Chapter 11
RANGER
Fuck, fuck, fuck. What did I do? Did I do it? Or was it Julian? I can’t even remember anymore how it happened. One second I was laughing, and the next, we were kissing. His lips were so soft, and he tasted so good, and I’m the biggest motherfucking asshole on the planet.
How could I do this to him? To myself? And most of all, to Alex?
I bury my head in my hands and groan out loud. Benny is immediately by my side and presses against my leg. “I fucked up big-time,” I mumble, but he doesn’t seem impressed.
How can I claim I loved Alex, that I still love him, and kiss another man?
Isn’t that an insult to the depth of my love for him?
He was my…my light, my everything. The fact that I was too stupid to realize it until it was too late doesn’t change that.
He had my heart, and when he died, a part of me died with him.
Then how come I feel so alive when I’m with Julian?
He has this aura of happiness, a joy of life, about him that makes me feel…
different. Happier. Energetic. It’s wrong, I know, but I can’t seem to stay away from him.
My darkness seeks the light inside him, maybe in a desperate attempt to chase some of the shadows away.
It also confirms that I’m really, really bisexual. After Alex, I thought that it had been a case of falling for him specifically. Loving someone for who they are rather than for their gender.
Gay for you, some people might’ve called it, though I think that’s a strange term.
Clearly, I’m not gay, considering I’ve had plenty of hookups with women.
Satisfying ones, I might add. Unlike Lucky, who’s always been one hundred percent gay.
He may have waited with coming out, but there was never any doubt for him as to who he was attracted to.
For me, it could have been women and just Alex.
Except it’s not, and I don’t know how to feel about that.
I’m sick to my stomach for kissing Julian.
That should’ve never happened. He couldn’t be interested in me, and the idea I surprised him, that he may have kissed me back just because he felt sorry for me… It makes me even angrier with myself.
What a clusterfuck. And what’s even worse is that the one person I want to talk to about this is Julian himself…and he couldn’t understand because I’ve never told him about Alex. Hell, does Julian even know that I’m…not straight? He sure as fuck knows now, and I groan all over again.
Benny puts his head on my thigh, and I pet him. “Your horny episode fucked me over good, buddy. Thanks for that.”
Benny wags his tail, grinning at me. I can’t help but smile at him. “Let’s try and get some sleep, you big goofball.”
Benny is out like a light, but sleep won’t come for me.
I toss and turn, my mind spinning in endless circles of self-doubt, anger, blame, and right back to doubt again.
I’m really being constructive. Not. I see every hour on the clock until it’s past six in the morning…
late enough to call the one person who could understand.
I’ll never understand why Lucky doesn’t get tired of me, but he answers immediately. “You okay?” are his first words.
I close my eyes. “No. I need to talk to you.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in two hours.”
“You don’t need to—”
“You’re not driving, bro. Not in the state you’re in. Take a hot shower, do some of that goddamn yoga you love so much, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Your work…” I protest weakly, even though everything inside me lights up with love and warmth for my brother.
“Can wait. I’ll take the day off. Emergency family situation.” Lucky uses that tone that makes clear the discussion is over.
“Okay,” I capitulate. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
I do as he told me and take a shower, which makes me feel marginally better.
Then I do a slow yoga routine focused on breathing, which always helps me center myself and push my stress levels down.
Breakfast is oatmeal, which I don’t like, but it’s supposedly healthy, so whatever.
Trust me, after eating in chow halls and forcing down MREs for so many years, oatmeal is nectar of the gods. Pure ambrosia.
I’m outside in the garden pulling weeds when Lucky’s truck pulls up. Benny barks, and I give him the signal to quiet down. “Friend,” I tell him. “He’s a friend.”
My best friend, in fact, and my throat closes up again. Fucking emotional sap that I am.
Lucky approaches me with care, as always reading my body language, but when I hold out my arms, he rushes over and hugs me tightly. “You don’t have to talk,” he says when he lets go of me. “I’m grateful you called and asked me to come. That’s enough.”
“Technically, I didn’t ask you to come. You told me you would.”
Lucky grins. “Technicality. Let’s just say you wanted to ask me, but I already read your mind.”
“Sure, we’ll go with that,” I say dryly.
I grab us both some cold waters from the fridge, and then we sit outside in the backyard in the shade.
Benny finds a cool spot under the picnic table, one of the few areas that still has grass.
The unrelenting sun has already reduced the once green grass to brown remnants. Summer in California, man.
Lucky is quiet, sipping his water and not even studying me. He’s always been good at that, reading people and knowing when to give them space.
