Chapter Ten
Dale woke to the kind of quiet that comes after you’ve said the wrong thing and the house, and everyone in it was pretending they didn’t hear it.
His mouth tasted like he’d chewed the cork on a cheap and crappy bottle of red wine. The empty liquor bottle he’d left on the kitchen bench agreed with him from thirty feet away. He didn’t drink whiskey. Not like that.
Last night he’d made an exception.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling until the headache settled into a steady drum he could ignore, and his stomach stopped rolling within him.
Images lined up within his mind whether he wanted them or not—conference room, Dev on the screen, Bateman’s pen, Ty’s face when Dale had decided to be a prick and hit him while they were both still reeling from Oren’s omission.
You going to pull the trigger, or stand there and think? What the fuck had he been thinking?
“Dale,” a voice called from the kitchen.
“Get your ass out here. I brought coffee and something that has a metric shit ton of sugar on it, something I would not normally be allowed to consume, but Sam’s not here to stop me so let’s go crazy!
And if you are not out here in the next sixty seconds, I am gonna down both of them, because I never get this shit at home. ”
Sheriff Nick Jones was in his house. And he’d brought breakfast apparently. Fucking Bravo just inviting themselves over. It was still fucking dark outside, too, so the bastard had to have gotten up super early to make this little house call.
Dale pushed up, found boxers on the floor, and dragged them on. He didn’t bother with a shirt. The mirror over the dresser was helpful enough to be cruel. He looked like he’d been up all night punching a problem and losing on points.
He walked out to the kitchen. Sheriff Nick stood like he owned the room, which was talent more than arrogance. A to-go carrier of coffees sat on the island, a grease-spotted paper bag beside it. Nick took one look at Dale and clicked his tongue.
“Christ, son. You get in a fight with a distillery?”
“Distillery started it,” Dale said, voice rough.
Nick handed him coffee. “Don’t be cute. Drink.”
Dale drank. Heat hit first, then the bitterness, then the way the caffeine went hunting the fog allowed him to think a little better. He set the cup down and eyed the bag.
“Eat,” Nick said, already pulling out a pastry the size of a fist. “You’re not going to think your way out of this on an empty stomach.”
Dale broke his pastry in half and took a bite. Butter, sugar, a lemon note. It sat right. He waited for the lecture and tried not to brace for it like a hit.
Nick leaned his hip to the counter, arms folded. “I heard about your night.”
“From who?”
“Bateman,” Nick said. “I can do concern without stepping on his chain of command. I’m here as the man who’s stood where you’re standing and made a mess with his mouth.”
Dale huffed. “Yeah, my mouth can have a mind of its own. Do you ever grow out of saying dumb shit that hurts the ones we love?”
“Nope.” Nick took a massive bite of his pastry, groaning in apparent food bliss, before he continued. “You want triad advice, or you want to keep pretending you can stiff-arm the two men you love into safety?”
Dale met his eyes because that was the thing about Nick—he’d wait you out until you did. “I’ll take Advice for two hundred, please, Alex.”
“Good choice.” Nick finished the pastry then clapped the sugar from his fingers.
“Your job isn’t to carry whatever is concerning them for them—but to carry it with them.
You’re the one who holds steady and does not let your men hide what they need.
When it gets rough, you hold at the line of departure, Ricoh.
You don’t step off till your team’s ready. ”
“I’m trying,” Dale said.
“You’re growling,” Nick corrected. “And that will give you a completely different outcome.”
Dale stared at the coffee lid, turning the cup until the seam found his thumb. “I told Oren I needed to hear the bad the second it broke. I make no apologies for that. I cannot step in front of them if I do not know they are in someone’s crosshairs.”
“Fair.” Nick nodded, leaning back against the counter behind him, and crossing his arms over his chest. “I get that.”
Dale, leaned forward on the counter. “And I make no apologies for it. But I also shut Ty down. I threw his hesitation to join the last fire fight in his face, a decision I truly admired, but last night I made it sound like I didn’t trust him to move when it mattered.”
“Because last night you were scared,” Nick said, easy as telling the weather. “Scared looks like anger on you. Looks like orders. They know that. Doesn’t make it easier to swallow.”
“Ty shouldn’t have had to swallow that shit,” Dale said.
Nick lifted a brow. “No, he shouldn’t, but Ty reads all the angles in a conversation. It’s why he is so good at what he does. Trust that.”
