Are you home yet, Zach? I need to see you.
Zach frowned. The text reminded him that Ana had mentioned Janis stopping by over the weekend, but he honestly couldn’t think of a single reason Janis would need to see him. As far as he knew, there was no unfinished business between them after so long apart, and—unlike the majority of his exes—they hadn’t remained friends.
He stuffed the phone in his pocket, knowing it was rude to ignore her but figuring nothing was wrong with a slight delay. The truth was, he’d been going a little stir-crazy at work all week, and given that he had less than twenty-four hours before he got to take Micah out, he’d prefer to focus on that rather than ruin his mood by finding out what Janis’s sudden urgency to get back in touch was about.
He hopped out of the truck and pulled his surfboard and gear bag out of the back, swinging toward the apartments’ secure mailbox block. The sedate pace of the base hospital hadn’t been enough to calm his restlessness over the last few days, so that morning, he’d tossed his board in the bed of his truck with the idea that he’d drive up to the Lower Trestles to surf as soon as he got off work. It was usually a good beach for big waves, and the few hours he’d spent there had managed to burn off enough adrenaline to tame his uncharacteristic impatience about how far away Friday had felt all week.
He’d actually been tempted to stay and surf after dark, but that would have been stupid, given that he’d been alone. Yes, Zach had no problem admitting he was a bit addicted to the rush. He used it—needed it—so that he could stay on an even keel the rest of the time, but he’d long ago gotten over chasing his adrenaline highs in an irresponsible, self-destructive way.
He leaned the surfboard up against the wall and fished his key ring out so he could check his mail, then pulled out the accumulation of junk mail and bills from the last couple of days just as his phone vibrated in his pocket again.
He stifled a sigh, guessing based on past experience that it would probably be Janis again, not Micah. She’d always been impatient and a bit relentless when she wanted something. There had been a time that Zach had liked her tenacity and admired her dedication to getting what she wanted, but he definitely didn’t appreciate it now. In fact, he was pretty sure they were past the point where she had a right to be wanting things from him.
We were together for almost two years, Zach, doesn’t that count for anything? Please don’t ignore me.
He shoved the mail into his gear bag without going through it, tapping out a quick reply before grabbing his board and heading toward the stairs.
I’m not ignoring you, Janis. I just got home. What do you need?
He glanced at Ana’s apartment as he passed, noting that the ivy-leafed geraniums she’d planted in the window box he’d installed for her a few months ago needed deadheading. He would have stopped to take care of it then and there, but the salt and sand were starting to make him itch, and besides, the gardening task wouldn’t be nearly as therapeutic if Janis followed her usual pattern and started blowing up his phone every five seconds, now that she knew he was around.
Proof of that theory came four and a half seconds later:
Where were you? Were you with someone?
He shook his head, huffing out a disbelieving laugh as he read her text.
Really? What possible business was it of hers?
Answer: none.
I was surfing, and I’m tired, Janis. I need to report to base at 0500 tomorrow. What do you want?
Instead of a reply, his phone rang.
“What’s up?” Zach asked, forgoing a greeting as he wedged the phone between his shoulder and ear. He juggled his keys, gear bag, and surfboard in his hands, heading up the stairs toward his apartment.
“I don’t even get a ‘hello’?” Janis asked, sounding sweet and needy. There had been a time when that tone had done it for him—Zach did like to be needed, after all—but at the moment it teetered between being boring and irritating. It was also night and day from the bitterness he remembered from the last time they’d talked.
“Hello, Janis,” he said, placating her as he barely curbed his impatience to get off the phone. “What can I do for you?”
“Why are you being like this, Zach? You’re not even going to ask how I’m doing?” she asked, sounding wounded. “Are you still mad about me slipping up while you were deployed last year? Because I apologized for that, Zach, and I am sorry. It was a mistake.”
Slipping up? Zach shook his head, wondering what planet she was living on. Clearly one where being unfaithful could be overlooked… and where he’d have some reason to want to do so after all this time.
