Chapter Fifty-Eight
Phoenix
I pulled into the garage right before dawn.
Judas was already gone by the time I quietly entered the house, retrieved the note I’d left on the kitchen counter, tossed it, then hit my bed.
Next thing I knew, it was oh ten hundred, and the house was quiet. Too damn quiet.
I threw on sweats and got up.
Lincoln’s door was half open, and he was face down, sacked out.
I trespassed.
Silently entering his room, I took in his neatly folded pile of clothes on top of the dresser, music books for piano next to them, some binders labeled with school subjects, and a small photo album.
The loose photos I’d grabbed were on top of the album, and both his old and new cell, each powered down, were neatly lined up next to it, and that was it.
No charging cables, no wallet, no keys, no cash.
I removed the SIM card from the old phone.
Then, carefully centered and prominently displayed in the middle of the bookshelf, I saw what I’d suspected had been in his backpack all along.
An urn. Metal, threaded lid, no engraving.
His mother’s ashes.
My son exhaled and shifted.
Before he’d stretched his legs and rolled over, I’d exfilled. Retreating to the hall just outside his room, I knocked. “Good morning. How’d you sleep?”
“Oh, ah.” Sitting up, he scrubbed a hand over his face. “Good. This bed is really great.” He smiled. It was bashful but came quicker than yesterday. “My feet don’t hang off the end.”
I simultaneously felt like a victor and like my chest was being bludgeoned.
My son hadn’t even had a comfortable bed to sleep in.
“If you outgrow this one, we’ll swap out your king mattress for a California king.
” Slightly narrower but longer, it was what I had.
I should’ve thought ahead. “How about some breakfast, then we’ll get you some new clothes. ”
“Oh, um, I don’t need anything.” He stood and rubbed a hand over his stomach. “But breakfast sounds good.”
The kid needed everything. “Miami’s a warmer climate. We’ll get you a few things, then go from there. Good?”
“Okay.”
I tipped my chin toward his bed. “The nightstands have built-in charging stations for your cell. I’ll have Cypher get you a laptop and tablet today.” Both encrypted. “Meet me in the kitchen when you’re ready.”
“Oh, ah, okay. Thanks.”
“You never have to thank me, Lincoln.” I smiled to soften the delivery, but then I headed to the kitchen, checking my cell on the way. No texts from Isla. Seven from Cypher with logistical and security questions, and one from Helios saying he was done babysitting.
I fired off a text to Tauk for a sitrep, replied to Cypher with the answers he needed, and ignored Helios.
Then I cooked.
An hour and four eggs, a pound of bacon, six slices of toast, and half a pineapple later, Lincoln seemed full, and I’d discovered neither of us preferred shopping in person.
Taking him to the command room for the house, tackling two action items at once, I showed him the basics of the home’s security systems. Then we ordered items online for him.
Minus a couple pairs of jeans that were longer in length than the ones he had now, my son asked for clothes like mine.
Tactical pants, microfiber T-shirts and polos, the sweatpants I’d worn last night to make dinner, the gym shorts I was currently wearing. He also asked for boots. Danner MEBs.
I didn’t have words for the swelling in my chest.
I had him pick out a new backpack. He chose Eberlestock, the Apprentice model in black. He said it was cool. I thought of my intruse and wondered who’d bought her the well-worn Eberlestock pack she had.
Lincoln and I finished up the online shopping with some board shorts, flip-flops, underwear, socks, a wallet, toiletries, and a few music books he’d asked for.
I glanced from the computer to my son. “Anything else?”
He looked at my head, then ran a hand through his hair. “I think I need a haircut.”
“Copy.” I turned off the monitor. “We can hit up a barber, then swim.” Last night at dinner and this morning at breakfast, he’d eyed the pool no less than two dozen times.
“Um.” He drew in one of his deep breaths. “Mom used to cut my hair. But if you have clippers, I think I can do it myself.”
His mother had cut his hair.
All the times I’d watched his videos, stared at his picture.
The longer bangs, the grown-out sides, the slight disarray—it’d never occurred to me that it wasn’t an intentional style.
Of all the fucking injustices in this world, of every horrific thing I’d witnessed in humanity, I didn’t know why this—a haircut—pierced so damn deep, but it did.
The months he’d spent in that old woman’s house, too uncomfortable to ask for a fucking haircut.
Now he wanted clippers. To take care of it himself.
Jesus.
Rage, guilt, grief for his loss—I choked it all down.
“I do have clippers. I cut my own hair.” A habit born from the Vice Admiral coming off a deployment when I was eight.
He’d handed me trimmers, told me I’d looked like shit, and ordered me to take care of it.
“If you trust me, want a high and tight, fade or crew, I can handle it.”
My son’s eyebrows drew together. “I’m not sure what those are? Can you, um, cut it like yours?”
