Carey pointed to a vivid bruise on his shoulder. “Well, you bit me, so…”
They stared at each other, awareness arcing between them, the heat banked and just beneath the surface.
Jase cleared his throat. “I wanna finish this,” he said gruffly. “And then we can talk.”
Nodding, Carey collapsed on his butt, his back against the couch, legs sprawled. He wore nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs, bed hair sticking out in all directions, his blue eyes narrowed as he watched Jase with unabashed interest.
“I feel like a piece of meat,” Jase groused, even as his skin tingled with arousal.
Elbows flat on the floor, he tightened his core and lifted into a headstand. Eyes closed, he breathed in and out, striving for peace…
But it was no use. He collapsed down onto his knees and propped his hands on his hips. “Why didn’t you sleep with me last night?” he demanded. “What’d I do?”
“Huh?” Carey glared at him. “Is that why you’ve been pissy all morning?”
“All morning? We’ve been up for twenty minutes!”
“Well, you’ve been pissy the whole time!”
Jase opened his mouth to retort, then slumped. He couldn’t deny it. “It bothers me that you left and didn’t come back.”
“What? Seriously?” The smirk faded from Carey’s face. “I’m sorry.”
Jase grit his teeth. After their breathing had slowed, their come dried, Carey had eased out of his arms, murmuring something about stump care. He’d donned his prosthetic and left the room, leaving Jase to wallow alone in a bed that suddenly seemed too big, too empty.
Seemingly forever, he’d lain there, smelling Carey on the sheets, on his skin. Waiting. At last he’d gotten up and padded naked down the hallway, his heart dropping to his toes when he saw Carey curled up in his own bed, fast asleep.
Why?
“Hey, listen.” Carey scooted closer before reaching out to touch his knee. “There are certain things I have to do every night before I go to bed, like wash my liners, my socket, do my skincare routine for my scars. By the time I was done, I figured you’d be sleeping—”
“I wasn’t. And you didn’t even bother to check.” Jase could hear how belligerent he sounded, but he couldn’t stop himself. The waiting, the self-recrimination, the deep-seated fear that by treating Carey so roughly in bed, all he’d managed to do was ruin everything…
“I wanted the chance to make love to you, okay? Cherish you. Hold you.”
They had so little time together.
Carey bit his lip. “Funny, I thought you had made love to me. At least that’s how I felt, if ‘cherished’ is what you were going for.”
“Really?” Swallowing hard, Jase forced out, “I know this is a big step for you, and here I am…”
“Giving me what I needed? Jase, all day long I get tons of pity thrown at me, or pointing and staring, or ‘thank you for your service.’ Last night I wanted it rough. I wanted to be treated like I wouldn’t break.” He smiled. “It was perfect.”
Like a deflating balloon, Jase’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, now I feel like a dick. I’m sorry.”
“Well…” Carey slid his hand slowly up Jase’s thigh. “Maybe I did need a little time alone afterward, if I’m being honest. I should’ve come and told you, so you didn’t wait up. I’m sorry, too.”
Tilting his head, Jase leaned in for a kiss, his lips clinging to Carey’s before separating with a lush smack. “Mmm. You taste good first thing in the morning.”
“So do you.” Carey kissed him again. “You going for your run?”
Jase got to his feet. “Nah. I had an idea while I was lying there alone last night.”
“What idea?” Carey held his hand out for a boost, then grabbed his crutches and followed Jase to the kitchen.
“Since we have that meeting with Wellman tomorrow, I was thinking maybe we could drive up that way today, get a room, hang out?” Clearing his throat, Jase went on, “You’re leaving, what, Sunday?” When Carey nodded, he said softly, “I thought, let’s make some memories.”
“That’s a great idea,” Carey said enthusiastically. “Should we get online and look for a hotel? What part of town?”
“How about Santa Monica? Check it out.” Jase grabbed his phone from the counter and swiped it open. He found what he was looking for and turned it to show Carey, who let out a low whistle.
“That place looks amazing.”
