Chapter 18
chapter eighteen
Mateo
Me
Any of you bringing a date to the wedding?
Echo
Sam and I are cuddling
Me
You sure about that?
Wink
Put me down for a plus one
Echo
Who the fuck are you bringing, bro?
Angelo
If I say I'm bringing a plus one do I get two dinners?
Me
No
Wink
Don’t worry about it
Echo
I’ll find out
Pike
I didn’t know you had a girlfriend Sam
Wink
I don’t
Angelo
Doesn't Natalia have like three sisters?
Echo
That's what I said!
Easter was tomorrow, and for the first time in several weeks I was spending a Saturday morning at home instead of dedicating half of my day to the cyber security business. The second half of my Saturdays were blocked out for getting as much filming done with Tally as possible in what little time we had after Mom and Dad went to bed. Even then, what we could do was limited with the noise level, and the quality we were producing was nowhere near what Natalia was known for. The grit was gone, passion completely and utterly sucked out of the sequences. Apart from that, there was another problem: Recently, the only times we had sex were while on camera.
Me
Sister-in-laws are off-limits
Angelo
You're a party pooper
My phone pinged with a picture of Tyler flipping off the camera and I snickered, kicking myself back further into the soft recliner. The house was quiet. Tally was out at the grocery store getting a few last-minute things for the holiday, and Dad had gone out to bingo with Gino Barry from next door. Mom had been milling around the kitchen cooking the last time I noticed her, but peering up from my seat I realized that was no longer the case. A hot, unsettling wave licked up my spine and my hair stood on end at my neck. I turned my head over my shoulder.
"Jesus Christ," I gasped, my heart dropping into my stomach. My mother shot backward a step from creeping over me and I hid the screen of my phone against my chest. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Is that your brother?” she asked, flipping a dish towel over her shoulder nonchalantly. “I worry about him. He hasn't brought a woman home in years. Your father and I were starting to think maybe he swung the other way."
"How would you know that he hasn’t had a woman over?"
"The basement ceiling is thin, honey."
I frowned. "Well, I wouldn't take anyone home with you two listening to my every move either."
Mom chuffed. "Like we didn't see the purple ding-a-ling you were shoving up your ass."
"Okay, all right, enough." The recliner slammed closed as I hopped up and paced away. “The point is that the man needs some privacy.” I let myself out the sliding door into the backyard, more stressed than I needed to be, and dying for the day my parents packed up their shit and left my house and my wife and me to shove whatever the fuck we wanted up our asses in peace.
Me
Final count: Echo, no, Ang, no, Wink, yes
Angelo
I want a code name
Pike
You don't choose your call sign, your call sign chooses you
Echo
In due time
Me
Everyone booked a flight for Vegas?
Pike
Aye aye, Cap
Me
This fucking wedding shit is stressing me out
After the awkward dinner at Palm Beach for John’s birthday, Tally’s excitement for the wedding was noticeably withered. When Mom tried to talk to her about the details she was worn down by the responsibility of it. Her parents stole that girlish wonder away and replaced it with worry about every last choice that she made, and even my constant reassurance was barely scratching the surface. I didn’t know how to fix it.
I ran a hand down my face, scratching at the shadow of a beard growing. Tally would want me to be clean-shaven for the big day, but I'd let it do its thing for over a week at that point because I hadn't had the time.
The yard looked like shit. Grass that was usually golfing green short was threatening to tickle my ankles, and there was a hive of shitty wasps making a home under the gutter pipe at the corner of the roof. I'd need to find time to do these things among everything else going on and the longer that mental list grew, the harder the knot in my stomach tightened. It was festering into dangerous outburst territory. Not a thing was in my control anymore.
My phone rang in my hand and Pike's name lit up the screen. I looked back at the sliding door and walked away from it, out into the yard and toward the tall wooden fence at the edge of the property. "What's up, brother?"
There was a beating of distant helicopter wings behind his voice, cueing me in that he was at work at the airbase in Colorado. He had a new job teaching military protocol to fresh pilots in training, something I was proud of him for pursuing despite the setbacks with TechOps I was facing on account of it.
After a crash that nearly ended his career and several lives, mine included, I wasn’t sure he would ever have the confidence to fly again.
"What's stressing you out?" Pike asked.
“You got all day?"
He laughed that burly, infectious Frankie laugh I hadn’t heard in so long. “Mom and Dad?"
"I'm losing my mind, Pike. I miss walking around the house with my dick out just because I could."
"I don't miss that."
