Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN_
DECAF
I know Haz’s abandonment issues run deep, but to think I pushed him away because I didn’t like him?
“I’m the biggest asshole to ever asshole,” I say, more to myself than him.
He hasn’t answered whether he’s okay to have this conversation, but with the painkillers I’m on, I’ve never been more ready to blurt all of my inner demons.
Apparently, my first admission is enough to get him on board.
“Okay, I’m listening.” He leans forward, placing his elbows on the edge of my bed.
I want to warn him that getting close to me when I haven’t had more than a sponge bath in a week is not a good idea, but what I have to say is more important.
“Everything I’ve ever done since your dad’s passing has been for you.
Every decision, every time I was tempted to look you up to see how you were doing …
I reminded myself that I’m not what you needed.
Trust me when I say you’re better off having never known me growing up. ”
“You’ve already said as much,” Haz says. “That doesn’t mean that when I came here looking for you, you should have kept running. That was the time where you should have taken a look at the situation, asked why I might have wanted to get close to you, and then fucking been there for me.”
“Hold up.”
Haz … came to Mike Bravo … for me?
“You said you didn’t know who I was until after you’d already accepted the position from Trav.”
He throws his hands up. “Well, yeah. I fucking lied. Because it was obvious you wanted nothing to do with me. I wasn’t going to stand there and admit that I thought you’d welcome me with open arms, take me under your wing, look out for me, and treat me like family.
Dad’s journals gave me so much insight into the man he was.
Into the man he thought you were. But more than that, it left me with even more questions than before. Questions my mother refuses to answer.”
I’ve done so much wrong by this kid … ugh, I have to stop calling him a kid and see him for the man he is, but when he throws things like “dead father” around, it’s hard to see him as anything but the child both Jesse and I abandoned. Only, Jesse’s abandonment wasn’t by choice.
“I wish … Fuck, I don’t even know where to start. I’ve made so many mistakes. So much I want to make up for. Though I do have one confession to make.”
“Only one?”
“I might not have been there for you emotionally, but I have been looking out for you since you joined Mike Bravo.”
“By making Trav give me bullshit bounty jobs?”
“Keeping tabs on you. Getting intel on who your bounties were. Oh, and when you were tortured on your first mission, I might have given you the good drugs for the pain behind Scout’s back.”
Haz smiles. “I might have heard about that. Though the guys told me you were drugging me because you were convinced I was going to try to kill you.”
Oh. “Heard about that, huh? I promise it was mainly giving you real help for the pain and only a teeny tiny bit a precaution in case of homicide.”
“Eh. I’m okay with the drugging. Those pills you gave me worked so much better than the weak-ass shit Scout was giving me.”
“Thank you! That’s what I said when he refused to give you anything stronger. You’d just had your fucking nail ripped out.”
Haz’s smile only grows, and when his eyes meet mine, I swear one of his teeth sparkles in the light. Or maybe my painkillers are just as strong as the ones I gave him back then and I’m hallucinating how … shiny he looks.
“How else have you been looking out for me?” he asks. “You were basically overseas for a lot of the last year.”
“I might … have threatened a few of the Mike Bravo guys to keep an eye on you and had Saint keep me up to date with which contracts you were on.”
Haz drops his head, and his shoulders shake from the laugh he’s trying to hide. “Anything else?”
In for a penny and whatnot, may as well confess to all. “On one of the jobs that had me stateside, when I found out you were sent to bring in some punk-ass wannabe gangster, I might have gotten to him first.”
Haz’s eyes light up. “The Marx case? I was told he would be a challenge, but he gave himself so easily, I thought it was a trap. Made me paranoid as fuck all the way to the police station.”
“Turns out, pretending there was a hit out on Marx and telling him the only protection he’d get would be from inside a jail cell worked. Good to know.”
Haz laughs. “You didn’t.”
“I realize that might have been underestimating you, but I’ve been trying to do whatever I can without getting close to you.”
His lips purse. “Because you’ve thought this whole time it would be better for me to feel deserted than hate you for actions you did twenty-two years ago?”
“And because …” I’ve come this far. I have to tell him the truth. “The thought of getting close to you and losing you rips me up inside.”
Haz looks unsure of what to say to that, but it’s obvious he has something he wants to get off his chest.
“That makes you feel a certain type of way,” I coax, and he relents.
