Chapter 2
Deacon
“Brother,” I said when the pixelated image of my best friend filled the screen as I waited for the air-conditioning to cool down my truck after hours spent in the school’s commuter parking lot. “I’m not going to flake on your sister. I’m on my way, just running a few minutes late.”
“I already told her you would be.” Cruz didn’t even try to hide that he called to remind me, and I looked at the background of the call out of habit, the surroundings so familiar I felt the heat and texture of sand on my skin despite the air-conditioning blowing on my face.
“She’ll be there early,” he said. “Willow is just like that.”
“Almost like it runs in the family.” The man had never been later than two minutes early to anything the length of our friendship.
He was a human Swiss watch. I set the phone in the mounted holder on my dash.
“I’m on my way. Don’t worry.” I put the car in gear and glanced at the clock. “Consider me the sister wrangler.”
“Don’t wrangle or otherwise fucking touch my baby sister,” he said with a laugh, the echo of which I remembered from so many late nights and long days on deployment while shooting the shit at the base. “I love you like a brother, but you’ve wrangled more women than Glenn Ford.”
I laughed. “Who the hell is that?”
“He was a famous actor in the forties and fifties. Had affairs with, like, every woman in Hollywood. Even Marilyn Monroe. Also raised illegal chickens in Beverly Hills and secretly recorded all his phone conversations. Fascinating guy.”
“Why do you know this?”
His laugh crackled through my phone. “I have lots of time to read now that you’re not here to distract me.” He paused, maybe catching that I hadn’t laughed, too. “Anyway, all that is to say, touch Willow and I’ll end you.”
Traffic was light, and I nudged the gas to make it through a yellow light. “Man, you saved my life. You can trust me to look out for your baby sister.”
“I know,” he said, voice dipping in the way it did whenever I reminded him he saved my life.
The memory was always in the back of my mind.
The lack of sensation in my legs—how I’d been unable to move no matter how hard I tried and how pounding on my own leg might as well have been me pounding on the ground.
I’d felt nothing. The memory of bullets whizzing by, the sound of the chopper blades, and the helplessness of seeing my best friend running toward me washed over the conversation like a black cloak, but I pushed it aside and Cruz brought the conversation back to Willow.
“She’s in a vulnerable place right now. That guy really broke her heart, and it didn’t help that meme was everywhere.
I just worry about her spending too much time alone.
Our cousin invited her to her wedding, but they’re not close. She needs someone nearby.”
I’d searched for the video of his sister’s breakup and resulting meme when he told me about it, and it was brutal.
Not only had someone filmed her emotional reaction to being dumped, people added commentary about how it was a testament to the generation’s lack of resilience and some other misogynistic bullshit.
“I got you,” I said again. I didn’t ask where he was—he wouldn’t tell me because Cruz was a rule follower, even with me.
The fact that we were best friends was a constant source of amazement to anyone who knew us, because I was the guy you came to when you wanted to take chances.
Cruz was the guy you found when you wanted a plan.
We were oil and water, yet it was hard to remember a time when he wasn’t there for me.
“How’s school going?” he asked. “Come to think of it, I never knew you could read.” His laugh again took me back to being in uniform and I laughed, too.
“They teach you how.” With nothing else to do once I was out other than work on my recovery, I’d enrolled in the local community college.
Emi, my roommate, had urged me that it was the right next step, and it didn’t hurt that my education benefits were sitting there unused.
I thought healing, conditioning, and being well enough to request reenlistment would be fast, but so far time was dragging.
“It’s all right. The courses are kind of interesting.
” I’d spent the morning preparing for my next econ exam, but the psych classes were good—I’d liked those.
I was getting closer to being strong enough to request to reenlist, so it was something to do until I could.
I hadn’t told Cruz about my plans to get back in—he would have tried too hard to talk me out of it for all the reasons that probably made sense, but he didn’t get it.
He was still out there serving, and I was in my truck next to a bag of books.
He could still fulfill his duty and make a difference.
I was standing still. “I’ve only seen her photo in the meme and she was all wet.
What does she look like? I’m picturing you but with long hair and tits. ”
He growled. “Don’t say tits in reference to my little sister. I’m not fucking kidding.”
“Technically, I said tits in reference to you.” I flipped my blinker, waiting to pull into the parking lot. “Seriously, what does she look like so I can give her a firm, platonic handshake?”
“She’s short. Curly hair, probably in a ponytail. Glasses, I think. She looks young. I want to forget it exists, but you can see her face kind of clearly in that video,” he said. “She looks like me a little,” he admitted grudgingly. “But don’t make another fucking joke,” he warned.
“It’s too easy.” I didn’t want to give the video any more views. Cruz had been angrier than I’d ever heard him when he’d first mentioned it. “I’m sure I can spot her.”
“I gotta go,” he said, as I pulled into a parking space at the back of the parking lot. “Thanks, Rakes, I really appreciate you looking out for her. I wouldn’t trust anyone else.”
“Look out for yourself, brother,” I said.
I held up my fist, matching his on the screen.
It was strange I’d known him so long and never met his sister, but we were always stationed in other states or overseas.
I’d never thought much about what she might look like, and Cruz was many things, but likely to have a photo handy of anyone was not one of them.
When the screen went black, I pushed back the shadowy darkness I wanted to sink into, because I’d do anything for Cruz Lewis, and he’d look out for everyone else before himself.
That was the job. We were PJs, Pararescue Jumpers, a special operations unit charged with rescue and recovery for the Department of Defense.
They were my family, my brothers. Or, they had been.
I took in a slow breath the way I’d learned in physical therapy and stepped out of the car, shaking off the conversation, ready to meet my best friend’s sister for the first time.
The coffee shop was brightly lit, and as I stepped forward to order, Linda flashed me a grin and sauntered forward with an iced caramel latte.
“Hey, sweetie. Looking good today.” Linda’s flirting was part of my after-school routine—stop for coffee after class, get propositioned by this sixty-year-old woman I adored, study, work, and then proposition someone who wanted me just for my body.
Linda handed me the coffee and I surreptitiously scanned the room, first for safety.
Old habits die hard. Then, I scouted for the younger feminine version of Cruz sporting glasses and a ponytail.
At the back table, a woman with dark curly hair falling around her face looked up with wide brown eyes.
She had two drinks in front of her and must have been waiting for someone.
A quick scan for glasses (none) and ponytail (none) alongside her visible curves, and I was certain this was not anyone’s baby sister, though I took a second to admire her profile and the roundness of her hips before thanking Linda for the drink and reassuring her I’d be ready if she ever agreed to give me a chance.
Sipping the drink, I looked around again.
Over the years I’d taken shit from the guys in my unit for wanting my coffee sweet, but I’d refused to drink it black like they did.
The convenient availability of caramel syrup was one of the few things I’d miss about civilian life when I went back.
I took another hit from the sweet drink.
The woman in the corner waved, giving me a tentative smile that showed a familiar dimple in the right cheek.
A dimple I’d recognize in pitch-blackness.
The hot woman in the back was Cruz’s baby sister. Oh, shit.
To be fair, he’d described a kid, and Willow Lewis was not that. Good thing Cruz was on the other side of the world. He would have pummeled me for checking out his sister before I realized who she was.