Epilogue
Aberlour wasn’t sure what he was doing here. It had been a spur of the moment decision. One made after too much bourbon, and too many tears. If he had a lick of common sense left, he’d turn around and walk right out of this bar.
He didn’t.
Even as he’d dialed the phone, Aberlour hadn’t known what he would say.
He’d also known it was a stupid idea. He hadn’t even expected the other man to agree.
After all, it had been years since he’d gotten that scribbled phone number.
But he had picked up, and Aberlour had been so rattled that he’d automatically blurted out the name of his usual watering hole.
Now as he walked over to his favorite spot near the dart board, he was rethinking his choice.
Why had he invited him here? It was a horrid place, full of horrible memories, and even worse men.
But it was too late. He was waiting for Abe, his gaze fixed on him, as if daring him to meet it and run the other way.
Aberlour was not intimidated.
He looked the same—outwardly, anyway. The same sharp blue eyes, the same broken nose.
His smile lines had deepened even further—perhaps even blurred.
He looked softer now, even with the scars covering almost half of his face.
Clearly, the world had been beating on him—Abe supposed it had done the same to them all.
“Jarhead,” Shawn O’Reilly greeted him, a smile never quite reaching his eyes. He didn’t attempt to get up. Aberlour was grateful. He took a seat across from him at the table.
“Frogman,” Abe replied in the same tone.
They stared at each other for a long time in silence—and Abe knew this silence well. It was a busy one—filled with topics too dangerous to touch. Covered in landmines that might send them spiralling if they dared to touch them.
But Aberlour had always been an idiot—and he trampled all over them first.
“I got the bottle,” he said, breaking the ice and acknowledging the impossible.
“Did it help?”
He thought on that for a second. Four days after Oli’s funeral, he’d accepted a special delivery at his front door. A 3-liter bottle of Jack Daniels bourbon, with a card.
“I hope this helps.
My condolences,”
He’d signed it, but even if he hadn’t, Aberlour would have recognized that messy, scratchy handwriting anywhere.
“No,” Abe said, honestly. “Alcohol doesn’t help—” he said, relaying that fact like hard-earned wisdom. “But I drank it anyway.” It had taken him a few weeks to get to the bottom of it—and then he’d picked up the phone and called.
Shawn cracked a smile, finally.
“I’ll admit, I was surprised you called.”
“Didn’t have a reason not to anymore,” Aberlour said, putting all of his cards on the table. He needed to make sure that Shawn knew what he was getting into.
Oliver had asked him once, why Abe had never been with anyone else. For years, he’d stayed celibate. Uninterested and lonely. Why? After all, Aberlour wasn’t a bad looking guy. He was young and fit. He could have found someone—
At the time, he hadn’t known what to say.
Now he knew.
It was a testament to the things they’d seen and done over the years that Shawn did not take it as an insult. He didn’t balk, didn’t complain about being second choice—he merely smiled and nodded, like he understood all too well.
“’Fraid you’re a few years too late,” Shawn joked, smiling.
As he did so, only one half of his face lit up.
The other stayed as it was—frozen, disfigured.
The smooth skin there had been severely wrecked by fire and time.
His eyes were still the same though. Keen intellect and strong personality—inspecting every inch of Abe’s features while they talked.
“Drank the miracle Kool-Aid and went straight?”
“Fell down on a grenade and lost all my charm,” Shawn responded with a grin. He put up a good front, but Aberlour could tell he wasn’t nearly as confident about his altered appearance as he pretended to be.
Aberlour snorted.
“Is that what you’d have called it? Charm?” he questioned, amused.
The SEAL threw back his shoulders, a familiar twinkle of excitement appearing now that Aberlour had directly challenged him.
“You took my number,” Shawn pointed out, his right eyebrow—the one that wasn’t scarred—lifted inquiringly.
“I was just a jarhead—couldn’t risk getting my ass kicked,” he lied smoothly, dancing around telling Shawn what he really wanted to hear.
“Ah, yes—Squad Leader Gavin Aberlour, known for playing it safe. That rings a bell,” Shawn said, snorting.
“Don’t pretend you’d heard about me,” Aberlour responded, rolling his eyes.
“Of course, I had—the Force Recon Marine who could shoot anything, anywhere, anytime.”
Shawn sounded entirely too serious about that for Abe’s peace of mind.
“What?”
“Why’d you think we cornered you guys at the target range that day?
You’d made quite a reputation for yourselves long before we boarded that ship.
And you—the guy who never missed, with that 20/20 aim, and whatnot—,” Shawn said, with a shrug, like it ought to be obvious. “Had to see if you lived up to it.”
