left for his appointment early in the morning.
He was serious about improving himself and our space. However, he didn’t want me to sit in on either appointment with him. We had a bit of an argument about it. I felt like I needed to be there, even if my gut hurt at just the thought of reliving any of his nightmares, whether from the war or from the past month and a half. He didn’t want to subject me to more stress.
“But you need me,” I pointed out. I hated being shut out of his life. And while adding more horror stories made my
gut hurt, they weren’t my past or memories. How often had Jolanda, his therapist, reminded me that internalizing the demons of others only fed my own? The reality was that I wanted to be with Kade and help him in any way possible, even if that meant just holding him while he shook and cried.
He wrapped his arms around me, kissed my forehead, and smiled. “I do need you—” He paused. “—to wait for me out here. I won’t be long. You don’t need to listen to my ranting of bad memories.”
Didn’t that make me a horrible lover? Wasn’t that one of the things I’d always railed against Jacob for doing? Ignoring my troubles? How could I just wait when Kade was suffering? It wasn’t a hardship to hold his hands or let him cry on my shoulder. I did it enough to him. How was it fair if he couldn’t show weakness when I so often did?
“Baby, stop.” Kade’s hug tightened. “Slow the hamsters. Stop thinking so damn hard. There is nothing different you could provide for me by going with me as opposed to waiting out here. Stop beating yourself up. I just need your smiling face when I come out. Okay?”
I nodded, though I couldn’t fake a smile. He kissed my lips and let me go to make his way back to meet with Jolanda. She’d come out to get him herself instead of just having one of the assistants show him back. Her smile to me was confident and reassuring. She greeted Kade, and they walked through the door, leaving me in the otherwise empty reception area. Alone.
This was worse. My brain could cycle through a bazillion horrors, ideas, and possible outcomes. Most of them not good. Being alone like this was the bane of my existence. The year after Nathan’s death had been brutal for that very reason. I’d pushed away my friends because my head reminded me constantly that it was all fleeting, and if Nathan had left, so too could everyone else. It would have been easier if I’d had Kade to focus on at that moment. He was a real, tangible thing. His needs could focus my “hamsters” long enough to stop the dizzying spin.
So I paced the waiting room. Time passed agonizingly slow, with my brain working overtime. Twice I had to talk myself down from a full-blown panic attack. The only thing that helped was an app on my phone that had a moving image of a flower opening and closing to help me focus on breathing.
Finally the door opened and Kade returned. His eyes were red and swollen, but he said nothing about the fact he’d obviously been crying. Instead he just gave me a tight smile. Jolanda sent him out with prescriptions for an antidepressant and a sleeping pill.
“We’re going to monitor things. I’ve got her on speed dial,” Kade assured me. “We’re working through it. It’s just stress and all that.”
I nodded like it didn’t worry me at all, but I was pretty sure he was trying to downplay the severity of what he was feeling. The day was far from over, though I couldn’t imagine his meeting with his physical therapist was going to be any less stressful for either of us. Kade held my hand for the drive, even if he still hated my driving, and squeezed it every time I got too close to someone or didn’t slow before a stop as early as he’d like.
“Same deal here, Ollie,” Kade said as we made our way into the entry room for what could have been a very upscale gym. There was a lot more going on behind the doors here than just sweating on a treadmill. “Just let me meet with Peter, talk options. He’s probably going to test my strength a little. Flexibility. You’ve been with me for those before.”
I had. Kade had cursed, sweated, and bit back pained cries when Peter pushed him hard. The thought of him shaking with effort just to walk made my heart hurt. But helping him was waiting on the other side of a set of parallel bars, not holding him up or even his hand. I couldn’t watch his pain. It dug into me like a burr, burying itself deeper with every struggling breath he sucked in.
“Baby,” Kade whispered.
“I’m okay,” I told him automatically because I had to be.
“And I’m going to be okay,” he said more like it was a chant than the truth.
“I just don’t want you to hurt anymore.”
“Which is why you’re staying in the waiting room again while I meet with Peter. Find some fun internet articles to read about cats. I’m sure there’s some weird random thing we don’t know about Newt yet.”
I nodded, thinking distraction was probably good for both of us. “I’ve been reading a raw food diet is good for cats. Not sure I could force myself to touch the stuff to prepare it for him, though.”
“You research, and if there’s icky dead critters involved, I’ll do that part.” He leaned forward to kiss me again. I ran my fingers over his bearded cheek, loving the soft scratch of his hair. “I love you. Now sit. Let me talk with Peter.”
