Chapter 31
BLAKE
"Moore, you pack like a fucking tourist," Kowalski calls out, watching me wrestle with my tent poles. "What happened to military efficiency?"
"Efficiency went out the window when I started sleeping in a real bed," I shoot back, finally getting the damn thing to cooperate. I fucking hate tents. I hate camping. But when chief says get your ass on a plane, you get your ass on a plane. "Some of us evolved past sleeping on rocks for fun."
"Evolved," Chavez snorts, cracking open a beer. "That what we're calling it? You went soft, Hermano."
"Says the guy who brought a camping chair that cost more than my truck payment," I point out.
"This chair is an investment in my future back health," Chavez pats the armrest of his ridiculous contraption. "Unlike you savages who think suffering builds character."
Thompson tosses a bundle of firewood down near the pit. "Speaking of suffering, Hatch made me haul all this wood because apparently I'm the youngest."
"You are the youngest," Davis points out.
"By six months!"
"Six months that clearly matter," Hatch says, emerging from his tent with that perfect timing of his. It's like he has a sixth sense. That sense got us out of more than one death trap in the service. "Quit whining and get the fire started. Moore looks like he needs alcohol."
I pause in the middle of staking down my rain fly. "I look fine."
I look like a bomb technician who just cut the wrong wire.
"You look like shit," Kowalski corrects cheerfully. "But that's not news. You always look like shit."
"Thanks, asshole."
"Any time, brother."
This is what I needed. These guys, this bullshit, the familiar rhythm of giving each other hell while actually giving a damn. No walking on eggshells, no watching my words, no pretending everything's fine when it's not.
No watching the woman you love kiss your best friend in your own kitchen.
"How's the restoration business?" Chavez asks, settling into his ridiculous chair. "Still playing with old fireplaces?"
"Still making more money than your sorry ass," I say, and that gets a laugh.
The lie comes easy. Business is fine. The money's still good. But I've been turning down jobs left and right because I can't focus long enough to do quality work.
"Money talks, bullshit walks," Thompson says sagely, like he didn't just fall on his own tent and break a pole ten minutes ago.
"Deep thoughts from the infant," Davis mutters.
Huffing out a laugh, I finish with my tent and grab a beer from the cooler. First sip goes down cold and easy. Finally, 400 miles from home, I can finally breathe.
I take another drink and sit on the cooler lid.
Except I can't turn off my fucking brain. Laine's hair in the morning light. The way she leans into Reid at the stove. That quiet way she sings when she thinks nobody can hear.
Fuck off.
I drain half the beer and look at the lake. There's no fucking escaping her. Leaving the cooler, I join the group around the fire pit. "So what's the plan?" I ask, settling onto a log. "Besides Thompson's continued character development?"
"Same as always," Hatch says. "Drink beer, tell lies about our glory days, and see who can start the most fires without burning down the forest."
The sun's starting to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink that remind me why I used to love this shit. Before everything got complicated. Before I started measuring my life by how well I could take care of Reid, how successfully I could pretend I didn't want things I couldn't have.
"Earth to Moore," Thompson waves a hand in front of my face. "You're brooding again."
"I don't brood."
"You absolutely brood," Hatch says, and something in his voice makes me look up. "You've been brooding since you got here."
"Maybe he's constipated," Kowalski suggests helpfully. "Seriously, Moore, when's the last time you took a good shit? I'm talking quality here, not just—"
"Jesus Christ, Kowalski," Thompson cuts him off. "Why does everything come back to bathroom habits with you?"
"Because it's important!" Kowalski waves his beer around. "Half the world's problems could be solved with proper fiber intake. Depression? Constipation. Anger issues? Constipation. Relationship problems? Definitely backed the fuck up."
"Maybe you should mind your own business," I shoot back, but without any real heat.
"This is my business," Kowalski grins. "Your emotional well-being directly affects my entertainment value. And right now you're about as fun as a clogged toilet."
There he goes again with the bathroom metaphors. Guy's got a one-track mind.
But Hatch is still watching me with those sharp eyes that saw through enemy bullshit in three different countries. And I know this conversation isn't over. The question is whether I can deflect long enough for him to let it go, or if he's going to push until I crack.
The fire catches, sending sparks up into the darkening sky.
Davis starts telling a story about his new job, something about corporate bureaucracy that has everyone laughing.
