Chapter 3
Ricardo had felt guilty for a while about sneaking peeks at RateYourHit and secretly communicating with Heidi. He’d known August wouldn’t be happy about it, and he’d known it was a dickish thing to do.
But he’d done it anyway because the restlessness had been killing him.
And now there was a not-zero chance that August would kill him.
You’d deserve it, too. What were you thinking?
Standing up on the rooftop terrace again, staring out at the ink black void of the Med, he cursed himself up one side and down the other. He wasn’t actually afraid of August. He was just pissed at himself for upsetting him. For hurting him.
Retirement had been the catalyst of a huge fight right before their wedding.
Ricardo had thought August was changing the terms of their relationship.
Asking him to change something so fundamental—asking him to stop being what he’d been for so long—had felt like a bridge too far.
But then Ricardo had come to his senses.
He’d realized what August really wanted—a life together without constantly being afraid of losing each other.
He’d wanted that too. He still did. There was nothing in the world he wanted more than for August to be safe and happy.
The problem was that Ricardo couldn’t cope with safe and happy.
He was restless and bored and didn’t know what to fucking do with himself.
It had been bothering him for a while, and ever since he’d gone to that rich asshole’s party—ever since he’d watched from the sidelines while others engaged in the excitement of a heist—he hadn’t been able to get comfortable.
He didn’t want to hurt August. He didn’t want to go back on his word.
He just didn’t know how to be this person.
Now August was justifiably hurt and pissed off, and if there was one thing Ricardo knew how to be less than a retired assassin, it was a husband who could unfuck this situation.
Good thing his ex-wife was both smarter than him and a night owl.
“What did you do?” she asked when she answered his call.
Ricardo laughed into the stillness of the warm night. “What makes you think I did something?”
“Because you’re calling me out of the blue at—what is it, four in the morning over there?”
“Something like that.”
“Mmhmm. So… out with it. What did you do?”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “I fucked up.”
“Mmhmm.” She didn’t ask a third time, but the question hung in the air anyhow: What did you do, Ricardo?
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he took a deep breath and spelled it out to her. He didn’t bother holding back any details. God knew he’d lied to her enough in their past life, and anyway, he didn’t have to hide his and August’s profession—former profession—anymore.
When he’d finished confessing his sins, Eve whistled. “So how pissed is he? Do you have a bunker somewhere you can hide?”
He had to chuckle at that. Eve knew August well. “No bunker. But he’s… Fuck. He’s really upset. I’m probably lucky we had someone fry himself on our security measures tonight. Gave him something to occupy his mind for a few hours.”
The silence on the other end went on for so long, he thought he might’ve dropped the call.
He was about to ask if she was still there when Eve laughed dryly.
“I… You know, I really shouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore, but the fact that you can be so chill about—listen, when you say he fried himself, do you mean… ”
“Remember that time right after we got married, when we put some chicken in the oven, and then we decided to have a quickie while it was cooking? But then it wasn’t a quickie after all?”
“Holy shit. What the hell do you guys have around your house that can burn someone to that much of a crisp?”
“It was August’s idea.”
“Okay, yeah, that makes sense. My God, you could film a horror movie on that property.”
“Not safely,” Ricardo muttered.
“Fair point. Anyhow. So August is pissed at you, someone got burned beyond recognition on your property, and now you don’t know how to get back in your husband’s good graces.”
“Pretty much.” He pressed his elbow into the warm stone and rubbed his forehead. “I fucked up so bad, Eve. I don’t—I didn’t want to go back on my word. I just don’t know how to be this person. I don’t…”
“You don’t know how to be anything but a soldier,” she said softly.
Ricardo deflated. “Exactly. I’ve been a soldier of some kind since I was a teenager. There’s always been an objective. An enemy. Something. Now, I…” He rose and flailed a hand for no one’s benefit but his own. “I don’t know who I am.”
“That sounds tough,” she said. “To tell you the truth, I always wondered, even when we were still young, how you’d handle retiring from the Army. A lot of the guys I served with—they got out and didn’t know how to be civilians. Kind of seemed like that would be you.”
He considered that, and to some extent, it was true. “I don’t miss the institutionalization.”
“No, of course not. But being a soldier—a fighter. I think that’s always been you more than being a killer.”
“I never liked killing,” he said. “It was just part of the job. And I think… I’m happy with August. I couldn’t be happier. But I just feel… like I’m not doing anything.” He paused and huffed out a laugh. “For fuck’s sake, I even tried gardening.”
