Havoc (27 page)

Her words suck me in like a vortex. Any
remaining stability I thought I had is wiped clean. How can she
expect me to just forgive him for the way he treated me? For the
way he neglected me? For tossing away Mom's memory? How can she say
that about my mother? How can she expect me to just move forward
like that? And yeah, she doesn't have her own bloodline beating,
but isn't that overrated? Or maybe she's right. Maybe it's always
just been easier to pretend to be someone else and live separate
lives than to have to continue on as one without Mom.

Another round of tears gets caught in my
chest. This is yet another drawback to emotions right here. After
years of not spilling out what you really feel under the levels of
bullshit and hypocrisy, it's painful. And I don't know how to
control it. I hate not being in control even more than hating
emotions themselves.

Coughing in an attempt to muster through it
all, I pull my hand away and slide out my wallet.

“Sorry,” she whispers. “I'm sorry if I what I
said was out of line. I just–”

“It's OK, Haven,” I look into her eyes. They
swirl with love, forgiveness, hope, that deadly poison hope. That
taunting, seductive idea. That's what gets a man killed. That look
right there. I manage to grab a smile from the heavens.
“Really.”

We enter the bar, and I return to being Grim,
stone cold and solid. Now is not the time to have all this
confusion swarming around in my brain. Now is the time for a game
face because, if I don't put my feelings in check, someone is going
to get punched tonight.

“Well, look what the jarheads unleashed,”
Glove chuckles, greeting me. There’s a thin line tonight. He knows
it. He looks respectable in a dark-green sweater, white shirt
underneath, and dark jeans. I'm grateful he doesn't reek of douche
bag.

After I greet Lordy, who is wearing a
long-sleeve brown shirt and a pair of khakis—also toned down from
normal—I nervously, but doing my best not to show it, introduce
her, “Boys, meet Haven.”

“Michael Love.” He places a kiss on the back
of her hand. My stomach churns in knots. His lips are disgusting,
disease infected. His entire body needs to be quarantined. The CDC
should be contacted if he breathes too many times your direction.
“But everyone calls me Glove.”

“Glove, if you ever put your lips on my girl
again, you'll need a new nickname,” I state calmly as we have a
seat.

“Why do they call you Glove?”

Instantly, he flashes a small, rectangular
purple package. With a wink, he says, “Cause I'm always packin. No
glove, no love.”

I struggle not to reach across the table and
punch him for behaving that way in front of her. She's not like the
common tramps he’s used to being around or that happen to last
longer than one night. She deserves more respect. Damn sure
deserves more than a condom being flashed in her face.

Lordy senses my tension and quickly speaks
up, “I won't make the same mistake as Glove over there. I'm Jody
Lord, but everyone calls me Lordy. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” she responds. Her
body falls into mine, her back leaned against my chest. I wrap my
arm around the back of her chair and casually grab hold of a beer.
“Why do they call you Lordy?”

Suddenly, in unison, Glove and I cry out,
“Good Lordy! Good Lordy! Did you see that shot?!” Immediately
after, we clink our beers together and start laughing at our
imitation.

“I say that sometimes.”

Glove chuckles, “Sometimes? Any time we go
shooting that's not for work. Hell, sometimes even then.”

She turns her attention to me, “What's your
nickname?”

First the mom conversation, then Sir, now
this. One by one, Haven Davenport, you are undoing everything that
was once me. “It's–”

“Grim,” Glove invades the conversation again.
“And believe it or not, it's not because of the constant look on
that precious mug only a mother could love.”

“You're such an asshole, Glove,” I growl.

“And that's why the ladies love the Glove.”
He shifts his head toward the blond girls at the bar.

“Why do you call him Grim?”

“Short for Grim Reaper,” Lordy answers,
receiving another beer from the waitress. “Clint's one shot, one
kill. Never seen him miss.”

“Never?” she croaks.

“Never,” Lordy repeats, and her eyes shift to
me.

