by B. B. Hamel
“Two weeks,” I said, laughing.
“God, really? Feels like forever.”
“I know, right.”
“Hi, Tony,” she said.
“Hey, beautiful girl. Lovely house.” Tony kissed her on the cheek.
“Come in, you two,” she said. She ushered us inside.
The place was a lovely little cape cod. Lauren had amazing taste, and so the whole place was this chic nautical theme, all reclaimed wood and boats and brass. She had a nice little spread for the guests, plus lots of beer. Tony disappeared almost immediately, drink in hand, and I let him go. I didn’t need him to hang around me all day.
“Come on,” Lauren said. “Wait until you see the back yard.”
“How’s it feel to own a house?”
“Weird,” she said. “It’s a lot of responsibility. And stress.”
I laughed. “I bet.”
“There’s so much that can go wrong. Houses are like basically silent killers.”
I laughed again as she led me out through the kitchen and back into the yard.
Lots of people were milling about, and I didn’t recognize most of them. Lauren and Greg were both very outgoing people, so they made a ton of friends easily. I worked too hard to make a lot of friends, so I didn’t know most of the people there that afternoon.
The back yard was beautiful, spacious and gorgeous. They had a little deck, and Greg was there near the grill, talking to some tall guy that had his back turned to me.
“Greg,” Lauren said. “Pipes is here.”
“Piper!” Greg turned to me. “Good to see you.”
That was when his tall friend turned toward me, and I felt like time stopped.
Gates smiled at me. I remembered that smile, that handsome as hell smile. It was just as cocky and confident as I remembered, but there was something else to him. There was a new scar along his chin and a heaviness to his eyes, like he was tired or something. In that instant, I suddenly knew that he was the same man that I remembered, but he had seen some things that had changed him. I didn’t know how I knew that, but it was there n his face.
“Hey, Piper,” Gates said.
“Piper, you remember Gates,” Greg said. “You two met at the wedding.”
“I remember,” I said. “Hi, Gates.”
He smirked at me, and I didn’t know what else to say. I wanted to ask him if he got my letters and why he disappeared. I wanted to know how long he’d been home and why he never looked me up. I had a million questions.
But in the end, he was just a one-night stand. He owed me nothing.
“Well,” Lauren said. “Let’s continue the tour?”
“Sure,” I mumbled.
“It’s good to see you again, Pipes,” Gates said to me.
“You too.”
Lauren quickly moved the two of us away.
“Did you see how he was looking at you?” Lauren whispered, laughing. “Oh my god. It was like he wanted to throw you down and ravish you right there.”
“Yeah,” I said weakly, confused and surprised.
“Imagine if Tony saw that. He’d flip.”
“Probably.” Then I blinked. “Where is Tony, anyway?”
“Who knows?” Lauren steered me back inside.
As we headed into the kitchen, Tony came up to us. He had a serious look on his face.
“Listen, babe,” he said. “I gotta go.”
“What?” I asked. “We literally just got here.”
“I know. I know. It’s just, it’s business. I gotta go.”
“The club?”
“Yeah, my job. It’s really important.”
“You drove here.”
“I know. I gotta go, though.”
“I can drive you back,” Lauren said. “Or there’s the train. You don’t have to leave.”
I frowned at Tony. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sorry, babe. It’s an emergency.”
“Okay,” I said, sighing. “Go. I’ll get back on my own.”
“You sure? I can drop you off back home.”
“No, I’m sure.”
“You’re the best, babe. Sorry.” He kissed me on the cheek and then quickly walked out of the room.
“Does he do that a lot?” Lauren asked me.
“Yeah,” I said. “His business is stressful. It’s a tough job, you know?”
“I know,” Lauren said, but I didn’t hear the edge to her voice.
I was too busy thinking about Gates.
I couldn’t believe that he was standing just behind me, right back in the yard. I could turn around and actually see him. He was real, not a figment of my imagination like he felt so many times over the last two years.
Gates had been just one night, but that night loomed large in my mind. Even when I wasn’t thinking about him, that night was still somehow in my mind. Every night since was compared to that night, and they were always lacking somehow. I never reached that sort of intense joy and pleasure that I managed to get to with Gates, not even with Tony. Nothing else compared.
And now he was back. I thought that I would be disappointed if I ever saw Gates again, but I wasn’t disappointed. In fact, he was more handsome than I remembered. Maybe it was the extra weight to his eyes, the intense mystery hidden there, but somehow I found myself even more intensely attracted to him than ever before. I had to take a deep breath and remind myself that I was with Tony.
I couldn’t just turn around and throw myself at Gates. That would be pretty inappropriate.
But I really, really wanted to.
It was crazy. I really wasn’t that kind of girl. I barely dated until I met Tony, since I was way too busy with work. But now all of a sudden with Gates back, I found myself feeling like a teenager again. It was stupid and I knew it.
“Come on,” Lauren said, pulling me out of my daydream. “Let’s go see baby Joey. He’s with his grandmom.”
“Oh, yeah. Your kid.”
