2. Ian
2
IAN
I didn’t kill one of my best friends. No matter what his sister or the nagging ache in my chest tells me.
Kevin Young died a hero, serving overseas, and I was on the other side of the world when it happened.
That fact doesn’t do a damned thing to alleviate the guilt or pain coursing through my veins when we bury his empty coffin. In fact, as I silently walk out of Chloe’s house after holding her in my arms while she cried herself to sleep, I feel like I actually was the one to pull the trigger, killing Kevin myself.
I lock her front door, using the key I’ve had since I was ten years old, and think about leaving it under the mat for her to find the next time she looks.
Fuck that.
I put it in my pocket, listening to the soft clink it makes as it connects with the diamond ring Chloe handed back to me when we got the official notification about Kevin, in a moment that I’ll never be able to burn out of my mind.
Chloe’s face, confused as she opened the door to see two Marines standing in uniform, will haunt my dreams until I die. Her gray eyes, filled to the brim with tears that I can’t wipe away, are there every single time I close my eyes.
“You okay?”
My little sister, Bria, stands on the sidewalk waiting for me with red-rimmed eyes.
“No,” I answer her honestly. “I don’t think I’ll be okay again… ever.” With the way her shoulders slump, I know she’s feeling Kevin’s loss as badly as I am, if not worse. “How are you doing?”
I don’t point out the fact that she and Kevin dated. Nor do I mention that she’d seemed brokenhearted since their breakup a few weeks before his last deployment. I don’t say anything when she shudders and throws herself into my arms, crying for a loss that I may not ever understand. Especially when Kevin is the second man to leave my sister for the military.
What I do is guide her gently across the street to our parents’ house, where we both sit on the front porch and mourn the man who’d been taken too soon.
“Where are Mom and Dad?” I finally ask when Bria’s crying fades into nothing more than a quiet sob. Their car isn’t in the drive, and I haven’t seen them since leaving Kevin’s funeral.
“They went to camp. Mom didn’t want to see their house and lose it again.” Bria’s quiet words are a blatant reminder that Kevin’s loss doesn’t just affect one family. His death will reach every corner of our community, and there isn’t any way to fix it.
In the silence around us, I hear the sound of Remy and Linc shouting at each other from a few streets away, and I grunt. “The guys are almost here.”
“I really don’t understand your craziness.” Bria sniffles. “Why is it that anytime you buffoons go through anything even remotely emotional, you lose your minds?”
I shrug, not able to come up with the kind of answer that she needs. Bria, as much as she is empathetic and understanding because that’s what her job as a social worker requires, doesn’t know shit about what we go through overseas. The lengths at which I’ll go for my brothers. The commitment I make to them goes deeper than anything else I’ve experienced in my life, pretty much. If I had to quantify it, I’d put it directly behind the level of devotion I have for Chloe. And if I ever have to choose between the two? I’ll burn in the fiery pits of Hell while trying to make that choice.
But Chloe would win.
So when I see the first golf cart turn the corner, riding down the center of the street, I push up off the steps. Remy drives with a ridiculous pink helmet on his head and a pile of rainbow streamers reaching out behind him, almost hitting Linc in the face. Linc, on the other hand, is dressed in the bigger portion of a purple dinosaur costume. He’s decked out his golf cart to look like an egg, and his matching purple helmet cracks me up. As they race along, barreling down the street, the light from the streetlamps reflecting off their vehicles, I fight the urge to turn and flee.
Another two golf carts turn onto our street, but I don’t stay to see what Dom and Logan have done to themselves. Instead, I go around the side of my parents’ house and grab the unicorn helmet and pajamas that I picked up online last week. Once I’m dressed, I pull my rig out and beep the horn when I creep from the shadows.
By the time I get there, everyone is parked, looking absolutely ridiculous, and each of them are offering Bria a hug.
“You all look ridiculous,” I announce cockily. “Seriously. A dinosaur, Linc? And what are you supposed to be, Remy?”
Remy, all six foot three of him and enough muscle that he makes me feel like I need to get back into the gym, flips his helmet hair around and snaps his fingers in my face. “You’re just jealous because Nox made me beautiful.”
