Ozzie took a measured sip of his beer and glanced over at Christian, one eyebrow cocked. “Henhouse, huh? You saying there’s too much skirt and not enough steak back at the shop?”
Christian offered him a derisive glance. The man was British. He could do derisive like nobody’s business. “Speaking of steak,” he said, “I think I can feel my prick getting smaller every minute I’m there. The amount of estrogen in the air is intolerable.”
“You two realize bartenders hear every-freakin’-thing, right?” Delilah was polishing a pilsner glass and freezing them both with a look colder than a winter wind in Chicago. The bar was unusually quiet, the jukebox turned down to humane levels.
“Hey! Don’t look at me.” Ozzie hooked a thumb at the culprit. “Christian’s the one complaining.”
He covertly reached beneath the edge of the long mahogany bar to massage his battered thigh. He pointed his booted toe against the brass footrail and shifted his weight on the leather barstool, but nothing brought relief. He’d gone off his pain meds ten weeks ago, and his damn leg had been barking at him like a rabid junkyard dog ever since. A constant reminder of all he’d lost and all he might never regain.
But loss was life, right? He had known that since the tender age of four. Still, this loss promised to bring him to his knees. This loss was one he might never fully recover from.
Fuck, shit, damn, and dick.
“Aw, what a good boy you are, Oz.” Delilah’s tone was more than a touch patronizing. “Here you go.” She slid a bowl of pretzels in front of him. “Here’s your Scooby Snacks.”
Now it was his turn to try a derisive look. Delilah seemed unimpressed. She skirted around her goofy, yellow Labrador retriever where he lay sprawled on the floor behind the bar and went back to polishing glasses.
Ozzie lifted his beer and took another sip. The movement reflected in the mirror on the back wall, snagging his attention. He studied himself for a moment, no longer recognizing the man who stared back at him. The one with the wilder-than-usual hair and the facial scruff that hadn’t been trimmed in…what? A week? Two? The one with the bags under his eyes, the lines on his brow, and the sullen scowl. The one who looked…so much like my father.
The twin pits of self-pity and remorse he’d been carrying around in his stomach ever since that assignment in Malaysia—when he had become the only living victim of a series of terrorist bombings—pulled total Grinch moves and grew three sizes larger. The self-pity was a result of the damage to his leg, which was assuredly permanent. And the remorse was for those who had been lost and who would probably have given both their legs to still be drawing breath. He was a shitheel for feeling even the tiniest bit sorry for himself. He hated himself for what he was becoming, for who he was becoming. But he didn’t know how to stop his own downward spiral.
Shaking his head, he forced his thoughts to something he did know how to do. Namely, help Christian locate the lucky lady who might enjoy her own private British invasion.
Not that the former SAS officer needed his help. With the accent and the designer clothes and the smooth way he carried himself, Christian was pretty much the walking equivalent of barfly paper. Still, Ozzie used the mirror to scan the prospects behind them.
It was half past eight on a Wednesday night, so pickings were slim. Most of the patrons were single dudes looking to tie on a buzz before heading home to fall into bed, catch a few z’s, then wake up and start the daily grind all over again. A few couples were snuggled into the booths or sitting at the high-tops having a nightcap before calling it a day. And then there was the foursome of ladies playing pool. In their late twenties and dressed to the nines in business attire, they seemed the answer to Christian’s prayers. Except for the fact that they were hooting and hollering, kicking off their high heels, and doing their best to get sloppy.
Girls’ night out.
Ozzie knew better than to intrude on that.
“You might be out of luck,” he lamented to Christian, eyeing one of the pool players as she stumbled toward the jukebox. “And worse still, this one looks like a Taylor Swift fan.”
Christian glanced over his shoulder at the woman as she drunkenly studied the jukebox’s screen. “If she plays sodding ‘Shake It Off,’ I grant you permission to unholster my Walther and shoot me in the face.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
They waited, shoulders tense, as the jukebox loaded the woman’s selection. It was “Shake it Off.”
“Right-oh. Never mind the shot to the face,” Christian declared. “I have a better idea. Let’s get good and pissed and then ring up a cab to take us home. Delilah, luv, fetch us two vodka shots, yeah?”
“You’re both pathetic,” Delilah declared after plunking the vodka down in front of them. “It’s not like they wanted to leave either of you behind.”
And by they, she meant the Black Knights. The most select, most secretive group of covert operators ever to sign up to do Uncle Sam’s dirty work. They were Ozzie’s teammates. His friends. And they were all now half a world away, disrupting the Islamic State’s supply lines in order to weaken the group’s defensive and offensive capabilities.
Well, except for Zoelner. He was somewhere in Europe helping hunt down a mysterious underworld crime lord aptly named Spider.
But that’s just splitting hairs. Because whether it was chasing ISIS or shadowy international figures, it all came down to one thing. Every Black Knight was engaged in making the world a safer place. Every Black Knight except for Ozzie and Christian. And Christian would be heading into the field again soon. His burst eardrums, courtesy of a recent mission when he’d been forced to fire a .50-cal. in an enclosed space, were mostly healed.
And there they were again, the self-pity and remorse. Ozzie tossed back the shot and welcomed the burn of the liquor, hoping it would pickle those stupid pits in his stomach.
“It’s not that we feel sorry for ourselves,” Christian said after downing his shot. “It’s that we’re sharks. If we stop swimming, we die.”
“Oh, for the love of tequila.” Delilah’s expression was unsympathetic. “Neither of you needs to do anything but what you’re doing, which is healing up. Besides, we like having you around, Christian. You brew a freakin’ mean cup of tea.”
“God save the Queen.” Christian winked and saluted her with his beer.