Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR_
HAZARD
“What do you think?” Saint turns to me. He’s in a classic black tux and a black bow tie, looking fine as fuck.
When they asked for volunteers to go wedding tux shopping, I was bored enough to say yes.
Bored, wanting to get out of HQ in case Decaf showed up …
Same thing, right? Decaf isn’t supposed to come by, but if I’ve learned anything from his workaholic ways in the last eight months, R and R isn’t going to stop him.
Trav hasn’t found me that in-between boring and too-exciting job yet, so I felt like a sitting duck at Mike Bravo headquarters.
And that’s how I ended up here, drooling over the objectively attractive Saint.
“If Iris wasn’t in the dressing room next to you with only a curtain separating you, I’d say I’d totally be down to fuck you in it, but because he is, and I like breathing, I’m going to say there’s only one problem with it. ”
Iris calls out from behind the curtain, “If you say it’s not on the floor, I don’t care if Saint doesn’t want us seeing each other in our wedding attire before the actual wedding, I will come out there and break your jaw.”
“I might like it rough, you don’t know!” I smirk, but Saint sends me a pleading look, so I drop the taunting. “I was actually going to say that, without spoiling it for each other, you two have very different ideas about theming.”
Saint sighs. “He wants to wear a camo tux, doesn’t he?”
“I do not.”
I snort. “Only because they said they don’t have one.”
“Shush, you,” Iris says. “But let me guess, he’s out there in a crisp black suit? Damn, I can picture it now. You have no idea how much I want to throw open this curtain.”
“I’m scared to ask what you’re trying on in there,” Saint says.
“It’s nothing too over-the-top.” Iris still hasn’t mastered the innocent tone. Even when he is innocent of something, it sounds like he’s guilty. And in this case, he is guilty as fuck.
The first tux he came out in was reflective, and he looked like a damn disco ball.
He said something about pulling inspiration from some hockey player who’s known for his lavish style.
Some Ezra Pala-something. I couldn’t spell his last name, but I searched Ezra hockey player ugly suits. There was a gold mine of online images.
I step in to try to help. “The best way to probably do this is pick a theme, and then there won’t be any mismatching going on. Iris wants … extravagant. Saint is looking at classic styles. Surely, there’s a compromise somewhere.”
“Thanks for volunteering,” Iris says. “If you wanna go pick a theme and then choose tuxes for us to try on, that would be great. Thanks.”
Why in the fuck did I open my goddamn mouth? The shrill sound of my annoying ringtone echoes around the suit store.
“Oh nooooo. That’s my phone.” I pull it out of my pocket to see it’s my mom calling. “And it’s my mother. Might be a family emergency. Damn. Sorry, I can’t help. Need to get this.” I don’t think I’ve ever moved faster or been so excited to lie to my mom.
It’s entirely possible I haven’t been completely forthcoming about my job with Mike Bravo.
To be fair, it’s not an outright lie. I am bounty hunting.
Not everything in Mike Bravo is explosives and torture.
But okay, I did lie to her about why my fingernail was missing for a good part of this last year, but that was more to protect her from worrying than not telling her the truth about why I joined a private security firm of badasses.
I manage to exit the store and hit Answer before it switches to voicemail. “Hey, Mo—”
“Corey Fitzgerald Hazard!”
Oh fuck, I’m in trouble. But also, don’t get me started on my middle name being Decaf’s last name.
I grew up being told it was because Mom wanted to call me Corey and Dad wanted to call me Fitzgerald, so they decided to give me both names.
Sure, that could be the truth, but Mom failed to mention why my dad would want to call me Fitzgerald.
I only found out by reading my dad’s journals.
So, technically, I’m not the only liar in this mother-son relationship.
“Why am I in trouble?” I ask.
“Where are you?” Her tone is all accusation and no chill.
“You want exact location? I can send you the coordinates.” Smartassery doesn’t help, but it is buying me time to come up with a multitude of answers to anything she might throw at me.
“Don’t be a smartass.”
“That would be like telling me to not breathe.”
“Corey …” She might sound exasperated now, but that’s better than angry.
“I’m at work.”
“For the bail bonds place.”
I don’t know what sets off the alarm bells, but this feels like a trap. “Technically, yes, though I’m not bounty hunting right this second.”
“Why did you tell me you were working for a bail bondsman when you’re not?”
“I never said bail bondsman. That’s the word you inferred, and I didn’t correct you.” What I want to know is how she found out? “Why are you asking? Like, what prompted—”
“I had a visitor today.”
“Who?” The only people who know about Mike Bravo are Mike Bravo themselves. So unless Trav was worried I’m still not ready like he was implying at our meeting yesterday, I don’t know who else would … oh shit. “Deca—Denton.”
“Mmhmm.”