“No, Janis, I’m not going to ask how you’re doing,” he said, his tone more abrupt than he’d use with most people. Even he had limits to his patience, though, and while he didn’t sit around wallowing in any hard feelings toward her, he also wasn’t particularly interested in making polite conversation. Instead, he went for blunt: “I’m not still mad that you cheated on me. That’s over, we’re done, and right now I’m tired and busy and wondering why you’re getting in touch out of the blue like this. You want to fill me in so we can both get on with our nights, please?”
She flipped out of sweet-mode and started bitching about his attitude, but Zach tuned her out for a moment as he reached the top of the stairs. Daylight was waning, but with the street lights on there was still more than enough illumination to see that someone was waiting there for him. The figure of a man was hunched over in front of Zach’s door, knees bent up and head cradled in his folded arms, snoring.
Zach hadn’t been expecting anyone, but even if the impressive sounds rumbling forth hadn’t clued him in about who it was, the black flames inked onto his exposed arms and shoulders were a dead giveaway. Zach’s lip quirked up. Brody O’Shay. Living proof that Marines could catch their shut-eye anywhere, anytime.
“…I’m already in Oceanside, and I could come over right now since you said you were home, Zach,” Janis was saying in his ear, the offer yanking his attention back to the conversation he’d zoned out of.
“What?” Zach asked, leaning his surfboard against the balcony railing and nudging Brody with his foot as he unlocked his front door. If Janis had given him a reason for inviting herself over, he’d missed it. He had even less curiosity about her sudden desire to see him than he had patience, though, so before she could fill him in on why she wanted to swing by, he added, “No, Janis. Don’t come over. I’ve got a friend over. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go.”
“You’re with someone right now, Zach? Um, is it another woman? Or… a man? Is it someone you’re seeing? Because I’d hoped—”
His bark of laughter interrupted her, and he shook his head at her sheer audacity.
“Sorry, but that’s not really your business.”
“But I need you, Zach.” She started to cry. “You’re the only one who ever treated me right. The only one who took care of me. You’re—”
“Janis,” Zach interrupted, cutting her off again. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this. Take care of yourself, okay? I’m hanging up now.”
He ended the call without giving her the chance to say goodbye, justifying his rudeness by the fact that Brody needed him. Now that Zach was getting a good look at him, it was clear that his friend hadn’t just stopped by to socialize.
They’d had lunch on base together earlier and it had been clear that something had been bothering the young Marine at the time. Zach had invited him surfing once they were both done for the day, but Brody had declined. He’d clearly found a different outlet for whatever had been bothering him, though.
By the looks of it, Brody had been in another fight.
Zach bit back a sigh. Brody O’Shay carried around enough baggage to sink a ship and had the shortest fuse in the world. Not once had Zach seen him do anything the easy way. Even waking up when Zach reached down and shook his shoulder made Brody jump to his feet like a shot had just gone off.
“Wha…? Zach?” Brody said,
blinking at Zach groggily as he staggered to his feet and stumbled against the door.
Zach couldn’t tell if he was addled from sleep, or if he’d been drinking. Maybe both. He clapped Brody on the shoulder—avoiding the one that looked a little raw under a jagged tear through the thin material of Brody’s t-shirt—and gave him a little shove into the apartment. Zach flipped on the light as they entered, frowning when it illuminated the younger man’s condition even more clearly.
Brody looked like shit.
“Fuck, Zach, where’ve you been all night?” Brody asked grumpily, rubbing the back of his neck and then rolling it a few times. “It’s hella late.”
Zach cocked an eyebrow and refrained from reminding Brody that he’d not only invited him surfing earlier, but currently had his surfboard in hand. It was pretty obvious where Zach had been… but he knew that hadn’t been the real question. There was definitely a whiff of cheap alcohol coming off Brody, and whatever the younger man had been bothered by earlier in the day, he’d obviously turned to his usual methods of dealing with it. Or, more accurately, his usual methods of trying to avoid it.
From the look of things, that hadn’t worked out any better for him than it usually did.