"Things have gotten on top of me. I mean, work is hell, the days are long because I'm out late doing installs, and then I get home and have to do the other stuff with Tally with Mom and Pop down the hall. It’s not looking good on the business end."
“The porn business?”
There was a splinter in the fence that I picked at. "Yeah. She was so caught up in every detail for the wedding and now it’s like she’s half with me and half somewhere else. Her family is fucking with her head. I almost had to fight her prick of a dad and I know that's weighing on her. We're just operating on different wavelengths right now."
"Well hey, you got help at TechOps, right? Training a new hire?"
I scratched at the back of my neck. "What if I told you I never hired anyone?"
His sigh crackled through the receiver. "Cap, what the fuck?"
"Listen, I know, all right? You gotta keep this to yourself. Tally thinks the hiring pool is dry, and I can't hit her with that mess right now, okay? When the wedding is over and all this shit dies down, I'll hire someone and figure it out. Right now, I'm too deep into the lie to claw my way out."
Pike was silent on the other end and I could almost see him with a judgmental hand on his hip. "I told you it was too much work for one person."
"It doesn't matter now. You know I can't trust people easily, especially not with things like my business. I wasn't ready to bring on a stranger."
"Are you going to tell her that you lied?"
"You're making it sound way worse than it actually is," I said. "You're supposed to be on my side."
"You're a dumbass," Pike replied bluntly.
"I know that." I rolled my shoulders and leaned into the fence, shredding the blades of grass at my feet with the toe of my shoe. My mind crept into the anxiety spells and how hard I’d been working to hide that from Tally as well. "Hey, can I ask you about something personal?"
"Shoot."
The right words were hard to find and I trampled over what I was trying to say before landing on it. "Do you…" Pause. "Are there times when…" Pause. I cleared my throat. "Have you ever thought that our time in the service might have fucked you up a little bit?"
"Cap, I had reconstructive back surgery after I crashed a helicopter."
I probably should have been more literal. "Not physically."
He quieted, shuffling farther away from the background noise. "You okay, Brother?"
"Yeah." I don't know. "No. But it's nothing crazy."
“Define not crazy,” Pike said.
There was absolutely no reason for me to be embarrassed. Pike was my best friend. I knew what was happening to me was normal, but for some reason saying it out loud felt so vulnerable my heart was lurching against my ribs. "I've been having these episodes lately, where I kind of shut down. It happened in front of Tally and my parents. You know me, I’m always on. That never happens to me, and it certainly never happened in Delta. But a few times now, I get overwhelmed and the stress destabilizes me. I black out, and feel like I can't catch my breath. I don't know what to do, man. I'm always scared now waiting for it to happen again."
"Sounds like panic attacks," Pike said. “Have you talked to anyone about it? That might alleviate some of this. There's a lot of resources for veterans, Cap.”
“You're probably right." I sighed. "I feel like I'm losing my grip on everything right now."
"You know O and I will do everything we can. You're balancing a lot, and you might think you've lost your touch, but you haven't. Your health is a priority.”
Hearing that was simple, but effective. Now that I’d put it out there for Pike, there was no way I could deny or fall back on it, either. “I'll call the VA.”
"Thank you for trusting me with that. I know the Swan boys would be right here with me saying the same thing. No shame in admitting you need some help. We lost too many already to pretend this shit doesn't exist for veterans.”
"Thanks for having my back," I said. "I miss you around here."
"I don't miss those thin ass walls."
The corner of my mouth lifted and I pushed a sigh through my nostrils. "Yeah, well, not much to hear right now. Tal and I haven't had sex in weeks."
"Your job is having sex with her."
"That's not the same thing. That's not us. That's whatever character we're playing at the moment. I'm talking about her and me rolling around in the hay, having sex just to fuck. Not to film."
"That's not helping your stress levels."
"You fucking think?"
"We'll be in Vegas soon, Cap. You'll have a whole weekend to make up for lost time. It's gonna be fine. I'm here if you need me."
“I know the girls probably chat every day, but could you tell Ophelia that Tally’s having a rough time? She won’t say it for herself. Maybe she can talk some sense into her that I can’t.”
“Sure thing, man,” Pike replied. "See you in Vegas in a couple weeks. Happy Easter."
"Happy Easter,” I returned. “Later."
Before I went back inside I sat on my conversation with Pike. I wanted to be better, for myself and for Tally, and the only person who could help me…was me. That first step, as scary and uncertain as it felt, was necessary. I knew my harmless work secret had a time limit, and after that ran out, life would go back to normal. My house would feel like a home again, my fiancée would be my wife, and my life would be truly beginning. I was ready for that. More than ready for it. It was just a matter of getting there in one piece.