Chapter 35
Luke
Iprobably should’ve fucked him when I had the chance. Add it to the list of shit I regret where Sloan is concerned.
While he’s been gone these last couple weeks, I’ve tried to keep my usual routine. Lunch with Nina when I’m over her way, the gym, work, and trying to check in on Jennifer without seeming pushy.
When pictures of Sloan and I broke, it didn’t take long for the phone calls and emails to start asking for interviews but since my job and my gym are both on base, and my condo is gated, I’ve been pretty protected from reporters just showing up and blindsiding me.
The day before the girls and I flew to Miami, Nina told me she finally had a reason to log into archived files and asked if I could meet her.
I knew it would be my only chance for a while to get my hands on Grant’s file.
Thankfully, I was on ER night shift that day, so when she called at two in the afternoon, I was able to meet her.
Knowing this is going to reopen Sloan’s largest wound, I decided to wait until he was home to tell him, figuring he didn’t need the fatal blow to his concentration while all eyes were pinned on him. I’ve already done that to him once.
I briefly debate putting bourbon in my coffee but decide against it. Since it’s only seven-thirty in the morning, I don’t expect to hear Sloan for several more hours so when the stairs creak, I jump.
Please don’t be mad. Please don’t blame me. Please don’t leave me.
I need you. I love you.
“Luke, I love you, but you look like shit. Did you sleep at all?” Sloan asks, heading straight for the coffee pot.
He’s shirtless in only a pair of boxers.
His tattoo with Grant’s name and service number scrawled across a dog tag draped over the butt of an M-16 sticking out of a combat boot stares back at me.
I’ve seen it before. More so recently, but this morning, it seems to have a heart beat all of its own.
“Not so great, honestly.”
I’m done running.
“Come on, Luke, out with it. Don’t tell me you’re leaving too? Fuck, what is wrong with me that—”
I jump up from my kitchen chair, grab his face, and kiss him before wrapping my arms around him and pulling his bare chest against mine, reveling in the feel of him.
“Christ, I’m not leaving you, Sloan. I’m afraid you’ll be upset with me again.”
He scrubs a hand down his face. “Is this about Grant?”
I nod.
He rolls his lips in on top of one another and pinches his eyes shut. “Luke, we’re finally in a good spot. Can we just let it go?”
“No. I can’t handle anything between us. Especially this. You have to know everything so that I know there are no secrets or skeletons lurking to take you away from me. I let Grant Tomlin come between us once before. I won’t do it again. He doesn’t want me to do it again.
“Luke what the fuck are you talking about?”
I guide him to the chair next to mine and push the photo album I’d dropped off a lifetime ago in front of him.
“Christ. Grab the tequila, will you?”
I do as he says because this is going to be painful for both of us. Once I’ve enhanced our coffees, I sit back down and he begins to flip.
I already know what’s in it of course, pictures of Sloan, Hailey, Grant, sometimes in pairs, sometimes all three of them. None that are risqué, just them sharing quiet moments together.
He sees a picture of him and Grant and he slams the book closed. “I can’t do this.”
I catch his hand before he can stand and move away from the table.
“Please. Just keep going.”
I wish I could take all of his pain away. I would gladly suffer this for him if I could, but it’s important he sees the whole picture.
Almost at the end, he turns the page and bristles, leaning in closer to get a better look. “What the hell? That’s you and me. Who took this?”
“Grant.”
“Why?”
“To make a point.”
He keeps flipping. There are more pictures of he and I and looking at them now, the love is shining clearer than day in my eyes. My awe. My respect. My adoration for the man next to me.
There are only six pictures of he and I total, but how I feel about Sloan is broadcast on my face in every single one of them.
I reach into my pocket and pull out a piece of paper I’ve read at least a thousand times, probably more, over the years. “This is the letter Grant left for me.” I hold it out to Sloan with a shaking hand.
I watch him hold it carefully as if it’s something to be cherished and I follow along in my head as his eyes scan the sheet of paper. I have every word memorized.
Sgt. Blackwell,
If you’re reading this, it means I’m gone. Hopefully I took several of those RPG-wielding motherfuckers out with me. It’s an odd thing, writing a letter to a man that hates you, while also hoping he’ll take your place in your lover’s heart.
Forgive me for saying so, but I see the way you look at Staff Sergeant Alexander. I recognize that look because it’s the same one I give him.
Consider being honest with yourself, soldier.
Love can look many different ways. All I want is for Sloan and Hailey to be taken care of and loved, so I’m writing you this letter to charge you with that responsibility.
If I’m right, then you made a mess of things for us because you were angry and jealous, but I think you can figure it out.
It’s a tricky situation made even trickier if circumstances have forced this letter into your hands.
When you’re able, love him well, because I’d give anything to hold him one more time.
Trust me when I say he’ll need you. Hailey can’t make him happy on her own. You two were close once. He needs more. I think you can be that for him, maybe even for them.
~Grant Tomlin
When I glance at Sloan, he’s biting the inside of his cheek hard to prevent his tears from falling, but he’s losing the battle and they spill over, down his reddened cheeks.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I hedge.
It takes him a second to be able to speak. “That you’re responsible for the death of the best man the world has ever known? Who, even in death wanted me to be happy and who called you to be a better man?”