He headed back behind closed doors—he was getting good at balancing on the one cane—and again I paced. I didn’t look up cat things. Instead I thought hard about Kade’s past, his family, and all the things they claimed he did. Was it a lie perpetrated by his father to keep Kade from besmirching the family name with his gayness? There had been articles, so stuff was happening as Ashlyn had stated. Coincidence or something more? I wasn’t a strong believer in coincidence anymore. I didn’t for a second believe Kade had hurt animals or randomly beat up other kids. But how did any of that lead to Nathan’s death? Did Kade’s father hate him so bad for being gay that he killed Nathan to try to cover it up? That seemed like a stretch.
I sent Ashlyn a text, asking her for information on all the things her father claimed Kade had done when he was a kid. She said she would get back to me with a list, as apparently her father had it set aside like it was some sort of proof that he had a right to lock up Kade. Ty had never mentioned it, though I suspected it would have come up in any sort of legal battle. Maybe like so much else, Ty had kept it from me.
If Kade hadn’t done any of this stuff, who had? And why were they using Kade as a scapegoat? Had that put a target on Nathan’s back because he’d been Kade’s best friend? Had Nathan known about the stuff Kade went through? Not just a general idea like I had, but really known? For the first time that I ever recalled, I was jealous of my brother.
It was my fault I didn’t know Kade as well as I’d have liked. I never pressed him for answers or asked tough questions. His past was a mystery to me. All I knew was the short bits of time he’d spent with us between tours. A few weeks every other year or so. It was nothing really. Just slivers of time. And Kade hadn’t opened up at all about the rest. Was it because of Nathan? What if Nathan hadn’t killed himself?
Then I was walking on eggshells for nothing. But Nathan and Kade weren’t the same. Kade’s smile came easier. He was easier going, and rarely let stress or people irritate him. He had a way of calming himself that I couldn’t begin to fathom.
Kade had reviewed the reports of Nathan’s death. He told me facts in the simplest and least gruesome form. The bullet appeared to be self-inflicted. There was gunpowder residue on Nathan’s hands. The spray supported the angle of a self-inflicted wound. It looked like a suicide. If it walked like a duck and talked like a duck, it was probably a duck. So why did my gut still churn at the dim idea that Nathan may not have killed himself? How could someone make it look like he had? And why?
And there was the wife he’d secretly had. Why had Nathan married without telling anyone? He’d always been very vocal about my choices of partners but never once brought anyone around to meet me. He also wasn’t the sort to have backyard barbecues or dinner parties. That was all me. Until his death.
I sat down, pulled my tablet out of my bag, and began making a note of all my questions about Nathan, Kade, and anything that might link them. I would start with the past and work my way forward. Trace their steps, and begin answering questions. If Nathan’s death had anything to do with Kade, I had to know, even if it hurt.
Chapter Twelve
KADE’S PHYSICAL therapist, Peter, came out to greet me afterward and assured me he and Kade had a plan. There was apparently a startup company he knew of who were creating custom prosthetics through 3D printing at a fraction of the price. He’d
taken measurements and was going to send the information off. Once the new leg arrived, the rehab would begin.
Kade seemed to be overjoyed at the idea of the prosthetic. “I have money in savings to cover it. I guess a regular one can be up to fifty grand, and they only last a few years. Peter said he’s seen a lot of success with these new ones.”
I’d give him whatever support he needed. I helped him into the SUV and we made our way toward home.
“Can we stop so I can get a haircut?” He pointed toward a barbershop we were passing. His hand went to the spongy curls, heavy with product to tame the frizz. “I feel like I’ve got an afro.”
I snorted. “Not even close.” But I did find a parking spot and waited for him as we made our way into the shop to trim up the tight ringlets to his normal style. It didn’t take long. Kade joked with the stylist the whole time and let me give direction on the best look for him: sides short, top only slightly longer, neck buzzed clean.
Once again I noticed a tan sedan that seemed to linger off at the edge of the parking lot. I tried to catch the license plate, but the car was too caked in dirt to be readable.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Kade inquired from his spot in the chair.
“Nothing.” I gave him a forced smile. The car drove away a moment later. It was all in my head. It had to be. Tan was a common color for cars. Especially for the Malibu I’d noticed—or at least the same type of car—a half-dozen times over the past few days. The body style was common, and I’d caught myself searching for it now. Only I suspected it was still my paranoia from Kade’s disappearance getting to me. If I saw it again, I’d try to get the plate and look it up.
Kade frowned, obviously reading something in my expression he didn’t like.
“Really,” I said. “It’s just my head on high speed.”
He nodded because of course that was believable.
Soon we were back on the road, on our way home. Oddly enough Kade said nothing about my driving. I was also driving very slow and hyperaware, afraid to jostle him too much. His nausea from coming off whatever they’d drugged him with was still present, but fading.