Chapter 12
Popular Quotes
Proof Of Life
Afeeling of ease settles over me. No matter where in the world we’re stationed, if Brandt is there, I’m good. I’m home.
“What about me? I’ve got my wife right here.” I slap Brandt’s thigh. “He’s going to have to improve his foot rub game though, if he wants me to give him kids.”
Anger has annihilated my grief, and it consumes me completely. Anger is easier than grief. Grief is exhausting, it’s draining emotionally and physically. Grief hurts. Anger doesn’t cost me anything. In fact, it’s the only thing keeping me alive right now.
“You don’t get it. I don’t want someone to settle for me.
I want to be enough.” I'm sick of it. Fucking fed up with his I’m-not-good-enough spiel.
I slip my finger under the gold chain that hangs around his neck and pull him close.
“Don’t you get it? You’re not enough. You were never just enough, Wes.
You’ve always been more than anyone deserves.
And if they can’t see that, in spite of your missing leg, they’re fucking trash. ”
He folds his arms under his head. “You know what? Home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling. Doesn’t matter if I’m standing on American soil, or my boots are covered in a sandbox in the middle of hell halfway across the world. As long as you’re by my side, I’m home.”
“You are my compass. A strong and steady presence at my back holding a rifle.” The hand that squeezed mine for weeks in the hospital finds mine and squeezes again. “You’re my home. Always. No matter where we are, I’m home with you.” This time, I squeeze back and the tears fall unbidden. “Same.”
“You can snap at me, bite my head off, or you can hit me, but I’m not leaving you alone in the darkness that’s trying to swallow you.
” He loses his battle with his tears, and they run down his cheeks and soak into his already soaked shirt.
Because he jumped in to save me. “I won’t let it have you,” he cries brokenly, and I want to die all over again for the pain I’ve caused him.
“Lean on me. Take from me. My strength, my conviction, my hope, and my love.” He clutches my hand to his stubbled cheek and squeezes.
“Take all my love and let it fill up all your broken, empty places.”
“You have to promise me you’ll try to live.
Giving up your weapons is a huge start, and I’m not asking you to be happy every day or to pretend to forget.
I just want you to commit to your life. If you can’t get out of bed, just ask me to fucking join you, but don’t hide away from me.
I can’t watch you slip away like this, little by little, each day.
I can’t watch you self-destruct. I can’t watch you take your life, not when it means so fucking much to me, West. You mean so much to me.
” His voice chokes up. “I don’t want to be left alone in the darkness, either. ”
“Proof of life?” “Yeah, I need to know you’re in there, and that you’re still holding on, still fighting. I need to know you’re still with me.” All I can do is nod. Proof of life. I can give him that.
West looks up into my eyes, and I watch his throat slide before he licks his lips. “I want you to wreck me. I want you to make me forget everything but you.”
Tears threaten to spill over my cheeks, but I hold them back.
“Three legs, huh? Can’t fall with three legs.
” “We’re a fucking tripod, baby. We’re never gonna fall, and we’re never gonna lose our way.
” I know he’s right. I believe every word he’s saying.
He’s my crutch and my compass, an old familiar comfort, and my new thrilling addiction.
He’s everything I need and everything I want.
My past and my future. Brandt is…everything. He’s my home.
Today is a good day. I feel alive. I feel like I’m living my life instead of merely surviving it.
Old-school alternative is playing on the radio, songs that take me way back, music that feels good.
With the windows rolled down, the fresh mountain air is blowing through my sweaty hair and I can feel the sun warming my face.
I’ve got my best friend beside me, blood pumping through my veins from the run, and West is smiling.
We’re dreaming together and making plans for our future, and we’re getting excited about our lives again. Today is a great fucking day.
Why does he insist on loving me in the moments I hate myself most?
Goddamn, I will never deserve this man, not as my friend, and not as my lover. In no capacity, in no lifetime, will I ever be worthy of him.
“Wes, I need proof of life,” he says in a rough whisper.
