Troy’s temper broke, and he stepped forward to jab a finger into Oscar’s chest. “Alright, you listen to me, Oscar Mateo Reyes, and you listen to me right the fuck now. You don’t get to tell me what I do and don’t do with my free time, and you sure as shit don’t get to judge me for what I’m doing either.”
Oscar leaned back, eyeing Troy’s offending finger balefully. “Who the fuck said anything about judging you?”
“Don’t you fucking try that innocent shit, I know the difference between you being you and you being an ass, and this, this is you being an ass.”
Oscar swatted Troy’s finger away with a huff. “Just because I don’t have any say in where you stick what, doesn’t mean I can’t think it’s stupid. Fuck’s sake Troy, there’s still some bruises left on your neck!”
“I’m fine,” Troy shot back hotly.
“Right, and anytime I say something like that, you look like I’m straight-up lying and refuse to let me get away with it.”
“Because you are lying when you say that.”
“And you are now.”
“Like hell I am!”
“So it’s perfectly normal almost to get choked by someone on the street, and then turn around and go out and risk the same thing all over again? Right Troy, because most people wouldn’t have been a little worried, a little cautious, maybe think a little about what they’re doing.”
Troy stepped back with a snarl. “You know what? Maybe you’re perfectly okay with hiding away from the world, too scared to actually go out into it, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to.”
“Fuck you. I’m not hiding shit.”
“Right, because you haven’t spent your whole life in the closet, scared that someone might find out you’re into dick.”
“Shut up,” Oscar hissed, his eyes darting around.
Troy motioned around the empty street. “Who’s going to hear me, Oscar? Hm? Who’s even going to care? You, you’re the only one who’s going to care.”
“It’s nobody’s business,” Oscar said, looking over his shoulder again.
Troy shook his head. “Don’t make this about you being private. This is about you being too scared to be honest.”
“Don’t you dare call me a coward!” Oscar growled.
“You can run into the field of battle without so much as a whisper of worry, but you can’t be in an open, honest relationship with someone you give a shit about!” Troy continued, refusing to be cowed by Oscar’s anger and overbearing attitude.
Oscar’s eyes grew wider, his voice taking on a deeper, more dangerous growl. “Shut up Troy, I swear to God.”
Troy felt his gut tighten, but he held the other man’s gaze stubbornly. “Or what? You going to make me?”
Oscar’s eyes blazed even brighter, his left hand clenching at his side. For one wild moment, a suddenly paranoid part of Troy’s mind thought Oscar might just take a swing at him. Not once in all the time he’d known Oscar, with all his growling, stomping attitude, and his tendency to get pissed too easily, had Troy ever thought he was in any danger, but this felt different. Troy had never seen Oscar look so angry, his dark eyes shadowed under his heavily creased brow, his jaw so tight it was a miracle he hadn’t cracked any teeth.
“Oscar?” Troy asked hesitantly.
And just like that, the cloud of darkness and rage hanging over the larger man was gone. Oscar’s shoulders sagged, and his hand unclenched. Oscar took a deep breath, looking down at the sidewalk and shaking his head.
When he spoke, it was so softly that Troy almost couldn’t hear him. “No, Troy, I’m not going to...make you do anything.”
“Sorry...just never seen you that pissed,” Troy admitted.
Oscar snorted softly. “You do know how to reach in and find my sensitive buttons and mash every single one of them.”
Troy looked away. “I know the feeling.”
Oscar picked his head up. “Why are you out here, Troy? I mean, really, after what happened?”
Troy could only offer the truth. “Stupid as it sounds, I wanted to get away from...you.”
“Me?”
“You, us, the past, my feelings, your feelings, all of it. God, Oscar, my head has been an absolute mess since I saw you in the clinic the first time. I mean, fuck, do you know how hard this has been?”
A shadow crossed over Oscar’s face, and he nodded. “I think I have an idea.”
“And I’m sorry, but you kissing me? That gave me hope, made me think something was going to happen. Then you spent a whole week avoiding me without so much as an explanation and Jesus, that fucking hurt. And now you’re out here, acting like a jealous boyfriend, and I don’t know what to think, Oscar.”
Oscar’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t know what to think, either.”
It was probably the first bit of open honesty he’d had from Oscar other than the impulsive kiss in the clinic. It was the sort of honesty Troy wanted from the other man, but somehow, it didn’t make him feel any better. All it did was leave them in that gray quagmire they’d been in from the moment Troy had laid eyes on him for the first time in six years.
Troy looked around the street for the first time with a frown. “What are you doing out here anyway?”
Oscar blinked. “Oh, I was waiting for the bus, but it was taking forever, so I went to get something to drink.”
Troy’s eyes drifted to the large vehicle turning the far corner, pointing. “That bus?”
Oscar’s eyes widened as he turned to face in the same direction. “Goddammit!”
Troy winced. “We uh, must not have noticed, being distracted and all.”
“Son of a bitch, I was already there forever as it was!”
Troy hesitated before finally nodding over his shoulder. “C’mon, I’ll take you back.”
Oscar shook his head. “It’s fine. I’ll wait for the next one.”
