For the most part, I’m doing just fine. Since the bullet simply grazed my arm, my shoulder is mostly healed. They removed the staples from my side, leaving behind a few dissolvable stitches under the steri-strips.
If I had to, I would blame my foul mood more on the fact that I know I’m going to need help for a few days. I hate being reliant on people, and considering all he’s been through, I want nothing more than to simply be there for Beck.
It’s killing me that it has to be the other way around.
When we walk through the door, Mom’s waiting for us, arms wide open to help me into my room. Of course, she’s cleaned everything in the apartment from top to bottom. There’s a meal in the oven and, if I had the energy to check, I’m sure I’d find three or four more in the freezer.
Beck helps me ease onto the mattress. Watching with an amused look on his face, he lets me attempt to take off my sneakers. “You couldn’t get them on in the hospital, but now you’re miraculously going to be able to take them off?” he laughs.
With more effort than I care to spend on it, I toe off one sneaker and launch it at him from the bed. He ducks, letting it sail past his head. “I’m sorry. What did you say?” Playful sarcasm hangs on my words.
Swatting a hand at me, he leaves me to my own devices to take off the other one. He pulls out some clothes from my dresser and holds out a hand to me. “Shower?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
Shaking his head, he rolls his eyes. He stands in front of me, laughing quietly to himself. “No, you’re not. You stink to high heaven.” Lowering himself down to the ground, he kneels in front of me. Kindness eases the worry lines of his forehead. “I know you don’t want to bother anyone.” Attempting to defend myself, he cuts me off, pressing a finger against my lips. “That’s how you are. You’re proud and you don’t want anyone to see you as weak. That’s why I love you.”
Wrapping his arms around me, he nuzzles against my neck, pressing a soft kiss against my skin. “The last thing I think of you is that you’re weak. All I want to do is take care of you and when you tell me no, it makes me feel useless. It makes me feel weak and helpless not to be able to be here for you.”
“I’m sorry.” Hugging him through the pain, I rest my chin on the top of his head. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
We sit wrapped in each other’s arm for a few more moments, enjoying the time to simply be together in the quiet. “So how about that shower?” Beck stands, angling his head toward the bathroom.
Catching a wiff of myself as he pulls me up, I can’t argue with his logic.
Standing under the water, I joke—lamely, “You’re not going to take advantage of me?”
Beck strips out of his clothes, joining me. “Oh, I will.” There’s both a threat and a promise in his tone. Seductively, he runs the bar of soap all over my body—along the hard contours of my muscles, trailing down the center of my stomach, careful not to touch the covered wound angrily blazing through my side. He stops right above my cock, which is thick and heavy with want, despite the pain coursing through my body. “But not now.”
Turning in the circle of his arms, I press him up against the wall. “What if I said now was exactly when I want it?” His arms wrap around my body, grabbing at my ass. The slick heat of the water washes over us, bubbles freely flowing over our skin. “You want it, too. I can feel it.” The heat of his dick rubbing up against mine rivals the temperature of the near-scalding water.
His lips seek mine, capturing them in a kiss like no other. Needing more of him, all of him, I attack his mouth, driving my tongue forcefully past his lips. His hand cups my jaw, stopping my movements. “Slow,” he requests, his voice full of lust. “Slow down.”
Beck’s lips move across my skin. He nips at my jaw. “I like the new stubble. Trying to out-grow me?”
I chuckle. “Are you accusing me of beard envy?”
“It’s not an accusation if it’s true.” He doesn’t miss a beat in his reply. “Now, do you want to keep talking beards, or can we shut up now and use our mouths for something else?”
Without affording me the chance to respond, Beck crushes his lips against mine, devouring me. He pulls back, searching my face. “I want to suck you so bad. I can almost taste you in my mouth. But I’m afraid you won’t be able to stand up if I do.” His hand moves over my thick cock, his thumb circling patiently over the tip. A garbled groan of need is all I can afford to give him as an answer.
