by L. A. Witt
“Yeah. After you.”
Chapter 10
Samir
I was a regular at High Grounds Coffee, and so was Shouka. Enough that as soon as one of the baristas saw us outside, they started making my usual cappuccino.
I looped the leash around a fence post by the table we’d picked out and took a twenty out of my wallet. “Here. I’ll stay with her if you want to go get something.”
Elliott looked at the twenty in my hand, then at me. “I can buy. What’re you having?”
“You sure?”
“I’ve got it.”
I hesitated but then shrugged and put it away. “Just cappuccino. Guarantee it’s already made.” I nodded toward the shop. “They know me.”
“Fair enough.” He took a step, but paused. “Anything for her?”
“They’ve probably got a biscuit and a water bowl for her already. If it’s too much to carry, just bring the coffees out, and I’ll go get the stuff for her.”
Elliott flashed me a quick smile, then went inside. I sat down, and Shouka immediately rested her chin on my knee. As I leaned back in the chair, I absently stroked her neck, and I couldn’t help but release a long, relaxed sigh. It had been a long time since I’d come to High Grounds without being a knotted ball of stress. The stress wasn’t completely gone, and I didn’t expect it to be any time soon, but there was something to be said for bringing my dog because I wanted to, not because I felt safer with her.
It had also been a while since I’d sat here with some noticeable aches and pangs, but nothing that made my skin crawl. When I moved just right and my hips twinged, I grinned. When I yawned and my jaw protested a little, I actually laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Elliott materialized beside me, balancing two coffee cups, a water bowl, and a handful of dog treats.
“Oh my God, let me help.” I jumped up, which startled Shouka, who also jumped up, almost smacked her head against the table, and instead clocked Elliott’s knee with her hip. He stumbled but somehow kept everything from falling.
I grabbed one of the coffee cups and the water dish, and he righted the rest of it.
“Good thing that was you and not me,” I said. “Or all this would be everywhere.”
Elliott laughed as he put his coffee down. “All that military training is still good for something, I guess.”
“Is that what it is?” I glanced up from setting the water dish on the ground for Shouka. “Or do you just have naturally great reflexes?”
“Maybe a little of both.” He chuckled and picked up his coffee but cradled it in both hands. It was probably molten-core-of-the-earth hot, since that was how this place made their coffee.
“Hey, Shouka,” I said. She looked up, and I tossed her one of the treats. She snapped it out of the air hard enough to turn a few heads.
Elliott shook his head. “Damn, she’s got some powerful jaws.”
“No kidding. I’m serious that she’s just a big marshmallow, though.”
“So I see.” He leaned down and patted her shoulder. She glanced up, still happily chomping on her treat while a string of drool dangled from her jowl.
I watched him, feeling all melty inside as if I’d never seen a man pet a dog before. Or maybe just that she and I had been in the company of decidedly different men for a while. As I brought up my coffee to my lips for a careful sip, I said, “You kind of seem like one too.”
“Hmm?” He shifted his attention. “One what?”
“A big… I don’t know. Teddy bear, I guess.” I smiled. “For a soldier-slash-bouncer, you’ve got a pretty light touch.”
“That’s Marine-slash-bouncer,” he corrected with playful indignation.
I smirked. “My bad.” It was oddly comforting to be able to have a little exchange like that without worrying it might come back and bite me later. Or that he’d suddenly fly off the handle. After two volatile men in a row, I’d fully expected to be gun shy around anyone for a long time.
But Elliott had the opposite effect on me. He was big enough to break someone in half, but there was nothing threatening about him. I could seriously get used to that.
“Samir?”
I shook myself. “Sorry. What?”
He smiled. “You spaced out a little. You all right?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” I took a quick sip of coffee, almost burning myself in the process. “Sorry. What were you saying?”
“I was asking if I could give her one.” He gestured at the treats.
