“Well, you're not interested in my lectures on classic fiction, so yes,” she snubs me in a playful way, a little elbow in my side. She's got me there. Metaphors and analogies about how screwed up America is or how love is lost in society just don't do it for me.
“Hey,” Haven readjusts on the couch and greets Lexi. She asks, “Are we going to talk about The Great Gatsby today?”
Lexi dangles her briefcase from her hands, hinting that's what's inside. There's sheer excitement painted on Haven's face, the same kind I see at night as she swallows books. This is the third book in two days she's gone through. The way she enjoys reading, getting lost in a book, is in its own way sexy. She likes to read on the opposite end of the couch at night after dinner while I watch TV. I've begun to pick up on when she needs space, like I'm suffocating her or a memory is on the prowl. It seems to help to occasionally distance myself from her, even if it's killing me. She also likes to read in bed before we fall asleep, though I've been crashing before her, so I have no idea how late she stays up. I'm not used to falling asleep so fast, but with her in my arms, her head resting on my chest, the lull of watching her breathe peacefully, I can't help it. After the first night of worrying she was just going to run away between the screaming fits, I was on edge. But now that there isn't so much as a stir from between my arms, I’m asleep in what has to be record timing.
“Well, I'm going to leave you lovely ladies to your classic American lit.” I grab my workout shoes that are stashed next to the front door.
“Do you even know anything about the book you're running from?”
I tie my first shoestring. “Yes, ma'am. Read it in high school.”
“So, no,” Lexi shakes her head, her briefcase landing on the coffee table. “No one pays attention in high school. Hell, they barely pay attention in college.”
God, how wrong she is. I excelled in high school. Natural learner is what the counselor used to claim. Always pushed me to take harder classes, and I did. After all, the more I had to study, the less I had to spend making small talk with Sir. Raked in quite the number of college credits. I'm thankful for the ability to learn and absorb so much so quickly. It's helped me quite often in my career.
Once both of my shoes are tied, I grab my keys from the bar table and turn to Lexi, “In my opinion, Gatsby got too involved in chasing the idea of something to realize it had already passed him by, that life essentially had passed him by. Instead of being obsessed with one moment, one perfect thought of Daisy, he should've spent it actually living. Everything he created, everything he did to impress her, he should've done for himself. He might have lived longer.” I pause for a second, lost in my own train of thought. Strange how I didn't get how any person could be that obsessed over another living soul or an idea until now. You could say, in ways, Haven's my own Daisy. “Then again, being paralyzed by love like that can make even the sanest man go insane. Maybe a love like that is worth obsessing over. Changing for.”
My eyes shift over to Haven as Lexi sighs. Haven tries to hide a blush. “Where are you going?”
“The gym. Need anything before I go?” She shakes her head, and I lean down, placing a kiss on her forehead, doing my best not to let my lips linger too long. I feel a tiny flinch. Small. Slight. It comes and goes so quick I’m hoping it was just a subconscious reaction.
I dread leaving her. I know she's safe. Protected. But there's something I get from being around her that I don't get anywhere else. If it were up to me, I’d stick around and listen to the boring discussion just to be close to her, but I told Sir that, when she spends time with others from the neighborhood, I’d do my best to disappear, give her time to adjust to other people, to learn that I won't always be around. I hate that thought in itself, and the fact it's the bottom-line truth gnaws at me harshly. I've never dreaded being deployed, yet suddenly, it's like being on death row.
“Be back soon.”
“OK,” she offers me a smile as Lexi starts pulling out notes to share.
