Chapter 14 #3
“It’s the Navy, actually,” Seth said wryly. Anyone else getting it wrong so consistently might have pissed him off but Ren’s heart . . . well, despite his claims that he didn’t have one . . . it was always in the right place.
“And,” Seth continued before he lost his nerve, “it’s not the loud noise kind of PTSD, at least that’s what my counselor said when I got out. It’s . . . it’s the loss of a system, of a structure. When I was leading my team, I knew if I said something, people would listen.”
“And now they just look at you like you’re on crack?” Ren asked wryly.
“Yeah, it was . . . it was a really hard adjustment for me. I lost my temper a lot. I drank too much. I made a lot of bad decisions. When Lennox got out, he and I helped each other. Having him around again reminded me that I could build another system. One that I liked just as much as the one I had before.”
“So you started your company together.”
“Yeah. That’s when I found the counselor, too.
” Seth looked at the glass. The liquid inside shimmered gold under the dim lights of the living room.
“I don’t want you to think that loud noises set me off.
Or that you have to worry about me strangling you in your sleep.
Other guys, they absolutely deal with that shit. I just don’t.”
“What did happen, then?” Ren asked. He looked concerned.
And suddenly, Seth hated that he was so far away.
“Can you . . .” He hesitated. “Can you come over here?”
Ren didn’t hesitate. He got up and was next to Seth before he could feel shame at asking.
If you can’t be messed up in front of him, then you can’t be messed up in front of anyone.
Reaching over, Ren took his hand and squeezed it. “You can tell me,” he said encouragingly. “I want to know.”
Seth’s chuckle was dry and rough. “It’s not . . . it’s not like you’re thinking. A guy who works for us got hurt. He’s gonna be okay but . . . I don’t handle that well. I didn’t handle it well. Probably because it’s my fault.”
“How did he get hurt? While he was working?”
“He was running late. Driving too fast, probably.”
“Then it’s not your fault,” Ren said soothingly, squeezing his hand again. “You can’t stop the world from happening to people you care about.”
“Yeah, except I was the one who made him late.” Easy to repeat in a litany in his head, but hard to admit, out loud, to Ren, who knew him as this easygoing guy, who’d never seen him be a stickler for rules that didn’t matter anymore.
“And?” Ren raised an eyebrow. “So?”
“I . . .”
“No,” Ren interrupted him before he could say anything else.
“No. I know it’s your default setting to take personal responsibility, and that’s like really fucking admirable, okay?
I’m sure that you were taught to do it, that it became part of your identity.
But this isn’t on you. I believe that. But you’re the one who really needs to believe it. ”
Seth sighed. Ren sounded so indignant, and he was ninety-nine point nine percent sure it wasn’t because he was mad at him, but because he didn’t want him to take bullets that weren’t meant for him.
“You sound like Lennox.”
“Well, I’ll take that,” Ren said solemnly. “I know it isn’t as easy as saying, don’t beat yourself up, but, don’t beat yourself up, okay?”
Seth laughed, not really because it was necessarily funny, but because it was easier than crying.
“I’ll try,” Seth said, and leaned harder into Ren. Enjoying just the way he felt pressed against him. “Thanks for listening, even if I’m a stubborn ass.”
“You’re not stubborn, and you’re not an ass.” Ren hesitated, and Seth glanced over at him, just in time to see him worrying his bottom lip with his teeth. “You’re not perfect. But that’s okay, because I like you every which way.”
It wasn’t everything. It wasn’t the l word that Seth imagined hearing, but it was enough, because the words would be nice, but what really mattered was that Ren had come here for him.
“I like you, too.”
I love you, too.
Ren rested his head on Seth’s shoulder. “You know, everyone thinks you’re so laid-back and relaxed, but I knew better. I knew better the first time we met.”
“Really?” Seth was surprised, even though he’d learned long ago to never expect the expected from Lorenzo Moretti.
Ren shook his head. “I saw how much you goddamned cared, right in your eyes, when I wouldn’t go out with you. You weren’t annoyed or offended or even disappointed. It was a flare of something . . . and I knew then there was more to you than met the eye. More to you than anyone else saw.”
“Well, I was at least a little annoyed, and maybe a tiny bit offended. Definitely a lot disappointed.”
Ren laughed. It filled Seth’s heart and his head with joy, and it wasn’t enough to push out the self-recrimination, but it made it easier not to focus on.
He didn’t need booze after all; he just needed the intoxicating man next to him.
“I was a little disappointed in myself,” Ren admitted, and that was it, wasn’t it?
It was easy enough to take a look at a guy and think, this is the one, and it was another entirely to experience what the right guy felt like.
He’d been attracted to Ren from the beginning, but what he’d felt then was like a vague, weak shadow of what he felt now.
And if he was really lucky, then he wasn’t feeling this way alone.