Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Rory’s heart was about to jump out of her chest as she hurried toward Chris’s bedroom later that night.
Unable to sleep after his unsettling reaction to the war movie, she’d been tossing and turning when a loud thud startled her into action.
Had Bear snuck into Chris’s room again and fallen off the bed?
The door was completely shut, which she knew he would never do in case Bear wanted to break the rules and sneak in.
What sounded like an anguished moan came from the other side of the door. “Chris?” She knocked and shook the handle. Locked.
Shit. She ran to the bathroom in the hall and retrieved a bobby pin from her cosmetics bag. It took less than two seconds to pick and breach the lock, after which she dropped the pin and turned the handle, anxious to ensure he was okay.
As the door eased open, light from the hall spilled into the room. The last thing she expected was to see Chris on the floor next to his bed, sitting upright, gun aimed directly at her. His eyes were expressionless. Vacant.
Her hands shot to the air in alarm. “It’s me. Rory.”
Taking slow, cautious steps, she moved closer, but Chris didn’t budge. He was panting hard—arms rigidly extended, gun still aimed at her. Most likely disoriented.
She made her move anyway, slipping close and crouching alongside him.
“I’m going to take your gun from you,” she said in a gentle tone. When her fingers wrapped over his wrist, he finally loosened his hold of the gun.
His eyes fell closed.
His breathing became shallow.
A moment later, he unleashed a barely audible “fuck.”
Once she disarmed him, she brought a hand beneath his arm and guided him to sit on the bed. “I got you.” She repeated the words he’d spoken last Friday when he’d carried her to her room after a humiliating bout of throwing up brownies.
Elbows on his thighs, Chris lowered his head to his palms. “I’m so damn sorry. I thought I locked the door just in case.” The words were muffled as she sat next to him.
“You were worried you might fall and grab your gun, so you locked the door?” she asked in surprise. “And you did lock the door,” she noted when he sat upright and stole a look her way. “I picked it. Sorry, I was worried.”
Still nothing from him other than embarrassment, which was obvious even in the dim light as he sat there clad only in black boxer briefs, every muscle in his body tight as a bowstring.
“Does this happen often?” Her brother experienced the same kind of falling-out-of-bed-and-grabbing-his-gun moments after Iraq, too. Jesse just refused to use the letters PTSD, though, when referring to himself.
“Not often,” he said, eyes back on the floor beneath their feet. “I thought I was in Iraq. I’m so sorry. The dream was more like a memory. A fucking shitty memory.”
More layers. More painful layers.
“You don’t need to apologize.” She brought her free hand to his cheek, urging him to look her way. “Never apologize.”
His brows gathered inward as he studied her, and he nodded after a brief moment.
“I visited my friend Jamel tonight. He’s in an assisted living facility.
” He paused as if taking a second to decide if he ought to continue.
“He lives about forty-five minutes from here, so I try and see him when I can, but it’s hard.
He doesn’t always remember me. Got a TBI in Iraq.
” His voice was scratchy. Raw with emotion.
“There was a blast about twelve years ago. Took down a lot of good men. No one died, but the other scars . . . some wish they had died, and well, I try to do what I can to remind them that they’re still Teamguys, and we don’t quit when it gets hard.
” He tensed and swallowed. “And I’ll remind them of that every damn day if I have to. Whatever it takes.”
Tears filled her eyes as he spoke.
Such powerful and strong words.
A wrenching pain in her abdomen had her forearm banding across her midsection to try and ease the hurt filling her body as she absorbed Chris’s emotions.
“Seeing him, is that why you had that dream?” she asked softly, but there was more, wasn’t there? The movie. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” It was his hand now guiding her face back his way when she started to turn.
“I just try to avoid any reminders of Iraq or Afghanistan.” He released his hold of her and stood, then went for his gun and slid it beneath the bed.
“I need to start putting this in my lock box, especially if Elaina comes around. Just hate the time it adds if I actually did need to go for my gun in a crunch.”
She immediately rose, worried he would shut her out before he really let her in.
“I know, it seems strange that I’m totally fine operating, hunting down bad guys, but a movie or a visit with a friend can screw up my head.
” He started for the doorway as if needing to escape, but then spun and faced her, the light from the hall a halo surrounding him.
