Everything Changes (17 page)

“Yeah, one of ’em. I have four.”

Carey’s eyes goggled. “
Four
sisters?”

“Yep, and two brothers. I’m the oldest.” Jase was separating his loot into piles, and Carey knew he would share his largesse amongst his closest friends. He never hoarded anything for himself. If Carey asked, he’d probably strip the shirt from his back right then and there and hand it over.

“Damn,” Carey said fervently, not able to grasp the concept of a large family. Sure, he’d been one of many warm bodies in his various foster homes, but he’d never once thought of the others as his siblings. “What was that like?”

“Messy, chaotic,” Jase said absently. “With my mom there were five women in the house, and my dad always joked he should have taken out stock in Tampax.” Carey snorted. Jase grinned at him and went on, “I was always stuck babysitting the little twerps, but mostly I didn’t mind.” Carey could see that, and the caretaking aspect of Jase’s personality made perfect sense; he’d been steeped in it his whole life.

Suddenly Carey was intensely curious about Jase’s upbringing.

“Where do they all live?” he asked.

“Florida” came the muffled reply as Jase carefully broke down the box and stored it on top of a supply cabinet.

Carey remembered asking Jase where he was from one time, and getting the answer of “San Diego, baby!” He questioned that now, and Jase grinned wryly.

“A couple of years after high school, I was working some dead-end job, and my sister, who was a year younger than me, popped out her first kid. I suddenly saw my future, babysitting kid after kid, nothing ever changing. I needed to find myself, so I decided to put a lot of distance between me and them. Don’t get me wrong, I love ’em all to death, but I needed some space, you know?”

Privately Carey thought living his life surrounded by a loving family sounded pretty fucking good, but he didn’t say anything. Everyone had a different perspective on things, and not having grown up like Jase had, he wasn’t qualified to pass judgment.

“With so many kids, there was never any money for anything, much less college,” Jase said as he went back to messing with his piles. “There wasn’t much future for me if I’d stayed there, so I went to a Navy recruiter and told him that I wanted to see the world. When I took the ASVAB and scored pretty high, they steered me in the health-care direction after boot camp. I thought, I’ve been taking care of people my whole life, why not get paid for it?”

Carey gestured wryly around the tent. “And at least you’re getting to see the world.”

Jase’s voice was dry. “Yeah, lots and lots of fucking dirt. Not quite what I had in mind.” They laughed quietly together.

“What I really wanted to do was sing,” Jase said wistfully, finally pushing his piles away and sitting down in a nearby chair. “I sang in a garage band during high school.”

“Were you any good?” Carey was curious, and he pulled up a chair and sat down too.

“Nah, we sucked,” Jase laughed. “We had shitty equipment and not a whole lot of talent. But it was fun, and we got a kick out of it. It helped me get girls… and guys.” He waggled his eyebrows, and Carey chuckled.

“Did your family know you liked both?”

“Yeah. There was never any drama about that. Sometimes I brought home a girl, sometimes a guy. It wasn’t an issue. My family is cool about stuff like that. I know I got lucky.”

Carey thought Jase’s childhood sounded pretty close to ideal, and he said so.

“It was,” Jase said. “I’m really close to my siblings, and my nieces and nephews are awesome.” He held up a sheaf of childish drawings he’d pulled from the bottom of the box, flipping through them with a wistful smile. “I just didn’t want to… get lost in the crowd, you know? I’m perfectly content living across the country, doing my own thing. I love them, and I know they love me.”

Carey lifted one shoulder in a shrug, burying the envy, and Jase stood and then clapped him on the back.

“Grab a couple of these piles and help me hand ’em out, would you?” Carey nodded and followed Jase out of the tent.

A loud snort of laughter from Jase brought Carey back to the present, and he rested his chin on Jase’s chest, one eyebrow lifted inquiringly.

“Okay, punkin’,” Jase said, his tone wry, yet affectionate. “Put your teddy on the phone and I’ll tell him good night.” A one-sided conversation with a stuffed bear ensued, and Carey buried his face in Jase’s chest, stifling his laughter. Jase reached down and pinched Carey’s ass hard, then rubbed his palm over the slight sting soothingly.

“Shut up,” he mouthed. “She’s five.”