“I thought so, too, so I went ahead and booked a room. First floor, accessible, ocean view.” Jase grinned. “Let’s treat ourselves.”
“Wow. Let’s do it.”
After Carey had gone to pack, Jase headed to his own room, the sight of the rumpled bed sending a fresh pang through him. Dammit. It was his need for reassurance that’d gotten his boxers in a twist, and it hadn’t even occurred to him that Carey might need time to process, too.
Sighing, he flopped back on the bed, and was still there when Carey poked his head in several minutes later, dressed in his usual cargo shorts and T-shirt, prosthetic on.
“Um, what’s up?” he asked cautiously, advancing toward the bed. “You feeling okay? Worried about Wellman?”
Up until then, Jase had barely given Wellman a thought, but it was as good an excuse as any, better than bringing up his selfishness again. “Yeah,” he grunted. “Trying to decide what to wear.”
He couldn’t help but smile when Carey cracked up. “I thought you were gonna go shirtless like Dan Reynolds. Problem solved.” He perched on the edge of the mattress. “I actually had a thought about that.”
“About me going shirtless?” Jase flexed his biceps, grinning when Carey swatted his chest.
“No, you stud. About the band stuff.” He paused. “You guys are all writing and making great music, but have you thought about the fact you’ll need to start up a business as well? Especially if some of your royalties are allocated to charity, you’ll need to incorporate, or you’ll be personally liable for the taxes on whatever you earn.”
“Yeah, we’ve thought about it. That, the fundraising, the merch, all that good stuff.” Jase snorted. “Just haven’t gotten very far on actually doing any of it.”
“Well, that’s basically my job at the ranch,” Carey said, “finding strategic partners to help fund our programs. Um…” He took a deep breath. “I was thinking I could help you, too. Help Eloquent Isolation.”
A frisson of hope moved through Jase. “Really? You want to be part of the band?”
“Yeah, I would.” Putting his hand up, Carey said, “I know Layla’s the talent management side of the house, and I’d never interfere with that. But the business side? That’s my job, Jase. At the ranch, we partner with other veteran-owned companies—coffee, clothing, leadership seminars, fitness programs. There’s a K9 training company that hosts an annual soirée and silent auction that draws hundreds of guests. We’re always looking for entertainment to book, so—whoa!”
He broke off with a squeak when Jase yanked him down into his arms. “That’s perfect,” he exclaimed. “We were thinking we’d have to teach ourselves all that business shit.”
“I could do so much of it from Colorado, too. Plus, it’d give us an excuse to talk all the time, see each other more than once or twice a year…” Carey leaned down and brushed their lips together in a gentle kiss.
“And if we’re really successful, maybe that’ll set you up for a permanent move here—” Jase could’ve kicked himself when Carey’s face shuttered. How could he forget that to Carey, what they had was simply a friends-with-benefits situation, no more?
He hadn’t said one goddamn word about ever moving to San Diego.
Carey nodded. “Maybe,” he said noncommittally. “So you’ll talk to the others? See what they think?”
Hooking his hand behind Carey’s head, Jase pulled him down into a kiss. “Absolutely.”
“Good.” Carey traced his thumb across Jase’s eyebrow, his eyes soft. “Shall, uh, we get ready to go? I�
�m dying to see the Santa Monica Pier.”
Jase got up from the bed and pulled a duffel from the closet. “You’ve never been there before?”
“Nope.”
“It’s one of my favorite places.” He grinned at Carey over his shoulder. “I can’t wait to show it to you.”
While he packed, Jase called Layla and told her what they were going to do. “The appointment with Wellman’s at two, so how about we meet you guys somewhere close by for lunch first?”
The logistics set, Jase grabbed his guitar and his Mac, slung his duffel over his shoulder, and jogged to the living room, where Carey was waiting patiently for him. After a brief stop for coffee and bagels, they wended their way through town until they were on the huge Coronado Bay Bridge, heading toward the freeway. As they crested the top of the bridge, two hundred feet over the water, Jase soaked in the view as he always did, then glanced over at Carey.
