Chapter 28
Ranger
Joker: Your mom isn’t sick.
Barbie must have filled Joker in on everything when she called to tell him what happened with Jeremy. While I figured he was full of shit, I never thought he’d outright lie. Waking up in Elle’s bed to Joker’s text has taken me back to all the memories of my childhood that I’ve tried so hard to forget. How could I expect my brother to behave any other way when he had our parents to raise him?
“What’s going through that sexy head of yours this morning?” Elle asks, rolling over and hiking her leg up over mine, covering me with her arm and her warmth. Her knee is getting awfully, wonderfully close to my dick, but I’m not sure if I’m in the mood right now to deal with morning wood. I’d love nothing more than to roll over and bury myself in her this morning, but the reality is, thoughts of my family are a complete turnoff.
“Nothing good. Bad memories,” I tell her, holding her to my side.
“Tell me. Get it out and cleanse yourself.”
“Does that really work?”
“Only one way to find out.” She kisses my chest, snuggling in closer.
“Saturday morning story time?” I chuckle.
“Sure. Let’s go with that.”
“I grew up outside of Fort Benning. It was close to the Georgia-Alabama state line.”
“That would explain the accent when you’re pissed off.” I feel her smile against my chest.
“Whenever we’d go into town, I’d see all of these larger-than-life men. We went on post one time for a field trip, and I was hooked. Big, huge muscles, and tall, and ink up and down their arms. I wanted to be them when I grew up. I asked my dad one day who they were, and he told me they were Rangers. I decided then I’d do whatever I had to do, but I was going to be one of them one day.”
“So that’s what you did.”
“Yup. But not without being told I’d never be good enough. That if I joined the Army, I was deserting my family, and they needed me to stay and take care of them. Dad barely eked out a living doing odd jobs. Mom worked part time as a cashier. I still don’t know how they afforded the house I grew up in, but we got by. We never had much, but I didn’t know any better. I told them I’d be able to help them even more if I joined the Army. They called me an idiot, told me I was stupid.”
“And your brother?”
“Was the favored child. He was the baby. Got whatever he wanted.”
“Including other men’s wives,” Elle snorts, and for the first time ever, I grin at the joke.
“He was a little spoiled. But he was my brother.”
“You loved him.” Such a simple statement.
“I did.”
“Okay, continue, please.”
I kiss the top of her head. “I didn’t listen to them. I passed all my classes in high school at the top of the class. I was salutatorian my graduating year. I had scholarship offers, but I turned them all down and met with the recruiter. He gave me my ship date, and I asked Vanessa to marry me before I left. We’d been high school sweethearts and she said yes.”
“Who cares about her. Tell me about your Ranger days.”
“Took a while, and Vanessa and me moved around for a couple of years while I finished schools and classes and all the extra trainings I could. She’d go back home when I was deployed or away for special tech schools. And eventually, I was assigned a spot in the 75th, and we moved back home together. But I was a Ranger. We deployed. A lot. For extended time periods. We ran special missions in scary places. We lost men. We dealt with the damages to our brothers both physically and mentally.”
“And the evil bitch of an ex got bored.”
“I love that you refuse to say her name.”
“Eh, why care about the name of someone who doesn’t matter.”
“When I came home that last time…” I swallow. “Some of my men were hurt while I was in the hospital. I was their leader, and I wasn’t there to help them.”
“Daniel?”
I tense at his name, opening and then closing my mouth before nodding.
“Wasn’t hard to see you had some kind of history, and he’s got a limp.”
“Don’t tell him that.”
“It’s barely noticeable, but I was watching your reactions to him and paid attention.”
“You don’t get credit for being as observant as you are, do you?”
“No, and I like it that way. Always good to have something in your back pocket. What happened with Daniel?”
“You aren’t going to let up until I tell you, are you?”
“Nope. So, might as well rip the Band-Aid off and get it out.”
I adjust myself to hold her closer. Maybe she can be my talisman while I get this out.
“I came home when I found out Vanessa was pregnant. I already told you about that night and the wreck after.”
“Uh-huh.” She nods her head.
“While I was in the hospital, my team went out on a mission. Allen—Daniel, Joker, Closky were my core team. Roadside bomb went off, almost killed Daniel. Joker suffered a broken arm and some cracked ribs, but nothing all of us haven’t experienced before. Daniel was really hurt. Burned on over a quarter of his body. They didn’t think he’d walk again.”
“And how is that your fault?”
“How did you…nevermind. You know everything.”
“Glad you acknowledge that so early in our relationship. It’ll make your life so much easier.”
I shake my head, pausing to tip her chin and kiss her softly. “Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Shutting up. Please, continue.”
