Clay #2
“After they…passed,” I muttered. “I haven’t... Well, that’s where I am. I can’t function. None of this has been functioning.”
“Hey, Clay?”
“What?”
“Look at me.”
I did, and a lump formed in my throat at the soft expression on his face as he stepped forward and knelt to put a hand on my knee. “I need you to do me, but mostly yourself, a favor. It’s not going to seem like a favor, but I think in the long run, it will be.”
“What?” I asked.
“What happened to your family?”
“Huh? I said it was a fire.”
“No, that’s what caused what happened to them...have you ever said it aloud?”
“Of course I have!”
Reggie gave me a pained look. “No, I mean, not saying they passed, or that you lost them three years ago, or any of that. Have you actually ever said it? Just...said it? Put it out there?”
I thought about it for a moment, feeling my shoulders slump in defeat as I could see what he was saying, and then shook my head.
I hadn’t said it, had I? Not even last night, when I was breaking down and losing my mind, I hadn’t said it aloud.
I used every other phrasing and euphemism, but I’d never outright said it, had I?
I couldn’t even think of a time when I had said it to myself.
“Say it,” Reggie said softly, his hand squeezing mine.
“I don’t...I don’t want to.”
“No, of course you don’t. No one ever wants to say that sort of thing out loud. It makes it real; it makes it too real.”
“Too real?” I scoffed, looking around the room. “I had a whole ass freak out because Isaac saw that picture, which I’ve only ever shown to Cade, and the whole fucking story came out. It came out while I was wrecking the place and—”
Reggie cocked his head. “And?”
“And he, uh, was there for me,” I said, feeling my face warm, to my complete horror.
Reggie’s brow shot up. “You slept with him?”
“It wasn’t like that!” I protested angrily. “He didn’t throw himself at me, and it’s not like I begged him to sleep with me and he gave in, okay? It happened because I was...and he... It happened because we wanted it to happen.”
Reggie smirked and then rolled his eyes when I growled in annoyance. “God, you can just say you slept with the guy because you like him, it’s fine.”
“I like a lot of people.”
“Yes, and from what I’ve seen, you never sleep with those people.”
I leaned back. “What?”
“Did you think I wasn’t paying attention?
” he scoffed. “I pay attention to everyone here, especially the long-termers like you and Cade. I don’t know everyone you’ve slept with, but I’ve figured out enough to know it was never anyone you were friends with.
So, if you’ve slept with Isaac, it means you like him. ”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “It’s...really weird to notice my sex habits.”
“Your sex habits were the only real indicators of your personality for a while there,” he said with a snort.
Ouch, completely fair, but ouch.
“Now say it,” he said softly again. “Just one time.”
“They...” I said, sucking in a breath, and my voice dropped. “They died.”
“No,” he said gently, giving my fingers a little tug. “Say it. Don’t whisper it, don’t avoid it. Say it. Say it like it means something.”
“It means something!” I snapped.
“Then say it like it does.”
“Fuck you, Reggie! Of fucking course it means something, she was the love of my life! That was my son!” I snarled in outrage. “They’re dead, alright? They died, and there’s not a fucking thing I can...oh, God...oh, God...they’re dead.”
Reggie closed his eyes and nodded, squeezing my hand as I bowed my head and the waves of familiar sorrow and grief washed over me, black and furious as they threatened to pull me into the abyss.
They were dead.
“Fuck you,” I whispered as I felt the tears leak out of my tightly clenched eyes and drip onto our joined hands and my lap. “Fuck you so much.”
“I know,” he said with a compassion and understanding that made my heart hurt in a way that wasn’t totally wrong. It was a strangely clean hurt that was still lost in the fury of the storm burning inside me.
I opened my eyes to realize the picture was still in my lap, and a new wave of hurt descended as I stared into the frozen past, peering up at me.
I had known I would never see them again, that wherever they were, if they were anywhere at all, was beyond where I was right now.
I was still mourning them after all these years, and yet here I was, clutching their picture, desperate that someone else was here because they couldn’t be.
“Isaac,” I choked out.
“Boy, you do have it bad,” he said fondly, and then I heard his breath catch as I made a choking noise. “Ah, hell, alright, wrong thing to say.”
“No, I just,” I shook my head. “I just...oh fuck. I just—”
“Hold on,” he said softly, pulling his phone out and doing something before sliding it back into his pocket. “Before it gets crowded in here, I want to remind you that it’s not wrong.”
“What isn’t?”
“Trying to be happy again.”
