by J. M. Madden
That made him pause for a moment, but not very long. “But you welcome me home just like you do Gabe. That has to mean you love me a little bit, right?”
“As a friend,” she said firmly. “Nothing more.”
A petulant expression had crossed his handsome face. As amazing as Butter was as a SEAL and friend, he was used to having his own way. All through his life, he’d been the coddled child. Couple that with an amazing, dynamic personality and natural athleticism that let him take on any challenge presented and conquer it, Butter felt that there was no challenge too big for him to win.
Julie remembered thinking she’d just waved a red cape in front of the bull. Whether she meant them to or not, her words sounded like a challenge. In seconds he’d snatched her into his arms, his mouth coming down on hers forcefully. First, she’d fought to push away, but she knew immediately he was too strong. There was no way he could get away until he let her, so she relaxed her muscles and clenched her teeth. Surely if he realized she wasn’t participating he would stop.
Julie knew that people had to be watching them, but she couldn’t do anything about it. Butter held her up and kissed her for much longer than she expected. He did everything he could to coax a response from her mouth. Yes, he was talented, but he wasn’t Gabe.
His eyes were shut to get into the kiss, but she kept hers open and staring at him. As soon as he pulled back and looked at her, saw her disinterest, something came over him. It wasn’t anger, exactly, but something much more elusive. And dangerous.
He’d let her go immediately and taken a step back. Julie was shaking from the assault but she kept her face firm and non-responsive. “You don’t ever do that again, Robert Tyler. Your irresponsibility has already cost me the man I love, Gabe. He hasn’t said a word to me since I left the apartment.”
A glimmer of satisfaction crossed his eyes before he looked away, but she had seen it. “I don’t know what has gotten into you,” she continued, “but I don’t want to be around you right now, if ever again.”
Something in her words must have gotten through to him because he held out a hand. “Now, wait, Julie. I didn’t mean to stir the shit between the two of you.”
She glared at him. “There was no shit to stir until you threw it in there,” she practically yelled. “Now he won’t respond to my calls or emails.”
Butter jerked back, eyes wide, and finally seemed to get that he’d fucked up.
Julie crouched down to pick up the purse she’d dropped when he’d grabbed her. She threw the stuff back inside as quickly as she could and stood, quivering with emotion. “Have you seen him?” she demanded.
Butter blinked and nodded. “Yes, today. He wouldn’t talk to me.”
Julie could have screamed in frustration. “What the hell do you expect him to say? Do you even realize the position you’ve put us in? You’ve ruined everything. There’s no more friendly talks, no more hanging out at the bar giving you advice on pickup lines, no more dinners. You’ve put Gabe in an even worse position. You were his swim buddy, his best friend. You have to work with him every day. But in his mind he sees the two most important people in his life, you and me, betraying him.”
“But you know the worst part of this, Butter? Gabe and I were in love. And now, to keep your friendship and working relationship intact, I have to bow out of the picture. You’ve ruined everything, Butter, because you were a petulant, spoiled, jealous child.”
Julie had stomped away from him, livid with his inability to see how much he’d ruined all three of their lives.
It had been the strangest, worst, breakup she’d ever experienced. The men were sent on a mission a few nights later and were gone for three months. She never heard a word from Gabe.
When he had returned he’d sent her a text message letting her know they were home safe. Then it had been radio silence.
Julie had tried to move on with her life but Gabe stayed firmly entrenched in her heart.
Then one day she’d found a bunch of pale white lilies on her doorstep. There had been a card attached to the bouquet, but she’d been afraid to open it. For a half hour she’d sat looking at the flowers, debating whether or not she should even pick them up. Finally, though, disgusted with her own inaction, she did.
Gabe’s strong handwriting scrawled across the card.
I miss you, Jules. More than I ever expected. I wish things had turned out differently. I love you.
Yes, he’d known as well as she had that the only option left to them was her leaving. This was his acknowledgement. For the rest of the day she’d cried because it had felt even more like a final goodbye.
Sitting here beside him now, all the angst from the past couple of years were dredged up. She’d moved on, kind of. No, she wasn’t dating. Hadn’t even gone out with another man since things had gone so terribly wrong between them.
Did that make her a desperate romantic? Probably. If he told her they could be together again she’d jump at the chance, despite the reason for their reunion.
But for right now, she would be the support he needed as he dealt with the loss of his best friend.
Chapter Three
GABE FELT MORE at ease than he had in the past three days. Julie sat beside him, her calm, loving personality a balm to his soul. There was a gaping hole there now, where Butter used to be. Even now, in the apartment there was a touch of expectation, as if Butter would let himself in the door any second.
He wanted to reach over and drag her into his arms again. Not to cry like a fuckin’ baby like he did earlier, but just to hold her in his arms. It had been so long…
Instead he allowed himself to reach out and rest a hand on her knee. For the first time he noticed that she wore a pretty summer dress, sedate, in shades of dark green to complement her eyes. Her heels were at the door, as if she’d automatically kicked them off when she’d walked in, just like she used to do. It gave him a little bit of a warm feeling that she still felt comfortable enough with him to do that.
