“What do you miss?”
“Everything. The guys. The stupid shit my soldiers used to do.” I hesitate. “The sense of purpose, I guess. That what I did mattered.”
She stops then and her fingers find mine. She cups my face with her free hand, her touch soft and oh so compelling. “What you do matters, Josh,” she whispers. A moment before she kisses me.
There is darkness in that kiss. A reaching out, grasping for something to hold on to. I’m pulled under, needing, hoping.
The drinking, the emotional distance—I feel a deep sense of shame because those things extend from my time in the Army. And I’d give anything to be back there now in the stink and the heat and the chaos.
I'm supposed to be an educated man; I'm supposed to know better than to bury my emotions in a drink or six, lamenting the loss of purpose in my life.
Until I met Abby, I was content to burn away the best years of my life missing the worst years of it. Now? Now I am being drawn slowly toward the light, after being in a pool of darkness for far too long. There is a faint stirring of arousal that is so much more than a fleeting sensation of an erection.
It's hope.
Hope that maybe what ails me is only temporary. That maybe, just maybe, I'm not forever f*ck
ed up from the war.
That maybe someday I can put the pieces of my broken life back together because I'll have something or someone else that makes me feel like a man again.
But until that day comes, I'm stuck. In the shadows. Wanting, wishing, hoping for a chance to step back into the light.
Abby
There is too much churning inside Josh—inside me—and I'm not sure I can handle him falling apart if I'm already so close to the edge myself. I needed an excuse to touch him, to lose myself in his taste, his touch.
I need to escape. Before everything comes spilling out and Josh looks at me like I'm damaged and unworthy and unlovable. I’m not sure what it would do to me if he ever looked at me like Robert did.
It might break me.
"I needed that," I say quietly against his mouth when I can breathe again.
"Yeah?" He strokes his thumb over my cheek. The roughness of his touch is a balm, calming and exciting all at once. “What happened?”
“Friend of mine was slapped around by his boyfriend,” I admit after a moment.
“Graham?”
I frown, unable to look away from the genuine concern in his eyes.
“You know him?”
“We chatted at the Baywater.”
“No smartass comments?”
“You keep being surprised by the fact that I’m not some mouth-breathing Neanderthal.”
“Well, the Army isn’t exactly known for being a bastion of tolerance.”
“Maybe before the war. Now all we really care about is whether you can do your job. Gay, black or otherwise, most people don’t give a shit. Will you do what it takes to get everyone home? That’s the stuff that matters.”
There’s a roughness in his voice. There’s more to that story.
"You're not going to ask?" he says after a moment.
I shrug, grateful for the distraction from my own worries. It's so much easier to focus on someone else's. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not particularly." There is something dark there, simmering just below the surface. Ready to break free at the slightest provocation.
"Then I won't ask."
He makes a noise. "You're pretty uncurious for a girl."
I tuck my hands into my jacket pocket and we start walking again. "I guess I understand not wanting to talk about everything with everyone." I look over at him. "People aren't entitled to having their curiosity satisfied."
That noise again. I can't decide what that means.
But I don't ask. For now, I'm content to be with him. To be facing down at least one shadow of the nightmares that haunt my life.
He glances over at me, and I can physically feel the half-truth standing between us. "Why did you come to The Pint tonight? I would have met you at work."
I shrug again. I'm not being deliberately coy. I just can't find the words to tell him how much it hurts seeing Graham in pain. "Maybe I just didn't want to be alone."
He stops walking. He slides his hands over my shoulders and turns me to face him. His palm is warm on my cheek, his thumb slipping over my skin. His face is cast in shadows from the streetlamps overhead.
He's calm now; the violence in him either contained or dissipated. Not gone for good, though. I've seen this kind of violence before and it's never really gone. There's a storm brewing in the distance. Thunder rumbles closer from the west.
"We're going to get rained on." My voice is thick. I wasn't lying. I don't want to be alone.