While Haven isn't allowed to discuss her past, even though she does occasionally to me in secret—after all, I know what she's being guarded from—I think if anyone were to get it, it'd be Lexi. Her and Striker met and fell in love back when he was just getting started as a doctor and she had been lecturing at a state college. To my understanding, she was a bit of a prodigy, came to the United States for boarding school at twelve, and graduated high school at sixteen. She was sent here to become better acquainted with the American lifestyle but more importantly to keep her away from the family business—of running drugs and high-price prostitution. Her family possessed more traditional values when it came to race and insisted she never see Striker again. When she refused, they tried to have her kidnapped and dragged out of the country. The two of them wed quickly and fled south, where they built a house next to Mindy and Doug. He'd gotten the idea from Doug, whom he had met a charity golf tournament and stayed in touch with over the years. They changed her name, her look, and she started teaching at a private university, the same one her daughter and Howard attend. With a little help from Anna, anyone who searches for Lexi’s background will find nothing from her true past. Like I said, if Haven could relate to anyone running from family, it'd be Lexi.
Arriving at the gym, I make sure to bring my phone in case Haven needs me. Once I'm inside, I check what's on the class rotation for the next time slot. Beginner Pilates. No. Salsa. Hell no. Kick boxing for the Advanced. And we have a winner. The clock above the bulletin board says I've got 15 minutes before it starts. I can get in a few minutes at the weight bench.
Lifting weights isn't my favorite thing, but it's an easy way to pass time by. As I transition from rep two to three, I hear a distinct chuckling sound that I could identify anywhere on the planet.
“Ah, the Grim Reaper is alive,” Glove's face appears in the mirror beside me.
I roll my eyes as Lordy appears on the other side. After putting my weights down, I greet each of them accordingly.
“Where you been?” Glove asks, accusing me with his voice.
A picture of Haven's smiling face flashes in my mind. I fight the urge to smile. “Busy.”
“With?”
“Why?”
“You're usually looking for an escape by now,” Glove pushes.
Damn it. He's right. Two days under Sir's thumb and I'm looking for anything to get away from his silent lectures and disapproving looks. One shore leave, I spent a week camping with Glove and a couple of his cousins and her friends, none of whom who were tolerable and none of whom knew the meaning of the word no.
I don't answer. I shrug and look away.
Glove jumps on my response, “It's a chick.” I hate Glove. “You've been busy with a chick! It's about time! Was starting to think you had a thing for me.”
“You're an idiot.”
“Is it Amber?”
“Who?”
“Chick from the party. I gave her your number a couple days ago.”
That's how she got it. I shake my head and sit on the bench closest to me. “No.”
“But it is a chick?” Lordy says slowly as if to clarify.
“Yeah,” I admit but avoid any more responses. We don't talk about this. I can't talk about this with them, especially not with Glove, whose longest relationship with a female was one weekend in Vegas with a stripper whose real name he never found out.
“Holy shit, Grim's pussy whipped already,” Glove teases. “Must be a fireball in the sack to tame you.”
A shower of animosity rains down on me heavily. It's not enough he won't drop the subject, but now he's talking about her like she's some common gutter slut. She's not a slut. Nothing about her says that. She's not common by any means either. These two thoughts alone are enough to rattle my nerves, but the level of disrespect for her, for my angel with no wings, that’s the real problem here.
My fist clenches as the rage inside my head begins deleting rational ideas like this is my friend, my brother in combat.
/> Lordy senses something and pulls me back from the dark side, just seconds before I'm about to lunge at Glove, “Just working out or what?”
After a couple of long blinks back into reality, I lean back to do some sit-ups, needing to burn away the remaining need to punch something.
“Kick boxing class.”
“I'm down,” Lordy nods and shoots a look at Glove.
He shakes his head, “No. The cock-to-tits ratio is not in my favor. Sausage fest. Pass. Get enough of that with work. I'm thinking yoga.”
“Pilates,” I correct him as I complete another sit-up. “Same time.”
“Yes!” Glove snaps a finger and points at me. “You're a great wingman sometimes. Always have my back. Pilates it is. In fact, let me go freshen up before that starts.”
Do I feel bad for unleashing that rabid dog on the unsuspecting females in the class? Yes. But hey, it beats him in my face, tempting me to knock the shit out of him for degrading Haven, whom he knows nothing about.
Glove fades out of my vision toward the locker room. Another sit-up and I see Lordy looking at me suspiciously. It makes me uncomfortable. It's like he can tell that something is different about me, something has changed. He can't know that. They can't know that. I have to be the Grim Reaper. Grim. Cold face, stone cold killer Grim. No bullshit Grim. No one else.