Julie would always be welcome in his home. No matter what.
There was a pair of battered flip-flops beside the door. Not his. Butter’s. Gabe would have to go through the apartment and gather up anything that didn’t belong to him. Butter’s mother would be cleaning out his apartment tomorrow, she’d said. He had already offered to go over and help.
The thought of going through Butter’s things totally left Gabe cold, but he would do it. He needed to face the apartment anyway. Seeing Butter like that… he shook his head, unwilling to remember what he had seen. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen somebody’s head blown off before. Hell, he’d even had a fellow SEAL take one through the brain right beside him, but he’d never expected to see it happen to Butter.
No, he’d never expected Butter to do it himself. Not in a million years.
What the fuck had been so wrong in his life that he felt he needed to end it? The guy had had everything going for him. He was blessed on missions. Yeah, he’d been shot a time or two, got a knife through the gut from an insurgent, but none of those incidents had been as bad as they could have been. His family had loved and accepted what he was doing for his country and had always treated him like the golden child. Sex had come to him easily and as often as he’d wanted it, with as many women as he’d wanted it. If he hadn’t found the note, Gabe would have thought his life was perfection.
Butter had been having issues, though, that he hadn’t told anyone about, not even Gabe. As he read some of the gibberish on the sheet of yellow pad paper, he’d just had to shake his head. This was so far away from how Butter had been while alive. Yeah, he’d been a little crazy but no more than any other SEAL. The man had been good at ‘acceptable risk’ situations but he’d always been right in the head.
Or so he’d thought.
There had been a few coherent thoughts on the paper that he would need to disseminate to the appropriate parties. One of those being Julie.
“I’m sorry I sent you to find him,” she whispered.<
br />
Gabe shrugged. “He would have been found by someone. I think he actually would have appreciated that it was me.”
She leaned into his shoulder, subtly agreeing with him.
With a sigh, Gabe reached his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tight.
Damn, it had been so long. Months and months. She felt so good. As Julie stretched her arm across his stomach and leaned into the hug, he couldn’t help but wonder why they couldn’t be together now.
Guilt crashed down on him. His best friend in the world was dead and he was thinking about hooking up with Julie again.
But why shouldn’t he wonder? The two of them had split because of Butter. He had been the one to cause all the trouble, all the angst.
Julie had seemed too good to be true when he met her in that bar. She was stunningly beautiful with thick strawberry blond hair, and kind, intelligent, soft green eyes. But she’d been so much more exhilarating to him than that; just seeing her across that bar, he’d felt like the heavens had opened up and there was a huge hand pointing directly at her. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. She was too perfect, there had to be something wrong with her. And there were little things. She snuffled in her sleep, though he thought it was incredibly cute. For some reason she wouldn’t eat the last bite of anything, no matter what. Strange, but again still cute. She paid her bills on time and didn’t make demands he was unwilling or even unable to meet because of his crazy schedule. There was no lurking ex-husband, no drama. That was what appealed to him. She moved through life with a lovely smile on her face and no drama.
Butter, on the other hand, had been complete drama. No, that wasn’t fair. The SEAL could quiet his nerves and energy when he needed to, when lives were involved, but other than that he let everything out. There was truly no filter between brain and mouth on him. Squad leaders had loved him and hated him; if they were lucky, he might listen to orders and interpret them in his own special Butter manner.
He always managed to get things done, though, and he had a wall of commendations to prove it.
Which made his taking his own life all the crazier.
What had he been thinking? The man had everything to live for but he just hadn’t seen it.
Well, there was one thing he hadn’t had.
“Butter left a note.”
Julie looked up at him in surprise. “Did he really? Did he say why he’d taken this route? It was so unlike him.”
Gabe leaned to the side and pulled the copy of the note from the end table drawer. “The coroner kept the original for his report.”
He handed her the note and watched as her pale eyes moved over the letters. She looked up at him with a puzzled look on her face. “The watchers? What the hell are those?”
Shrugging, he heaved a sigh. “I’m not sure. I have to wonder if it wasn’t paranoia. He thought people were following him.”
She continued to read, but her eyes jerked to his after a minute. “He thought I broke up with him? I was never with him.”
That had confused him as well. As far as he’d known, neither one of them had seen Julie for many months. “And it makes it sound like everything happened yesterday.”
Julie shook her head, disbelieving. “I haven’t seen him for a year and a half, a little less than that. He came to my apartment building wondering why I was mad at him after he’d kissed me that night. He honestly didn’t seem to understand why I wouldn’t be coming around anymore.”
Ah, yes. The non-break up. Gabe removed his arm from her shoulders and turned to face her. “You know, since we’re talking like this, I’m sorry the chips fell like that but once you left, I knew you were the only one actually thinking about the long-term ripples. My emotions were ready to blow. I think I would have said something irreparable if you hadn’t put distance between us. Thank you for that. Once I had some time to think about things I never doubted that what Butter had done was unexpected and unwanted.”