I laugh too, participate in the conversation, play my part.
But the whole time I can feel Hatch's eyes on me, cataloging every forced smile, every beat too long before I respond to a joke.
One by one, the guys start heading to their tents. Davis first, claiming he's getting too old to stay up past ten. Then Thompson, who actually is too young to keep up with our alcohol tolerance. Chavez and Kowalski disappear together, still arguing about whether there's really a Barcelona, Oregon.
Until it's just me and Hatch, sitting across from each other with the fire crackling between us.
Just my fucking luck. I should bail, head to my tent. But that sick part of me, the part that likes the pain, wants this conversation.
"Alright," Hatch says, settling back in his chair. "Now you can tell me what's really going on."
"Nothing's going on."
"Blake." Hatch's voice carries the same tone it did when we were deployed, the one that meant he could see straight through whatever bullshit I was trying to sell. "You've lost weight. You're jumpy. And you've got that look in your eye."
"What look?" Brilliant plan asshole. Play dumb. That'll work.
"The one you get when a mission is going sideways and you're trying to figure out who you have to sacrifice to save the objective."
I take a long pull from my beer, buying time. "Just tired. Business has been busy."
"Try again."
Fuck.
"Reid's got a girlfriend," I say finally, staring into the fire. "Serious girlfriend. They're talking about moving in together."
"That's..." Hatch pauses. "That's good news, right? You've been worried about him finding someone since that last thing blew up."
The last thing. The woman that nearly fucking destroyed him. The one that couldn't handle the dark hole he crawled into after Jared died, and fucking bailed.
"Yeah. It's great news." The words taste really fucking bitter. "Reid deserves to be happy."
"But? There has to be a but, cause you don't sound very happy."
But I'm in love with her. But I think about her every waking moment. But watching them together is like having my chest cracked open with a crowbar every single day.
"But nothing. I'm happy for him."
Hatch shakes his head and leans forward, elbows on his knees. "Blake, I've known you for fifteen years. This isn't happiness for Reid. This is something else."
The fire pops, sending a shower of sparks into the night air.
"Her name's Laine," I say instead. "She's a nurse. They met when he was working a night shift. There was a festival, and a ton of fucking overdoses."
"And?"
"And she's..." Perfect. Beautiful. Kind. "She's good for him. Really good for him."
Hatch is still, studying my face in the firelight. "You're in love with her."
It's not a question. Fucking Hatch and his spidey senses.
I don't answer, which apparently, for Hatch, is answer enough.
"Jesus Christ, Blake."
That's pretty much the reaction I was expecting. "Yeah."
"How long?"
"Since the first time I met her." The admission comes out rough. "She brought groceries over to cook dinner for Reid, and I walked into that kitchen and saw her standing at the stove, teaching him how to make sauce, and I just... I knew."
"Knew what?"
"That I was in trouble."
Hatch runs a hand over his face. "Does Reid know?"
"No. And he never will."
"You sure about that? Because you're not exactly subtle when you're miserable."
"I'm handling it."
"Are you?" Hatch challenges. "Because from where I'm sitting, you look like you're about five minutes away from imploding."
I finish my beer and reach for another one, even though I'm already feeling the alcohol more than I should. Maybe if I'm lucky I can pass the fuck out and avoid the rest of this conversation.
But that's just going to make everything worse. Because Hatch is a dog with a bone. As persistent and just as mean if he needs to be.
He won't let this go. So my choices are to fight, or to tell him the truth of it.
I don't think I have any fight left in me.
"You remember after Jared died? When you kept calling and I wouldn't pick up?"
Hatch's expression shifts, becomes more careful. "Yeah. I figured you needed space to grieve."
"I wasn't grieving." The words come out flat, emotionless. "I mean, I was, but that's not... I was in a bad place, Hatch. Really bad."
He plants his elbows on his knees. "How bad?"
I stare into the fire, watching the flames dance. "I had my sidearm on the coffee table. Loaded. And I sat there for three days staring at it."
The silence that follows is heavy, broken only by the crackling of burning wood and the distant sound of an owl somewhere in the darkness.
"Blake..."
"Blake..."
His voice is different now. Not the Chief voice. Not the tactical, cut-the-bullshit voice he uses when he's running an op or chewing someone out. This is the other one. The one I heard exactly once before—in a field hospital in Kandahar, standing over a kid who wasn't going to make it.