“You’ll be here for an hour, and you look like you need to get to bed. So quit being stubborn, and I’ll give you a drama-free ride home,” Troy promised.
Oscar sighed, giving in with a nod of his head. “Alright.”
Troy stopped, turning to face him once more with what he hoped was an earnest expression. “One more thing.”
Oscar eyed him warily. “What?”
Troy smiled softly. “Just...try to figure it out, this whole thing. There’s obviously something between us that you want, but you keep avoiding it.”
“Troy…”
His smile turned a little sad. “I’m not saying choose to be with me, but make your mind up to be with me, or to stay away from me. You can’t keep bouncing between the two like this, Oscar, my heart can’t take it.”
“Mine neither,” Oscar muttered.
“Then figure it out, Oscar, for both our sakes. Because I know where I stand, it’s time you figured out where you do too.”
10
Oscar
True to his word, Troy got into the car, and once Oscar was in, drove off without another mention of what had just happened. Oscar’s head felt like it was pounding with conflicting thoughts and feelings, and he wasn’t quite sure which way was up. It didn’t help that he was in the car with Troy, who felt too close despite the foot-wide gap between them. Troy’s presence, as always, was distracting, and Oscar felt drawn away from his thoughts every time Troy fiddled with the temperature of the vents or played with the radio.
“You can’t sit still for shit,” Oscar noted.
Troy chuckled. “I’ve got a lot of nervous energy.”
“Tell me about it,” Oscar grunted.
Troy glanced at him as he rounded a corner smoothly. “How’s the hip?”
“Hurts like it normally does.”
“Oscar…”
He grimaced. “Fine, it’s a good day today. Sometimes it hurts like a motherfucker, and I can barely get out of bed, and other days it’s just annoying. Today is just an annoying day.”
“Can I ask about the arm?”
“You can, but there�
��s really not much to say about something that isn’t there.”
Troy chuckled, shaking his head. “The left looks good, though. I can see you’ve been taking care of it.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got left. Just because I’m half of who I was doesn’t mean I can let the rest of it go,” Oscar said, turning his eyes toward the window beside him.
What the hell was it about Troy that made Oscar forget to keep his mouth shut? There was no need to burden anyone with his problems, especially when there was nothing anyone could do to help. The military had tried to get him to go through the normal battery of psychological tests and therapy, and while he’d been cleared, it had been done grudgingly.
“You still look good to me,” Troy said after a long pause.
Oscar snapped his head around to glare. “Really, Troy? C’mon.”
Troy waited until he came to a complete stop before leveling his gaze with Oscar’s and holding it. “Yeah, really.”
Oscar’s stomach fluttered at the warm expression on his face. “Don’t placate me, Troy. I know what I am.”
Troy just shook his head. “When have you ever known me to placate you about anything? I’ll save you the trouble of answering because the answer is never.”
Oscar shook his head. “You never know how to let me get the last word.”
Troy gestured to the apartment building. “I’ll let you out of the car without much harassment, but I’m going to add one little tidbit. If you think for one moment that you getting hurt, having a bad hip, and one arm makes you any less of a man, especially in my eyes, you better get your head on straight and fast. There’s nothing about you that I don’t want, Oscar, so, yeah, have a good night.”
Oscar wasn’t quite sure what to say to that, but his heart was pounding as he slid out of the car. It’s not like people didn’t still look at him with interest, and sometimes even expressed it. Those same people couldn’t keep their eyes off his missing arm when they noticed it, however, or like the man, earlier tonight, couldn’t help but bring it up in conversation. For Troy, it seemed to be nothing more than something for Troy to check in on now and again, while still keeping his eyes resolutely on Oscar as a whole.
Making his way up the stairs, Oscar let himself into his apartment and closed the door behind him with a relieved sigh. Yet even though he was relieved to be away from the confusion that was his mind in Troy’s immediate presence, he had to resist the urge to go back downstairs and hop into Troy’s car again.
“Fuck,” Oscar muttered, rubbing his forehead.
Troy had been right about one thing, he definitely needed to figure out where his head was at.
Oscar felt like he’d just gotten to sleep when he was jarred awake by the sound of his phone ringing. Groaning, he rolled onto his side, swiping at the bedside table to try and find the noisy thing. Squinting at the display, he huffed as he saw both the time and his brother’s name on the screen.
“What the fuck, Gabe, it’s seven in the morning,” Oscar growled into the receiver.
Gabriel chuckled. “Since when has that ever stopped you from getting up at five? You always did when you were here.”
“Because I had nothing better to do at night than sleep. Fuck, it’s my day off,” Oscar complained as he flopped back onto his bed.
“And now you get to spend the morning talking to your big brother, aren’t you lucky?”
“I don’t know if I would call that good luck.”
“You want me to let you go? You can call me back later.”
Oscar huffed, pushing himself upright with a shake of his head. “No, I’m up now. No going back to sleep for me.”
He’d never been very good at rolling over and going back to sleep once he’d been woken up. Honestly, the only times he could think when he’d managed the feat was when he was more tired than he’d ever been in his life, or when he’d been curled up in bed with Troy. Just like Troy managed to break every damn rule in his life from before, so too had Oscar found it all too easy to wrap around the smaller man in the early hours of the morning and drift back into a peaceful sleep.