He had his head tilted back against the seat, sunglasses hiding his eyes, the wind from the open windows blowing through his silky black hair. Carey’s full lips were slightly parted, his face lifted toward the sun, and as if he’d spoken aloud, Jase knew what was running through his mind—gratitude that he was alive and well, able to enjoy such a beautiful day, those feelings overlaid with resolve to never take such simple pleasures for granted again.
On impulse, Jase reached over and laid his hand on Carey’s thigh. Carey didn’t flinch or even look in his direction, just linked their fingers together, and Jase didn’t think he’d ever been happier in his entire fucking life than he was now, driving down a San Diego freeway holding hands with the man he loved.
“Look at that poor guy.”
The loud whisper easily reached Carey’s ears, carried along as it was by the sea breeze.
“I know, right? He has to sit here and watch everyone else have fun,” a second voice said. “Must suck.”
“What kind of life is that?”
Even though Carey had run into these sorts of comments countless times before, they still managed to piss him off.
He turned around. “It’s a pretty great life, actually.” Patting the low wall next to him, he went on, “Sit down, let’s talk about it.”
With muttered “Sorrys,” their faces red, the people who’d spoken rushed off.
Carey sighed. Just once he wished someone would take him up on his offer to have a conversation, be willing to sit with him and let him challenge their assumptions. He smiled at Jase, who’d gone back to their hotel room to get his phone and was now glancing curiously at the rapidly departing couple’s backs.
“What’s going on?”
Shrugging, Carey stood. “Just some people assuming I must have a terrible life because of my disability.” He told Jase what they’d said. “That happens a lot, along with strangers who rush in with ‘Oh, I’m so sorry’ when they notice my leg, like a prosthetic makes me an immediate object of pity.”
“What do you usually say to that?”
“Usually I say, ‘Why are you sorry? I’m not.’ Then they stare at me like I have two heads, because how in the world could I be happy not being ‘whole’?” He nudged Jase with his elbow. “Come a long way from that night on the couch, huh?”
Jase didn’t reply, and by silent agreement, they started meandering down the path from their hotel toward the Santa Monica Pier, shoulders touching.
“When you called yourself worthless that night, it broke my heart,” Jase said at last. “It made me afraid for you.”
Whispers of that anguish echoed through Carey. “Well, it wasn’t supposed to be like that, was it? I mean, I think we’d all accepted we might die over there. I was supposed to be with my unit, or dead. There was no in-between.” He waved at his leg. “I had no idea how to handle the in-between.”
“You running through gunfire to grab that baby was either the bravest or stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.” Jase’s voice was tight. “I thought you were dead long before that grenade went off.”
“I didn’t think, I just reacted. The kids I saw over there always got to me, and that baby…” Carey shuddered. “Me running out there was stupid. I put everyone at risk.”
“Yet you also saved a life. An innocent life. The moral implications of doing nothing…” It was Jase’s turn to shudder. “That’d be hard to come back from, too.”
“Combat is a series of split-second decisions,” Carey said quietly, “and some of them leave wounds on the soul. I’m lucky mine were mostly on my body.”
Jase didn’t say anything at first, and when he did, his voice was almost inaudible. “Wounds on the soul. I’ve never heard it put like that before.” He paused. “You told that retired chief at the pub you’ve had counseling.”
“Yeah.”
“Did it…help?”
“It wasn’t a quick fix, but yeah, that and a combination of other things. Why?”
“Just curious.”
Sensing that Jase was more than just curious, Carey waited him out.
“How do you treat that? A wound on the soul?” He sounded slightly derisive, although Carey could see a muscle rippling in his jaw. “You have soul healers at your ranch?”
“We do.”
Jase shot Carey a sideways look. “What, like a shaman or a monk or something?”
Carey smiled. “We have meditation retreats that are led by practitioners from all over the world. We also have small group talk-therapy programs, as well as backcountry trips led by an ex-Army guy whose best friend died in his arms.”
Jase flinched.
“He gets people out into the wide-open spaces, to where they can breathe. He says that’s where the sky is big enough to absorb the pain.”
