I was rubbing my eyes and making coffee when Nash’s bedroom door opened. I never knew if it was going to be him coming out or some dewy-eyed young thing that looked like she had been through the sex spin cycle. Nash and my brother both had a way about them that drew attention from the opposite sex in a way I just never really understood. Not that I lived like a choirboy in my youth, but I had never been the kind of guy who wanted quantity over quality. That made my momentary lapse with the trashy redhead even more stupid. Man, maybe I really did deserve having my ass kicked the other night.
Nash was flying solo this morning, which was unusual. He was pulling a T-shirt on over his head and muttering a few swearwords under his breath. I handed him a cup of coffee and asked him what was wrong.
He just shook his head and cracked his neck.
“I’m trying to get my uncle to go to the doctor and he’s being stubborn. Cora called after work last night saying he sounds like he’s hacking up a lung and looks pale. He’s insisting that it’s just a cold, but even over the phone I can tell he sounds terrible.”
I knew they were really close. Uncle Phil had raised Nash and been more of a parent to Rule than my own folks. I didn’t know much about the man, but by all accounts he was a real stand-up guy and I knew the guys held him in really high regard.
“Maybe it really is just a bad cold.”
Nash nodded and pointed at the half-smoked pack of cigarettes he had abandoned on the counter.
“I picked up the habit from him when I was younger. It makes me nervous.”
“Then quit.”
“I’m trying.”
I snatched the pack of the counter and tossed it in the sink. Nash hollered my name and swore at me as I turned on the garbage disposal.
“Try harder.”
He glared at me. “You’re a douche bag.”
I shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.” I rolled my heavy shoulders and popped my knuckles.
“You ready to do this?”
He was still scowling at me. “No. I’m gonna swing by his place and see if I can harass him into getting a checkup, at the very least. Plus I have an early appointment.”
“All right.”
We said good-bye and I headed to the gym. I worked out harder than I had in a while, I think I was trying to burn out the memories, sweat out the coil of dread and unease that always felt like it sat in my stomach. I was sore and worn out by the time I showered and changed into an old pair of jeans and a faded tee with the word ARMY stenciled on the front. I opted to take my pickup in today since I was already dragging and didn’t feel up to muscling the Harley through downtown traffic.
When I got into the bar Brite was already waiting with a list and a huge-ass BLT. It was too early for lunch, but considering the beating I had just put my body through, it was welcome. We chitchatted for a few minutes, he introduced me to his cook, a lady who was about the same age as him named Darcy, who apparently was also wife number two, and he ran down the list of the regulars that my too tired brain tried to process sluggishly.
The list of tasks he handed over was impressive. He wanted the bar stripped, stained, and varnished. He wanted all the tables and chairs tightened and cleaned up. He wanted the battered wood floors stripped, sanded, and refinished. He wanted all the heavy kitchen equipment moved and the whole joint power-washed. He wanted all the lights changed out. He wanted the entire place primed and painted. He wanted me to build a stage. He wanted me to reorganize the liquor stock room, including adding new shelving and storage. It was all stuff that was fairly easy and mindless, nothing I didn’t think I could handle. In fact I was arrogant enough to think I could knock it all out in a couple of weeks.
It took two days for me to realize I was going to be at the Bar forever. Every time I would get started on a particular project, one of the grizzled veterans would wander over and I would find myself stuck in a conversation about the best way to do it, or how they would do it, or what I was doing, who I was, where I was from, my rank and designation, which inevitably led to talk about the military and endless amounts of war stories. Before I knew it, the day had come and gone and I hadn’t accomplished much of anything. I mentioned it to Brite and he just shrugged it off and told me once again that it would be done when it was done, like I had all the time in the world. Like I didn’t need to figure out what in the world I was going to be now that I was a grown-up and no longer in the army. I tried not to let it rub me the wrong way.
It was late Friday night, or rather super early Saturday morning and I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling. I was making a conscious effort not to use vodka as a sleep aid, but tonight I was regretting it. Luckily Nash hadn’t been home, because this nightmare, when it woke me up, was violent enough that my own screaming had jolted me awake. I was sweating and shaking and getting a drink sounded awesome. I didn’t do it, though, I just lay there and let the images that had been too harsh to sleep through roll endlessly through my head. I knew logically that if they didn’t go away, I was going to have to get help, that I probably had bits and pieces of PTSD courtesy of the desert and too many years at war. I wanted to think I was tough enough to handle it on my own, that it would just fade away with enough time, but I wasn’t so sure anymore.
I swung my legs out of the bed, thinking a nice predawn run would get my shit back on straight, when my cell phone suddenly rang from the desk where I had it on the charger. Icy fingers of dread raked down my back. Early-morning calls like this never led to anything good. It rang four times and was going to get sent to voice mail before I talked myself out of being scared enough to answer it. I didn’t recognize the number, but it was long and the connection was barely audible and broken, so I knew immediately that it was coming from overseas.
“Hello?”
“Master Sergeant?” I barked out a bitter laugh and propped myself on the edge of the bed. I noticed absently that my hands were shaking.
“Not anymore. What’s up, Church?”
Dash Churchill was my sergeant first class, and I recognized his slow Mississippi drawl even across the bad connection and with my mind being sleep-deprived. We had moved up the ranks together and served in the same unit for the last six years. We were soldiers first and friends second, but I trusted him implicitly and knew that if he was calling with no consideration to the time change and the fact I was no longer his commanding officer, then shit had to be bad.
All I could make out was a garbled bunch of words, stuff like “bad intel,” stuff like “FUBAR mission,” things like “outgunned” and “hidden explosives.” I heard “insurgents” and “loss of life” and my brain went haywire. I went immediately into commando mode, trying to get him to give me just the pertinent details, only to get shut down by things like it being classified and on a need-to-know basis.
I swore at him and had to refrain from throwing my phone at the wall. With gritted teeth I asked why he called if he wasn’t going to tell me anything. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest I could feel each thump, each beat in every tip of my fingers.
“Three KIA, four in serious condition getting airlifted to Germany. They were ours, just thought you would want to know.”
The line went dead and I let the phone fall from numb fingers. I put my head in my hands and tried to stop myself from freaking out. I wasn’t in anymore, they weren’t my men anymore, it wasn’t my mission anymore, but none of it seemed to matter. If they were in my unit then I knew two things: they were too young to be dead, and if I hadn’t been such a mess, both physically and mentally, maybe I could have stuck around and prevented it.
I couldn’t stay in this house. I couldn’t be alone