Aberlour was struck mute hearing this story from Shawn’s perspective.
“I’d never seen anyone outshoot Dajar—it was—” he hesitated, “hot.”
Aberlour barked a laugh.
“Thought of giving you my number then, but your second-in-command, Darling, was giving me the old evil eye, so I didn’t.”
Abe didn’t miss the careful way he navigated Oli’s name then. Just like one might handle a landmine—tiptoeing around it cautiously.
“We weren’t a thing, back then,” Aberlour confessed.
“But you were eventually.”
“Eventually,” Abe agreed. His throat itched for a drink. As if summoned by his parched throat, the waitress appeared. She set two glasses down in front of them. Both holding a few inches of amber liquid.
“Aberlour?” he guessed, as he inhaled the aroma of the drink that Shawn had ordered. The scotch had a familiar almost sweet note to it. Not a favourite, but he appreciated the joke.
Shawn cracked a smile filled with youthful glee. He looked at least 10 years younger in that moment.
Abe snorted and lifted his glass to toast Shawn. The man carefully—slowly—used his left hand, which was covered in painful looking scars, to hold up his glass to meet Abe’s. The glasses clinked musically—but no words were spoken. What had they to toast? Aberlour refused to lift a glass to mourn.
“Was he sick?” Shawn asked.
Although Aberlour nearly choked on his drink in surprise, he was grateful that Shawn didn’t shy away from tackling the big questions.
“Cancer—stage 4. They gave him a year,” he shrugged, he’d said it a few times now. To many different people. Some he cared about—some he barely knew. It got a little easier every time he said it. It had only been a few months—he wondered if the day would ever come when it would be painless.
“Fuck,” Shawn said, blowing out a breath.
Abe smiled sadly and decided to hit the highlights of the rest of the story. Shawn deserved to hear it, whether or not their relationship ever moved forward.
“Came to see me eight months out—”
“And you took him back?” Shawn asked in shocked disbelief.
It was understandable. Aberlour had expected it, but it still shook him.
He nodded and took a big sip of his scotch.
“Don’t think I ever gave him up, so—it was easier than living without him would have been.”
Shawn shifted uncomfortably in his seat, making a slight groaning sound. A grimace crossed his face like a wave—stretching and pulling at his scars.
“I read about you in the papers,” Aberlour admitted as he gazed at Shawn. It felt like a confession—one Shawn hadn’t asked for.
“Yeah—everyone and their mother did,” he sneered, because clearly it hadn’t been his choice to be thrust into the public limelight.
Aberlour had known as soon as he’d read the article.
Shawn’s story had gotten picked up by the media and soon thereafter, every governor and statesman bidding for the military vote had had Shawn O’Reilly’s name on their lips.
The decorated Navy SEAL Major, who had been terribly disfigured in action.
The brave SEAL who’d jumped on an explosive device to save his men.
He’d become the perfect metaphor for America’s great crusade against enemy insurgents and the devastation they’d wrought on US troops.
Aberlour couldn’t imagine how horrible it had been—coming home and then subsequently being medically discharged, broken and in pain, and used like a political bowling ball.
When Abe had read the article, he twitched with the urge to call him up.
Bart’s words played in his head, taunting him with hope.
“Nice to know SEAL training doesn’t teach you anything useful—can’t throw worth a shit, can’t duck, can’t jump away from a grenade,” he listed in a dramatic whine, glancing over at Shawn to see whether he’d taken offense.
Shawn began laughing and flipped him the bird.
“You’re a fucker!” Shawn declared accusingly.
“How many medals did you get for that?” Aberlour asked, unable to resist fucking with him some more.
“Three—and a big fat check,” Shawn replied with a smug grin.
“Ah, see, if I’d known that—I’d have called you a helluva lot sooner.” Aberlour was amazed that he’d been able to slip back into the easy flow of back and forth insults he’d enjoyed many years ago with his team. Like the tide returning after a long time out to sea.
“No, you wouldn’t’ve,” Shawn said, his smile small and sad.
Abe sighed and nodded. “No, I wouldn’t’ve,” he agreed.
And that was fine.
He looked at the empty seat next to him. He tried to picture it filled—tried to picture Oli’s perfect smile—his big blue eyes—his warmth. It was still there, still fresh, like a leaf to be plucked from a tree in the spring.
“How many of your guys did you save?” Abe asked, then.
“Hard to say,” Shawn said.
“How many were nearby?”
“Four.”
The magic number. Four headless corpses. Four beautiful smiles. Four lives forever lost because Aberlour had not taken that shot.