Chapter 25
BLAKE
The kitchen light is brutal after hours in the dim workshop. I squint, drop my tool bag by the door. Hands stiff from gripping sanders and chisels all night. Knuckles ache.
I pull open the fridge, scan for something that doesn't require actual effort. Leftover Chinese. Deli meat. Couple of beers. My stomach growls and I grab the takeout container and a fork. Don't bother heating it. Too tired to wait.
Cold lo mein, congealed into a solid mass. I lean against the counter, shovel forkfuls into my mouth.
I shouldn't have gone straight to the workshop after we got back. Should've stayed. Eaten dinner with them. Acted normal.
But after today — the accident, watching Laine work on that little girl, the way she looked in my jacket for the rest of the drive — I couldn't do it. Couldn't sit across from them and pretend my brain wasn't doing what it was doing.
So I didn't.
I finished the detail work on the mantelpiece. Sanded it twice, even though it didn't need it. Reorganized my tool wall. Sharpened every chisel I own.
None of it fucking helped.
I kept seeing her kneeling in the gravel, blood on her hands, calm as anything. Kept hearing her voice, steady and sure, talking that little girl through the worst moment of her life.
I finish the lo mein and toss the container, run my hands under hot water. My reflection in the window above the sink looks like shit. Hair all over the place from running my hands through it, sawdust smeared across one cheek. Been worse. Probably.
The hot water feels good on my hands. I stand there longer than I need to, letting the heat work into the joints.
I dry my hands and head for the stairs. I'm so fucking tired.
Halfway up the stairs, I hear it.
Reid's voice. Low, rough. A groan that doesn't need translation.
I freeze, one foot on the next step, hand gripping the railing.
Then Laine. A sound that goes straight through me. Not words. Just—fuck.
The bed frame hits the wall. Once. Again.
She's stayed over before. I've been bracing for this. Dreading the night it finally happened.
Tonight is the lucky fucking night, apparently.
I should leave. Turn around, go back downstairs, sleep in the workshop like I have been for weeks. Give them privacy.
My legs won't move.
"Right there—" Laine's voice breaks off into something between a gasp and a moan. "God, Reid, don't stop, don't—"
Reid, rough and urgent. "I've got you. I've got you."
I stumble, shoulder slamming against the wall.
I force myself to move, climbing the rest of the stairs as quietly as possible. My room is at the end of the hall, past Reid's door. Just twenty more feet—
The rhythm from next door gets faster. Laine says his name in a way that makes my hands shake.
I'm not strong enough to survive this.
I make it to my room and close the door, leaning back against it. But I haven't escaped anything. The sounds follow me through the thin walls.
I grab a pillow and press it over my ears. Doesn't help. The sounds are already inside my skull, dragging pictures with them I didn't fucking ask for. Laine's face. Her hands in Reid's hair. Reid touching her the way I—
Stop.
I hurl the pillow across the room. It clips a framed photo on the dresser and sends it facedown with a crack that's way too loud.
The noise from next door goes quiet. I hold my breath. Then the bed again, slower this time. Careful. Like they heard me. But still there. Still happening.
I sit on the edge of my bed. Elbows on my knees, hands gripping the back of my skull like I can hold it together if I squeeze hard enough.
Reid deserves this. He deserves her. He's a better man than me in every way that actually counts.
He dragged me out of the wreckage after Jared died.
Gave me a roof when I couldn't stand up straight.
Never once held the tab over my head. And now he's found someone who makes him light up like a person again. Someone who loves him back.
I should be glad for him. That's the line I keep feeding myself. I should be fucking glad.
I am glad for him.
Another sound from Laine. Muffled but unmistakable.
I'm across the room before I've even decided to move, grabbing my keys and wallet off the dresser. Sawdust still on my arms, I probably smell like wood stain and sweat. Don't care.
The hallway's a disaster. Every floorboard groans under my weight, but the sounds coming from Reid's room have picked up again. Louder. More urgent. They're not listening for anything that isn't each other.
I make it downstairs and out the front door. The night air hits me and I can still hear them through the open bedroom window as I cross to my truck. Reid's voice, low and steady. Laine responding in ways that—
I yank the door open and get in.
Start the engine. Pull out of the driveway. Gravel kicks up under my tires and I don't look back at the house.