His hands sat at the cut of muscle just above his waistband, right where the V began its descent to .
. . God, what was wrong with her? “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to stay at my house anymore since I’m messed up.
Now that you’re, um, actually seeing some of what’s beneath the funny guy. ”
Three steps closed the space between them. “I don’t think you’re messed up at all,” she hurried out. “And I do want to see you. All of you.” Even if I’m scared for reasons you don’t know yet.
He dragged a palm down his throat. “I need water.”
She gave him a second, then followed him to the kitchen, blinking against the bright fluorescent lights.
Chris stood at the fridge, his back to her, one arm slung over the door as he chugged a bottle of water. His muscles were flexed, and she forced herself to look away. Under the circumstances, after what had just happened, it was wrong to be ogling him, right?
He shut the door, tossed the bottle into the recycling bin, and brought his back to the counter. If he moved too much, she was fairly certain the slit at the front of his boxers would reveal what was beneath.
“No ink.” Her gaze followed the lines of his body all the way up to his face.
“I hate needles, and although I’m a guy who clearly likes to face my fears—you know, still operating despite being messed up .
. . and no worries, I’m levelheaded and fine when downrange, but uh.
” He was rambling. Still trying to shake off that dream, she supposed. “But needles, I just don’t like ’em.”
She padded farther into the kitchen, eating up the space between them.
“Everyone I know has a reason why they joined. My brother. A.J. What was your reason? Who was your someone?” she asked, thinking back to their conversation Friday night on her patio in New Orleans.
He never did answer her then, and maybe now wasn’t the time to ask, but the question had tumbled free.
She was fascinated by the man who was much more than what he let on.
Chris stole a look at Bear’s bed, and Rory followed his focus to see Bear yawning. “The ‘someone’ was my mom. She was my reason.” His voice was tense when he spoke. And Rory had a feeling he wasn’t about to deliver a happy story.
More layers.
Slowly peeling.
Painfully beat by beat.
And she was there for it. For him.
His hands cupped the counter at his sides, fingertips disappearing under the ledge.
She stopped inches away from him, so drawn to him whenever they were close to each other. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I won’t push.”
He brought his eyes to her face, his mouth a white slash across his tan skin. “And if I want to?” Surprise filled his tone. Surprised he wanted to share?
He didn’t set his hands on her hips like she wanted him to. He kept them gripped to the counter, but she saw restraint in his posture. The way he was working hard to prevent himself from either reaching for her or running.
“Tell me.” The words were almost a breathless whisper.
“My mom is the reason why I ran away at sixteen. Well, her and my dad’s drinking.
” One hand released his death grip on the counter to squeeze the bridge of his nose.
The loss of eye contact was almost too much to handle, and the weight of his words had her knees weak.
“I took my dad’s truck and just drove and drove.
I got all the way to Virginia Beach. The sun wasn’t even out yet, but I saw these guys on the beach in teams carrying big, fat logs over their heads.
I breached the private property and hid, watching the men get chewed out by their instructors from a distance. ”
BUD/S?
He lowered his hand and pinned her with a determined look, eyes now the color of the Mediterranean, then brushed his palm along his sternum before placing it on the counter again.
She drew in a quick breath, entranced by his story, as she waited for him to continue.
“An officer caught me, and man did the guy have Popeye arms,” he said with a forced smile. “Clearly ate his spinach.”
“You’re doing it again,” she reminded him. “Using jokes to hide your emotions.”
It was second nature for him, and it broke her heart.
She resisted the urge to reach out and pull this man in for a hug because, in her heart, she knew this very moment was probably the emotional equivalent of a hundred kisses in terms of line-crossing.
And it was then that his gaze fell to her lips as if he wanted to ease his pain by devouring her.
“The officer asked how the hell I got onto the property, and I told him I was stealthy. He shocked the hell out of me because I was expecting him to haul me down to the station or something, but instead, he told me to join when I hit eighteen. So that day, I made up my mind to be a SEAL. Then I drove back home, got my ass chewed out for stealing my dad’s truck, and set out to become a Teamguy from that day forward.
Joined the Navy the second I graduated high school. ”
That’s why you started caring about school at sixteen. “And you never looked back.”