“Oren carries everything alone until he breaks,” Dale said, throat tight. “He didn’t tell us about Carson until he’d had time to process it on his own. He didn’t give us the opportunity to help him with that. I said the wrong thing trying to make him understand that.”
“Then make it a rule,” Nick said. “One they can stand by. You want trust? You give it first and you make it impossible to miss.” He held up a finger.
“One, you tell them you were wrong last night. No excuses. No hedging. Two, you spell out what you need in plain words. When it goes bad, I want it fast. No poetry. Three, you ask them what they need from you. And then you shut up and listen long enough to hear the part they’re not saying. ”
Dale stared at him. “That simple?”
“It’s never simple,” Nick said. “It’s just what you need to do.
” He took his own coffee and sipped. “You’re the alpha in this relationship, whether you want the badge or not.
Being the alpha isn’t you barking. It’s you making the room safe enough that the other two bring you the worst thing at 2:00 AM without worrying about the look on your face when they do. ”
Dale felt the words land where they needed to. The ache behind his eyes wasn’t from the whiskey anymore. It was from the part of him that wanted to do it right and kept tripping over his own boots.
Nick nodded toward the hall. “You apologize to them both. You don’t make it about your fear.
You make it about the team. You tell Ty you trust his instincts and his skills, and you want him to work next to you.
You tell Oren you’re done letting him carry ghosts alone, and that you will stand with, beside, and in front of him when the time calls for it.
And then you prove it by staying in the room when it’s ugly. ”
“And if it goes sideways,” Dale said, voice low.
“Then you do what you always do,” Nick said. “You hold the fucking line. You make the call no one else wants to make. But you don’t make it alone if you don’t have to. That’s the difference.”
Silence sat with them a beat. The pastry had disappeared. Dale couldn’t remember finishing it. He felt human again, which was annoying. He preferred the punishment.
Nick watched him, then pushed one more cup across the island. “Backup. Because you’re going to try and fix a lot of hurt your mouth threw out last night, and you’re going to need the fuel.”
Dale took it. “I hate that you’re right.”
“Occupational hazard.” Nick straightened. “One more thing. Don’t perform the apology. Mean it. The ones we love, that know us better than anyone, can smell the difference.”
Dale nodded. The headache had moved back a step. The guilt hadn’t, but it had quit throwing elbows. “I’m going to make this work,” he said.
Nick’s mouth tipped. “Who were you kidding—you already decided that when you started drinking whiskey you don’t even like.” He reached for his hat. “Text me when you’ve handled your end. If you screw it up, I’ll come back with Sam and Aiden, and we’ll lecture you as a team.”
“God help me,” Dale muttered.
“He usually does.” Nick headed for the door and paused with his hand on the frame. “Go wash the confectionery sugar off your face. Then go be the man they can trust. Anything else is unacceptable.”
The door shut softly behind him. The house breathed. Dale scrubbed his hands over his face and felt the decision settle in the places decisions stayed made. Shower. Food. Find Ty. Find Oren. Say it right. Back it up.
He threw the empty whiskey bottle in the trash and went to start the water. Work first. Then the men. Then the day.
****
It was still dark enough to make the ridge a shape instead of a place.
Oren pulled on a t-shirt and his shoes and told himself thirty minutes would be enough to shake the grit out of his head.
He had slept like shit, oscillating between wanting to go find Ty, dragging him to Dale’s and have it all out with them, and wanting to hide, bury his head, and pretend that everything was fine.
It wasn’t and he would need to sort through all this shit, but not yet. He’d run until he could function better, and then he’d call Marsh so that they would tackle the fence. Walk it, not just watch it. Find the door Carson thought he owned and close it.
He eased the barracks door shut and breathed the air the way he always did before a run.
In, count four, out, count six, until the chest unclenched.
The gravel under his shoes was wet with whatever passed for dew up here.
He rolled his shoulders and set off along the service road, legs remembering before the rest of him did.
A shape broke from the trees up ahead. It wasn’t a man. Brown and low, tail high, nose to the ground like it had a job to do. Oren stopped in the trail.
The dog saw him before he saw the handler. Chocolate lab, big head, coat glossy even under bad light. It blew past him in a fast loop and came back to sniff his shorts pockets like he might be hiding something in there.