That motherfucking fucking fuck fuck asshole. Words escape me because I don’t know what I can say to make her feel better about any of this.
“I thought you were done with military life?” she asks, her voice suddenly small. “That it wasn’t for you.”
“Blindly following orders wasn’t for me.”
“I have questions.”
I scoff. “Yeah, so do I.”
“Why don’t you come over so we can talk?”
“So you can yell at me in person? No, thank you.”
She chuckles. “Meet me out, then. In public. I don’t want to yell. I want to know why.” There’s a beat before she says, “So then I can yell.”
I don’t think I owe her an explanation when it comes to this job, but I do owe her the truth when it comes to Decaf. “Okay, meet me at our place in West Hollywood?”
“I’ll be there in an hour.” She ends the call, and now I have an hour to come up with a way to explain myself.
I go back in the store to tell Iris and Saint I have to go, but when I find them, they’re kissing, Saint still in his classic tux and Iris in a new one, which is a charcoal color with a black filigree pattern you can only see shimmering in some light. They go really well together.
“What happened to not wanting to see each other in your tuxes?” I ask.
They pull back, smiling wide, and Saint looks over at me as he says, “You left him unsupervised.” Iris really does suit his moniker I require intense supervision. “One day, you’ll learn.”
One day. But today is not that day.
I beat Mom to the coffee joint, which is new and different for us, seeing as she lives nearby and I usually have to come farther.
I order us our usual, two coffees and a piece of carrot cake with two forks, and take a table near the window. Now, the biggest challenge will be not touching the carrot cake until she arrives. Mom enters the cafe right as I’m about to start stuffing my face full of sugar. Perfect timing.
She approaches me, and I stand for a hug. For a split moment before she sinks into my arms, I think she’s going to refuse. She’s pissed at me, and I get it, but I didn’t want to tell her because I don’t like seeing the exact look on her face she has right now.
She pulls back and cups my cheek, staring up at me with watery eyes. Then she taps my face twice—harder than I would say is completely playful, but not actually hard—and says, “Okay, explain,” and takes her seat.
As I slide back into my chair opposite hers, my leg begins to bounce, even though I tell it not to.
“Explain what?”
“Don’t try to be cute or play dumb.”
My skin is on fire. Mom always has the power to make me feel small.
I hate keeping things from her because I respect her, but when I do have secrets, it’s for a good reason.
“I’m not playing. Which part do you want me to explain?
Why I took the job or why I took a job with Dec—Denton?
” Damn it. Fucked up his name again. I only recently got used to calling him Decaf, and now I have to go back?
Maybe I need to come up with a nickname for him.
“D” could work. D for Decaf, D for Denton, D for Daddy’s best friend, D for dickhead. These all fit.
“Both,” Mom says.
“When I left the military, I wasn’t looking for Mike Bravo.”
“Who’s Mike Bravo?”
“It’s not a who, it’s the name of the company, but like I said, I wasn’t looking for this kind of work.
I thought my days of military-like ops were over.
But you remember when I was packing up your attic to move to your new place and I found Dad’s journal?
When I first asked you about Denton and why I didn’t know anything about him? ”
She can barely look at me. “I told you to let it go, and I took the journal off you.” Her voice is quiet. Soft. Remorseful.
“It wasn’t the only journal,” I admit, my voice just as small. “If you weren’t going to give me the answers, I was going to find them on my own.”
“And did you find what you were looking for?”
I huff. “No. I only have more questions.”
“About your dad or about Denton?”
“Yes.”
She manages a small laugh, but it dies quickly. “I know I should have maybe spoken to you about your father a long time ago, told you stories about the man he was, but it hurt so much. It still hurts. I think it will always hurt. But if it means getting you out of that job and away from that man—”
“Denton? At this point, you don’t need to worry about that. He avoids me every chance he gets.”
“Good. You should keep it that way.”
Ever since finding those journals, I’ve had theories.
Dad’s words read more like love letters than best friends, but I didn’t want to jump to that conclusion.
Mom calls Dad the love of her life, and if she wasn’t Dad’s, I wouldn’t want to open that can of worms. But maybe she already knew something, and that’s why she hates Decaf so fiercely.
“Were they … like was Dad … Did they have an affair?” I swallow hard, but my throat is dry. Just like my mouth.
“No. At least, not to my knowledge.”
“Then why do you hate him so much? The way Dad talks about him in his journals, it’s as if they were … close.” Maybe too close? “Like family.”
Mom takes a deep breath in, lifts her coffee to her mouth, and takes a sip, but instead of then replying, she shovels in a forkful of carrot cake.
After she swallows, she looks me in the eyes and says, “You know that your dad was killed in action, but … maybe it’s time I tell you the real story of how your father died. The full story.”