“You want to tell me something about her?”
I shake my head, passing a hundred sit-ups, no burn felt yet, and with the uncharted territory Lordy is wading in, if I don't feel pain to distract me from it soon, I might feel compelled to hit him in the face too.
Lordy leans against the pillar across from me and waits. I almost reach two hundred before the burn is enough to take the edge off.
Finally, I stop and slowly sit up all the way. I run my hands down my face. I don't want to talk to him about her, but who the hell else do I got? These are my brothers. And I have to know that these feelings are somewhat normal and that they will eventually lighten up because, at the rate they are hitting me left and right, I'm beginning to feel like I'm losing my mind.
“All right, can I ask you something?”
He shrugs, “Yeah.”
“First, let me say this: One, if you laugh at me, I'll jab you in the throat. Two, if you mock me, I'll break your nose. And three, if you repeat this to Glove, so help me God, you'll wish we never met. Are we clear?”
“Affirmative.”
I tap my foot uncomfortably. Saying this crap out loud is just as bad as feeling it. This is not a dude conversation, and I know it. But I have to know the level of crazy I am about this girl—between normal crazy and see-a-shrink crazy. Besides, it's obvious Lordy has been here before, even if he doesn't talk about it. Any time a girl reminds him of the one that did the damage, the one in the photo, he treats her with a softer approach and more respect.
Here goes. “How do I know if I'm in love?”
Lordy's eyebrows jump down in confusion. “Are you fucking with me?”
“What did I just say?” My fist curls.
“Whoa. Whoa. Sorry. Shit. Unexpected there. Figured it was gonna be a little less vital. Mind you, I'm used to Glove's questions like 'What does it mean when it burns when you pee?'” The comment eases my tension. My fist retracts. “Truth?”
“Yeah.”
“When you have to ask.”
The words stun me. I fall backward, back onto the bench. Shit. That's what I was afraid of. I mean, she's all I think about, want to be around, and fuck, I even dreamed that I had married her, knocked her up—four times. I know I'm in love, whatever that means. I just thought maybe it was something less overwhelming. I thought maybe it was going to be on the easier side of crazy, not smack dab in the middle. I needed it to be less critical, less life threatening.
Lordy sees my deer-in-the headlights look and tries to soften the blow, “Look, it's hard to know. I mean, chicks fall in love with everything. They see a Gucci purse and swoon like it proposed. Let me put it like this. If you're driving yourself insane with thoughts of her so bad that you had to tap outside resources to define what exactly it is you're feeling, then yeah. That's love. Basically.”
My eyes shut tight. I know he's right. I hate that, not because I don't want to love her. God, I want to love her. Make love to her. Spend hours swept away in her. Making a new home inside her. Every cell in her soul marked with my name. Fuck. Yeah, I wanna love her. But I don't need to love her. I can't. I can't have those emotions. I can't deal with giving another person part of me. I'm not even sure I know how to do that. I don't even know if there is anything to give. I can't forget the person I've spent years creating, the persona I’ve idealized, the reinvented version of myself. The longer I'm with Haven, the more every wall that I've built around my life begins to crumble, and it's only been a few days. At this rate, I'll be exposed before the week is over. Bare. I won't be Grim the sniper, known for his bleak expression. Hell, I won't even be Slugger, the silent kid in the neighborhood you know better than to fuck with. I'll be Clint. And I don't know if I can handle him.
81 Days Till Deployment
While I was a bit upset with Sir this morning when he handed me a list of chores to complete for the day, leaving Haven all to Mindy, I decided it was worth it when he expressed that he wouldn't be making it home tonight. This will be our first night to have dinner alone with the house to ourselves for an extended amount of time. I’m not saying that we'll be having passionate sex all night, though the thought has crossed my mind. It'll just be nice not to have to share her with the whole world.