She laughed. “Yeah, my kid.”
“Lead the way, mama.”
She laughed again and we headed into the other room, into a world of babies and little socks and dirty diapers.
But even while I was holding Joey and laughing at a story about him peeing all over Greg’s record collection, I just kept thinking about Gates. I just kept thinking about that night.
I knew it was dangerous that he was back, but I couldn’t help myself with him around.
8
Gates
It felt weird to be back in the States, and even weirder to be standing in someone’s back yard drinking a beer without worrying whether a bomb was going to fall on your head.
Two years in Syria changed me. There was no other way to put it. I went to Syria one man, and came back a completely different one. Well, not completely, but the things I saw there, hell, some of the things that I did, it changed me. I had a new weight in my chest, a new patch on my soul.
Two years aiding rebel Kurds against the Islamic State. I saw them do horrible things, and I did horrible things to them in return. Most of my assignments were training and arming the locals, but every once in awhile Uncle Sam had me go out on a combat mission. Death always stalked along with me on those missions, whether it was the death of my men or the death of my enemies. Somehow, it always missed me, and so I continued onward. I had no other choice. I was fighting for the survival of my friends and my country, and I was proud of the work that I did.
But it changed me, and there was no going back.
I was home in the States for barely two weeks when Greg and Lauren invited me to their housewarming party. I didn’t want to go, but Greg gave me the whole, “you can’t sit around and stew in your memories” speech, and I knew he was right. I had to move on and live my life. I couldn’t let what happened over there define me.
So I got dressed, I drove over, and I stood in his back yard, drinking a beer.
And it was nice. It was strange, but it was nice. I didn’t have to worry about suicide bombings, or
ambushes, or any of the other thousand ways I could die over there. I just had to stand around, make small talk, and try to enjoy myself.
Which is what I tried to do. I was doing a pretty fucking good job, too, until she showed up.
Piper appeared out of nowhere, and it shook me to the core. I should have expected her, since she was Lauren’s best friend after all, but it came as a shock anyway. She looked exactly like I remembered: beautiful figure, perfect lips, gorgeous eyes. Everything about her reminded me of that night, and I couldn’t help but let a sting of desire run through my stomach.
I hadn’t felt that desire in a long time, not since she stopped writing. After she stopped writing, everything was numb and quiet. My mind was focused only on my job, and I didn’t have time to daydream about the way she made me feel that night. I didn’t have time to wonder what could have been if I hadn’t left, if I took what I really wanted and made Piper mine. I didn’t have time to imagine the long, sweating nights, the white picket fence, the kids and the dog.
I was too busy dodging bullets.
Once Piper walked away, I stared after her like I had just seen a ghost.
“You okay, man?” Greg asked me.
“Yeah,” I grunted.
“Come on. Stop that shit.”
I looked at him. “What shit?”
“I can see it in your eyes,” he said softer. “The fucking memories, right?”
I shrugged. “They’re not so bad.”
He laughed softly. “Yeah man, that’s what I used to say. I had dreams, too, when I first got back.”
“That wasn’t my first tour.”
“I know, brother. That’s worse. You’ve got three tours worth of memories now.”
I nodded, frowning. “Yeah, I do.”
“Try and let it go, man. That, or go get some help. There’s no shame in it.”
“I’m trying,” I said.
“I know you are.” He laughed. “I can see by the way you were staring at Piper.”
I grinned. “You noticed?”
“Hell yeah, man. You looked like you wanted to tear her to pieces and eat her for dinner.”
“Something like that.”
He laughed again. “You know she has a boyfriend, right?”
“I didn’t know that.”
“She does. Some douchebag named Tony.”
“Douchebag?”
“Yeah. Some Italian guy. Lauren swears he’s a mobster but I think he’s just an asshole.”
“She’s dating a mobster?”
“Maybe. I guess she has a type.”
“What’s that?”
“Assholes. Like you.”
I laughed and drank my beer, but inwardly felt anger. It wasn’t that Piper moved on. I knew she was going to move past me and I couldn’t really blame her. It was more that she was dating an asshole mob guy. She deserved better than that.
The rest of the afternoon was pretty typical. I stayed outside with Greg and the other guys, and I did my best to avoid running into Piper. I caught her eye once or twice across the yard, but I didn’t go up and talk to her. I couldn’t see the point: she was in a relationship, and I wasn’t interested in just being her friend.
We drank, we joked, and finally the party was wrapping up. I hugged and kissed Lauren, hugged Greg, and headed out front, feeling okay for the first time since I’d been home. I felt normal for the first time in a long time, come to think of it. Even out there, I didn’t feel like myself.
I felt like the angel of death out there. Everywhere I went, more death followed. Part of me still expected that to happen back home, and part of me was disappointed when it didn’t happen.
For all my complaints, those two years in Syria were also the best years of my life. I lived for that work, because I was fucking good at it. Hell yeah, I saw some shit, some real bad shit, but I also completed my missions and was a fucking winner. I could sit around and feel bad about everything, or I could realize that I did a job and I did it well.