“I kissed another man,” I finally say, and much to his credit, Lucky’s only reaction is a quirk of his eyebrows and his hand holding the bottle still for a moment. Then he resumes drinking, his face under control again.
“Okay. Was it a good kiss?”
What a classic Lucky question. No judgment. Ever. “Yeah, though a little too brief to really determine the quality.”
“What happened?”
That’s the question, isn’t it? What the fuck happened? Not merely with Julian and me, but with me in general. How did I become this person? How did everything change in one instant?
“His name was Alex,” I say, and my throat tightens. “Not the man I kissed last night, but the other one… The one I fell in love with.”
Lucky captures my hand and holds it as I gather the courage to tell him about the love I lost.
“He was in my unit. He was from New York and had the thickest New York accent you’ve ever heard. We all called him Brooklyn. Alex was… he was funny and quick-witted, with a sharp mind and an endless supply of jokes. He made us all laugh in tense moments, and we were better for it.”
The memories make me smile. I can picture him so easily with that big grin on his face, the mischief dancing in his eyes. Pranks were his hobby, and he pulled so many stunts that in the end, no one ever believed a goddamn word out of his mouth anymore.
“He was gay. We’d served for over four years together when he told me one night, making me swear not to tell anyone else. I didn’t. He felt safe with me, I guess, because I’d told him about you and about how proud I was of my brother…who also happened to be gay.”
“That’s a huge compliment and a testament to how much he trusted you, that he felt safe enough to share that,” Lucky says softly.
“H-he was in love with me.” My voice breaks.
“I was too fucking stupid to realize it…or to understand that what I had started to feel for him was way more than friendship. I thought we were just close friends, a special friendship unlike I’d ever had with anyone else…
but I was in love with him too. And I never got the chance to tell him. ”
Lucky gently squeezes my hand. “What happened to him?”
I swallow, but the tightness in my throat won’t go away.
“Our unit got attacked. We were doing a recon mission, but we had bad intel. The army camp that was supposed to only have a skeleton crew turned out to host at least three full platoons armed to the teeth. We walked straight into a trap. Alex was hit by the first sniper bullet. Clean shot to his back, straight through his heart. He was dead on impact.”
“Oh, Mack…” Lucky says, his voice choked up. “I’m so sorry.”
“When I held his body, that’s when I knew…but it was too late.”
We sit for a long time, Lucky’s quiet presence soothing the raw edges of my grief. It’s strange, but I’m glad he knows now. It somehow makes it real, like I didn’t just imagine my feelings for Alex.
“A couple of months after I had returned stateside, I received a package from his mother. He’d written me a just-in-case letter…a letter where he expressed his love for me and left me some of his personal things.”
“The Yankees baseball cap,” Lucky says, and I nod. “I wondered why you had switched allegiance, but that explains it.”
“I can’t help but deeply regret I never got to tell him… I feel so stupid that I didn’t realize it in time. If I had…”
“Nothing would’ve come from it,” Lucky says calmly.
“You were in his chain of command. The intense friendship you had was already skirting the line. One of you would’ve had to transfer.
We both know the army doesn’t fuck around when it comes to relationships within a unit.
Fraternization within the ranks would’ve gotten you court-martialed. ”
His words hit me like a dagger to the chest. In my head, I had pictured Alex and me together, serving proudly, but that would’ve never happened.
The army would’ve never allowed me to be involved with him.
I knew this, of course I did, but I guess I didn’t allow that reality to pierce through my dreams of what could have been so far.
I sigh. “You’re right, but still. It’s hard not to look back and blame myself or wonder what if…”
“Yeah, I can imagine.”
Somehow, telling Lucky about Alex makes the guilt a little lighter, the darkness inside me a little less oppressive.
“So who did you kiss last night?” Lucky finally asks.
“Julian. The dog trainer who trained Benny.” I give Lucky the abbreviated version of my friendship with Julian. “I’m completely fucked up about this. It’s too much, too soon.”
“It’s a kiss.”
“I know, but… It feels like much more.”
“I can understand that, but here’s the thing. I agree you’re not ready for a relationship. That’s too much right now. So why not have some fun with him and explore that side of yourself? Just see where it takes you? Not everything has to be super serious from the get-go.”
Huh. I never considered that as an option. To me, acknowledging my attraction to Julian meant somehow trying to start a new relationship. But I could opt to keep things light and just have fun. God knows I’ve always managed to keep it simple with women, so why not with him?
I just hope he still wants to talk to me after what happened.