Chapter 20 Oak #2
“I have to see the good in what we do, Ethan but I also have to do what I feel is right. And serving my country, the country my mother immigrated to from Mexico, the country she raised me in to do the right thing, I’m here because of her. She fought for me all her life. I’m only doing the same.”
The man’s heart is made of pure gold. “You’re a good man, Miguel.”
He lays a hand on my shoulder and squeezes the muscle. Looking me straight in the eye he says with absolute certainty, “You’re a good man, too.” After he removes his arm and lets the words sink into my skin and absorb in my brain he winks at me and jokes, “Just not as good looking as me.”
At that I laugh. The rumble coming from deep in my chest.
And fuck does it feel good.
“Alright, fucker, that’s why I have a girl back at home waiting for me. And don’t let Isaac hear you say that. He thinks he’s the pretty boy of the group.”
He holds his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, you might have the height that all the ladies want but I got the moves.” He wiggles his eyebrows and my laugh becomes louder. Loud enough to wake the rest of my team behind me.
Roman, Isaac and Jude groggily wake up behind me as they shift around until they’re sitting.
Jude rubs at his eyes and yawns. Then with bleary eyes he asks us groggily, “What has you two fuckers being so loud?”
“Yeah,” Isaac chimes in but not as groggy as Jude. If anything Isaac looks well rested. I don’t know how in the hell the fucker always manages to look like he has always gotten the best sleep. “You cut into my beauty rest.”
Roman snorts, slapping Isaac on the back of his head which doesn’t have much of an impact due to his helmet.
“Is the gossiping between you two or can the rest of us join?” Roman quips, amusement lighting in his dark eyes.
“We’re talking about how I can pull all the ladies,” Miguel tells them with a smug face.
“Not against me you can’t,” Isaac argues.
“You don’t have the moves like I do, man. A woman sees a man who can dance and knows he’s good in bed.”
Isaac shakes his head disagreeing. “And women see this face and want to sit on it.”
Roman slaps him again except this time on his arm. “No one wants to hear that.”
“Probably because you never ate a woman out before.” Isaac shrugs and Roman just shakes his head at him.
He gives him a leveled look. “I’ve ate women out before. Fucked them seven ways to Sunday, too. Need any more graphic details?”
Isaac ponders the thought before saying, “Honestly, I haven’t jacked off in months. Listening to your sexcapades might help me out.”
We all laugh at the crudeness that only Isaac can pull off without sounding perverted or fucking creepy.
As we all start talking I notice Miguel wanting me to catch his eyes. Once I do he smiles me at me and nods in the direction of all of us.
And I know what he’s saying.
This. . .this right here outweighs the bad.
This is comradely.
This is brotherhood.
This is family.
I nod my head back at him.
Because this right here? I’ll fight to keep it alive. Whatever it takes.
Soft footsteps in the distance alert me and have my head turning to the direction.
Emerging softly from the dark hallway with my shirt swallowing her frame and nothing else on is the woman I’ve finally let in.
She crosses the room with light steps and when she notices me on the floor she halts. Before I can study her face she quickens her pace to reach me and sits down softly on the floor in front of me.
“Your thoughts were so loud I could hear them from my bedroom,” she says softly. Up close I can read her face, and I’m stunned to see that there is no judgment in her eyes nor any signs of hurt.
“I’m sorry,” I immediately reply, my voice gruff.
“Don’t be.” She then raises her brow. “Care to tell me what has you so in your thoughts after the mind blowing sex we had?”
Reaching out I place my hand on her thigh and squeeze. She places her hand over my own and it feels like she’s anchoring me to the present.
My lips twitch. “Mind blowing?”
She rolls her eyes at me. The sass in her never lost even at this god awful early hour. “Don’t act so humble. You know you have a massive cock and you also know how to fucking use it.”
At that my lips do more than twitch, they bloom into a full blown smile as a roar of laughter tumbles from deep in my stomach.
I hear her join in with laughter of her own and I fucking love the sound. God, I want to record it and play it back when my mind starts to drift to the dark abyss.
With my other arm I wrap it around her torso and drag her towards me. She comes to me willingly and I lift her up with my arms to straddle my hips. Placing her hands on my chest she smiles down at me. A soft serene smile that reaches her gorgeous sky blue eyes. Eyes that I can get lost in.
