Chapter 15
LOGAN
It’s ridiculous how Max pouts whenever I order him around like he’s not sporting a half-chub as soon as I tell him he did a good job.
Another ridiculous thing is how uneasy Lily gets when she’s alone with me. And because I like to voice my complaints in groups of three: She’s wearing the wrong stuff. Too much fabric, and always at least one piece of clothing that belongs to Max.
I make her sit down on the couch with me and check if Max is still busy in the kitchen before I lean closer to whisper in her ear.
“You’re gonna help me with paperwork tomorrow, sweetheart. Need to make yourself useful while you’re staying with us.” My lips brush over the shell of Lily’s ear, and she tenses. “Not a word to Max. It’s our little secret.”
She nods and tries to appear unfazed when I start kissing her neck.
I catch her fidgeting around, so I grab her right hand and put it on my thigh, only for the ungrateful little brat to try and pull it away.
Every few seconds, she glances over to Sam and Charlie, who are glued to their phones.
And even if they weren’t, they wouldn’t help her.
But Rockwell does, unintentionally.
“Surprised to see you here, Cabrera,” he says as he enters the rec room, sitting down in his recliner with such a long, drawn-out sigh it gives me time to make my response less active-aggressive.
“I’m surprised you’re not spending the night over at the main building.” Not saying the part about him sleeping with his head deep in Sanders’ ass out loud feels like keeping a damn sneeze in.
I don’t have a problem continuing our discussion from yesterday, but for whatever reason, I don’t want to ruin the evening for the others.
Being part of this task force is having an impact on me.
I’m getting old; or soft. Both suck. Being considerate and looking out for others has never been on my agenda, but Max’s soft and sappy shit seems to be contagious, and I know it’s going to bite me in the ass sooner or later.
Mr. Soft and Sappy comes back with a bowl of cut up fruit in one hand, a glass of booze for me in the other and a bag of his disgusting sour gummies tucked under his arm. How they don’t etch a hole into his esophagus is beyond me.
“Thanks, sunshine,” I say with a wink.
A smile spreads across his face, and I’ll never get over how easy he is. All it takes is a softer tone of voice, efficiently placed touches, or a smile that doesn’t even have to be genuine. It’s concerningly simple to make him happy if I’m being honest.
Max hands me my bowl and my glass, and I immediately shove the bowl toward Lily, who holds it without a word of complaint.
Life can be good. Not for more than five minutes, but I take what I can get.
Lily relaxes and sinks back into the cushions when Max sits down to her left. He raises his eyebrows in a silent question, and after I nod subtly, he throws a blanket over our legs.
Sam must have informed Charlie about tonight’s movie choice because the X-files soundtrack starts playing. I hope Lily realizes what a privilege it is they let her decide. The last time I got to pick something was months ago.
Max’s fingers brush over mine as our hands trail upward on Lily’s thighs. Panic washes over her pretty features, amber eyes growing wide while her cheeks turn flaming red.
“Logan,” she whispers, as if the other hand doesn’t belong to Max. At least she understands who’s in charge.
“Shh,” I scold, feeding her a piece of pineapple when she opens her mouth to protest.
If it wasn’t for Max, I would live off of MREs and the occasional meal in the mess hall. For whatever reason, everything tastes better when he prepares it for me. Max could turn a damn cucumber into a five-star meal.
Upon trying a piece of the perfectly ripe—and beautifully cut—melon, I decide that Lily is responsible for my groceries from now on. Charlie continuously brought home the most flavorless shit, as if he deliberately searched the entire supermarket for a fruit assortment tasting like cardboard.
I slide my hand higher on her thigh, and Lily squirms in her seat. She tries to press her legs together to keep me away from her pussy, but all it does is force my index finger to rub over her clit.
She inhales sharply, and I have to grin at the feeling of slick fabric under my fingers. In search of help, she turns to Max.
“Say something,” she hisses, but he just shrugs.
The others are focused on the movie, and I increase the pressure on her clit to show her how much her protest means to me.
“Quick reminder, sweetheart. You’re ours, so if I want to touch your pussy right now, you’re going to let me touch it.”
“But—“
“Don’t think I’d hesitate to bend you over the table right in this fucking room,” I growl. It’s an empty threat, but she doesn’t need to know.