“Pretty much.” I take a deep breath preparing to drop the real bomb that’s gonna hurt like a sonofabitch. “But Grant didn’t commit suicide, Sloan. It really was an accident.”
“The fuck?” Sloan asks, stunned.
“Read the second sentence again. He wrote this because he thought he’d die on deployment. You remember we were told he died in a training accident?”
“I remember.”
“And then you told me he committed suicide. That didn’t add up for me. Especially since I had this letter. He wouldn’t have left you and Hailey like that. The man wasn’t a coward.”
“But the report… Nina said—”
“The report was right. He didn’t pull the cord, but it wasn’t suicide.
Nor was it a training accident. Grant was on a classified mission doing a HALO jump in the dark over terrain they didn’t have clearance to be in.
His mask was faulty and wasn’t supplying as much oxygen on the ride up that he needed and he blacked out quickly after exiting the aircraft.
He never regained consciousness. They called it a training accident to cover up the fact that they were doing an infil in a no-go zone.
The report Nina got only gave the information about the cord so the rigger wouldn’t get in trouble, but her clearance didn’t give her access to the whole picture. ”
HALO, or high-altitude-low-opening jumps were what Grant lived for. He’d take a flying leap out of a C-160, free fall for close to two minutes and then pull the cord a mere three thousand feet above ground.
“How long have you known?”
“I found out right before we left for Miami. I only started digging once you told me what Nina found. It didn’t make sense. Grant never ran from his problems. He faced them head-on.”
I want to speak slowly because I know this is hard for him and he’s working to process my words, but they rush out of my mouth in an effort to ease his pain faster.
“Grant’s words have haunted me since the day I received them.
A year ago, when I was assigned to Hailey’s oncology team, I finally showed her the note.
And before you say anything, we never… it wasn’t like that.
She was too broken. Over Grant. Over you.
But we formed a friendship and stayed in touch until the end. ”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Luke?” Sloan roars in anger, jumping up from the table. “How could you not show this to me? You never thought maybe that information would make me sleep better at night? Heal some small part of me that has been bleeding since the day he died?”
“Sloan, he called me out. He saw my behavior for exactly what it was and I wasn’t ready to admit that. If you’d read that note…” I trail off.
“If I’d read that note, maybe we wouldn’t have wasted so much time. Maybe we would have spent less time fighting and more time fucking.”
Sloan slams back into the kitchen chair like his legs can’t hold him anymore and puts his head in his hands.
“Sloan, I’m so sorry. Please tell me you forgive me. For what it’s worth, I begged Hailey to reach out. She’d followed your career and she said you looked happy. She didn’t want to weigh you down.”
A moan laced with anguish rips from Sloan’s throat.
“I didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t know how to be with her without him.
It just made everything hurt more. There was always a set of eyes and warm hands missing.
” Sloan gets choked up and tries to clear his throat.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this when you came to my house that first night? ”
I struggle with how to explain. “When I saw you again, everything came rushing back, not that my feelings ever totally left, mind you, but suddenly you were here, in the flesh, and selfishly, I wanted a chance to build something on our own, that wasn’t based on Grant’s approval or his request. I know how fucked up that is considering it was his note and his wife that allowed me to stay tied to you, but there it is. ”
“Luke, I can’t be with you if you harbor hatred for him. A part of me will always love Grant. His name is tattooed on my body for fuck’s sake.”
I flinch.
“I don’t hate Grant, Sloan. I never did. I hated myself. But being with you is teaching me how to love myself for the first time in my life.”
Sloan’s tears begin falling faster down his cheeks as he forgets about trying to hold them back.
“I feel like I just lost him all over again. I’ve grieved him in sadness and respect thinking he died doing what he loved.
I’ve grieved him in anger, thinking he left she and I.
And now I have to start all over and grieve him for his kindness, his wisdom, his love, his selflessness.
I have to grieve him in anger toward the military for not doing better and taking better care of him.
I have to grieve the future we should have had…
the one I now know you didn’t take away from us.
I have to grieve for Hailey and how I lost time I’ll never get back because I was too broken to be who she needed. And I have to grieve us.”
“Us? No, Sloan, please. I’ll do anything. Please don’t walk away.”
He runs his thumb across my bottom lip.
“Shh. I mean I have to grieve the kids we were. The pain we shared and the time we wasted.”
“Fuck, Sloan, I’m so sorry. For all of it. For my own insecurity. For the pain my jealousy caused.” I lace our fingers and when he doesn’t pull away from me, something inside slides into place in my chest.
He gives me a sad smile. “You know, Grant knew me well, Luke.”
My jealousy wants to rear its ugly head, but I beat it back down. There is no room for that here. Sloan’s heart is big enough for me, and Hailey, and Grant, and Jen. Perhaps it’s just the insinuation that Grant knew Sloan better that I don’t like.
I can work on that. I want to be what Sloan needs.
“He was right when he said Hailey on her own wasn’t enough.
” I’m not sure I like where this conversation is headed but I stay silent as he continues.
“I’m a lover. An artist. A man who finds beauty everywhere and in almost everything.
I want this to last between us Luke. I want the chance we never had before. ”
He lets go of my fingers to trace the pulse point in my wrist making my stomach flutter.
“Can you forgive me?” I ask, kissing his knuckles, needing any part of him he’ll let me have.
“On one condition.”
“Anything.”
“Help me get our girl back.”