“As much as I probably don’t want to know the answer to this, I have to ask. Mom said she didn’t know, she didn’t think so, but—”
“Didn’t think what?”
“Were you and my dad having an affair?”
I burst into laughter so hard, I swear a stitch pops somewhere. “Ouch, fuck. That hurts.”
“Good.” He pouts. “Serves you right for laughing at a perfectly valid question. I … I sometimes think you look at me and all you see is my dad. And if you’re only going to use me as some kind of surrogate for him—”
“Don’t you get it?” I cut him off. “When I do look at you and see Jesse, I immediately feel guilty because doing wrong by you is doing wrong by him. It has nothing to do with his and my friendship, which is all it was, by the way. Ever. Ever, ever, ever.” Even if there’s that air of …
tension between us that I’ve only ever felt with his dad.
He was married and straight, so I never let myself pay too much attention to that vibe.
“It has to do with the decades of guilt I still hold. I don’t want to feel this way, and I …
I would love to get to know you on a deeper level.
One of the other reasons I didn’t want to get close to you at first is because I knew the time would come one day where you found out what I did—or didn’t do—when your father died.
I knew you would hate me for it, and so, I didn’t want to form any kind of bond with you, only to make you feel betrayed and then cut me out of your life.
Doing it to you first was a selfish move, but I never thought you’d give me the time of day if you knew. ”
“You could have told me up front.”
“I could have. But every time I admit to what I did, my self-worth takes a massive dive. I was a coward. And I’m sorry it took so long to find my courage.”
“I forgive you,” he says.
I reach for his hand. “I’m willing to spend every single day of the rest of my life making my mistakes up to you if you’ll let me.”
Haz is frozen for a moment, unmoving. Not even blinking.
When he eventually snaps out of it, he puts a finger to his chin and taps it twice, and a smartass smile crosses his face as he says, “Rest of your life, huh? I’m not sure if that’s really a compliment, seeing how old you are.
I’d at least think I’d also get a millennium in the afterlife too. ”
I can’t help it. I laugh. I don’t want to because it makes me ache even more, but I do. “Fuck off.”
“Are you saying I don’t deserve an eternity of you making it up to me?”
“First it’s a millennium, and now it’s an eternity?”
“A million years would feel like an eternity.”
I snicker. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but a millennium is one thousand years, not a million. Did you even go to school?”
“I’m so sorry for having attended school in this millennium and not the last one like you did. I haven’t lived to experience what a new millennium is like.”
I grab my chest. “I actually think that’s giving me a heart attack. Because you’re right. I am fucking old.”
“If it helps, you don’t look a day over forty-five.”
My mouth drops, and I’m about to yell that I’m forty-two when he smirks. “You fucker.”
“I can’t help it. It’s so easy. But really, you look like you’re mid-thirties at most. Well, usually. Right now, you’re not looking too great, but anyone who looks good after surviving a car bomb isn’t human if you ask me.”
I rub along my scruffy jaw that I know is more gray than anything these days. I really need to shave. “Fair point. I need a shave.” Like that’s going to help my appearance, but it might make me feel better.
“I-I …” Haz clears his throat and tries again. “I could shave your face for you. I mean, if you wanted to get rid of it.”
My reflexive reaction is to tell him I can do it myself, but we both know I’d be lying. I’m slow as fuck to even get to the bathroom at the moment, let alone have the ability to stand at a mirror for half an hour. Shaving with my nondominant hand would be messy too.
“I’m sure a nurse would do it if I asked.”
Haz stands. “I’m here to look after you. I can do it.”
“It won’t be weird?” I ask.
“Oh, I’m sure it will be. I can make it extra awkward, too, if you like. Tell you you’re pretty the whole time I do it. If it makes you feel a fraction more human, it might be worth it. Besides, how else do you propose we build trust than to let me near your carotid with a razor?”
“Well, when you put it that way, sign me up. But I’m willing to risk it.”
“What you mean to say is you’re excited to get started on making it up to me, and step one is building trust between us. That’s what you really meant.”
“If that’s what you want to tell yourself, sure, then this is a trust exercise.”
"Excellent." Haz makes his way into the bathroom. The water runs for a bit, and then he pulls out a toiletry kit. Because Trav hasn’t let any of us go to any of our homes, one of the guys went and bought all new stuff for me.
