Chapter 18
18
HANK
A fter running home to shower and change, I immediately hopped back on my bike to head downtown and try to make it into work before my absence was noticed too much. As I slipped in, I peered across the hall towards Kolbi’s office to see if he was in yet, but it looked empty. I took a breath as I sat down at my desk to check in with my team, grateful that I had escaped the third-degree for being late. I had just started to go through my email, trying to act as if I didn’t show up almost an hour late, when my best friend’s voice came from behind me.
“Care to share why you were late this morning?” His voice came out low and smooth next to my head and I could feel his breath on the back of my neck.
“Jeezus dude.” I flinched in my seat. “Don’t sneak up on me. You do remember that I’ve been trained to be able to snap someone’s neck, right? You just seriously put your life in danger.”
“Even if you could snap my neck, it wouldn’t get you out of explaining why you were late this morning. You’re never late. Ever. You’re the golden boy of rule following, it’s why you made such a good soldier.” He moved to the front of my desk and set both hands down on its edge, leaning in so his face was level to mine. “Spill it, Martínez.”
I pursed my lips together, internally debating whether or not I should tell him about my night with Bailey. I loved all my friends equally, but out of all of them, I knew I could talk to Kolbi about this and he wouldn’t give me a hard time or ask stupid questions. He was the kind of friend you went to when you had things like this to share. You went to Malcolm for an ego-boost and to Conrad for a logical brain to talk things through with. I was the one you went to if you needed someone to help you get out of a tough spot. We all had our roles in the group and we all played them well.
“Hank?” He leaned further on my desk, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Listen, we’re at work, and I would really appreciate it if we could not talk about personal things while we’re here, Kolb. Can we talk over lunch?”
He gave me a look out of the corner of his eye, standing up from leaning on my desk.
“Sure. Everything okay though?” Leave it to Kolbi to always act like the concerned older brother.
“Yeah, everything’s good.”
“Alright, over lunch then.”
He walked away and headed towards his office. Once he was gone, I took a deep breath and finally started to get into my work for the day.
It had been several hours and I was deep into setting up schedules for security teams for the different events around the city when Kolbi walked up to my desk and tossed a brown paper bag down in front of me.
“Time for lunch, brother.” I looked up at him and saw his signature smile on his face. The one he gave you when he knew you were about to spill your guts to him. I hadn’t seen it since I told him I had enlisted. He was the first of my friends I told because I knew that he would be quickest to get on board with my decision.
“Hang on let me?—”
“Now. I’m the boss, remember? Let’s go.” He walked away from my desk, leaving me with the brown paper bag he’d dumped on my desk.
I guess it was time for lunch.
I followed him down the hallway and into the elevator, neither of us saying anything the entire ride down. We exited the building our offices were in and walked down the street. Once we hit the park that faced the water, he took a seat on one of the benches. I was thankful he chose one under a large oak tree that created a fair amount of shade because in the mid-June heat, sitting in the sun would have been unbearable.
“So, how’s Bailey?” He took a bite of the sandwich he’d pulled out of the bag and kept his eyes fixed on the water. I looked at my friend and could feel my mouth hanging open.
“How the fu?—”
“I’ve known you since the third grade, Hank Martínez. Not once in your entire life have you been late for anything. I knew there had to be a good reason, or a good person, for you to be late today.” He took another bite of his sandwich. “Plus, I put a tracker on your bike and looked her up to find out where she lives after we met her a few weeks ago at the bar.”
I looked at my friend, stunned by what he had just told me.
“Don’t worry, I have a tracker on Malcolm and Conrad’s cars too. I don’t do it to be a creep, I do it to make sure you’re all safe. You guys are like my brothers and I like to know none of you are out doing anything stupid. I never look at where you are unless you aren’t where you’re supposed to be. Like this morning, when you were late to work. I waited half an hour and then pinged your tracker. When it pinged from the same street her condo is on, I put two and two together.” He took the last bite of his sandwich and glanced over at me with a grin.