“You can at least call me back when you’re a little more alert,” Gabriel chuckled.
“I’m awake,” Oscar shot back as he slid off the bed.
“So, I should just expect you to keep zoning out then?”
“Oh, God, maybe you should just call me back. Don’t abuse me when I just woke up.”
“This isn’t abuse, it’s love.”
“With love like this, who needs hate?” Oscar grumbled as he shambled into the kitchen.
“A shame you’re not a coffee drinker, you could be angrily staring at the drip machine and willing it to brew faster,” Gabriel said.
Oscar chose a bottle of water from the fridge instead. “So what’s up? Why are you calling me at this hour of the morning?”
“Well, you’re normally pretty good about calling me every couple of days or so when you’re back in the States. Since you’re here for who knows how long, I started to notice it’s been well over a week, almost two since we last spoke.”
Oscar did a quick calculation in his head and winced. “I guess it has been a while, hasn’t it? Sorry, I’ve just been…”
“Busy?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, you were bitching that not enough happened around here. I guess you got your wish.”
Oscar flopped down into a kitchen chair, frowning. “I don’t know if this is what I was wishing for, but I certainly got something.”
“I probably know the answer to this question, but do you want to tell me what’s on your mind?”
Oscar sighed. “Not really, no.”
“You sound a lot more tired than getting woken up early should sound. You sure you don’t want to lay it on me? I’ve got all morning.”
Oscar frowned. “Don’t you have actual patients to be all therapisty on?
“Not till the afternoon. Had a morning one, but she bailed because her mother got into a car accident this morning.”
“Sounds like a good reason to cancel.”
“It would be if she could keep her lies straight.”
“Lies?”
Gabriel laughed. “Shelly is a chronic liar, along with a few other bad habits. Her mother has been in a couple of ‘accidents’ and even got mugged one time, according to Shelly. She forgets that I know her mother passed away when Shelly was in her teens, and her father never remarried.”
“And...you didn’t call her on it?” Oscar asked.
“What, over the phone? That’s a good way to get her to cancel the next time too. No, she and I will talk about it when she comes in next, don’t worry about it. I’m more worried about you.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Oscar said.
“So you’ve said since you were thirteen. You said it when the cops brought you home at fourteen, and then again a few months later. And then again, when you came home from the desert, missing an arm and with shrapnel in your hip. Something tells me your idea of what I should and shouldn’t worry about isn’t very reliable.”
Oscar frowned at the phone. “Shit, when you lay it out like that, I sound like a fucking disaster.”
“Eh, in my line of work, everyone’s a disaster.”
“That’s...inspiring.”
Gabriel laughed. “Problem is, most people don’t realize they’re not as big a disaster as they think they are. Takes someone like me to pick through things, show them where they’re messing up, and where they just need to let go. We’re all a mess, Oscar, some people are just better at cleaning it up a bit more.”
“That’s kind of better, I think.”
“Realistic, which is important in this line of work.”
Oscar snorted. “Ah, by the way, did you get my package?”
“Yes, yes, I got the house key. I don’t know what good that’s going to do, though. We’re about three states away from one another. It’s not like I can just pop in for a visit
.”
“Eh, old habits die hard, and I feel better with you having a set, just in case.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if I ever decide to pop in for a surprise visit.”
“Oh, boy, I look forward to it.”
Gabriel sighed. “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on, Oscar? Is it the new position?”
Oscar grimaced. “When I finally get the position, that is. Who the hell knows when that will be since apparently, the spot was still occupied when I showed up.”
“Then why bring you over?”
“Apparently, to make me sit at the front desk outside the General’s office and do secretarial work all day and pretend it’s going to give me hands-on experience for the job I’m ‘supposed’ to be doing soon.”
“I smell drama.”
“Drama that doesn’t involve me, thank fuck.”
“Okay, so it sounds like you’ve got a handle on the work stuff,” Gabriel continued, a faint hint of a question in his voice.
Oscar pinched his brow and sighed. “I ran into someone from my past.”
“Someone?”
“Someone I was...involved with.”
Gabriel gave a soft sound of understanding. “So you’ve got an old flame who went and popped her head up then.”
Oscar grimaced, not wanting to spill the truth to his brother any more than he had in the past, but not liking the idea of going along with Troy being a woman. But if the choice was between letting his brother continue the falsehood unknowingly or outing himself, he would choose the former.
“That’s more or less what happened. Haven’t been around each other in six years, didn’t see each other or talk during that time. Then lo and behold, we both end up on the same goddamn base,” Oscar complained.
“That’s some...interesting luck.”
“Yeah, and even more lucky because we seem to be running into one another all the time.”
Gabriel went quiet before asking, “So, why did things end between you and this unnamed flame?”
Oscar sighed. “I ended it.”
“Ah...and why was that?”
Oscar thought long and hard about how to answer that. The truth was, he’d become so terrified that he and Troy would be found out, he’d taken the opportunity his deployment had offered as a way out.
Here We Go Again Page 10