His body glides effortless against mine. Goose bumps dot my flesh with the feel of his chest hair rubbing against my heated skin. His hands caress the outsides of my legs, then the inside as he pushes them open. Kneeling before me in the shower, he looks up at me. Water droplets decorate his face. With his eyes boring into mine, he wraps his mouth around my dick, pulling me in slowly, deeply. With painstaking precision, Beck runs his tongue over the bugling veins, rolling it around the broad flat head, kissing sweetly along the underside.
Throwing my head back, my raw need for Beck engrosses me. Everything else fades away. There’s no water, no steam, no world outside of the shower door. There’s just us. Him and me and our coming together.
My head falls forward when I feel his hand grip the base of my dick, moving over me at the same pace as his mouth. “Beck, baby.” My hand goes to his face, gently caressing his cheek. A wave of pleasure moves through me when I feel the tip of my cock press up against the inside of his cheek. “Oh, fuck. That’s fucking hot,” I growl. When I look down at him and see his other hand moving over his own dick at a furious pace, I nearly lose it. “Oh, shit! I’m coming. Beck . . . fuck.”
Watching him swallow every last drop of my orgasm as his flows over his own hand is more than I can take. My legs buckle and I slowly slide down to the floor. Sitting next to him, I rest my head on his shoulder. He kisses the top of my head, tracing patters of nothingness over my shoulder.
Before the water goes completely frigid, we manage to finish cleaning up. Beck drapes a towel over my shoulders when we step out of the shower. “Here.” He rubs it up and down my arms as I fight off a chill. “Bullet wounds I can deal with, but a cold, yeah, that’s where I draw the line.” His joke is a thinly veiled attempt to deflect the seriousness of our new reality. I know because that’s all my anger is, really.
“Beck,” his name rolls from my mouth, my tone serious enough to pull his attention away from combing through his hair. Crossing his arms over his beautifully decorated chest, he leans his ass up against the counter, waiting for me to continue speaking. “How are you?”
“I’m good. Tired, but good. I want to get you something to eat and get you in bed so I can take care of Violet. I have a ton of shit to . . .” Whatever long list he was going to start rambling fades into the steam curling through the room.
“What?” I step into his space, running my hands over his chest.
“Nothing,” he shakes his head, deflecting. “Nothing at all. Come on. Let’s get you taken care of.”
The only thing that gets him off the hook is the light tapping on the door to my room. “Let me know when you want to eat, honey. I have your lunch ready for you.”
Beck and I dress quickly, without saying another word about how either of us are really feeling, without addressing the elephants of my recovery and his sister’s death.
“Here you go,” Mom’s cheerful voice calls from the bedroom door. Carrying a tray of food, she walks carefully over to the bed. Beck helps her arrange the tray over my lap, making me feel even more like an invalid. “You two look like you got run over by a train.” Mom laughs, trying her best to make light of everything while she takes care of it all at the same time. She tosses Beck the remote and pulls an extra blanket out of the closet. “Why don’t you two get some rest and I’ll take care of Tonka and Violet for the night. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.”
Without allowing us the chance to protest, she walks out of the bedroom, softly closing the door behind her. We hear the jangling of Tonka’s leash
and collar and then the front door closing as we begin eating.
“What needs to get done tomorrow?” I ask around a mouthful of food.
Shrugging, Beck deflects my attempt at conversation. “Nothing.” Silence, then he adds, “Don’t worry about it.”
Annoyance builds in my body as he surfs through the channels. “There’s obviously something going on,” I bark, moving the tray from my lap to the side table. “Will you just tell me already?”
Beck moves his tray, huffing in exasperation. “It’s just something I need to take care of. You don’t have to worry about it. Violet and I will be back in the afternoon and I’ll be able to take care of you tomorrow night. Chloe will be with you during the day.” He explains all of this as if I’m some kind of small child.
