2. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
BERNIE
T he soft tink of glass as I replaced the light cover echoed around the bedroom. With a final twist, I secured the opaque glass in place and gripped the edge of the step stool as quiet footsteps pattered on carpet into the room.
“Finished already?” my mom gently asked. I glanced to my left at the woman who had the same red hair as I did.
“Nothing to it, Mama,” I replied, climbing down.
Her blue eyes bore into mine, knowing more than what she let on. A sigh heaved from her lungs as I stopped in front of her. “I should’ve left more things broken around here, seeing as you finished everything within two and a half weeks.” Her soft hand brushed at strands of my unruly hair peeking from beneath my backwards ball cap. She slid her palm down my cheek, gazing up at me.
“You look more and more like him,” she whispered.
“Ten years to the day,” I muttered, and she let her hand fall to her side.
“Is that why you’ve holed up at the house, because today’s the anniversary of your father’s passing?”
I sighed, glancing over the top of my mom’s head at the salmon-colored wall but said nothing.
She smoothed out some frizzy curls in her bun and brushed a wrinkle from her tank. “Your dad would’ve loved it out here,” she continued. “Though he would’ve expected you to be out and making friends.”
Clenching my jaw, I tore my eyes back down to her freckled face. “Not really in the mood. Plus, it doesn’t seem like a whole hell of a lot is going on in this small ass town,” I mumbled.
She pursed her lips and crossed her arms. “I’m aware this is a… startling change from growing up in a big city, but while you’re on leave, you should at least try and fit in. It’s slower paced. It’s nice.”
Pulling my brows together, I shook my head. “Slower paced or nothing to do?”
“Quit moping around, Benjamin.”
“Benjamin? Am I in trouble? Are you scolding me for something?” I teased with a cocked brow.
She threw her hands on her hips. “Just listen to me, will you?”
Nodding once, I gave her a gentle smile.
“This isn’t Chicago, I get that. But there are things to do. For example, you’re closer to your old commander. Or Mikey and your new teammate.”
“Are you trying to kick me out? I can head back to base instead of staying with you, if you want.” I winked. She’d asked for me to take her seriously, and I was, but at the same time, ignoring the shitstorm seemed easier .
“No, that’s not what I want. But I don’t want you moping about. What happened to my energetic, outgoing son?” she snapped.
Sliding my teeth across each other, I stuffed my hands in my jeans pocket, that ever-familiar ringing rising in my ears. “Wondering what the fuck I’m supposed to do,” I muttered under my breath.
“What have I said about using the F word?” she snapped again.
“Sorry.” I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes.
Her gentle palm rested against my cheek once more, and a heavy sigh left her. “I’m sorry about Duncan.”
I opened my eyes and gave her a tight smile. There it was. The very shit I didn’t want to acknowledge. Or think about. Or mention. Or—
“You need to talk to someone about it,” she continued.
Or fucking talk about. Not right now. No matter how much I’d tried to convince myself that I knew Duncan was with me, with my team, I couldn’t shake whatever dark blanket hung stiffly on my shoulders.
“Right. ’Cause talking to someone about the fact that I—” I snapped my mouth shut. That I was laughing as the bullet ripped through my brother’s head…
What was a therapist going to do?
“Well, if you won’t talk to someone, you need to get out. You shouldn’t have finished my list of things this quickly.” She dropped her hand from my cheek as the front door rattled open.
“Mom!” A young voice sheared loudly through the air. “ I’ve got it! I’ve got it!”
“In here, honey!” my mom shouted and then raised both of her brows. “Actually, this is perfect timing. I need to finish a few things around the house, so you can take your brother to the shelter for me.”
“The shelter?” I asked as my fifteen-year-old brother strolled into the room with a massive grin on his face.
“I promised him when we moved here a month before you came home that if he earned enough money cutting lawns, he could adopt a dog from the local animal shelter,” my mom explained.
Whipping my gaze to my brother, I narrowed my eyes. “School’s not even out for the summer yet and you’ve already earned enough money?”
Raiden grinned wickedly, a smug-ass look on his face I knew all too well. One that I knew graced my own lips often. “Some of us actually know how to do more than blow stuff up.”
Gesturing in a circle around me, I raised my brows. “I know how to put things together too. Look around.”
“Okay, you two,” our mom quickly inserted and focused her attention on me. “Just drive him, would you? But change your shirt first; that one has a few stains.” She brushed her hand down the side of my white T-shirt that had grease smeared on it.
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied and hustled out of the room.
After changing into a clean long-sleeved navy T-shirt that I pushed halfway up my forearms, Raiden and I were in my black 4Runner, cruising down back roads that were unlike anything I’d driven before. This small, flyover town in the southwest corner of Montana was quite beautiful. Dark pines scratched the sparkling blue canvas overhead. Cattle and horses grazed in nearly every lush green pasture surrounding single farmhouses .
Raiden pointed out a few of his friends’ homes as we wound closer to the one-stoplight town. I now lived only about four and a half hours away from where Mikey and Griffin had settled in Idaho, and I understood what my mom had been hinting at. But they both had lives with someone else. I had my mom and brother to look after until the next deployment.
Placing the heel of my right hand on the top of the wheel, I leaned my elbow against the windowsill, watching the bright cotton balls fly by overhead. Telephone wires bounced along the edge of the road, high in the sky, weaving between trees. The lack of traffic was nice. Unusual, but nice.