“Late?” Zach repeated, mildly. “It’s dark, maybe, but it’s barely past twenty hundred, Brody.”
“Whatever,” Brody mumbled, leaning back against the door after Zach closed it. He shut his eyes again—one of which was starting to swell shut—and let out a low groan that probably meant the black eye and the shoulder weren’t the only damage he’d taken.
Zach sighed, tossing his gear bag into the coat closet and sliding the surfboard into the rack he’d installed next to it. When Brody cracked his eyes back open, Zach jerked his head toward the apartment’s tiny bathroom.
“Come on. I’ll clean you up, but you might want to think about reporting to the hospital on base. Did you break your hand?”
Brody had been favoring it, but at Zach’s question he shook it out and straightened his shoulders, throwing Zach a sheepish grin.
“Nah. The other guy’s face was just a little harder than it looked. No need to deal with all that fucking paperwork if I make this official and report in, though. You know I’m already on thin ice with my CO.”
Zach shook his head, leading the way through his apartment. “Getting that hand x-rayed is probably still a good idea,” he said, knowing it wouldn’t do any good with Brody to push it, but needing to say it anyway.
“The hand is fine,” Brody insisted, following Zach down the hall. “I’d know if it was broken. You’re not gonna report it if you fix me up here, right?”
“You know I’ve always got your back, Brody,” Zach said, giving him a reproachful look.
He was all too familiar with the nature of Brody’s demons, and he understood that being a Marine was the younger man’s lifeline… a lifeline that Brody put at risk every time he lost his temper.
“Fuck, Zach,” Brody said, pulling off his shirt without being asked and plopping down onto the closed toilet seat. It wasn’t the first time he’d shown up with a few extra bruises and lacerations, and he knew the routine. “I swear, you’re the only one who’s not an asshole in that whole damn hospital. I still can’t believe you’re not gonna re-enlist. It’s gonna suck not to have you there.”
“I’m not going to fall off the face of the earth, you know,” Zach reminded him, pulling supplies out of the medicine cabinet. “I’ll still be around.”
Getting the hell out of Wisconsin had been one of the many perks of joining the Navy, and as far as Zach was concerned, San Diego was God’s most perfect creation. Why would he want to go anywhere else? He’d already started applying to medical schools in the area.
“You’re still gonna fix me up once you’re a lowly civilian though, right?” Brody asked. “Because if I get any more bad conduct on my record, I’m fucked. You know I’ve already lost enough points to miss out on another promotion. At this rate, I’m going to be stuck as a fucking E-3 forever. Not that I care, I mean, as long as they let me stay in, I’m good with whatever.”
Zach raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to say you’re going to keep needing me to fix you up? Because I thought we agreed that the goal was for you to stop letting your temper get the best of you. What happened tonight, Brody?”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
The reply was automatic, and Brody grinned when Zach gave him a look of patented disbelief.
Brody’s eye was practically swollen shut now, and his right hand probably wasn’t broken… but it was definitely in bad shape. He also had some obvious bruising and a few really nasty scrapes across his chest.
Zach sighed, getting to work. He’d seen Brody looking worse.
“You should see the other guy,” Brody added, even though Zach hadn’t said a word. His grin turned into a hiss, though, when Zach started disinfecting the scrapes. “Fuck, Chief.”
“Suck it up, Lance Corporal,” Zach said, lips twitching as he threw Brody’s tendency to address him by rank back at him. “And if you’re going to come crying to me when you get yourself beat up, at least don’t lie to me about it.”
“Beat up?” Brody repeated, laughing dismissively. “Please, this is nothing. But… fine. Truth was, maybe it was kinda my fault, at least a little bit. But for real, Zach, you don’t even know—”
“Yes, I do,” Zach interrupted. “Someone pissed you off and you lost your temper, and then you tackled the other guy without thinking about the consequences. Am I right?”
“Okay, maybe it was something like that,” Brody said with a sheepish grin that disappeared into a huge yawn a moment later. “But, seriously, that thing about counting to ten you suggested? You know I respect you, Chief, but what the fuck is that supposed to do for me? Give the other guy time to land a few good hits before I get mine?”