In the mixture of anger and frustration, it comes to me. Nikki He needs to take care of Nikki tomorrow and he doesn’t want me there. It’s because I pushed him away when I had to go home to my dad. The petty side of me wants to believe he’s shutting me out of his life as a means of punishment, but the anguish in his eyes, twisting his face together in knots of pain suggests that it’s not about retribution at all.
Sliding right next to him, I lock our hands together. “The funeral?”
He nods. Despair weighs down his body, pushing his shoulders into a deep slump. Minutes pass in silence. When his body shakes, holding back his tears, the only thing I can do is hold him tighter, try my best to let the pain seep out of him and into me.
He buries his face into my chest. He lets me hold him while the sorrow swallows him. “I can’t . . . she’s my sister. How do you say goodbye?”
“By letting me be by your side.” He looks up at me, torn over what to do.
“But you’re hurt and healing. I can’t ask you–”
Cradling his face in my hands, I brush his hair out of his eyes. “You’re not asking me. I’m telling you. I will be there with you and Violet tomorrow. Beck,” I take a deep breath, gathering the words in my head, “I need to be there with you because you’re home for me. You and Violet and here,” I brush my hand over his heart. “It’s where I belong. Where you go is where I’ll be. It’s that simple.”
Nodding, he smiles at me. “Thank you,” he mutters against my lips.
Without another word, we fall asleep in each other’s arms. Forgetting about bullets and funerals, in this moment all we need is each other. Tomorrow, we’ll bury his sister and console his niece, and through it all, we’ll comfort each other as much as we can.
There’s nothing else we can do.
Walking back into the house on Saturday, the weight of Nikki’s death threatens to strangle us all. The funeral was small and brief—Nikki hadn’t known many people who would show their faces there anyway. A few staff members from the rehabilitation home showed up, offered their condolences and then went on their way.
Violet sat between Beck and me, holding our hands through the entire ceremony. After the priest said his final prayers, Violet walked over to the casket and placed a dandelion on top of it, whispering, “I know these were your favorite, Mommy.”
If it was even possible, everyone’s heart broke more in that moment. Exhaustion and sorrow followed us the rest of the day—when we went to the beach to throw flowers in the ocean in Nikki’s memory, when we went to lunch to fake some semblance of normalcy, when we dragged ourselves back to Chloe’s apartment, hoping to simply survive the remaining hours.
Violet curls up on the couch next to Tonka. Both of them are asleep in under five minutes. Pulling a blanket over her, she barely moves. Eventually, her breathing shifts from shallow and uneven pulls of oxygen—her tiny lungs catching up to a day’s worth of tears—to a more even, deeper kind.
Mom, Beck and I stand, watching over her sleeping. No words exist to fill the void of Nikki’s death. Violet will always be without her mother. Her loss is irreplaceable. Mom must be thinking the same thing as she wraps her arms around our waists. “You boys will take care of her the best you know how. She might not ever have her mother, but she’ll be loved. And protected.” She looks at me on her last words. Pride shimmers in her eyes. “Now, I think I’m going to take a walk down on the beach. Give you guys some time to settle in.”
“I could go with you,” I offer to her back as she walks out of the room.
“No,” she dismisses me, swatting her hand in front of her face. “I need some time, too.”
Something in the way she sounds tells me she’s missing Dad. His loss is still new and raw, real and painful. But like the pillar of strength she’s always been, Mom has made it a point to help everyone else. It heals her.
I laugh, realizing her trait is genetic.
I should know. I inherited it.
Walking into the kitchen, I grab two beers out of the fridge and slide one over to Beck. We sit in the death-laced silence for a few minutes. Beck finishes off his beer in two large gulps, and then stands from his seat. “I’m gonna grab a shower.” He holds up his hand, stopping me from joining him. “I just need a little space, okay?” The soft feel of his lips grazing against my temple softens the blow a little. I know he needs his space, but I can’t help wanting to be there for him.