Though the longer I sat in solitude with nothing on my mind, the harder it became to drown out the ringing.
The thoughts.
That…moment.
“Why didn’t we take your motorcycle?” Raiden asked, piercing through the monotony and spiraling I was locked in.
I glanced his way with a raised brow, and he nodded slowly. “Right. Where would the dog sit on the drive home?”
“Do you like it here?” I asked.
He stared forward, chewing on his thoughts for a moment, and then bobbed his head up and down. “Actually, yeah. I got a group of friends that I fit in with; Mom lets me have more freedom. I even got a girl.” A grin slid across his face.
“You what? Since when?” I grabbed his shoulder and shook him lightly.
“Since like a week after we moved here actually. ”
“And you didn’t fucking tell me until now?” I pulled my hand off and shot him a glare.
“I wanted to tell you in person.”
“But I’ve been home for a few weeks.”
The smile fell from his face as he picked at a seam on his jeans. “Yeah, I know. It’s just…” His brows pulled together. A gentle whistle of a breeze seeping through the cracked windows danced around the cab, the gray leather cooling despite the blazing sun high ahead.
“Just…what? Come on, Raiden, we talk about everything,” I urged.
My little brother tugged at the collar of his red T-shirt. “It’s just, with what happened, I didn’t want to make it seem like I was being inconsiderate.”
“Sometimes you’re way too mature for your age, you know that?” I gave him a smile. “I appreciate it. But it’s not your job to protect my feelings. I’m the older brother, and I’ve worked too damn hard to make sure I never seemed like your dad or some stranger to you for you to keep this from me.”
“So, you’ll help me convince Mom to let me take her to prom?” He raised a brow, looking away from the window.
“Shit, why won’t Mom let you go to prom? Are fifteen-year-olds not allowed anymore or something?”
“No, it’s because of you, dumbass,” Raiden replied with a snicker.
“First off, language. Second—”
“You swear at me all the time.”
“I’m an adult. Now, second, what do I have to do with you not going to prom?” I flipped the signal on and turned the wheel, steering off the backroad and toward the main street running through the center of Cedar Ridge, Montana.
“Do you really not remember what you did at your prom?”
I stared forward. The old buildings of Main Street a faint blur on the horizon. “Which prom?”
“The one where you managed to blow open the skylight of the pool room and jump into the swimming pool from the roof? You know, the prom that landed yourself in detention for like two weeks and cost Mom and Dad a decent chunk of change to fix,” Raiden explained as if it was obvious.
I grimaced. “Right. I kinda forgot about that one. Wait, why does that matter, though? That was at a different high school, I eventually paid Mom and Dad back, and you’re not me.”
“Bernie, when have you ever not caused trouble?”
“Again, how does that relate to you not going to prom? You’re a straight-A student, a hard worker, you don’t go around blowing shit up like I did.” I lifted my foot off of the gas pedal, easing into town. There were still fewer cars parked along the edge of the road than what I had to weave through back in Chicago. The few we followed simply chugged down the street as if on a lazy casual Sunday drive.
“Turn here.” Raiden tossed a thumb to the right, and I spun the wheel, guiding the vehicle to a side street.
“Answer my damn question, boy,” I said, catching sight of the large white sign with black lettering that read Cedar Ridge Humane Society hanging out front of a weathered cabin-like building .
“Probably because she’s scared I’m going to do the same thing and we can’t afford to start over anywhere. Don’t tell Mom, but I heard her talking about how money is thin and she used the last of Dad’s inheritance to move us out here because that way we’d outright own a house even when the money ran dry,” Raiden explained as the 4Runner bumped over the curb and onto the gravel parking lot.
Rocks crunched beneath the tires as I eased it up to the side of the building. A few shrubs lined the wall, separating the siding and cement walkway that rounded to the front of the building.
“Shit,” I muttered. “So, that’s the real reason Mom moved out here. She couldn’t afford living back in Chicago.”
“You know she doesn’t cash a single one of the checks you send her, right?” Raiden continued as I put the vehicle in park.
“Yeah, I’ve been directly depositing some money lately, but I don’t know how long that’ll work until she notices that too.”
“Mom has a job in town, and I know it pays all right, but yeah…” Raiden’s voice trailed off as he ran his fingers through his hair. I stared out the driver’s window. Parked beside us was a white flatbed Ford with a smidge of rust around the wheel rims.
“Look, you don’t need to worry about it. I’ll figure something out, all right? Be a kid. Go to prom. Get drunk, maybe wait another year or two before you decide to lose your virginity behind the bleachers, but go do stupid shit.” I turned the key, cutting the engine.
“I don’t do stupid shit; that’s you,” my little brother retorted as he swung open the door and jumped down .
“I didn’t do stupid shit. I caused stupid shit to happen,” I replied with a grin, my feet landing on the gravel. Raiden jogged around the nose of the 4Runner and met me on the sidewalk.
“When did you lose your virginity?” he asked.
I grabbed a fistful of his hair and ripped him to a halt. “First off, I will not be answering that question. Second, if I find out you bumped uglies with this chick after I helped convince Mom to let you take her to prom, I will cut off your balls before Mom does. Understand?”
Raiden swallowed stiffly, his blue eyes rising to mine. “Yes, sir.”
“Good, now let’s go inside.” I released his hair and shoved my hands in my pockets as we walked to the single white door with paint peeling from the edges. A small bell tinkled as we stepped inside.