Fresh tears filled her swollen eyes and overflowed. “I knew we would never be the same again and it broke my heart. But I knew my heart could heal. You guys needed to be solid with each other because your lives depended upon it. My heart is nothing compared to your life.”
Yes, he could see her sacrificing everything for the good of everyone. “I wish there had been another way,” he murmured.
“Me, too,” she whispered.
As he looked into her luminous eyes wondering where they could have been now if fate hadn’t intervened, he felt that warm knot of need kindle to life in his belly. Julie was a beautiful woman and he was afraid that he was still in love with her, in spite of all the crap that had gone on over the past eighteen months.
Chapter Four
JULIE DIDN’T KNOW what to do when she saw that look seep into Gabe’s eyes. The look that said he’d been gone a long time and he needed loving. The timing was completely inappropriate but she still felt herself responding, her body warming.
The time they’d been apart had dragged. Yes, she’d gone on with her life but there was a huge gaping hole where the men had resided. Yes, even Butter. Though he’d ruined things between them, she still missed his irrepressible sense of humor.
But she didn’t know if she was ready to address the need she could still feel simmering between her and Gabe.
Needing a distraction, she pushed up from the floor. “I say we order pizza and have dinner Butter style. Stuff ourselves until we can’t breathe and chase it with beer.”
A glimmer of a smile crossed Gabe’s lips. “Sounds good to me.”
Yeah, right. He was probably as not hungry as she was.
They ordered the pizza though, and went through the motions of getting ready for it. Julie got them each a beer and utensils. Then she sat and stared at the note again, trying to decipher what he’d been talking about. There were claims of the watchers watching him during the purple phase. It didn’t make any sense to her at all.
But the one thing she did understand was that he truly believed that they’d been together. Not just recently, either. It sounded like he meant long-term. Can’t wait to see Julie tomorrow.
“Why was he thinking this? I haven’t talked to the man forever. But he makes it sound like we had plans to get together again. Why would he talk about that if he were taking his own life?”
Gabriel shook his head. “We may never know. He seems to have had moments of clarity then … fogginess.”
“In addition to this I think he also sent out a few text messages. Maxwell Tate got one, but he didn’t recognize Butter’s number.”
All Gabe could do was shake his head. “We haven’t seen Tate for the better part of a couple years, not since he left the Team for medical issues. And though they were kinda close, I don’t understand why he would contact him and not me. He was in a different squad. I mean, I was Butter’s best friend, I thought. I have no idea how he was like this without one of us seeing any signs. I mean, I’ve seen him do some crazy things, but not crazy crazy, you know what I mean?”
“Maybe some of those daring things he did were actually impulse control issues,” she murmured.
One of his dark brows quirked. “I’m almost sure, now.”
“Did you talk to his mom?”
His lids drooped. “She’s as confused as we are. More so, even. He was supposed to go home this week for leave. They had reservations at several places in Savannah he had wanted to see. They’d planned on going to his favorite restaurant for fried chicken.”
They sat in silence for a while. Julie knew that Gabe had to be beating himself up for not seeing the crash coming. “If a person doesn’t want you to know something, they will find a way to keep it private. You can’t beat yourself up about this, Gabe. Butter obviously had something, some switch, flip or something.” She waved a hand, frustrated because that sounded ridiculous but she couldn’t give him more concrete answers. Heaving a sigh, he dropped his mostly untouched plate to the coffee table. “I know that. The curiosity could d
rive me insane, though.”
He gave her a sad smile and she couldn’t help but reach out to stroke his hand. Turning his hand over, he wove his fingers between hers. “I’m really glad to see you again, Julie.”
“I’m really glad to see you again too, Gabe.”
“What have you been doing for all these months? Nobody seemed to know.”
Julie loved that he’d asked around about her. She’d hoped that he would call her or text her, but he hadn’t. She worked with men every day that were struggling with amputations, and cutting Gabe and Butter out of her life had felt like part of her heart had been amputated as well. “I still work at Dr. Petrovic. Been there for a couple years now.”
And was dissatisfied as she possibly could be. Julie didn’t say that out loud because there wasn’t anything he could do about it. And she couldn’t decide if she was actually dissatisfied with the job or because her personal life was in the toilet. She loved working with the vets and their families that made up most of the practice’s clients, and maybe that in itself was part of her problem, seeing the vets and their families together. In the not too distant past, she’d imagined that being her and Gabe.
After she and Gabe had broken up, she’d started picking up shifts at Walter Reed. She’d left the hospital originally because she was stressed out from dealing with the hardest, most desperate cases. Lacey had left for the same reason. But Julie had needed something to fill her time and a part of her needed to be needed like that. She felt like it was her true calling as a nurse to be there. She just needed to find some middle ground between the urgent and desperate and the mundane, like Petrovic’s general practice.
Gabe watched her narrow-eyed. “But are you happy?”
“Enough,” she told him eventually. “Lacey left last year for Colorado and it’s been quiet there ever since. She just mentioned that her VA in Colorado is hiring. That was kind of an intriguing tidbit. I’ve really missed her.”
For a moment, she thought alarm drifted through his eyes but it was gone too quickly to be sure.