Packing the oversized bag of soil through Anna and Felix's side gate, I admire the way the flowers are blossoming like the prize-winning pieces they are. The sunflowers are the tallest and easily viewed from my bedroom. I know because Haven waits until the sunlight touches them every morning before declaring it's a new day.
Anna, who has her legs folded beside her, with her fingers, which have changed and saved many lives, buried in the dirt and her black box-framed glasses running down her nose, keeps making blowing sounds. My guess is her brown hair is tickling her nose since it's not pulled back.
“Three bags, right?” The bag drops on the patio, causing her to look over her shoulder, once more looking like a classic Hollywood starlet. Think perfection like Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina. Classically beautiful.
“Right,” Felix speaks up, exiting their home and onto the porch beside me where I dropped the last bag. “How you doing, Slugger?”
Folding my arms across my sweat-covered chest, I nod proudly, “I'm good.”
“Yeah?” he asks, pouring a bit of his afternoon beer into his mouth. I watch as Felix, an amazing spitting image of Dean Martin, flops down in a lawn chair.
“Better if Sir had made more progress in finding who was keeping Haven captive.”
“You know Whiskey's doing his best, Slugger.”
“I know, sir.”
“From my understanding, it's harder than it looks trying to find someone who has no intention on being found.” His face breaks into a short smile as he shoots his wife a quick look before lowering his tone to a whisper, “I'm sure my wife could vouch for that being true.”
I nod. I know he's right. I know that, when Sir and Anna have their minds set on something like this, they don't stop until they succeed. I know I shouldn't doubt either of them, but I just want results. Now. It's just like in the field, though. You have to let your intelligence officers do what they do best, so when the time comes, you can do what you do best. In this case, I can't wait to live up to my name.
“And Haven?”
“Oh, yes!” Anna pulls herself up to her full 5' 5" frame, dusting her hands on her garden clothes. “How's she adjusting?”
“She's . . .” my voice trails off on its own as images of her curled up beside me, head on my shoulder, chest, thigh, all start dancing around. I see her brushing her teeth in the morning beside me, tossing my socks at me that I shed after running, giggling my name as I pul
l her into a hug. Then I see that she’s uncomfortable in a hug. Pulling away from my attempt to hold her hand. Flinching when my fingers graze her body in unexpected passings. Softly sobbing when she thinks she is alone. Suddenly, the heat from outside seems more than I can bare. Coughing in an attempt to get through it, I mutter, “Adjusting.”
“And you?” Anna pushes the issue, sitting on the edge of her husband’s chair. “How are you adjusting?”
“Just fine, ma'am.”
“Is that why you readjusted my boy’s head?” The scolding look on her face prompts a chuckle out of her husband.
I had hoped Sir or Mindy had done this for me, that they would have smoothed the topic, but I should have figured I would need to apologize myself. It is the honorable thing to do. I was out of line, even if it felt justified, even if I would do it again without hesitation.
“About that–”
“It's all right,” Felix brushes me off, his construction-worker hands gripping his wife's waist. An amazing pair they are. It's his hands, his company, that owned the land and built these homes, and her hands, her hacking skills, that keep them safe behind the walls. How they birthed a worthless human being is beyond me. God's sick way of balance, I suppose.
“With all due respect, Felix, it wasn't. I wasn't thinking and overstepped a line of respect with the two of you. My apologies.”
His hazel eyes glance up at his wife, who is beaming down at him and then back at me. “You're such a remarkable young man, Slugger. Always polite. Civil. We both know you meant no disrespect to us. We also know how Howard gets.”
“God, do we.” Anna looks up at the sky, clearly troubled by something the asshole has done recently. “I can rewrite everyone's lives from behind a computer, but I can't rewrite my own son. It's like a sick joke, huh?”
Howard has always been a disappointment. It’s not bad enough he's a borderline sexual predator, but he has a drinking problem to go right along with his gambling, the one his parents are constantly forking over cash for. The only good that comes from it is that Sir has a constant stream of people to arrest in attempts to free Howard from the debt he always manages to get himself into. He was given two parents who would die for him, and he only thinks of himself. I wish I could bash his face in even harder.
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