One of the myriad nieces and nephews, but Carey was touched at Jase’s patience and obvious love for his family.

“Okay, Princess, gotta go,” he said finally. “Put your mom back on.” A brief pause. “Sami, I’ll get you for that! Okay, okay. Yeah, me too. Love you. Bye.”

Jase disconnected the call and pounced on Carey, rolling him to his back and coming down over top of him.

“What’s so funny?” he mock-growled against Carey’s neck, bringing up goose bumps, making him squirm.

“You,” Carey said simply, linking his arms around Jase’s neck. “Talking to your niece’s stuffed bear like it was the most important conversation you’d ever had.”

“Yeah, well,” Jase said, his cheeks lightly tinged with red. “What can I say? I’m cool Uncle Jase.”

“The coolest,” Carey agreed, kissing Jase gently. Jase grinned against his lips and then flopped over onto his back again, flattening out with a sigh.

“I miss them,” he admitted. “Busy lives, never enough time for a visit.”

Carey propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at Jase. “I’m just trying to picture you growing up surrounded by all those women,” he teased. Jase smirked up at him.

“Nah, it’s all good. My guy friends made up for it,” he said comfortably.

“You still in touch with them?” Carey couldn’t imagine growing up with a large family
and
friends. It all sounded like a fairy tale.

“Most of them, yeah,” Jase replied, stretching and yawning so big his jaw cracked audibly. His face suddenly darkened, his lips tightening.

“What?” Carey asked, concerned.

“I’m just thinking of my best friend in high school, Jeremy Speer. He was my first love,” Jase said wistfully. Carey tamped down the irrational jealousy at the thought of another man with Jase. He forced himself to ask, “What happened to him?”

“He got married right before I reported to Pendleton,” Jase said. “I’d never seen two people so happy. Brent was perfect for him.”

Jase reached out and pulled Carey against his chest, holding him close.

“Brent was killed in a car accident only a year or so after their wedding. He had gone out to grab their dry cleaning, and a distracted driver ran a stop sign.” Jase shuddered. Carey threw his leg across both of Jase’s, tightening his hold, making soothing circles on Jase’s abdomen with his hand. He felt Jase kiss the top of his head and then continue, “That’s not the worst of it. They had a surrogate, and she was pregnant at the time of Brent’s death. A month later she lost the baby—a cord accident, just one of those things. Jeremy went off the rails, went down to Mexico and disappeared for at least a year. Drugs, drinking, who knows what else.”

“Jesus,” Carey said quietly.

“He reappeared one day, packed his shit up, and moved to Oregon, moving as far away from the memories as he could possibly get. I’ve tried to keep in touch with him, and we do talk occasionally, but I think it’s too painful for him to see me, knowing that I survived a war zone and his husband was killed just two fucking miles from home.”

Carey turned his head and kissed Jase’s chest. “Life is so goddamned unfair sometimes,” he whispered. Jase didn’t say anything else, just pulled Carey to him and held him tight.

C
HAPTER
10

C
AREY
WOKE
suddenly, not sure what had disturbed him. The room was still full dark, and Carey glanced at the clock to see it was 4 a.m. Jase was a reassuring weight beside him in the bed, and Carey pushed up on his elbow to face him, smoothing Jase’s hair back from his forehead gently with his hand. He recoiled as his fingertips encountered a cold clamminess, and he realized Jase was breathing hard, small moans breaking from his lips as he was caught in the grips of an apparent nightmare.

“No,” Jase muttered, thrashing his head on the pillow.

Carey knew from his counseling of veterans that waking someone up in the midst of a nightmare was a very foolish thing to do, especially someone who had been in a war zone and could be dreaming of all sorts of atrocious things. He’d seen husbands break down as they described crushing their wives’ nose in the midst of a dream and wives sob as they recounted waking up to their hands encircling their terrified husbands’ throats.

But Jase was in so much distress that Carey couldn’t stop himself, stroking Jase’s cheek with his hand as he said urgently, “Wake up, Jase. Please wake up.” He shook Jase’s shoulder gently and flinched as Jase’s eyes snapped open. They were wild, unfocused.

“C—Carey?” Jase said shakily as he struggled to pull himself from the grips of the nightmare, his breath harsh and rasping.