“I would stop arguing, he means it,” Max whispers, winking at me, and Lily finally stops squirming around.
Lily is a mystifying little thing because for someone who complained like she did, she’s moving her hips an awful lot just to feel my fingers on her pussy. By the time the movie ends, she’s so soaked I’m sure she’s glad she picked a black pair of sweatpants tonight.
“We’re no longer friends,” she jokes when the credits roll, and I let go of her.
“We never were,” I say, patting her thigh.
Awkwardly, she plays around with her ponytail. The last thing I want is to give her a false impression about what this is.
On the other couch, Sam gently shakes Charlie awake. Well, as gently as he’s able to, and soon, both men go to their rooms. Rockwell doesn’t move an inch, so I clear my throat and turn to Max.
“Bring her to my room.”
“You’re not coming with us?” he asks while he pulls a yawning Lily up from the couch.
I lift the glass of whiskey I’ve been nursing for the past two hours. “Not done yet.”
“Night,” Lily mumbles before she and Max leave, holding hands.
Ridiculous, but I don’t have the nerve to comment on it.
“Did you tell him?” Rockwell asks once they are out of earshot.
“No. A deal’s a deal, Arthur.”
Rockwell takes a sip from his beer, his third bottle tonight, which means things are not going great right now.
“Do you think we can talk about it without you being at my throat, son?”
Arthur Rockwell is the only person I’ll ever tolerate calling me son, and it takes a ton of willpower to do so, especially under the current circumstances.
A few days ago, I overheard him talking to someone on the phone.
He had planned to transfer Max to another base, so I obviously broke into his office once he went to sleep.
You don’t go into negotiations without blackmail material, and I wanted to have options in case he was suicidal enough to try and take Max away from me.
He found me when I was already halfway through his poorly hidden folder about the Delaney investigation.
Mutual assured destruction, my favorite basis for any kind of deal.
“General Lundsford called me earlier. The position’s still free, and they are waiting for my answer.”
“Your answer is going to be no unless you don’t want me to keep my mouth shut,” I say, adding, “Making it really difficult to not be at your throat,” with a tired sigh.
“I need to talk to Max about it. Lundsford’s not going to wait forever. Max isn’t the only promising candidate.”
“Good,” I reply while I focus on the slosh of the amber liquid inside my glass.
“Has anyone ever told you that you can be a goddamn pain in the ass, Cabrera?”
“It’s kinda hard to say anything when your tongue’s missing. Does that answer your question?”
“Max and Mrs. Holton are sleeping in your room now?” he asks in an attempt to switch the topic.
“Have a problem with it?”
“Would it make any difference if I told you I’m not happy about it?”
“No.”
“Is it something serious? If it is, we’ll have to—“
“It’s not,” I interrupt him. “Soon enough, he’ll find something else to keep himself busy.”
As if I don’t see how Max’s obsession with Lily is getting worse with every passing day.
“And what about you? Didn’t seem too averse to her earlier,” Rockwell says, hiding his grin behind his beer. “Not to mention that you almost got into a fight with me just to keep her on base.”
“Got plenty of other reasons to start a fight with you,” I say, leaning back into the cushions. “Besides, she really isn’t safe out there. I don’t think any of us wants to read a newspaper article about her dismembered body being found in some lake.”
“I hate that this isn’t even the worst-case scenario,” he mumbles, glancing down at his watch.
“Let’s go to sleep, son. It’s getting late,” he says as he stands up from his recliner, giving me a soft pat on the shoulder before he brings his empty bottles to the kitchen and leaves for his room.
I keep on sitting in the dark, empty rec room for quite a while. The last thing I want to do is go back to my room, where I probably have to watch Max and Lily cuddle. I wish I knew why it bothers me so much, but at the same time, I refuse to think about it for too long.
Everything’s just so fucking tense.
Since Sanders showed up a little more than eight months ago, it’s like a smoldering fire burns beneath our feet.
Flames lick up every now and then when things start to relax.
A reminder of the shit that’s going on, but never long enough to really scorch us.
I can’t shake the feeling that everything is about to blow up all around us and that those flames are going to burn us alive.
But maybe that’s just my past speaking. I need a distraction, and it’s the perfect chance for Lily to show she’s good for something apart from causing chaos.