27. NINEAH
NINEAH
ISQUEEZED AbrAHAM’S HAND as I took the steps into the cabin.
“Could we get some water, please,” Abraham said to the attendant as he led me to one of the seats.
I breathed in deeply through my nose, waiting for the moment of panic to pass, trying and failing to pinpoint the trigger. A voice I normally kept a lid on slithered into the conversation uninvited.
So, that’s what we’re calling it now? Panic?
Shaking the intrusive thought away, I inhaled the scent of a man who’d altered my perception of fucking with one orgasm and grounded myself in a memory.
A new one. Not of frosted flakes in front of a television, but in a Latvian rental where sun filtered through the window and I’d been more attuned to the pain radiating from my ass than that of my injuries.
Where for two minutes, the world around me wasn’t crumbling from the top down.
Crisp sheets, I stamped.
Warm skin, I recorded.
I labeled, dated and shelved each piece of the memory like evidence imperative to a case. Easily accessible so I could return to it when I needed it, because judging by the vibes I was getting from my husband, I couldn’t be certain I was getting another.
The expression I’d seen from the balcony window this morning had been an exact copy of the one he’d worn sitting outside my hospital room days ago.
Gone was the lover, in its place, the Marine. Stoic. Focused. Locked the hell up. And the message was clear—I wasn’t getting back through.
Folding my arms over my body, leaning back into the premium leather headrest, I knew it was time to start devising my own game plan.
My culpability in the prior fortnight’s events wasn’t a debate, it was simply a matter of where I fell into the picture.
But Abraham complicated things. I didn’t know what dangers I was bringing to his doorstep with my recklessness and that scared me because I may not have known men, but I knew men like him.
Honorable and self-sacrificial to his core, he’d think nothing of putting his ass on the line for my irresponsibility.
Even still. My head pounded, my body ached, and following the most basic of linear thought patterns was exhausting.
Even things I should have remembered like my old work passwords, the address of my DC apartment, the last garment I’d sewn, evaded me.
I closed my eyes, quieting the static noise of too many thoughts and not enough storage to organize them, but they refused to submit.
The pilot’s voice came over the intercom just then, notifying us that we’d stop for fuel at La Guardia before taking off for Dulles and the flight attendant returned.
“Here,” Abraham said, placing a plastic cup of ice water on the small porcelain table that separated us. “Take this.”
I glanced at the two pills—one white, one yellow—on an embossed black napkin. “What are these?”
“Ambien and Atomoxetine.”
Picking up the water cup, I stared at the pills while I sipped. “I’m on drugs now?”
“For your ADHD. You went on meds after you started having anxiety at work,” he explained.
Eyeing the pills with suspicion, I picked them up anyway and swallowed them down with water. “If I start buzzing like a crackhead, I’m making a citizen’s arrest.”
“You should try and sleep. It’s a long flight back to DC.”
Knowing a dismissal when I heard one, I leaned back in my seat, fully expecting to flop around for the next three hours while I tried to get comfortable, but by the time the plane began to taxi down the runway and the seatbelt warning light came on, I was already drifting.
WE TOUCHED down in Dulles just before three in the afternoon.
Abraham had woken me at our stop in New York for a meal and I’d spent the rest of the flight watching the clouds.
My body stiff from sitting in one place for so long, I stretched my muscles as he grabbed both of our bags and the crew lowered the stairs.
On the tarmac, a black SUV idled next to a large man—albeit, not as big as Abraham—with dark skin, who was smoking a cigarette.
He tossed it on the ground and stomped it out as we approached.
“Long time, no speak,” he said, looking right at me.
Hesitating, I glanced at Abraham but he’d already headed for the trunk to stow our bags. I cleared my throat. “Do we know each other?”
He raised a brow. “You got your shit rocked good, then?”
I winced. “Yeah.”
Stuffing a tin case with no label into the breast pocket of his black T-shirt, the man jerked his chin toward the back where Abraham was closing the trunk. “What about him?”
My guilt hit a new high. “Uh, sort of.”
“Damn. No wonder he’s in a more fucked up mood than normal.”
Abraham rounded the vehicle, regarding the man who hadn’t told me his name with a nod and opened the door to the backseat for me.
I let myself in without assistance this time, using the handle for balance, but before I could reach for my seatbelt, he beat me to it, buckling me in.
Abraham paused as if he might say something, but changed his mind.
The man who smoked cigarettes that smelled like no brand I recognized, took the passenger seat and Abraham took the driver’s.
Neither of them spoke as Abraham drove off the tarmac and toward the parking garage.
A few minutes later, Abraham stopped the car on the mid-level and the man got out.
Moving toward my window, he knocked on the glass and motioned for me to roll it down.
I pressed the button and the glass slid down.
“Lagos,” he said.
I blinked. Studying his features more closely now, I was surprised I couldn’t place him. “I remember Lagos, but I don’t remember you.”
“Not me,” he said. “My little brother. Lagos was his last op. A week after he got back, a meth head trying to rob a gas station, shot it up. He threw himself in front of a little girl. She lived. He didn’t.”
Immediately, a face came to me. Smooth brown skin.
Devious smile. The only Black man on his team.
He’d carried a deck of playing cards with him at all times and was always trying to entice someone into a game of spades.
I’d met the operator exactly once on a mission I was never supposed to assist, and with a serious expression, he’d told me to get out of the military.
At the time, I’d been offended, but by the tail end of my service, I’d wondered if he was only trying to be helpful.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, sincerely. “Dane, right?”
The man nodded. Then with the same stony expression his brother had leveled at me once all those years ago, he glanced toward the front of the SUV. “It’s already different when it’s family. So, I can only imagine when it’s your woman. Go easy.”
I swallowed past a lump in my throat and nodded. “I will.”
With that, the taller, bigger Dane brother disappeared into the parking garage and the window slid back up.
Abraham drove silently, glancing at me from the rearview every so often as if he were afraid I might bail out on the highway or something.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled into the drive-thru of a sandwich shop and ordered me a turkey club I mostly picked at.
The silence, the events of the week, last night—everything seemed to close in all at once and like the electrically charged air before a thunderstorm, I could feel the change in energy.
Abraham confirmed my fears with the next words out of his mouth. “When we get to the house, I’ll help you get settled in.”
I didn’t miss the emphasis on what he’d omitted—he wasn’t going to be the one settling in. Wrapping the partially eaten sandwich, I sat up in my seat. “And where will you be staying? A hotel?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “FX has a safe house nearby.”
I nodded, swallowing down hurt and feeling stupid that I felt it at all. “Oh.”
“There is nothing about last night that I regret. That being said, I think it’s for the best if you remain focused on your recovery for now.”
Liar, the confrontational voice said. I ignored her.
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
His tone brook no argument, so neither did I. Folding my hands in my lap, keenly aware of the missing ring I had yet to ask about, I did exactly what Abraham clearly wanted—absolutely nothing.