Eve sputtered on the other end. “You? Gardening? How did that go?”
“The landscaper fired me.”
She snorted. “I’m not surprised.”
Ricardo managed a sad chuckle. “Yeah. Me neither.” He wiped a hand over his face and tilted his head back to look up at the sky. “But I haven’t found anything else to do.”
“So you started looking at jobs again.”
“Yeah. And I shouldn’t have. I know. I wouldn’t have taken any, especially not without talking to August. I just…” He closed his eyes and pushed out a long breath. “I don’t know what to do.”
“To fix things with August?” she asked. “Or to keep from going insane in your own gilded cage?”
“Both.”
“I mean, I know how to fix the first thing, but you won’t like it.”
“Try me.”
“Ricardo. You know exactly what I’m going to say. And I can hear you rolling your eyes, so don’t even try to deny it.”
He’d been halfway through doing exactly that, so yeah, she probably could hear him. “You want me to talk to him.”
“Obviously.”
“Fuck.”
“No, you can do that after you and he talk.”
Ricardo tried to laugh but failed miserably.
Talking about things like this had always been hard for him, and few people knew that as well as Eve did.
This one was extra hard for the same reason a lot of his issues had been with her—not because he didn’t want to admit he’d fucked up, but because for all he could face bombs and gunfire, he hated facing the hurt in a partner’s eyes.
He still hated himself for the times he’d made Eve cry.
He’d had some unpleasant go-arounds with August, too, but this was the first time he could truly say he’d hurt him.
That he’d cut him deep in a way that he didn’t know if he could fix.
“You love him, don’t you?” Eve asked.
“Of course I love him.” Ricardo meant to snap at her, but it came out shaky and hurt. “And I hate myself. I can’t excuse it. I won’t.”
“Breathe, Ricardo.” Her voice was gentle but firm. “You fucked up, but it isn’t like you went out and cheated on him.”
“Then why does it feel like I did?” Christ, he sounded pathetic. “I would never cheat on him. Never in a million years. But now it feels… Fuck. It feels like I did.”
“You didn’t.”
That wasn’t Eve.
Ricardo almost dropped his phone as he spun around, and there was August. He stood just a few feet away, dressed only in a pair of track pants that probably cost a fortune and his extra-supportive slippers. His expression was unsettlingly serious, but not angry.
Ricardo gulped. “I, uh…” He cleared his throat. “I have to go.”
“Good luck,” Eve said, and ended the call.
Heart pounding, Ricardo slipped his phone into his pocket. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough that I want to know what happened to the chicken.”
Ricardo almost wanted to laugh, but instead, he was stunned to realize August had been listening for so long.
And it wasn’t even that August had managed to go undetected, though that was unnerving in its own right; no one could get the drop on Ricardo.
Not after the Green Berets and years as an assassin had fine-tuned his situational awareness.
Shit, maybe those senses were atrophying, because that would help him with all this restlessness.
That mini-freakout was mostly in the back of his mind, though, overshadowed by how much August had actually heard.
“I, uh…” Ricardo cleared his throat. “I wasn’t trying to go behind your back. It was just Eve—I needed—”
“I know.” August sounded calmer than he had since their argument in the bedroom. “I get it.” He laughed, what little sound there was swallowed up by the gentle breeze. “I was probably going to call her myself.”
“You—really?”
“Are you kidding?” August crept closer. “She’s way smarter than both of us and she understands you.”
Ricardo let go of an uneasy laugh. “She is. And she does.” He sobered, studying his husband. “I’m sorry, August. I—”
“Shut up.” August closed the remaining space between them and slid his hands over Ricardo’s waist. “I heard what you said. And…” He sighed, resting his head on Ricardo’s shoulder. “I get it. I was pissed, and yes, it hurt that you didn’t say anything. But… I get it.”
Letting his eyelids slide shut, Ricardo wrapped his arms around August. “Still. I should’ve told you.” He stroked August’s hair. “I should have… Well. It was all stupid, and I’m sorry.”
A quiet laugh shook August in Ricardo’s arms. “I’m just glad you admit it was stupid.”
Ricardo chuckled and rolled his eyes.
After a moment, August drew back and met his gaze, and some of his usual spiciness had returned. “Also? I looked at the site, and have you seen this fucker who’s catching up to us?” He scoffed and made a face. “NightRaven? Really? I will not be outdone by some edgelord clown named NightRaven. Ugh.”