Chapter Fifteen #2
Death was something we were all too familiar with.
I couldn’t even begin to describe the horrors I’d seen when I was SEAL.
My nightmares had mostly faded, thank fuck.
However, Dominic thought that my memories from the war had been suppressed by the fear of never finding Angel.
My nightmares about my time serving my country stopped, but after I got out of the hospital, I saw Angel’s eyes every night.
Heard her screams and smelled her blood.
I managed to deal with it, just like the guys dealt with their own shit.
We kept going, kept doing jobs, doing what we could for the hellish world we lived in.
Death was a part of the job, then and now, and always would be.
But funerals, they fucked with Dominic and Hayes in a way the rest of us couldn’t figure out.
He stared down into the grave, a muscle jumping in his cheek, the wind flipping his blond hair. After a minute or two, his mouth moved and he released the rose. When it hit the top of the casket, he dipped his head and moved back. He didn’t go to Margo. Instead, he came straight to Angel and me.
“Hello, Hayes,” she softly greeted.
He gave her a weak smile. “Hello, Angel.”
“Thank you for coming.”
“Of course,” he said, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to the top of it. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Her spine straightened against me. “Th-thank you.”
He released her hand and met my eyes. “Ash,” he greeted.
“Hayes.”
“Do you have some time later for a conversation?”
My chest felt tight. “Sure.”
He put his hands in his pockets, stepped back, and studied me and the woman in my arms. Something warm flashed in his eyes, and the tension between us snapped, shredding.
The pieces of our pain floated down to the freshly mowed grass before sinking into the soil.
As he walked away, Angel leaned her head back against my chest. “He’s forgiven you,” she breathed.
I stiffened. “How can you be sure?”
“Because I just watched him throw his anger into that grave.”
Seagulls swarmed above, cackling and squawking as I walked across the parking lot of the Buoy, my eyes on the stairs at the back of the building that led up to Margo’s apartment.
When I was close, the back door of the bar shot open and Joey emerged, looking like a completely different man than when I first met him.
He’d lost at least forty pounds and put on some muscle.
According to Sarah, he looked like the man he was before his father passed.
He gave me a chin lift. “You looking for Margo? She’s behind the bar, doing inventory. ”
“Nah, I have a meeting with Hayes.” I started up the stairs, and he paled.
“You have a meeting with him?” he sputtered.
“Don’t you fuckers have an office in the city?
What the fuck do you need to have a meeting here for?
” He didn’t give me a chance to reply, stepping out into the sunlight.
“Look, while I appreciate you boys protecting Margo and Rachel that one time, I can’t have any more bad shit fly into town. ”
“Joey,” I called. “Calm the fuck down.”
He put his hands on his hips. “No, man, I’m serious.”
“So am I,” I clipped. “Calm down and go back inside.”
The bar owner hesitated. “Are my girls in danger?”
“No.”
His shoulders slumped and he looked up to the sky. “Thank fuck for that. Have a good day.”
As I watched him walk back inside, a dark feeling swirled in my gut.
I looked out to the water, past the seagulls, docks, and the boats, all the way to the deep and the dark clouds lingering above it.
Joey’s girls weren’t in danger, but I wasn’t completely sure mine was safe. Especially here in Astoria.
“Doss.” Hayes was at the top of the stairs, watching me with his brow pinched in concern. “You good?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, taking a last look at the sea.
He came down the stairs and followed my gaze. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“Just a feeling.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Right. We doing this out here or inside?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“You planning on taking a swing at me?” I asked. “Because, Mitchell, gotta be honest, I’m not in the mood to pay Margo for the damages we cause.”
His lips twitched. “So you’re saying you’d swing back?”
I scratched my beard. “No, fucker, I’d throw you into a wall.”
He nodded, looking out to the docks. “Well, that’s what I deserve, so I’d let you.” I flinched at his tone. He turned and headed upstairs. “Come on.”
“I’m not paying for shit,” I called to his back, following him.
“I don’t plan on hitting you, Ash. There’s nothing to pay for,” he said over his shoulder, heading inside.
The scent of Margo’s famous snickerdoodles assaulted my nose as I closed the door behind me, scanning her eclectic space.
Her green couch was the focal point of the living room, a new navy-blue rug underneath it and a large wooden coffee table in front.
The TV was no longer sitting on the funky piece of furniture from the seventies but mounted on the wall.
I gestured to the empty space. “Where’s the weird purple TV stand? ”
“I set it on fire three weeks ago,” Hayes answered, sitting on the arm of the couch.
My eyes dropped to the coffee table and then lifted back to him. “Your taste, I assume.”
He looked uncomfortable. “I need some order, Doss.”
I grunted and checked to see if the yellow land line phone was still on the wall. It was, and a brief moment of relief washed over me. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t let you turn this place cold.”
“Cold?”
“Your apartment could pass for a doctor's office waiting room, Mitchell.”
He tipped his head to the ceiling. “And what would yours pass as? Unlivable? A psych ward?”
My lips flattened. “Uh-huh.” I rolled my neck and looked out the window. “What did you want to talk about? I have to pick up Angel in an hour.”
“How are things going with you two?” he asked after a few seconds of strained silence.
“They’ve just started,” I answered, moving to the window.
Margie’s Place was just down the docks, and I kept my eyes on the teal painted sign as one of the servers—Monty, I think—put the chairs around the patio tables.
Other servers were putting two white roses in vases, then placing them in the center of each table.
They were preparing for the celebration of life dinner tonight.
Angel was in charge of the menu. She was nervous as hell, but I promised her she would have her moment of peace before the event. “She’s going through a lot.”
“She’s been through a lot,” he noted. “So have you.”
I looked over my shoulder at him. “That’s life.”
“Yes.”
My arms folded themselves over my chest, and I sighed through my nose, turning to him. “What did you have to say to me, Hayes?”
He dropped his head, staring at his shoes. “I was fucking pissed at you,” he whispered.
“Trust me, I gathered that when you slammed me against the wall,” I deadpanned.
He straightened. “Yes, and since that day, my actions have been eating at me. I shouldn’t have done that, Ash. My anger got the best of me. For the first time in a long time. That’s not an excuse, but when it comes to you—to you and Angel—I carry a certain pain that’s hard for me to deal with.”
My arms dropped. “What do you—”
“We almost lost you,” he cut me off, his voice hard.
“We did lose you. Gray found you, and then you died on us. Twice. Fuck, it haunts me. When you do stupid shit, careless fucking shit, like messing with explosives on missions, there’s a fear that strangles me, Doss.
” He stood. “Every day, I grieve my flight crew and everyone on that C-17. Their memories linger in the back of my mind, and I am dealing with a detrimental amount of survivor’s guilt.
Margo? Fuck, that woman helped me see the light after years of punishing myself.
She guided me to answers Dominic would have never been able to find. Then again, I never let him in.”
“Hayes—”