“Oh. Sure. Of course.” I handed him one, and Shouka instantly sat up, butt wiggling and attention focused on Elliott.
Instead of tossing it to her, he put it in his hand and held it out. She ate it, slobbering all over his palm and fingers in the process. He just laughed and wiped it on his pant leg.
I sipped my coffee again, carefully this time. “So how does that work? You being a Marine and a bouncer, and being built like a brick shithouse, but not being…”
“Not being a violent asshole?”
“Sure. Let’s go with that.”
“Eh, that’s never really been me.”
“How’d you end up in the Marines, then?”
“Well.” He actually blushed a little, and absently played with the handle on his coffee cup as he spoke. “Didn’t have a lot of other options. I was kind of a fuck-up in high school. No police record or anything, but didn’t have the grades to get into college. Honestly I’m lucky the Marines took me.”
“Aren’t they a little tougher on stuff like that now?”
“They are, but I scored high on the ASFAB. They decided they could overlook my grades since I’d be useful, so…” He shrugged. “They let me enlist. And I decided I liked it, so I did twenty and retired.”
“Wow. You retired at, what, thirty-eight?”
He nodded.
I whistled. “Man. If I’d enlisted, I could’ve retired next year.”
“Could’ve still been a vet too. Veterinarian, I mean. Not veteran. Well okay you’d be both, but you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, true.” I sighed. “Wouldn’t have this mountain of student loans either. Fuck, I definitely should’ve gone military.”
“Eh.” Elliott shrugged. “It’s not for everyone. I mean, yeah, I got a lot out of it, but it took a lot out of me too.”
“Right. You said you’ve been to warzones before.”
He nodded. “I was lucky; don’t get me wrong. My experiences over there could’ve been a lot worse. A lot worse.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. “I can’t even imagine. How many times were you over there?”
“Did two tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan. Well, the second Iraq tour wasn’t a complete year—I was transferred to Germany for convalescence, and by the time I was cleared for duty, my unit was heading back stateside.”
“Convalescence?” My spine straightened. “What happened?” I paused. “I mean, you don’t have to—”
“It’s okay.” He waved a hand. “Ironically, it wasn’t an injury—I was sick. Picked up some horrific lung thing that turned into pneumonia.”
I grimaced. “Jesus. I mean, I suppose it could’ve been worse, but…”
“Yeah, but at the time, I even told the doc I’d rather get into another fight with razor wire than deal with that bullshit again.”
“Another fight with razor wire?” I smirked as I picked up my coffee. “You have a beef with razor wire or something?”
Elliott laughed. Man, I could never get tired of the way his eyes would light up like that. “I just had really bad luck with it, I guess.” He tugged his sleeve up a little, and in this light, I could see some slim, silvery scars on his forearm. “Shredded my arm up good. The worst was when I landed on it when we had to take cover in a hurry. Didn’t see it, and…anyway.” He tapped the side of his rib cage. “Clear down to the bone in a few spots.”
I shuddered, my skin crawling. “Ow. No thanks.”
“Eh. It healed.” His eyes darted toward my hands. Or, as I studie
d him closer, my forearms. I followed the trajectory and realized what he was looking at.
I held up my hands, palms toward me, so he had a better look at my wrists and arms. “These are all occupational hazards.”
“Oh. They’re from animals.”
I nodded.
“Right. That makes sense.” His cheeks darkened. “I just… uh…”
“It’s okay. They’re mostly cats and dogs.” I lowered my hands and pointed at a particularly pronounced on just below my elbow. “This one was from an exceptionally pissed-off ferret. These two”—I moved my finger to a pair of parallel lines—“came from an iguana.”
“An iguana?” He laughed. “Really?”
“Oh yeah. I don’t see as many exotic animals now as I did at my first clinic, but damn, some of them are sharp.”
“I’ll bet they are.”
I turned my arm a bit and found the deep gouge an inch or so below my wrist. “Guess what did this.”
He leaned in, squinting a little. “I have no idea.”