“He has no clue what he is,” Linc offers helpfully. “Nox wanted to make his costume, and Remy lets him do anything at all to him.”
There is no arguing that. Nox has every single one of us wrapped around his finger, and he has since the day he was born. His father, Danny, had been another of our unit to die.
Dom coughs, scratching behind his rainbow-colored tutu, and nods toward the golf carts. “Are we doin’ this or not? Emma and I have the same weekend off for the first time in a month, and I plan on… I plan on things that aren’t any of your business.”
“I’m not ready yet,” Logan interrupts with a groan. “This stupid zipper won’t zip.”
He’s wearing something fuzzy and green, but I can’t figure out what he’s supposed to be because the whole thing is folded over and Logan is grunting with the effort it’s taking him to try to force the zipper up.
“Buffoons,” Bria says again while shaking her head in the dim light. “Move, Logan. I can get it.”
“No.” He steps back. “It’s next to my dick, and while I’m a crazy man, I’m not an idiot. Not gonna happen. Especially,” Logan adds as an afterthought, “with the fact that you’re friends with Poppy. I know she’d be happy to have you cut me.” With a sharp tug, we all watch as he succeeds in fixing the zipper and swats away Bria’s hand simultaneously. “See? I didn’t need you.”
“The Cookie Monster,” Dom deadpans. “That’s the best you could come up with?”
Logan, not one to be outdone, gasps and slaps his hand to his chest dramatically. “I am green , sir. The Cookie Monster is blue. No. I’m the Grinch, thank you very much.” He grabs the black helmet that he put at his feet and slams it on his head. “Now, I believe we have shenanigans to get up to tonight. And how are we supposed to get up to shenanigans if we don’t move it already.”
He storms away, which would have been more impactful if he didn’t have an inflatable giant green ass attached to his costume.
“See you later, Bria.” Remy slaps Linc on the shoulder and the two of them practically run to their respective vehicles, like we have already started the race.
“Be safe.” My little sister pulls me into a tight hug, something I’m not quite expecting. “I don’t want to have to bail you out of jail.”
Dom snorts beside me while adjusting his own costume. “Please. Five of Birch’s finest out for a night of ridiculousness? Who’s gonna call the cops? We are the cops.”
“Plus,” I add while rolling my eyes. “Nothing that we do is gonna be illegal.”
Bria lets me go, and I fix the unicorn helmet on top of my head, double-checking my horn to make sure I haven’t messed it up. After all, if I’m going to be out like an idiot, I need to be a good-looking idiot.
Turning back to see the darkened house across the street, I clear my throat and lower my voice. “Keep an eye on Chloe?”
Bria’s somber eyes meet mine as we both turn away from the house we know better than our own.
“Of course I will.” She sighs deeply. “What are the chances of Chloe letting me in?”
“You? I bet she’ll open the door for you with a smile and a hug.” Dom starts walking away. “It’s only us and Sebastian here that she’s going to hate for the rest of her life.”
“I’m gonna murder him,” I mutter. “It’s Ian, Dominic!” I holler at his back, purposefully trying to get a rise out of him, but all I get is him flipping me the bird without looking.
“Go, Ian.” Bria smiles half-heartedly at me. “Go do buffoon things. Go remember Kev. He’d want you to kick their asses and take the trophy.”
I snort but don’t say anything. Bria is right. Kev would be clambering all over the opportunity to take first in the Ridiculympics, which we started during our first deployment.
The trophy.
While I walk away from my sister and take my seat behind the wheel of the golf cart I’ve commandeered for the night, I think about that rusted piece of crap we had to sneak home in our duffels.
“You got the trophy?” Remy calls out loudly over the sound of our minuscule engines whirring.
I nod, pointing to the back of the golf cart. “Dad loaded it up before the funeral.”
“We gotta get something new.” Linc pulls up next to me, keeping pace with his ridiculous purple dinosaur. “Damn, that thing is getting old.”