Jase blew out a shaky breath, and Carey waited for him to change the subject, but he didn’t. “Quinn made me go once, to see this psychologist he’s been to. Said he was a miracle worker.”
“Did it help you?” Carey deliberately kept his voice low and neutral, to hide his surprise.
Jase, in therapy?
“No. He, uh, tried this thing where he held a pen up and asked me to follow it with my eyes. EM something?”
“EMDR,” Carey said softly.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing was a treatment for post-traumatic stress, where the person receiving it followed an object with their eyes while recalling a traumatic event, the idea that it would help “rewire” their brain to lessen the impact of the memory.
“Yeah, that. I had to think of my worst memory and repeat it out loud, over and over, while watching that fucking pen. When the hour was up, he tossed the pen on his desk and said, ‘See you next week.’” Jase’s jaw clenched. “I left his office, but I was still in Afghanistan, you know? It was like he’d flown me back there, pushed me out, and left me.”
His heart aching, Carey nodded. “That technique can work for people with post-traumatic stress, since it helps desensitize them to the fear that’s driving it. They find healing in facing and overcoming their memories.”
“Well, it sure didn’t work for me,” Jase growled. “In fact, I had a panic attack in my truck on the way home from that appointment. Called Rusty to come pick me up.”
Carey’s surprise deepened into shock. “Have you had panic attacks before?”
For a second he didn’t think Jase would answer, but then he grunted. “One other time, on an ambulance call. Rollover accident, guy’s leg shorn clear off.”
Carey could only imagine the scene. Chaotic, bloody, a man with an injury similar to his…
“It took you back.”
With a terse nod, Jase said, “Took me right back. Quinn picked me up that time, and that’s when he told me about the EM whatever.”
“But that didn’t work, so now…?”
“Now I just deal with it. Don’t dwell on it, don’t give in to it, just fucking deal.” He strode on ahead, pointing. “Hey, check this out!”
Effectively declaring the topic closed, Jase jogged across the sand toward the famous tra
veling rings of Muscle Beach. Carey stuffed his hands in his pockets and followed more slowly.
“Just fucking deal.”
The pot, the yoga, the drinking—was that Jase dealing?
From his work at the ranch, Carey knew that combat medics dealt with the sort of trauma that etched itself deeply and painfully into their psyche—friends and teammates they couldn’t save, the civilians they were helpless to treat, the grieving parents they had to face back home…
“I blamed the platoon’s medic for a while,” Carey remembered Trevor, Byrney’s husband, saying once. “Why hadn’t he done more? Why couldn’t he save my son?”
It wasn’t until he’d requested Riley’s autopsy report from the military mortuary in Delaware that Trevor had been able to let go of that blame and resentment—Riley’s injuries had been unsurvivable.
With a twinge, Carey thought of that unknown medic, desperately fighting for the life of a young man, his teammate and friend. He’d done everything he possibly could, under fire, in a war zone, yet he still lost the battle against a lone sniper’s bullet.
What similar battles had Jase fought, and lost? Which ones haunted him still?
As Carey headed toward the tunnel of aluminum rings on chains, he couldn’t take his eyes off Jase, who was flying through them, his body swinging as he grasped them one by one. He’d stripped his T-shirt off, his lean muscles bunching and stretching, his ridged abs tight, board shorts low on his hips.
So strong, so capable—yet dealing with a deeper pain than Carey suspected anyone knew, a pain Jase had just given him a tiny glimpse into. Despite his worry, this evidence of Jase’s growing trust made him smile.
Nearby, a couple of bikini-clad women were egging Jase on, cheering. They ran to meet him when he let go of the last ring and landed in an explosion of sand. Shooting them a lazy smile, he sauntered toward Carey, his bare chest glistening with sweat, grains of sand clinging to the hair under his navel. He was rosy with exertion, his lips parted as he strove to catch his breath.
“God, you’re gorgeous.” Carey really hadn’t meant to say that out loud, especially not in such a low, fervent voice, but all Jase did was grin, his eyes warm.
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