Chapter 18 – Marcus #3
“It started as a way to deal with my trauma. Just Danny and me walking around the campus when I couldn’t sleep, keeping an eye out for anything…
off. We walked a few people home and helped a girl get her really drunk friend back to her dorm, and word kind of spread a bit.
Danny posted his phone number on a campus forum, and it really caught wind from there.
And soon it wasn’t just campus. There were more and more people who needed our help, and I couldn’t just abandon them. Not like…”
Not like she had been. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I couldn’t abandon them. So we kept helping. The only time I ever thought about doing anything else was when I came to work for SDS.”
My eyebrows raised. “Really?”
She smiled. “Really. I love solving puzzles, and my work with the Archers and SDS is like solving one big puzzle. There was a structure in place at the SDS that I had never thought about and actually implemented with the Archers. Ways you all trained your teams.”
“And your security systems,” I broke in. “I think Sebastian became even more obsessed with you when he realized you hadn’t just been taking notes all those years but really listening to him.”
She shrugged. “He’s brilliant. You all are. I learned so much from you, yet…”
“Yet what?” I questioned when she paused.
“Yet I also felt guilty too,” she said, looking down at her fries before lifting her gaze to meet mine.
“I know I’ve said it before, but I wanted to apologize again.
I’m sorry I lied to you. About who I was and why I worked there.
At first, it was just a job, but the more I got to know you all…
” She trailed off, but I stayed patient in the silence.
“It ate at me to lie to you. But at that point, I had been lying to you all for so long, and I was terrified you wouldn’t hear me out.
Yes, losing the information would have been a blow to the Archers, but losing you all?
I wasn’t ready for that, but I wasn’t sure how to get out of it until Citadel forced my hand. ”
I breathed out slowly. “I get it.” She shot me a look, and I chuckled.
“I get it now, although it took me some time to get there. I think one of the reasons I understand it so much more now is your relationships with Danny, Grace, Maya, Izzy, and Liam. You’re a family, maybe not by blood, but a family, nonetheless.
You protect them, and the information you gathered from SDS protected them as well as the people who come to you.
If there’s anything I understand, it’s protecting my family. ”
“That’s why I was never too mad at you,” she confessed. “I mean, you definitely needed to pull your head out of your ass sometimes, but I knew it came from a place of protectiveness, and I understood that.”
She wasn’t wrong. There were definitely things I handled poorly, but I was glad we had discussed this.
“To overprotectiveness.” I lifted my glass, waiting until she clinked hers against mine. “And to the families we love.”
We drank, and I moved us onto lighter topics. We finished our food, and then she went to say something, then hesitated.
“What is it?” I asked.
“There was one other thing I wanted to ask you. For some time now,” she admitted. “But I didn’t know how.”
“Just ask it,” I said. “I won’t be mad. Promise.”
She hesitated, the uncertainty on her face stabbing me in the gut. “Are you really okay with being one of my four…boyfriends?” she blurted, stumbling over the last word.
I laughed before I could stop it, reassuring her quickly when she frowned. “I’m not laughing at you. Never at you. Just how you stumbled on the last word.”
She rolled her eyes but smiled. “Look, I’m out of my depth here,” she confessed. “Boyfriends? Partners? I don’t know the terminology. I just know I like all of you, and all of you seem to like me—”
“Do like you. Not seem to like you,” I corrected.
I could confidently speak for my brothers on this one. She opened her mouth, then closed it and shrugged, looking like she was at a loss for words.
“I’ll admit that when Sebastian first brought up the idea when we were in college, I thought he was crazy.
Then we all went our separate ways afterwards, and while the men in my unit became like brothers to me, I missed my own brothers.
Just like I missed Adrian after I left the military.
When we were all together again, it was better, but we were still too disjointed, too separate in our lives.
And then you walked into SDS. Now I’m not saying it’s your job to fix us or anything like that.
But we’ve worked more in harmony with each other since you’ve been around than we ever have before.
Even then I thought it was crazy when Sebastian brought up dating you not two weeks into your employment. ”
Her eyes widened, and I laughed.
“Alexander had to sit on him several times and explain that you were our employee and there were lines we couldn’t cross. Yet we all couldn’t seem to take our eyes off of you.”
She blushed. God, she was beautiful, and I was dying to know how far down that blush went.
“Do I think it’s crazy?” I continued, leaning forward and covering her hand with my own.
“Maybe still a little bit. But I’ll tell you what I know with certainty.
I want a future with you. We want a future with you.
We would never ask you to abandon the Archers, and we’ll help you however we can, but we want you.
Wherever you are and wherever you go, we want to be right next to you through all the triumphs and all the challenges. ”
Her eyes glistened, and I scooted around the table until I could tuck her under my arm.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
She snorted. “How could I not? Marcus, that was…” She trailed off, and I patiently waited for her to gather her thoughts. “Everything,” she said. “I know relationships are about continued work and communication, but I don’t think I realized how many uncertainties I still had.”
“Uncertainties that I caused,” I guessed.
She shrugged but didn’t correct me.
“I harbored crushes on all of you for years,” she confessed.
“Not just because you’re all attractive men, but because you’re good men, and I…
I don’t see a lot of good men in my line of work.
But you were always untouchable; not just because you were my bosses but because of the weight of the secrets I carried.
I didn’t ever want my broken pieces to cut you. ”
“You’re assuming that we’re not all a little broken too, sweetheart,” I argued.
“You keep talking about how you’re broken and have all these sharp edges, but you’re not the only one with jagged pieces.
Adrian saw way more shit in the military than I ever did, and I saw a lot of shit.
Alexander takes on the weight of the world, and he’s always been protecting us to the point he forgets about himself.
Sebastian is obsessive and tries to hide his dark side.
My point is, we all have shit. We’re all a little broken. But our broken pieces fit together.”
“I want to believe that,” she said.
“We’ll spend the rest of our lives proving that to you. And I know I speak for all of us when I say that.”
She nodded, spending a few more moments tucked against me before she pulled away. “Should we try the throwing stars next?”
I accepted her change of subject. “I’ve been itching to try the knives,” I admitted.
We kept the bet going but kept the questions light. All too soon, the hours had passed, and our time at the throwing alley came to an end. I didn’t want the night to end, but as we walked back to the car, Evelyn reached for my hand, and I felt like I could conquer the world.
We were going to be okay. This was going to work. It had to.
I couldn’t lose her.