“My men went on a mission without me. One that I should have been there for and they got hurt. They could have died, and I wasn’t there.”
“But if you’d have been there, you could have been hurt, Jonathan. You could have been killed.”
“I should have been instead of Daniel,” I whisper my deepest regret. That he got hurt instead of me. “He took point because I wasn’t there. I was supposed to be there, I was supposed to be point. It should have been me.”
“Oh, no. You can’t think like that. All it does it eat you up inside, killing you slowly.”
Like she didn’t just say anything, I continue. “And while my men are being treated in an emergency tent in the middle of nowhere before they were stable enough to get out of that area and to Germany, I was in a hospital going in and out of consciousness, having a code called on me twice, hearing my mother tell Vanessa that if I were dead, they’d be entitled to everything I own, and wouldn’t that be better to start her new family with Jeremy with. My own mother. My brother. My wife. My men. I lost them all in the blink of an eye.”
I don’t realize I’m crying until Elle is kissing my cheeks and wiping the tears away. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could take it all away, make it all better.
“And now they’re back looking for more money and they know about you and I’m terrified what they are going to do now.”
“Hush,” she whispers, running her fingers through my hair. “They aren’t going to do anything to me.”
“You don’t know that. What if…what if they were the ones responsible for your studio and they did it because of me. I’m no good, Elle. You should cut your losses and learn that now before you’re in too deep. I’m nothing more than a grumpy old asshole.”
“Shut. Up,” she sternly tells me, sitting up in bed and facing me fully. “You talked, and now you listen.”
“You know I’m—”
“Nope,” she cuts me off, placing her fingers over my lips. “You do not get to dictate my feelings and emotions. You are going to listen to me. You think you’re an asshole, but I see you as little more than grumpy most days. A better sleep schedule would cure you of that, you know?” She smiles. Smartass. “You’ve been shit on your entire life. Bad parents, wretched ex-wife, spoiled shit of a brother. But you walked out of that environment a better man than they could ever see. Because they didn’t want to. You built your own life. You created a family that you would drop everything for to help at anytime—day or night. You almost died and all you care about is that one of your men got hurt and you weren’t there to help. Jonathan! You are an amazing human being. A friend anyone would kill to have. The loyalty you have to those you deem worthy? It’s unmatched.”
“You think too much of me,” I try to tell her, but she’s shaking her head before I’m done.
“I don’t. I see your flaws. You hate laundry. The milk in your fridge is probably a week out of date. You grumble about ‘the girls’, but I’ve watched you drop everything to help Trish when Davis was doing something with the kids. I’ve watched you play with Nat. And let me tell you about ovary overload on that one, mister. You have conversations with Harper about the books she’s currently reading and with Ginny on how her students are doing this year. You call me an observer, but you’re just as observant, finding the little ways you can help all of your new family. And they return the kindness to you. That’s what family is. Blood doesn’t mean shit when you’ve surrounded yourself with the best of the best. And Daniel? He misses you. He thought you were his brother.”
“I’ve tried.”
“Have you?”
“Yeah. I’ve done all his ink work and even went and did some on his wife and her family.”
“And did you talk to him when you did it?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Not much.”
She sighs. “Jonathan. You’re so much more than you give yourself credit for. Be his friend. I promise you he doesn’t blame you for what happened, so you shouldn’t blame yourself.” I open my mouth, but she covers it again. “And before you say easier said than done, I know. Okay? I do. But you have to find a way to forgive yourself the things you had no control over. Or you’ll never really be able to move forward with your life. You’ll always be stuck in the same place, playing the asshole. That has to be exhausting, isn’t it?”
I yank her to me, kissing her with everything I have. I pour all of my feelings into that kiss. The sadness, the fear, the longing. The love.
When I pull back, I stare into her eyes. Eyes that know me. That see me. “Joker said Mom’s not sick,” I tell her, referring to the text that woke me up.
“I could have told you that. Your brother might be alright looking since he’s like a mini-you, but he’s not too bright, is he?”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“I get to be the judge of that, now don’t I?”
“I’m terrified something is going to happen to you and I won’t be there to stop it.”
“I know.” She leans forward and kisses my cheek. “And I promise not to do anything stupid.”
“I love you.”
The world stops. The only two people that exist are Elle and me. I wait for the panic. The sweats. Anything that tells me I just fucked up. But it doesn’t come, and I smile.
“I fucking love you,” I say again, laughing.
It’s Elle’s turn to cry, but the happiness radiating out of those eyes makes me smile even bigger.
“I love you too, you asshole,” she giggles. “So fucking much.”
And then there’s no more talking. But what a way to wake up in the morning.