Chapter 12 #2
Reid glances at Blake, and something shifts in the air. Blake goes still, his fork pausing halfway to his mouth. I feel like I've stepped in a great big pile of crap. I wish I could take it back, so we could get the laughter back. There's no need to get heavy tonight.
"Blake found me," Reid says quietly. All the bouncy energy drains out of him, replaced by something heavier. Blake sets his fork down, jaw tight, eyes on his plate as Reid continues. "After things went to hell. Things weren't great when I got out."
After things went to hell could mean a lot of things. Did he fall into a bottle? Stop eating? Stop answering the door? I'm craving details — not out of morbid fascination. I just care. I care about both of them in a way that surprises me, given that I met Blake approximately forty-five minutes ago.
Reid clears his throat. "Blake was stationed in North Carolina at the time. It took him a while to get his discharge sorted, but he sold everything and moved out here."
Blake's still got that shuttered look on his face. But I have to know. "You just... packed up your life?"
A shrug. "Wasn't much of a life. Military housing, a truck, some tools. Not exactly a white picket fence."
Reid looks up from his plate. "He showed up at my apartment at two in the morning with everything he owned in the back of his pickup."
"Place was a shithole," Blake adds flatly. "Reid was living on beer and whatever crap the gas station sold. Hadn't answered his phone in weeks."
"I was fine," Reid protests, but there's no heat in it.
"Bullshit." Blake's voice is rough. "You weren't fucking fine."
I watch them go back and forth, and something clicks into place.
There's no tough-guy filter, no cleaning up the truth to protect their pride.
Blake doesn't make Reid's breakdown sound better than it was, and Reid doesn't get mad about being called out.
They're sharing their worst moments — the kind of personal stuff that most people would rather die than tell a stranger.
And they're telling me. On a first dinner. Like they've already decided I'm safe enough for the unedited version.
That's either deeply trusting or deeply reckless. Either way, I'll hold space for both of them.
"So you moved in together?"
"For a while," Blake says. "Found this place. Foreclosure. Needed work, but the bones were good. Made sense to pool resources."
"This is your hometown, right?" I ask Reid.
"Born and raised. Blake's been here most of his life too. Jared always said if anything happened to him, we needed to stick together." Reid's voice gets quieter. "He was right. After he died, we were both kind of..." He looks at Blake, seeming at a loss.
Blake doesn't help him. Just stares at his plate.
"But you weren't just guys who served together," I say to Blake. "You came looking for Reid."
Blake meets my eyes, gaze fierce. "He's my brother. Blood doesn't mean shit."
"Even when family is being a stubborn jackass who won't answer his phone," Reid adds. His smile is small, but real, and he reaches over to shove Blake's shoulder. The gesture is rough and affectionate at the same time.
Blake's face is back to granite, but he shoves Reid back. "Especially then."
I get it now. The stoic face isn't empty. It's full. Too full. He's holding it all behind that wall because if he didn't, it would flood everything.
It's clear how much they care about each other — steady, built on everything they've been through together. The kind of solid you only get when you've survived real darkness and come out the other side still holding on.
"Besides," Blake says, taking the cutlery back off his plate and reaching for seconds, "Reid's the only asshole who'll put up with me sleeping in the workshop and tracking sawdust everywhere."
"You could sleep in your actual bedroom," Reid points out.
"Workshop's more comfortable."
"Your back disagrees."
"My back is fine."
Is it weird that I kind of love the bickering?
Reid's out of his chair now, acting out Blake's increasingly creative swearing during some garbage disposal disaster, complete with sound effects and dramatic reenactment.
He's fully committed — crouching on the floor, miming duct tape application, narrating Blake's internal monologue in a gruff voice that sounds nothing like Blake but is somehow perfect.
I'm wiping tears from my eyes. All the pots are scraped clean of food, both guys having gone back for thirds. Thank goodness I'm a horrible judge of portions. I think I could have doubled it and they still would have eaten every bit.
"It worked," Blake grumbles.
"For exactly three days," Reid counters, dropping back into his chair. "Then it sounded like a blender full of rocks. I thought we had a demon in the sink."
"Details."
"Important details! I called a priest, Blake. A priest."