Murphy's Tavern is exactly what I need. Dark, loud, full of people trying to forget their own problems. The bartender nods at me when I walk in.
"Whiskey. Make it a double."
I find a spot at the far end and throw back my drink, trying to let the alcohol burn away the images.
It doesn't work.
"You look like someone stole your truck."
I turn to find a woman sitting two stools down. Mid-thirties, short dark hair, tired eyes. She's holding the stem of her martini glass, turning it mindlessly.
I fucking wish. "Something like that."
She nods, takes a sip of her drink. "Divorce papers became final today. Ten years down the drain because he decided he needed to 'find himself' with his twenty-three-year-old secretary."
Fuck. A bad day. I'm almost feeling ornery enough to compare bad days with her, but I don't feel like talking. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I'm better off." She raises her glass. "To being better off."
I lift my whiskey. "To being better off." At least one of us is.
We drink in silence for a few minutes. She's attractive in a sharp, no-nonsense way.
But I don't want her. Don't even know her name yet.
But I need to touch skin that isn't Laine's.
Need to prove to myself that my body still works without her.
And the look in this woman's eyes tells me she'd be more than open to that.
"I'm Leanne," she says.
"Blake."
"So what's your story, Blake? You look like someone who just watched his best friend get everything he wanted."
If I believed in psychics and all that shit, I might be spooked. I down the rest of my whiskey and signal for another. "Really fucking close."
She studies me for a long moment, then slides over to the stool next to mine. "Want to get out of here? I've got a bottle of better whiskey at my place, and we both look like we could use some company that doesn't ask too many questions."
I should say no. Should go home and sleep off the alcohol and figure out how to be a better friend to Reid.
Instead, I finish my second drink and pull out my wallet. "Let's go."
Leanne's apartment screams divorce. Half the books are gone from the shelves, and you can see lighter spots on the walls where pictures used to be. Nothing really goes together.
"Told you the whiskey was better." She pours two glasses, hands me one. The couch sags when we sit, angled toward each other but not touching.
"How long were you married?" Pretty sure she mentioned it at the bar, but I wasn't paying attention.
"Ten years. Together for twelve." She takes a sip, stares at the blank wall where a TV probably used to be. "I knew for the last two that something was off. But I kept telling myself I was imagining it."
In the military, you learn to trust your gut. It's saved my life, and the lives of my men, more than once. But out here, when it's not life and death, too many people write it off. "You weren't."
"No." She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I wasn't." She tucks her feet up underneath her. "What about you? How long have you been in love with her?" Fuck. There's that psychic thing again. I didn't tell her shit about Laine. But she knows. Am I that fucking obvious?
I take a long drink before answering. "Few months. Since she walked into my kitchen and I couldn't breathe."
"That bad?"
"Worse."
She nods like this makes perfect sense. We drink in silence for a while. The apartment is quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and occasional car passing outside.
"He took the dog," she says suddenly. "That's the thing that pisses me off most. Not the affair, not the lies. He took the fucking dog."
"What kind?"
"Beagle. Lucy." She wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Had her since she was eight weeks old. She used to sleep on my side of the bed."
I want to find this asshole and beat the shit out of him. Taking someone's dog is lower than dirt. And it would feel so fucking good to make someone bleed. But I'm not a fucking idiot. Fucking up her ex won't make the shit in my head better.
"It's not stupid."
"It is. My marriage imploded and I'm crying about a dog."
"You're crying about all of it. The dog's just the part you can say out loud."
I know how that works. The big grief is too heavy to hold, so you grab onto something smaller. Something that you can wrap your head around.
She looks at me for a long moment. Her face softens.
"You're not what I expected," she says.
"What did you expect?"
"I don't know. Someone harder. You've got that look, like you've been through some shit. But you're..."
"I'm what?"
"Gentle. When you're not trying to ignore everyone."
Jared used to say something like that. You're softer than you let on, man. Stop hiding it.
I finish my whiskey instead of answering.
She pours us both another round. We talk more. She tells me about the house they bought together, the plans they had. I tell her about the renovation work, leaving out the parts that matter. She doesn't push.
At some point she ends up closer on the couch. My arm ends up around her shoulders. It happens slow. Natural. Two people leaning into warmth because the night is too fucking cold.