“A chicken.”
Elliott’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. They told me the rooster was mean, but the one hen just went crazy when I picked her up. I actually had to have that one stitched.”
“A battle scar from a chicken. Now that’s impressive.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I can’t tell if that’s sarcasm or not.”
Elliott smiled sweetly and sipped his coffee.
“Asshole,” I muttered, and we both chuckled.
His humor faded and he put down his cup. “So I’m curious about something.”
Oh God. Here we go.
Bracing myself as subtly as possible, I said, “Uh, okay?”
He glanced down at my arms, fixing his gaze on one scar, then another. “Is it true that a parrot can break off a finger with its beak?”
A laugh burst out of me, not at the question but just at the relief that he was keeping the topic light. Well, as light as could be when we were discussing colorful birds chomping off digits. At least we weren’t talking about Jesse.
“Well, I’ve never seen it happen,” I said. “But given the sharpness of the beak and their bite strength, not to mention some of the damage I have seen them do? I wouldn’t be surprised at all.”
Elliott shuddered. “My grandma’s got an African grey, and that thing scares the hell out of me.”
“Really? Not friendly?”
“Not to anyone but her, no. Every time I walk in the house, the fucker dive bombs me.”
I grimaced. “Sounds like it shouldn’t be loose, then.”
He rolled his eyes. “Tell that to my grandma.”
“How does it treat her?”
“Eh.” He shrugged. “She’s smart and uses oven mitts whenever she has to pluck him off the crown molding or a piece of furniture, but he’s not aggressive toward her.”
“That’s a plus, I guess.” I picked up another treat and handed it to Shouka. “Birds aren’t really my area of expertise, so I wouldn’t know how to address that.”
As Elliott reached for his coffee, his eyebrow rose along with one corner of his mouth. “You give up on treating birds after a chicken kicked your ass.”
“Hey now.” I held up my hand so he could see the one bird I did understand. He almost choked on his coffee. Good. As I went for my own coffee, I said, “I’ll have you know I was not handling chickens in a veterinary capacity. It was during my undergrad years, and a friend needed help moving his chickens into their new coop. And they were, uh, not impressed with the idea.”
Elliott snickered. “Birds are a lot more opinionated than I realized.”
“Yeah. Try having a difference of opinion with a corvid.”
“A what now?”
“Corvid. Crows. Ravens. Blue jays. That kind of thing.”
“Oh.” He cocked his head, the smirk planted firmly on his lips. “You go a few rounds with a crow or something?”
I rolled my eyes and sighed, chuckling at the memory. “I did an internship at a wildlife rescue. The rescue mostly worked with mammals and small reptiles, but there was a population of ravens nearby. And my God, they were a pain in the ass.”
“Yeah?” Elliott paused for a quick sip of coffee. “What did they do?”
“They just got into everything.” I gave an exasperated sigh. “They’re like winged Bengals, I swear. We actually had to put a sign up for visitors that the birds might try to peel weather stripping and wiper blades off their cars and that there wasn’t much we could do about it. One day, someone showed up with one of those magnetic signs on his truck door.” I groaned. “Didn’t take those birds five minutes to peel it off and leave with it.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “You’re kidding. Tell me someone got it on video.”
“Unfortunately, no. And we never got the sign back either—as soon as they realized we wanted it, they thought it was a game. Which they won.”
“Little menaces from the sound of it.”
“Totally. Way too smart for their own good.” I grinned. “You should see it when they tease my cats.”
“Oh God. I’m surprised your cats haven’t taken out a window trying to get to them.”
“Give them time. But I’ve got some crows that like to play in the yard when Shouka isn’t out there, and if there’s a cat in the window, they all gather around it and taunt him. It’s entertaining as hell for me, though.”
Elliott laughed again. “I can see why you went into working with animals. Seems like you really like them.”