"You did not call a priest."
"I thought about it. That counts."
These two are ridiculous together — the way they finish each other's sentences, the way they communicate in looks and half-gestures.
It's like watching a comedy routine they've been perfecting for years.
And I'm not just watching it — I'm in it.
They keep pulling me in. Reid checks to make sure I'm laughing.
Blake catches my eye after his driest lines like he's playing to an audience of one.
When's the last time you felt this included? Not just welcome — included. Like your presence made the room better instead of just fuller.
Too long.
Blake drains his beer and pushes back from the table. "Alright, I should let you two..." He waves vaguely between Reid and me.
"You don't have to leave," I say quickly. "I mean, it's your house too."
"I appreciate that. But I've got an early call with a client tomorrow, and you probably want to actually talk without me hanging around." He stands, collecting his plate. "Leave the mess. I'll clean up later."
"Nah." Reid stands, stretching his arms over his head until his back pops. "Laine cooked, you have work. I'll handle the mess."
I shake my head. "I made the mess. I can handle it."
"Absolutely not," Blake says, already heading toward the hallway. "House rules — cook doesn't clean."
"Blake's right," Reid says. "Besides, I want to help. You can teach me more things I'll immediately forget."
"You remembered the pasta water."
"I'm counting that as my win for the year."
Blake pauses in the doorway, looking back at us. For just a second, his expression is soft, almost wistful. Something about that look makes me sad.
"Thanks for dinner, Laine. Best meal I've had in..." He trails off, shrugs. "Long time."
"Anytime. I mean that."
He nods, fingers tapping on the trim, then shakes his head and is gone.
Reid watches him go. "He likes you."
"How can you tell?"
"He used complete sentences. And he laughed. Blake doesn't laugh for just anyone."
After Blake disappears down the hall, Reid and I start clearing the table. We move easily around each other. "You two are really close," I say, running water in the sink.
"Yeah." Reid brings over the last of the glasses, setting them carefully on the counter beside me. "Closer than brothers, honestly."
I hand him a soapy plate to rinse. "How do you mean?"
Reid considers this while drying the plate with more care than it probably needs.
"Blake and I... we both went to some pretty dark places after Jared died.
I was isolating, drinking too much, basically trying to disappear.
Blake was the opposite — throwing himself into work, taking on dangerous assignments, like he was daring the world to finish what it started. "
So much pain and loss. I know death is a part of life. I see it every day. But watching a ninety year old woman take her last breath is so different from what these men went through. Honestly, I can't even imagine it.
"But Blake's the most loyal person I've ever met. Like, pathologically loyal. When he heard I was struggling, he didn't just call to check on me. He packed up his entire life and drove fifteen hundred miles to make sure I was okay."
"He's very..." I pause, trying to find the right word. "Dedicated."
"That's Blake. He doesn't do anything halfway.
When he commits to something — or someone — that's it.
Forever." Reid takes the plate from my hands, his fingers brushing mine.
"I know he'll always be there. Not because he has to be, but because he's literally not capable of walking away from people he cares about. "
Not capable of walking away. I turn that over in my head while I rinse the pasta pot.
"What's that like?" I ask. "Having someone who just... shows up? Not from across the world. Just — already there."
Reid sets down the dish towel and turns to face me fully. He's close enough that I can see the gold flecks in his hazel eyes, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze.
"You don't have that?"
"I have my parents. They'd drop everything for me, and I'd do the same for them.
" I shrug, scrubbing at a spot that's already clean.
"But 'dropping everything' means leaving whatever build they're on.
Right now it's a community center in Cambodia.
Before that it was a church in the Philippines. They go where they're needed."
"Together, though."
"Always together." I smile a little. "They've always had each other. They just never had a fixed address. And I grew up in that — two suitcases, new country every year. It was a good childhood. A really good one, actually. Just... mobile."
"And then you became a travel nurse."
"And then I became a travel nurse." I laugh because it sounds so obvious when someone else says it. "Short contracts, new city, always moving. Only my parents at least had each other as a constant. I just had the suitcases."
Reid leans against the counter, arms folded, watching me in that warm open way of his.
"Is that why you took the permanent position here?"