Since everyone has been in and out of Chloe’s apartment for the last week or so, the place is a disaster, even with Mom’s constant cleaning. She’s been staying at Devon’s so I can’t even blame her for the mess. Of course, in light of everything that’s happened, I’m sure straightening the kitchen is not top priority. Mom has made a huge dent in it, but there are some things I’ll have to take care of on my own.
Like sorting through the massive pile of mail that accumulated over my two week stay at home. “Might as well knock this out now,” I mumble to myself, secretly thankful for the mindless distraction.
Most of it is junk mail. Aside from my cell phone, I don’t have too many bills. There’s a postcard from the local vet, reminding me to bring Tonka in for his vaccinations. Chuckling to myself, I think about how rabies is suddenly the least of his concerns.
In another envelope, on which the address is written in a very clean, bold, masculine handwriting, there’s a neon yellow schedule from the VA center. The stern look of Morris’ face twisted in admonishment for missing a few group meetings flashes in my head. He’s relentless, I’ll give him that. I make a mental note to myself to get back in touch with them. Besides, I’m sure Tonka is going to need some rehab work with Heather. As poor as my reaction might have been when I walked in there the first time, I actually look forward to keeping up my weekly meetings. There was something familiar and home-like about being there. And Franco hit a chord with me. Walking away from them and that part of my life just doesn’t seem plausible, especially now.
With everything else sorted, only one envelope remains. The sender did not include a name, just a return address, but the handwriting, which is a stark contrast from Morris,’ suggests the sender is a woman. Inside the envelope sits another smaller one, around which is wrapped a sheet of paper. Before opening the other envelope, I read the paper, hoping for some kind of explanation.
Jacob,
You don’t know me. I’m Irelyn Delaney, Patrick’s sister. I’m sorry it took me so long to get you this letter. The notification officer and I had a bit of trouble tracking you down.
My stomach rolls, vomit threatening just at reading his name. The hole in my heart that I’ve been trying so desperately to close up is reopened, torn wide, bleeding profusely like a wounded animal. Through the cloud of waiting tears, I read the rest of her words.
About six months ago, I received the letter I’m sending you. It’s from Pat. Much like I’m doing here, he included a separate letter for me, explaining what he needed me to do with it. He made me promise not to read it and I haven’t. In the letter he wrote me, he told me all about you, about what you meant to him and about all the plans the two of you had for your lives after the war.
The last paragraph of his letter slayed me. He begged me to make
sure that no matter what happened to him, that you received this letter from him. In his words, I could tell how happy you made him, how hopeful he was when he spoke of you. If you loved him half as much as he told me he loved you, I can’t imagine the pain his death caused you.
I wish we could have known each other. I’d love to have a chance to meet the man who brought my big brother so much happiness in such a short span of time.
Thank you for loving him.
Irelyn
With my heart in my throat, I slowly tear open the letter from Delaney.
Dax,
Well, if you’re reading this, I guess that means things didn’t work out so hot for me. I thought I’d lead with a joke, but it turns out that’s more difficult than you’d think.
There are so many things in life that are uncertain, that we can never really be sure about whether it’s the right thing to do. I could go on for pages about the things over which I deliberated. But there are only two things upon which I acted with one thousand percent certainty.
The first is enlisting. I was born for it. It was in my blood to serve my country. While all the other high school seniors were lining up to meet with college recruiters, I was anxiously awaiting my time with the Army recruiter. From the moment I could answer the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” my response had always been “a soldier.” Though it wasn’t exactly the way I had wanted things to play out, dying for my country was something I was willing to do. I wish more than anything that I could still be there with you, that we could still be there together, but please know that my sacrifice was one I accepted willingly.
You are the other thing in my life about which I had absolutely no reservations. Some people are drawn together, pulled to one another by some ineffable force, their lives forever entwined, despite the circumstances the world may hand them. That’s how I felt about you, talking with you, laughing with you, loving you.
On Solid Ground Page 24