I snapped my head up, horror probably etched across my face the same way it was in my heart. “What? I never even—”
“I know,” he said with a little smile. “Just...a little personal experience coming out, I guess.”
“But I’m…” The door slid open behind him, and I blinked as I saw not one, but three goddamn people standing there.
Reggie turned around and frowned. “Luka, you were not included in that message?”
Luka frowned. “The administrator of the facility called for my guest...again. You bet your ass I...oh, hell, Clay?”
“Clay?” Cade asked softly, his eyes wide as he entered the room in a flash, pushing Isaac and Luka out of the way with all the grace of a bull elephant.
“I’m okay,” I said softly, reaching up to pat his stomach. “It’s alright, Mama Bear. I’m alright.”
“The fuck you are,” he growled, looking me over and glaring at Reggie. “What did you do to ’em?”
Reggie blinked, taken by surprise by Cade’s temper, which, well, I couldn’t blame him.
Cade was such a goddamn teddy bear over literally anything; it was probably weird as hell to see him act pissed.
Well, and Reggie was probably remembering that once upon a time, Cade had been an active and effective member of the armed service, so there was that little detail to worry about if he got mad enough.
“They’re dead,” I whispered at Cade, trying to get him to understand.
“Who?” Cade asked and then looked at my lap. “I...oh.”
“He had me say it,” I explained, and I saw the way Luka and Isaac’s faces softened in understanding...well, Isaac’s did. Luka’s had the same look Reggie’s had earlier when I’d started talking to him, and I stared at him curiously.
“You sonuvabitch!” Cade snarled, and I realized then that I had not anticipated Cade’s reaction properly as he stepped toward Reggie, who was quickly getting to his feet to back up toward the door.
I didn’t know if I was the only one surprised when it was Isaac who stepped between them, reaching toward Cade and stopping just short of touching him. “Cade...think, Big Guy, not with your anger, with your heart.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Cade demanded of Reggie.
“Your heart,” Isaac insisted, and against all common sense, poked Cade’s chest in emphasis.
Cade stared down at him because Cade stared down at everyone, looking surprised. “What?”
“You heard me,” Isaac told him with a soft smile, laying his hand on Cade’s upper arm. “Your heart. That big thing you have that makes you so lovable and kind to everyone. Remember that...and remember the people here are here to help, not hurt us.”
“He did hurt ’em!”
“And sometimes you need to hurt to heal,” Luka said, looking at me. “I don’t know what’s going on here exactly, but sometimes you have to say the truth out loud before you’re ready to face it.”
“You?” I wondered.
“Parents,” he said with a shrug. “I was a kid. Sad little orphan boy.”
I pointed at Reggie, staring up at Cade. “He lost his husband. He gets it.”
Cade’s shoulders slumped. “But you—”
“I’m okay, Mama Bear,” I told him softly, reaching up to tug his arm so he stepped back. “You’re also scaring the shit out of everyone but me at the moment.”
Cade looked around, and I saw the moment he realized what it looked like from another perspective, and guilt crossed his face as he stepped back, looking as though he were trying to look smaller than he actually was.
The sight made me hurt again because I knew how much he hated it when people were afraid of him.
I never knew what had led him to join the service, but sometimes I wondered if it was really the place for him.
For someone with such a bloody past, he was deep down a kind and gentle man, and the idea that he could strike fear into someone’s heart was sometimes too much for him.
“Mama Bear,” Isaac said with clear affection. “You two are too cute for words sometimes.”
“Gross,” I protested as Cade made a sound of disgust and then looked at me like I’d done something wrong.
“Am I...allowed to go now?” Reggie asked calmly.
“I don’t know,” Luka said with a grin. “I’m still waiting to see if Cade manhandles you.”
I blinked, looking between them and smirking. “Actually, I kind of want to see that too.”
“You want to see that in an entirely different way than Luka meant,” Isaac said fondly, stroking the side of my face. “Quit being a pervert.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t want to see it?” I asked.
“I’m keeping my opinion to myself,” Isaac said, but the look in his eyes told me there was certainly something in his head worth sharing if I could convince him.
“His boyfriend would object to that,” Luka said, who then laughed when every head snapped toward him. Reggie’s hardest of all. “What?”
“You, me, talk, now,” Reggie ground out, pointing toward the door with a jab of his finger. “Move.”
Luka looked at Isaac. “And you?”
Isaac smiled. “Mama Bear isn’t going to rip me limb from limb, and Clay is as much a danger to me as he was the day we met.”