And I enjoyed it. I fucking enjoyed it. I was a trained killer at the end of the day, and it felt good to use all that training to complete mission after mission. Now that I didn’t have a mission, there was something missing in my life.
I headed out front toward my car, feeling better. I wasn’t going to be some gloomy asshole. I was going to move on with my life.
I slowed as I approached my ’72 Mustang. Standing by the curb, looking at her phone, was Piper. I looked around and realized that she was all alone and I had no way to avoid her.
I took a deep breath. I was being fucking stupid. There was no reason that I should be avoiding her. We could have a polite fucking conversation and then I could head home, and that was all there had to be between us. Not friends and not anything else.
Except my heart was hammering in my chest and my cock was getting hard as I approached her.
“Hey, Pipes,” I said.
She looked up. There was a moment of panic on her face that lasted for less than a second. If I weren’t trained to notice that kind of thing, I would never have seen it.
Why would she panic?
“Gates,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“Good. You waiting for something?”
“Oh,” she said, laughing. “Yeah. My stupid boyfriend left early. So I’m waiting for an Uber to take me back into the city.”
“That sucks,” I said. “Why’d your boyfriend ditch you?”
“He had work.”
“He work a lot?”
“Maybe.” She raised an eyebrow. “Does that matter?”
“Not really.” I shrugged, looking at her with a slight grin. “Just making conversation.”
“Yeah, well. It’s good seeing you again.”
“You too.” I stepped toward my car then stopped. “Hey, listen. Why don’t I give you a ride?”
She cocked her head. “Are you sure?”
“I’m going into the city anyway.”
She frowned. “I don’t know. I summoned the Uber already.”
“Can’t you cancel that shit?”
“Yeah, I can. It’s just rude.”
“Cancel it. Come on.” I motioned toward my car. “That’s a better ride, anyway.”
She laughed. “What the hell is that?”
“That is a nineteen seventy-two Ford Mustang with a brown vinyl top, beautiful gray body, and a fat fucking engine.”
She laughed again, shaking her head. “Okay, fine. Just for a chance to ride in that car.”
“All the ladies say that.”
She tapped her phone and followed me over to the car. We got inside and I fired the engine up, letting it roar to life. It was my pride and joy, and really the only thing that I gave a fuck about back home. I always looked forward to driving her after a tour, and this tour was no different.
I pulled out into traffic and we headed toward the city.
“It’s a really cool car,” Piper said.
“My dad gave it to me.”
“Really? What’s your dad do?”
“He died when I was ten. But he left me the car. I restored it when I was in high school, so I guess it has sentimental value to me now.”
“That’s amazing,” she said. “I didn’t know you were good with cars.”
“I’m just good with my hands.” I glanced at her, smirking. “As I’m sure you recall.”
She sighed. “I was wondering how long it would take you before you brought that up.”
“Not very long, clearly.”
“Okay, well, it’s out there now. We can move on.”
“Sure, we can move on. Although now I know you’re going to be thinking about that night for the rest of the car ride home.”
She shook her head. “Not even a little bit. I have a boyfriend.”
“I know.”
“That doesn’t matter to you?”
“It does, actually. I respect you and your relationship. It’s the only reason I haven’t pulled this car over yet and let
you feel for yourself how good I am with my hands.”
She bit her lip and looked out the window, lapsing into silence. I drove like that for a while, smiling to myself, having a great time. Nothing was better than driving my car with a beautiful woman by my side, even if she had a boyfriend.
As we got closer to the city, she finally spoke up again. “When did you get back?”
“Two weeks ago,” I said.
“Any plans to disappear again?”
“No,” I said. “Not anytime soon, at least.”
“So I guess we’ll be seeing more of each other. Since we’re both friends with Greg and Lauren.”
“Seems that way.”
“We should try and be civil.”
“We aren’t being civil?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.” I paused for a second. “I saw you on TV the other night.”
She laughed. “Really? I didn’t think you watched local cable news.”
“I don’t, not usually at least. I wanted to see you.”
“How did I do?”
“Great. You read the weather and didn’t mess up a single time.”
She laughed. “That’s why I get paid the big bucks.”
“Do you do all the forecasting yourself?”
“Computers do it mostly,” she admitted. “But yeah, as much as any person forecasts the weather. I still do all that stuff.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” I said, and meant it.
“Not as impressive as being a Navy SEAL.”
“There are more SEALs than there are weather people.”
“That’s probably true.” She laughed. “Never thought of it that way.”
“Anyway. How’d you meet your boyfriend?”
She paused. “Through work.”
“Sounds fun.”
“You don’t really care about him.”
“Nah. I don’t.” I grinned at her. “Do you?”
“Of course,” she said, looking surprised.
“The guy did ditch you.”
“He had work.”
“Sure, he did.”
She sighed. “Don’t be an asshole already, Gates.”
“Can’t help myself.”
“Sure you can. Just try.”
“Not with you, I can’t.” I paused then smirked at her. “For some reason you bring the worst out in me.”