“What movie?” Nico asked.
I exited the elevator, and Tobias did too. But at the man’s question, Tobias stopped and turned, a grin a mile wide on his face. “Apparently they’re showing Deadpool.”
Obvious relief shone in Nico’s eyes. “Thank Christ.”
Then the doors closed, leaving us in the quiet stillness of the hallway.
“I don’t want kids,” I told him. “They sound like they’re too hard.”
Tobias chuckled. “They’re okay from the little I’ve been able to experience through my nieces and nephews.”
I looked at him.
“How many do you have?” I questioned.
“Well, Leida, is the first. My other brother…” he halted, then cleared his throat. “My other brother, Dante, had two children. But about a year ago, his wife and children died in that car accident.” I could tell he surprised himself. He hadn’t forgotten, per se, but he’d at least been able to think about other things, allowing him the reprieve for a few short days. “My other brother, Travis, recently had a baby, too. A boy, whom I haven’t met yet. He also has a girl with his ex-wife.”
I looked at his jaw when he bent down to place the key card into the door without removing it from the lanyard around his neck.
“Why do I sense another touchy subject there?” I questioned.
He sighed. “All of us brothers…we’re fucked up. We’ve had two sisters die, one by way of a home invasion six years ago, and you know how my other sister died.” He walked straight to the sliding glass door and opened it, walking out onto the balcony.
I followed him, snatching up my jacket from the bed where I’d forgotten it earlier.
He cleared his throat. “Dante was the glue that held us all together. When that happened to him, he kind of went off the deep end. With nobody else to keep us all in line, the rest of us kind of went a little wild. Though, that’s not to say we’re all wild and weren’t before. It was just that Dante was able to keep us in hand if we stepped too far out of line.”
I frowned.
“You seem like you’re doing all right,” I pointed out.
Tobias started to laugh, and it wasn’t an amused one.
“I have PTSD that kicks in when I least expect it,” he expounded. “I was in the Navy for damn near ten years. Got out, got my peace officer’s license. Then my sister decided to kill herself, and I was the one who…you know.” He cleared his throat. “Did you know that twenty two veterans die each day from suicide?”
My stomach knotted.
“No,” I murmured, shocked that the number was so high.
“I had three friends from the Navy commit suicide right after my sister,” he said. “And two who did it before her.”
I closed my eyes and leaned forward until I could thread my fingers around his belly.
Placing my head on his back, between his shoulder blades, I closed my eyes and just held him.
“Saw some scary shit over there,” he said. “But the stuff I saw when I got home was worse.”
My stomach and heart hurt for him.
“I’m sorry, Tobias.”
He sighed.
“I joined the Dixie Wardens because they grounded me,” he said. “They gave me a place to retreat. Something to look forward to, and a shoulder to lean on when things got too tough.”
I smiled. “My brother says the same thing.”
“Your brother’s right,” he said. “Though, you should probably not tell him I said that. He’ll get a big head.”
I started to laugh.
“My brother is… well, he is what he is,” I chuckled against his back, as I let my hands move up and down the ripples of his six-pack. “You ready to go back up there?”
He turned in my arms, and then shook his head.
“My brother, Reed, used to be with Krisney. He still loves her, and when I say love, I mean he’s infatuated.” He paused. “But he’s denying it because he thinks that’s what this family needs to get over the fact that our sister isn’t here anymore.”
I walked up to the railing he was still leaning against, and then looked out over the water.
“Okay,” I said. “What else?”
He sighed.
“You already know about Finley. Leida is his,” he continued. “He isn’t really that fucked up…more like fucked over. He was married to that lovely lady, Leida’s mother, who called the cops on me after she’d let me into her house.”
I moaned. “I still feel sorry for that man. It sucks.”
He hummed in agreement.
“Hmm,” I hummed. “What about the others?”
“Reed is in the military. He’s an OB/GYN. Baylor used to be in the military, but while on leave he was hit by a drunk driver and he was medically discharged. He now works with Travis and Dante…well, Dante doesn’t work there anymore. He gave it up and is holed up in his house with no desire to come back out,” he said. “They’re less fucked up than the rest of us, but they still have their moments.”
“Your brother, Dante, doesn’t work at his own business anymore?”
Wow, that was terrible.
“He and his wife built Hail Auto Recovery from the ground up together right along with Travis. The place reminds him of her, and he wants nothing to do with it anymore. Travis is now the man in charge, at least until we can get Dante to see the light.”
That poor man.
I knew what it felt like to lose a loved one. I knew that it felt like someone was stabbing you straight through the heart, and that it didn’t matter that what you were supposed to be doing was living your life. Instead, you were holed up in your apartment, staring at the wall, wishing your life away in exchange for one more chance to see him again.
“Tobias,” I hesitated.
“Yeah?”
“You know I’m fucked up, too, right?”
I was going to tell him. I was going to tell him everything.
I felt like I was going to throw up.
He turned to look at me, no longer staring out over the horizon anymore like I was doing.
“I know.”
I didn’t have the courage to look at him.
“Do you know why?”
Please say yes. Please say yes.
“Yes,” he said. “Your brother told me a little when I came to get you.”
I didn’t look at him, but he had to know the details.
“I was about a semester and a half away from graduating nursing school,” I swallowed.
He didn’t touch me, but I could tell he wanted to by the way his hands tightened so tightly on the railing as I looked at him out of my peripheral vision.
“I’d just walked out after my shift in the ER. I was a tech,” I cleared my throat. “I didn’t do anything special. Just made sure I was there to offer assistance if anyone needed it.”
I closed my eyes as the images started to assault me.
“The way our parking lot was set up, the front lot was for patients and visitors. Then you had to walk down the street, past a cemetery down to the overflow lot where all the employees like me, the nurses and registration, parked. Doctors got to use in the parking lot at the front.”
He grunted. “Nice.”