“Do the guys know you lojacked us?” I couldn’t believe my friend was tracking all of us. I guess it makes sense, he does own a security firm. But damn.
“No, and I would appreciate you not telling them. I only told you because I knew I could trust you not to flip the fuck out about it like a child. And don’t go thinking you can remove the tracker. If you do, I’ll know and just install a new one.”
I looked at my friend warily.
“So,” he continued, “How’s your girl?”
My lips pushed up as the thought of her being ‘my girl’ filled my head. No one had ever made me feel the way I do like she does. Just the thought of her made me smile.
“She’s good.” I nodded, taking a bite of my sandwich. I wanted to talk to him about her, but what we had still felt so new. I didn’t want to overshare or make a big deal about it too soon. But last night she had told me she felt the same way about me that I felt about her, so maybe talking about it wasn’t a bad idea.
“Just good? I checked how long you were at her place. You went over there after the campaign last night and didn’t leave until this morning. Please tell me things were more than just good .”
“They were…” I started. The moment of panic I remembered seeing on her face flashed in front of my eyes. My eyebrows pushed together and I chewed on my lip, thinking about what could have caused her to suddenly feel that way when everything was fine up until that point.
“But….” He noticed the face I was making and gave me a questioning look.
“But, I don’t know man. Things were good, we were…connecting.” I wasn’t going to give him the details while families and tourists were walking around us in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. “But something seemed to spook her. I don’t know what happened. I asked for her consent, she seemed into it, but once we hit a certain point she just…froze.”
“And what did you do?”
“I told her we didn’t have to go any further than she wanted to go. She tried to tell me she was fine but I could tell she wasn’t. I don’t know. I know there’s more to her that she isn’t ready to share with me yet and I won’t force her to. When she’s ready to share, I’ll be ready to listen.” I finished my sandwich and crumpled up the brown paper bag in my hands. My eyes looked out towards the water, trying to understand what had caused her to freeze up like she did.
“Are you going to ask her about it?” he asked. “I’m assuming you’re going to see her again.”
“I don’t know if I can yet. We’ve only gone out a few times and going to her place last night wasn’t exactly planned.” My mind went to what I would say to her when I called her like I promised. I wanted to see her again, hell, I longed to see her again. I hadn’t been lying when I told her that it felt like a piece of me was missing when she wasn’t around.
“She knows about the scars,” I added, keeping my eyes on the water. I could see him look at me quickly out of my periphery.
“Did she ask about them?”
“No. But I didn’t really give her a chance. I didn’t want to ruin the moment by explaining them to her. It’s part of the reason I feel like I can’t ask her about what happened last night. There are things about me I haven’t shared with her either.” As I spoke, the deeply embedded scars on my back seemed to throb, as if they knew I was talking about them and they were reminding me of the pain and anger that plagued my past.
No one knows about the scars on my back except for me, my friends, and the man who put them there. When I was on active duty, many of the men I went to war with saw them, but no one ever asked where they came from. We all seemed to have our own scars, visible or not, so no one asked about anyone else's because they never wanted to have to explain their own.
“Well,” his strong hand clapped me on the shoulder, “I think you’re a good man for not pushing her to do anything she wasn’t ready to do. And I think, if you feel the way I think you feel about her, you should share a little bit of yourself and maybe that will make her feel safe enough to do the same. Good relationships are about mutual trust.”
“Says the man who has secret trackers on each of his best friends,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“I trust you guys as my best friends but I don’t trust you fuckers to not go out and do something stupid. It’s for your own good.” He laughed and stood from the bench. I stood with him. “For real, brother, I’m happy for you. I think if you share this piece of you with Bailey, she might do the same. I don’t know her very well, but she seems like a good one.”
“She is a good one. Thanks for talking, Kolb. I won’t tell the others about the trackers if you don’t tell them about last night. I’m not ready for everyone to be in this yet. I’ll tell them when I’m ready.”
“Your secret is safe with me, brother.”