“No,” Zach said patiently, grabbing Brody’s chin to turn his face into the light. The eye definitely needed ice. “It’s supposed to let you cool down enough that you walk away.”
Brody snorted, looking away. “It’s just… fuck,” he said after a minute. “I really did try your stupid counting-to-ten trick, but nope. I still couldn’t help pounding the guy’s face in when he wouldn’t let up with his bullshit. Being a bigger dick is just in my genes, I guess. What the fuck is wrong with me? No escaping bad blood, right?”
“Your family doesn’t define you. You can get ahold of this, Brody. You’re not your father.”
Brody snorted. “Yeah, that theory isn’t working too great so far, Chief.”
“It’s not a theory, Brody, it’s a fact.”
One that Zach had built his life around.
He grabbed a roll of bandages and went to work on Brody’s chest.
“No offense,” Brody said, raising his arms so Zach could finish up. “Because I know yours was a fuckhead, too, but it’s not the same. Even if you had turned out like your old man, you wouldn’t end up doing stupid shit like me, Chief. I mean, you may not have turned into Saint Zach—”
Zach snorted at Brody’s adoption of his friend Gabe’s nickname for him.
Brody grinned. “But just sayin’, being a cold, selfish bastard is different than this shit.” He held up his hand, knuckles already swollen to twice their size, just in case Zach needed a visual aid for which shit Brody was referring to.
Zach sighed. Those knuckles needed ice, too.
Brody’s brand of shitty childhood may have been different than Zach’s, but Zach still recognized the battle not to let it define him. It was as familiar as breathing, which was why he knew what he’d said to Brody was right.
Brody was wrong about Zach, though.
Yes, he’d sorted himself out now, but he was no stranger to doing stupid shit. In fact, he’d be the first to admit that he’d been a stupid kid who’d done far more than his fair share of stupid shit in his day. A stupid, angry-at-the-world kid who’d had more bottled up hard feelings than common sense—and worse, a
tendency to let them explode and do all sorts of damage.
Damage to himself… and sometimes to others.
Brody may have seen him as Saint Zach, but Zach understood Brody and his demons all too well.
“The only difference between you and me, Brody, is that I finally figured out ways to burn off my negative emotions before they take me over.” Zach tapped the black flames inked onto Brody’s body. “And I know you’re trying to burn yours off, too, but drinking, fighting, and fucking aren’t really cutting it, are they?”
Brody shrugged, pressing his lips together.
With some people, Zach would have pushed. With Brody, he knew better. Even when Brody was a pain in the ass, Zach figured the best way to be a friend to him was to make sure Brody knew Zach was there.
“Come on. Let’s go get you some ice, then you need to sleep it off in the guest room, okay?”
Brody nodded, mumbling his thanks, then he wadded up the shirt he’d removed earlier and tossed it into the bathroom’s small trash, shrugging when Zach sent him a questioning look.
“Bloodstains are a bitch to get out. It’s fucking San Diego, I’m not gonna die of exposure.” He followed Zach toward the kitchen, jerking his head toward Zach’s surfboard as they passed through the living room. “You got plans tomorrow after work? Maybe I’ll finally take you up on that learning to surf thing.”
Zach pulled an ice pack out of the freezer and handed it over, tempted for Brody’s sake to say yes… sometimes, though, Zach could be selfish, too. There was no way he was going to give up his date with Micah.
“Sorry, I’ve got already got plans, Brody. Another time for sure, though.”
Brody lowered the ice pack from his eye, grinning. “Wait a sec, don’t tell me your ‘plans’ are to do with that cute little blond you stumbled across at Mission Bay last weekend?”
Zach laughed. “And you guessed that because…?”
“Don’t worry, baby, I’m a medic. I’ll take gooooooooooood care of you,” Brody said, cracking himself up at his own truly horrible parody of what was apparently supposed to have been Zach’s voice.
Looking For Love (Semper Fi, The Forever Faithful Series Book 2) Page 7