Our trophy is ridiculous. We all know it. But I also know as much as we complain about it, we’ll never do anything to replace it. After the years spent in the sand, the piece of old metal is practically priceless.
Which is why we are racing through Birch in the middle of the night, heading to the cemetery on golf carts dressed like imbeciles.
Kevin would have wanted it. In fact, we swore after Danny died that if we ever lost another one of us, we’d mark the occasion with exactly what we are doing. Which is why it goes without saying that this is tradition, and one that we can’t possibly pass up the opportunity to take part in.
“How many events are we doing tonight?” Linc shouts as we pull into the cemetery parking lot. “Dom’s not the only one with someone waiting up. Kennedy will be out here in her Mucks with her damned machete in hand if I don’t make it back before the sun comes up.”
“I got the whiskey,” Remy announces as he screeches into his spot and shuts off his cart. “Ian’s got the trophy. What did you bring?”
“My charming personality,” Linc informs him while he adjusts the dinosaur costume as it reinflates around him. “And Dom made sure that we’re not gonna get the other cops called on us. So let’s go.”
“I took the first event,” I point out. “Parked and out of my cart before anyone else.”
“I feel like the defending champ of the Ridiculympics shouldn’t start out with the advantage,” Dom grumbles, which is completely unlike him.
“Give it to him,” Logan says quietly. “The man’s lost more in the last few weeks than any of us can understand.” He shoots a glance at Linc. “Well, except for you.” He walks into the same cemetery where we spent our afternoon, the grim set to his shoulders completely in persona for his Grinch costume.
“Damn.” Linc whistles through his teeth. “What’s chewing at him? I mean, we’re all taking this hard, I know. But the man looks like he got stabbed in the gut and still has to walk home.”
I look over at Logan’s retreating back and lower my voice. “Heard through the grapevine—the grapevine being Emma—that Poppy’s going to move again. But she’s not telling anyone about it. Not when it’s happening or where she’s going, just that she’s put in her notice.” And if Emma knows about it, there’s no chance that Logan didn’t find out immediately. It’s a well-known fact that Logan walks the fine line just this side of stalking Poppy.
If I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t kill me for interfering in whatever the hell is going on between those two, I’d have stepped between them a long time ago. But the one and only time I tried, Poppy herself showed up at my office and chewed me out for not minding my own business. So, with that in mind, I carefully fucked right off.
“Shit,” Remy groans, running a hand through his rainbow-sparkled hair. “He’s gonna have to do something about that.”
“Already did!” Logan shouts loudly from across the field.
How the hell he heard us, I have no clue.
A round of groans falls between us as we realize exactly what he’s implying. Logan is constantly interfering with Poppy’s life, trying to keep her from falling for anyone else, but completely unable to be with her. Honestly, I feel bad for him, except that he keeps intentionally ruining his chances with her.
“Please, please don’t fuck it up with Chloe like Logan keeps messing up with Poppy.” Remy slaps me on the shoulder and walks away to take his place at the starting point.
Like I have any control over what happens with me and Chloe.
She owns every part of my heart and soul, and she will until the day I die.
That includes when she reached into my chest and pulled my heart out with her perfectly manicured nails as she ended our engagement.
Kevin’s grave looms ahead, and I realize I’ve been dragging my feet, keeping myself from stepping any closer. Not until I see the rest of my unit there, surrounding Kevin’s tombstone, dressed exactly the way he’d want us to, and a smile lights my face.
“Someone get a picture of this,” I say loudly. “Something to commemorate my second win in a row.”
Technically second, a race through town after the first event of showing up. Then a footrace through the cemetery that starts at Kevin’s grave. Followed by a staring contest and a game of costume strip poker, and I hold that damn trophy in my grasp again. The old and rusting metal cuts into the palms of my hands, but I know I won’t be keeping it. Not anymore.
Tears in my eyes sting as the sun starts to rise in the east, and I gently place the trophy at the base of Kevin’s tombstone.
“This one’s yours, brother,” I whisper brokenly. “I’ll take care of Chloe and the home front. Guard the streets of heaven and rest easy, Marine.”