“Absolutely.” I stood. “Follow me.”
I gave my son a crew cut.
Then gave myself a trim.
Matching haircuts.
Lincoln had smiled at the results. Which made me smile.
Then we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming.
First in the ocean because Lincoln had said he’d never been in the Atlantic, then the pool.
He’d talked about music, his mother, and school.
The first two he loved, the second he was indifferent about.
I also discovered he was a strong swimmer—his mother’s doing—and he had endless energy.
I thought again how he’d make an incredible SEAL.
Then the idea of him geared up, tip of the spear, ready to kick down doors, was a gut punch.
I thought of my little intruse all day long. It was second only to my most consuming thought.
I loved my son.
Pure of heart, intelligent, humorous when he let his guard down, and talented. Christ, he was talented. He’d played the piano in the living room while I’d cooked dinner, calling out to ask me what songs I liked.
I’d told him I was indiscriminate just so I could hear what he chose to play.
Rock, classical, jazz. He’d played it all flawlessly.
By the time dinner was ready, I not only recognized what an incredible job his mother had done in raising Lincoln, but that I wasn’t sure my presence, especially when I was active duty, would’ve enriched his first fifteen years. Financially, it would have. But emotionally?
I didn’t have an answer.
I served dinner.
Lincoln ate like I hadn’t fed him in a week. Then, when his plate was empty, he brought up Isla. “So, did you get to see your friend last night? When you left?”
I locked down my expression. “You knew I stepped out?” He hadn’t mentioned it all day.
He shrugged. “I saw Judas when I got up for a glass of water.”
Judas hadn’t told me either. “He didn’t mention that.”
Lincoln laughed nervously. “Well, he doesn’t really talk much. He just asked if I needed anything, then said you left a note. Me and Mom used to do that too. Leave notes? Anyway, I told him I was getting water, and he didn’t say anything else. So… your friend?”
“I did see her.” I watched him carefully for a reaction. Anxiousness, fear, uncomfortableness. He didn’t show signs of any.
“What’s she like?” he asked curiously.
I answered honestly. “Like someone I feel the need to protect you from.”
“Why?” he asked innocently. “Is she scary like you?”
“I’m scary?” I was a warfighter. It was demasculinizing to even say the damn word. I wasn’t a Halloween prop.
Lincoln nodded vigorously. “Oh yeah.” His expression sobered. “But, like, not to me.”
“Good to know.” I half smiled. “And no, she isn’t frightening, but she is a trespasser.” And she’d trespass all over his tender heart.
His eyes widened. “For real?”
“For real,” I returned. “Caught her trespassing on one of my properties. Squatting, actually. When I asked what she was doing, she pretended not to understand me. Then used sign language—she’s neither deaf nor mute.
Asked if I’d been invited to dinner by the owner too.
I told her I was the owner, and she was trespassing. ”
“Whoa. And now you’re… dating her?”
“Yes.”
My son stared. Then he hazed me like only a teenager could. “You’re so not normal.”
I smiled. “Reconsidering the guardianship yet?”
He smiled back. “Good one.” His expression turned serious again. “So, like, what does your girlfriend do?”
“Today or in general?” She’d been radio silent, but Tauk had texted back. They’d cooked. She swam and napped. I ignored the fact that I was jealous.
Lincoln shrugged. “Either, I guess.”
Testing the waters, I downloaded more intel on my little intruse.
“She’s unemployed. She’s spent the past decade traveling.
Backpacking, living off the land. She likes to swim, cook, and talk shit.
She’s also quick to smile, carries a journal she doesn’t write in, and she’s younger than me.
” By twelve years. Which made her only eleven years older than Lincoln.
“And you like her?”
“Very much.”
My son, suddenly looking wise beyond his years, nodded. “Mom told me once that if you meet the right person, you’ll know. But that it may not be, like, the right time, so you just have to make room anyway. You know. For that kind of thing,” he added.
“Thing,” I repeated, contemplating how my life had gone from covert Black Ops to relationship advice, not for, but from my fifteen-year-old son virtually overnight.
“Um, yeah. Love?” His smile—part forlorn, part grief, all filial love—tipped the sides of his mouth up.
“Mom said I was her best accident. We, ah, kinda joked about it.” He looked down.
“But she did tell me, like, all the time, that she knew love when she had me. Like, it was instant.” He inhaled quickly and shook his head.
“She said I’d know it one day too.” His voice broke.
“But I already did.” He looked up with wet eyes, but fierce conviction. “She was my mom. I loved her.”
Reaching across the table, I gripped his shoulder. “She will always be your mother, Lincoln, and you will always love her.”
His throat shifted with a hard swallow. “Yeah.”
We sat like that for a moment. My son letting me comfort him, and me wishing like hell I could take away his grief.
I wouldn’t have traded those minutes for anything.