“I do, yeah.” I smiled, absently playing with one of Shouka’s ears. “I’ll be paying off vet school until I die in my next life, but I think it was worth it. I like what I do.”
“Scars and all?”
“Scars and all.”
Our eyes met, and we both smiled.
“So, um.” He thumbed the saucer under his coffee cup. “You got plans for the day?”
I shrugged. “Not really. Clinic is closed. What about you?”
“Nothing. I’m off tonight.” He chewed his lip, looking just a little bit shy and a lot adorable. “You, um, want to go do something?”
I could sit here all day with you.
“Sure. Any ideas?”
“Not off hand.” He nodded toward Shouka. “We could take her somewhere if she likes that. Down to the beach or something.”
My heart did a somersault. This must’ve been what it was like for a single parent to meet someone who invited the kids along on a date. Okay, not quite like that, but close. The fact that he liked her enough to bring her with us was insanely endearing.
“That might be nice. It’s been a while since I’ve let her chase pigeons.”
He burst out laughing. “She chases birds?”
“Just pigeons. No other birds, but she’s got a serious vendetta against pigeons.”
“She ever caught one?”
It was my turn to really laugh. “Oh God, no. You’ve heard her running in the house—she’s got all the stealth of a charging herd of wildebeest.” I glanced down at her, and she was looking up at me with those big brown eyes. “Hey, I’m just calling it like I see it, baby.” I petted her huge head. “You’re just not a silent hunter.”
She gave a heavy sigh and shifted her gaze to Elliott as if to say “See what I put up with?” Or ask for another treat. One of the two.
“He’s got a point, you know.” Elliott took the last treat off the table and held it out to her. “You’re not exactly quiet.”
Shouka just took the treat from him, lay down on the concrete with a groan, and started chomping away. He laughed and scratched the scruff of her neck. Still chewing noisily, she looked up at him, and when he petted her head, her little tail wagged.
And for the fiftieth time since I’d met him, my heart melted. It was way, way too soon to even be thinking about another relationship with anyone. It was way too soon to think a relationship with Elliott would amount to more than
a week or two of sex before fizzling out.
But at every turn, I caught myself hoping.
After Ollie and Jesse, after all this hell…
Is it too much to ask for this to be real?
Chapter 11
Elliott
Three weeks after I met him, I didn’t know why Samir and I kept asking each other if we wanted to meet up or hang out or spend a night together. Unless one of us was working, the answer was inevitably “fuck yeah.” And hell, even if we were working, that didn’t mean anything. Before I headed to the club, I’d take him lunch at his clinic. After he was done for the day, he’d come by Wilde’s so we could eat dinner together in the VIP lounge. Once I was off work for the night, it was a foregone conclusion I’d be in Samir’s bed before long.
Well, unless it was a Friday or Saturday night. We’d still spend my dinner break together, but I’d sleep at my apartment. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go to his place, but I didn’t leave Wilde’s until almost three those nights, and I was usually wiped out after a long shift of wrangling drunken idiots. The next morning, though, once I’d crawled out of bed, I’d meet him and Shouka at High Grounds, and the odds of getting into bed together before dinnertime were pretty damn good.
Now it was Wednesday night. Wilde’s was relatively quiet. Most of the people who came on weeknights were either meeting up with online hookups—grabbing a quick drink while they made sure they really were attracted to each other before taking off to go fuck somewhere—or they were winding down with a beer after work. During the week, the place resembled a regular bar. On the weekends, it turned into the thumping club that brought in hot gay men from miles around.
The quiet nights like this could get boring, but if there was one thing I’d learned from working here, it was that boredom wasn’t entirely bad. In a warzone, quiet and boring meant no one was shooting at you. In a nightclub, it meant no one was fighting with us or anyone else.
Beside me, Julien was restless. There was a fading bruise on his cheekbone from last Friday night, and he’d been edgy ever since then. I had been too. Two weekends in a row, we’d had more troublemakers than usual. More aggressive ones, too.