“I’m here, Jase,” Carey crooned, not getting too close but rubbing his hand soothingly over Jase’s chest. “Breathe with me, dude. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Jase continued to gasp as his body shook uncontrollably, and suddenly he bolted out of bed and ran for the bathroom. The sound of retching floated out to Carey’s ears, the heaves interspersed with sobs.

Carey flung the covers back and sat up, cursing as he realized his crutches were too far away and his prosthetic would take too long to put on; Jase needed him now. He stood up on his support leg, hopped as far as he could with the aid of the furniture, dropped to the floor and pulled himself with his arms the rest of the way until he reached the bathroom and Jase, who was hunched over the toilet, his back muscles tight as a drum as he continued to vomit.

Carey knew enough by now to know that touch calmed Jase during an episode, so he knelt behind him as best he could and enfolded Jase in his arms, rocking him, letting the warmth of his body try to ease him, murmuring in his ear, reminding him to breathe.

Eventually the severity of the attack eased, and Carey sank back to lean against the tub, Jase sprawled between his legs, resting bonelessly against him. Carey wrapped his leg around Jase’s thigh, anchoring him, and rubbed his hand up and down his chest and stomach.

“That’s good, Jase. Breathe. You’re okay. I’m here.” Carey kept up the litany of calming words, gratified to feel Jase relax further, rolling his head until his face was buried in Carey’s neck. Carey stretched up until he could snag the towel hanging from the rack above their heads, pulling it down and wiping Jase’s face with it, cleaning the sweat and traces of vomit off his face and chin.

“Carey, I’m sorry,” Jase gasped. “Let me up. I reek, and I—”

Carey’s arms tightened. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you smell like. Don’t move. Let me hold you.” Jase couldn’t fight what he needed and slumped back against Carey, letting Carey comfort him. Carey rocked him lightly, murmuring, “That was a bad one. Do you want to talk about it?”

Jase shook his head, then nodded, then shook it again. “I don’t know if I can, Carey. Oh God—”

“What do you need, Jase? Tell me what you need,” Carey urged. Jase sat up shakily, leaning forward and reaching into the cabinet under the sink, pulling out a small box from which wafted an unmistakable smell. His hands were trembling too much to open it, so Carey took it from him gently and opened the box, removing the half joint that was in there and the small lighter. He set the box aside and brought the joint to his lips, lighting it and sucking on it hard to get it ignited and burning before holding it up to Jase’s mouth.

After a few false starts, Jase managed to draw some of the drug into his lungs and hold it, steadiness slowly returning as he settled down. He took the joint from Carey and held it himself, taking long drags until it was almost gone, Carey still holding him close.

Jase finally tossed the butt in the toilet and sighed, his body relaxed. Carey ran the fingers of one hand through Jase’s hair, rubbing his scalp, scratching his nails across it gently, pressing.

“Feeling better?” he asked, his lips feathering across Jase’s cheek. Jase nodded, and they lay there quietly without speaking, Carey trying to ignore the increasing discomfort of the freezing-cold porcelain tub at his back, the hard floor tile that was making his ass numb, and the ache in his stump from the splayed position of his legs.

Finally Jase pushed himself up to standing, still a little wobbly but in no danger of falling, and he leaned down and lifted Carey upright. Carey winced as the blood rushed back into his ass and leg, and Jase reached around behind him and massaged the numb cheeks, holding him up until the pins and needles were gone from his support leg.

“I’m sorry, Carey,” he rasped.

Carey took his face in his hand and said fiercely, “Don’t
ever
be sorry for needing me. I don’t care about a little discomfort.
You
are my priority. You hear me, Jase?”

Jase nodded, his eyes moist, and he helped Carey to the bed before going back into the bathroom to wash and brush his teeth. Carey pulled his knee to his chest and stretched out his lower back while he waited, not wanting Jase to see how uncomfortable he really had been on that hard, cold floor.

By the time Jase came back to the bed, Carey was stretched out easily under the covers, and he threw the warm blankets back and drew Jase close, covering them both up in a snug cocoon.

“Let’s talk about it, Jase,” Carey encouraged, stroking his hair.

Jase sighed deeply. “I don’t want to burden you, Carey, after all you’ve been through yourself. What I went through can’t compare—”