“I haven’t asked in a while, but I need to know you’re in there.
” “I’m here. I swear I’m here.” His arms come around me, under my arms, and around my chest. “I want this, Reaper. I want to live, I want a life, and I want you, but I want to not hate myself for it.”
He’s touching me with the same hands he used to touch himself. Goddamn, I really need to stop thinking about that.
Sometimes, when I look at him, all I see is my friend, my buddy for the last twelve years, my brother to the soul.
Someone I know better than I sometimes know myself.
But sometimes, I look at him with his cock in his hand, with his confident, cocky grin, and I can’t help but think, fuck he’s hot. Right now, he’s both.
All I want to do is give up. Just close my eyes and float away and not return. For the first time in my life, I don’t want to be me anymore.
The Darkness Within
Do you think sharing my feelings and knitting a fucking scarf is going to make me forget that I held my best friend’s dead, rotting body in my arms for seven fucking days while rats ate pieces of him?”
I will slay each and every one of your dragons, Nashville Aiden Sommers.
I will chase all of the ghosts from the dark corners of your nightmares, until the sun is shining down on you, warm and bright, and safe.
I will be your light in the darkness, your hand to hold when you get lost and can’t find your way.
“Let go and let God, that’s my motto.” “How quaint. My motto is fuck the fucking fuckers before the fucking fuckers fuck you.” “How…quaint.” I can’t say it with a straight face.
He searches my face, silent for long minutes.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt this soul-deep connection with another person in my life.
This all-consuming sudden importance of someone else’s existence, like it’s the most meaningful thing in my life.
It’s absurd and yet makes total sense. He makes total sense.
There’s a small corner of my dark heart that now belongs to Nashville Sommers, and I don’t ever want it back.
“The plant was your relationship indicator?” “Basically.” I laugh.
“I know it sounds inane, but it makes sense. It takes discipline and sacrifice and selflessness to keep something alive, to take care of it every day. To cultivate it. If you can take care of a plant, just maybe, you can take care of yourself and possibly someone else.”
The longer I stare, the wider my smile grows, until it stretches from cheek to cheek.
Brewer catches my grin, and his eyes grow wide.
“Oh, jeez, I didn’t mean to order for you, it just slipped out…
because I know with your stomach, and the meds…
I’m so sorry! Did you want something else?
” I’d eat liver paté if he ordered it for me, just because I like his caretaking and ownership of me.
But, “Tuna fish salad?” I ask, wondering where that came from?
Brewer looks chagrined. “In case Valor wakes up.” My heart.
My motherfucking heart. It’s melting. “Good call.”
“Brewer, I can’t keep fighting it. Every machine needs fuel, and you’re mine. Your touch is what fuels me, gives me the energy and the strength and the determination to get through each day. I want to keep going, but just give me something. Just a little taste.”
“You fixed something inside of me today. Something I thought would forever be broken.” My chest tightens, like a heavy weight is crushing me, making it difficult to breathe.
Fuck, he’s going to make me cry. “With the loss of my sex drive, I’m starting to realize that intimacy isn’t about sex, it’s about truth.
When you find someone you can tell your truth to, when you can bare your soul and know you’re safe with them, that’s intimacy.
That’s the kind of shit I held onto when I was down there.
When I thought I had nothing left to live for, somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d hoped that if I made it out, I would find that someday with someone.
Someone like you. I would find what we have. ”
“Nash, how can you love someone else when you don’t even love yourself?”
Between sweet nips and pecks on my lips, he says, “I may not love myself completely, but I love the things you love about me.” Then a longer kiss, the glide of his velvet tongue along mine, a kiss so deep it robs me of breath.
Nash lifts his head and grips my chin, staring into my eyes, into my soul.
“You’ve painted a picture of me through your praise that I don’t see when I look in the mirror, but I believe you see it, and I believe it’s there, somewhere, buried under all the layers of shit I’ve been through.
Eventually, I’ll find that man. He’ll rise to the surface because you called him. ”