Chapter Nine
Kael
“Let’s get some food in you,” I told Phillips as he plopped down on my couch. He hadn’t eaten since he’d arrived two days ago. Lots of sleep—well, if you counted waking up in hot sweats and screams every two hours or so as sleep.
I microwaved a bit of lasagna that Karina had dropped off before she went to work, knowing that we wouldn’t see each other much for at least a few more days. With everything still left unsettled with Phillips and Elodie, and me trying to keep Elodie’s husband from the group for as long as possible in hopes of avoiding him finding out about his wife and Fischer, and Karina taking care of Elodie while trying to manage her brother’s shit, we were both booked and cooked emotionally.
But still, Karina had thought of me and had brought me a sheet pan full of lasagna. It didn’t have meat in it, eggplant instead, which I had never in my life had, but it was fucking good and even cold I shoveled it down my throat. As I heated some up for Phillips, I closed my eyes for a second, remembering how sexy she’d looked when she stopped by. She was in her normal work clothes, too tight for her to wear around anyone but me, but I couldn’t say that without her cussing me out, so I quietly watched the sway of her thick ass and the brightness in her eyes, even though I knew she had to be so damned tired, and the way she looked at me made me feel starved for her touch.
She was at my house for less than five minutes and we were outside the whole time, but I managed to kiss her as many times as humanly fucking possible, and kept her in my arms as long as I could. I was fully addicted to her now, and the comfort she brought by simply being around me. The smell of her hair instantly brought my heart rate down, the sound of her voice silenced the screaming ones in my head, and the thump of her heart beating against mine when I hugged her close made the pain in my throbbing leg fade.
When I asked her how Elodie was, she told me she was okay, that the two of them were working double shifts to keep themselves busy until everything settled. Problem was, neither of us knew when or how any of this would be settled, but there we were, hugging and kissing goodbye as if we wouldn’t see each other for at least a month.
The microwave beeped, bringing me back to the kitchen and away from Karina. I plopped the square of lasagna onto a plate, grabbed a fork, and carried it into the living room.
“Thanks, bro.” Phillips’s eyes were a bit lighter, a little more life to them. He blew on the steaming food and took a bite.
Inspecting the plate as he chewed, he looked pleased. A touch of color came back into his cheeks as he scarfed down the whole thing. I offered him more, and he followed me into the kitchen.
“You seem to be feeling better?”
“I feel okay, then not, then okay again. There’s a sense of . . . panic?” He seemed like he wasn’t sure of the exact emotion, but I could relate all too well.
“Yeah, that’s understandable. Your body is used to being on guard, your mind, too, and now it’s like, what am I supposed to be doing?”
“That’s exactly it. I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing? And not just about the fact that my wife hates me now, but I literally don’t have a clue what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing? Like even now, I’m eating . . . then what? I don’t have to report to the company until tomorrow, what am I supposed to do all day?” He scratched at his head and stared at the numbers counting down on the microwave.
“You’re going to help me and Fischer today. If you want to have a place to live, you’ve got to help us finish the flooring next door. If we bust our asses we can get everything done in a week.”
“If she even wants to live with me anymore. You should have seen the way she was looking at me, like I was some fucking psychopath, like she had never met me before.”
“She hasn’t met this version of you before. And you need to think about how she must feel. That makes it easier to process, if you try to put yourself in her shoes. The man she married didn’t come home, you were drunk off your ass. Did you really try to force her to have sex with you? Just because she’s your wife does not mean you can sexually assault her.” I felt my anger bubbling but tried to keep it at bay, knowing it wouldn’t be helpful right now.
He shook his head. “I didn’t assault her, but I was way out of line. I’ve sent her so many apologies but she still doesn’t want to see me. I was wrong, that’s for damn sure, but I don’t know how to get her to forgive me and make her understand that nothing like that will ever happen again.”
“Can you guarantee that?”
He nodded, his eyes dead set on mine. “Yes. I fucking missed her, and you know it’s been a while.”
I clenched the countertop. “That’s not an excuse for what you did.”
“I know, I know.” He threw his arms up in defense. “That’s not what I meant. But it will never, ever happen again.”
“I’ll kill you myself if it does, and if I’m gone, I’ll turn you in and have someone else do the job for me.”
The microwave interrupted the tension for a second. “I fucked up, I know. I’m going to be on my best behavior from now on, and I’m not going to drink again.”
“And give her space and the time she needs,” I added.
We were both quiet as the food whirled around in the microwave between us.
“Martin?” He said my name in a whisper and his gaze was far away. “Do you ever want to go back?”
“Back where?”
“Over there.” Phillips jerked his head toward the front of the house, but I knew where he meant.
“To be honest, yeah, sometimes. I feel a bit lost here, trying to figure out who I am without the uniform, what my purpose in life is without the guise of fighting for freedom that will never come.” I leaned my arms against the island.
“I keep thinking I should have stayed. When I got called into the tent, I said yes right off the bat. But now I think I might regret it. It might be because it’s so new, but at least there I knew what I was supposed to be doing.”
“Who called you in?” I asked, even though I knew who’d orchestrated the entire thing; all roads led back to Karina’s dad. No one else cared about a low-level PFC coming home early. The question was why? You don’t just happen to get called into your commander’s tent with orders to leave early from a goddamn war.
“Our commander. I didn’t get a lot of information and I didn’t ask, I was just ready to get the fuck out of there at the earliest possible time. I hopped on a plane and here I am. But now I’m supposed to be a husband, and a father soon.” The pure panic in his eyes was very clear. Truthfully, even if I didn’t know about Elodie and Fischer, I would be utterly terrified.
“Let’s focus on one thing at a time. Today we get the shit done next door. Fischer will be here soon to help. He’s gotten damn good, he’s nearly faster than me at all this.”
“Speaking of Fischer, he’s so different now. I didn’t know him much before, but I met him at Mendoza’s right before we left last time, and he was just a kid. Now he’s . . . I don’t know. Not to sound like a whiny bitch, but I swear he doesn’t like me.”
I considered asking Phillips more about Karina’s father and if they’d spoken directly, or if my paranoia was making him more of a game maker in our lives than he was, but decided not to yet.
“You sound like a whiny bitch, one hundred percent.” I laughed a little, not because it was funny, but because all our lives were so fucked up right now.
“And you’re fucking his sister. How does that work with you two being so buddy-buddy?”
“I’m not fucking his sister, I’m in love with her. We’re together, not only fucking. So it doesn’t matter what her brother thinks about it, or what anyone thinks.”
Phillips began to talk with his mouthful of food. “I’m not judging or saying shit. I’m curious because you’ve never even looked at a woman, even Turner, who wanted to rip your clothes off many, many times. What made you fall for the Fischer girl?”
“Karina,” I corrected him. “Her name is Karina, so call her that and only that. And everything. Everything about her made me love her and makes me love her more every day. So keep that in mind when you mention her name in front of or behind me. Now stop asking me about my love life and eat so we can get shit done.”