“Thank you,” I say to her.
“For what?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed like that,” I tell her the truth.
“How long?”
I swallow, thinking about the early morning nine years ago before the mission that destroyed everything. “Nine years.”
“Who was the last person to make you laugh?” She asks curiously, wanting to know because she wants to learn more about me.
For nine years I have been a closed book, but for Grace I’m allowing her to open it and read the pages.
And maybe, hopefully, I’ll begin to write more pages. And those pages will include her.
My hands grip her waist as her fingers trace the lines of my tattoos.
Her touch is a soothing balm to my soul and I’m finding it easier to be more transparent with her when her hands are upon my skin.
“Miguel,” I say his name for the first time out loud in nine years.
The last time I did was when I went to his funeral.
I paid my respects as a brother should but it was more than that.
It was saying goodbye to a brother lost too fucking soon.
I still remember his mom clutching over the casket, crying her eyes out.
And I remember feeling a guilt so fucking heavy that it made it impossible to walk away.
And so I stayed. I stayed for the whole ceremony and burial. And I stayed for a long while after that.
It was Miguel’s funeral that hit me the hardest. Not because he was the heart of our group but because out of all the brothers he was the last one to be buried. And out of everyone’s burial he had the least amount of family and friends.
It was a devastating blow worse than a detonation of a bomb.
And the part that wracked me the most?
His mother coming up to me after he was buried and clutching me fiercely in her arms as her tears soaked my shirt.
But it’s what she said that never left me and to this day it fucking eats away at me and haunts me at night.
She told me, you became Miguel’s brother overseas and that makes you a part of my family.
Miguel was blessed to have you in his life.
I know you loved him and protected him. And I thank you for being here for your brother today. I’m so very sorry for your loss.
I never said a word back to her.
How could I when what she said was a god damned lie.
I didn’t protect Miguel, my decision to proceed ahead led them to all their deaths.
Yes, I loved him but look where that got him.
I wanted to scream at her, look what I have done to your son. You’re seeking comfort in the man who brought his death. You’re consoling his killer.
But she looked so sure, so confident in the fact that I was a good man that I didn’t want to say anything and ruin her perception.
She was the only one out of all their burials who didn’t shout in my face and blame me like they rightfully should have.
I didn’t understand her compassion. I sure as fuck knew I didn’t deserve it.
I deserved to be the one lying six feet under, not him.
To this day, Sofía will reach out to me and talk about Miguel as if he is alive. On those days, although they don’t come as often now, maybe once in a few months, the guilt suffocates me.
The last time I talked to Sofía was nearly five months ago.
That very same night I had the end of a glock in my mouth and my finger on the trigger.
It was the closest I had come to swallowing the bullet.
Her fingers then move to my arm with the sleeve tattoo that is a memorial for all of them. I know which one she’s tracing right now because the skull on my forearm has the name Miguel scripted in the jaw bone.
“Was he the jokester of the group?”
My fingers flex against her hips. Despite opening up my body grows tense. “No,” I reply hoarsely. Clearing my throat I respond with a voice less strained, “No, that would have to go to Isaac.”
Her fingers then trail upwards to where Isaac’s skull is, on the upper left hand side of Miguel’s. “He kept things fun while you were overseas?”
“He didn’t take everything as seriously as some of us did,” I murmur. My lips tip up in a half smile thinking about his antics and quips. “Most of the time we would have to tell him to shut up so we could focus on the mission.”
Grace nods her head as if she understands. The fact that she’s trying to makes my heart clench. “And you were the Sergeant, right? The leader.”
I nod my head. Words get caught on my tongue as emotions lodge in my throat.
The familiar feeling of my chest being crushed and my lungs shrinking return.
I’m suffocating.
Instead I respond tightly, “I was.”
The self-hatred returns until I can feel it eating away at me. Taking bite after bite until all that will be left of me is a hollow shell.
I feel her body lower on mine, her chest flush against my own as her hands caress my face. She forces me too look at her, to stare at her kind eyes that I don’t deserve. Eyes that look at me like I’m some sort of hero when I’m not.