There are new clothes for me to change into, but Haz has been the only one here to help me since then, and I didn't want to put myself in such a vulnerable position with him by asking him to dress me. Yet, somehow, I'm about to find myself in an even more vulnerable spot.
Some might argue that being naked in front of another is the most vulnerable you can be, but those people probably didn’t have countless homicide threats from the person who’s about to give them a close shave with a razor. I’m guessing.
I’m certain they’ve all been jokes, though. If Hazard were going to kill me, I’d already be dead about five times over. Not even the most sadistic person would torture someone for this long.
And ever since I dove in front of him when my car exploded, I’ve felt the shift between us.
This is the beginning of something real.
No bullshit. Just me and my best friend’s kid …
fully grown, adult kid. Who looks so much like his father, has the same stubborn streak and penchant for not following orders, yet has something else that’s so uniquely him.
His spitfire personality, his permanent flirtatious tone, his snark, they’re what make him … Haz.
As he approaches me with one of those emesis basins nurses put their needles and vials in and whatever else they need to carry around, I begin to get … nervous? My gut swoops, sending tingles out to every part of my body.
Haz sits on the side of the bed, right near my ribs, but lifts his knee onto the bed as well so he can face me. Because my good arm has been lying across my stomach, his leg slides under my elbow, so I’m partly resting it on his thigh instead.
It’s already weird, and he hasn’t even done anything yet. I have brief panic where I think to myself, what do I do with my hand? So instead of adjusting to try to get comfortable, I just leave it where it is, with most of my forearm feeling denim instead of thin hospital gown material.
I’m too busy thinking about hand positioning that I flinch when a warm, wet cloth hits my skin. He covers the bottom half of my face with it, gently pressing it against my skin.
My voice is muffled as I talk, but he can still make out my words. “Here I thought I had to worry about the razor. Turns out you’re going to waterboard me first.”
He laughs hard but doesn’t remove the cloth. “I’m warming up your skin.”
I don’t say this bit aloud, but my face feels flushed enough as it is. Because this is awkward as fuck. And it’s embarrassing that I need so much help. I hate it, but I can’t say I want it to stop. Weirdly.
Haz eventually removes the cloth and then shakes the can of shaving cream before putting some into his hands.
I kind of expected him to use way too much or make this as ridiculous as he possibly could, but he doesn’t. He has an adorable concentration line in his forehead as he spreads the foam across my jaw and neck.
The way he’s being so careful, so thorough, it’s … surprising. When listing his attributes in my head, gentle isn’t one of the top five, and here he is, proving that to be one of many misconceptions I’ve had when it comes to Corey Hazard.
His fingers skim over my upper lip and down to cover my chin in shaving cream. Haz’s face is so close to mine as he leans over me to inspect his work. His fingers are soft as he spreads the cream farther, taking excess from my cheeks and moving it down my neck.
I haven’t paid much attention to his lips before, but they’re full and plump, so much so that even when the corners of his mouth hitch upward, his bottom lip still looks biteable.
Wait.
Biteable?
No, wrong word. They still look bursting. Blubbery. Some other word that starts with B that my drugged-up brain obviously mixed up with biteable.
“You look like you’re desperate to say something, but you can’t unless you want to get a mouth full of shaving cream.” And he looks way too happy about that.
It’s probably a good thing I can’t talk. Something idiotic like “biteable lips” might slip out.
Haz’s fingers leave my skin, and I let out a loud, long breath through my nose. I didn’t realize how shallow I was breathing. He picks up my razor he has sitting in the emesis basin and brings it to the base of my jaw, hovering above my skin without pressing down just yet.
“Moment of truth,” he whispers.
A shiver shoots through me, fanning out from my spine to my extremities and marking my body with goose bumps.
But it’s not from distrust. We can joke about him killing me all we want, but in this moment, right here and now, with him so close to me, breathing the same air, I trust him more than anyone.
Can I explain it? No.
It’s a deep, guttural instinct—the one I’ve never doubted. Hunches are one thing, but this is more than that. This is …
“You can still back out,” he singsongs.
I give a subtle shake of my head and reach for him with my good hand, taking his wrist and forcing his hand forward until the razor is flush with my jaw.
He smiles widely as he pulls the blade upward over my cheek. “Look at that. Building trust already.”
We’re definitely building … something.
What that something is, I have no idea.
Not yet.