I hope those words give her strength rather
than frighten her. That's what I always hoped for. That knowing my
career, knowing my status, would bring her peace in the worst
scenario, one where her life might be in danger. I pray to God she
never has to see me in action like that.

“So, how did you two meet?” Lordy asks,
sensing the discomfort in me.

“Yeah,” Glove rejoins the conversation after
sending drinks to the two girls. “I've never known Clint to have
more than a one-night stand. Didn't know girls could stand being
around him longer than that.”

My fist clenches tightly as I prepare to
lunge. She squeezes my thigh and says, just like we practiced, “Our
dads were old Navy buddies back in the day. I graduated and wanted
to spend some time in a new place before making any life-changing
decisions like college or career. So Whiskey let me come down and
stay with them.”

“Where'd you come down from?” Lordy asks.

“Chicago.”

“I've got family up there,” Glove responds,
drinking some more of his beer, “What part?”

“Downtown. Lived in a high-rise apartment,
hence the change to the suburbs.”

“I'm from the 'burbs. It ain't much better,”
Glove shrugs.

Lordy chimes in, “I'm from Georgia and
personally prefer life away from the city.”

“Not gonna drink?” Glove points to the empty
spot in front of her.

“I'd rather you not roofie my girlfriend.” We
all laugh at the joke, my mood lightening. I can do this. We can do
this.

“We ate so much at dinner I couldn't swallow
another thing.”

“Probably puts a dent in your plans later,
huh, Grim?” Glove's remark is followed by that weasel smile that’s
come to disgust me more and more. Shooting him a threatening look,
he adjusts himself in his seat and says, “Speaking of drinking, has
Grim ever told you about how amazing the beers in Germany are?”

Glove proceeds by telling stories about
different places we've seen, the different countries, while Lordy
embellishes, painting tales that excite her, draw her into worlds
she's never dreamed of. Hearing them makes us sound like we're
heroes instead of just pawn pieces moved where we're told when we
are told. That's what the girlfriend of a man in the unit wants to
hear, how her boyfriend saves the world, not how he guns down
people he's told to for a living. Somewhere in the mix, the
blonde-haired Hilton-looking sisters join us, hanging onto every
word the two of them say. They pout when they realize it's time for
them to go, but Glove gets their numbers and promises he'll catch
up with them soon. Once they're gone, he explains to us he'll see
if he can do better before he commits.

“Are you ever gonna change?” I shake my head
at him.

“Ahh, Grim, I'm too young to change,” he
chuckles, another beer coming to his lips. The least he could do is
slow down his bad habits in front of Haven. I don't want her
thinking that's how much I drink. “Speaking of change, how do you
feel about his deployment orders getting moved up?”

Just when I felt the world around me had let
me back on stable ground, leave it to Glove to fuck the whole thing
up. I haven't told her yet. I couldn't. We just got to a point
where we established ourselves as one, and I didn't want to destroy
that with bad news. I wasn't ready to see the sad look in her eyes,
the distant realization that I really won't be around like this all
the time. Truth is I didn't want to admit it to her any more than I
wanted to admit it to myself. Just needed a few more moments of
peace in our perfectly imperfect world.

Like the award-winning actress she is, she
responds, “A little sad, but it's a Marine’s duty. I knew when we
started dating it was a possibility.”

“More like likely.” Lordy shakes his head.
“Every time we get some time off, our orders get moved up, but I
guess that's what happens when you're in one of the best units
they've got, huh? Clint's usually excited. Says he needs all the
field experience he can get if he wants to be in Spec Ops.”

My hands are folded together as I stare on at
her, trying to gauge some sort of emotion. How mad is she? How bad
is this going to be? What's the amount of damage I've done when all
I wanted was to savor a few more moments together?

She lets her eyes land in mine, the
brightness dulled, the delight I've become accustomed to gone. “I
think he'd be a great in Spec Ops.”

“Oorah,” my friends agree in unison.

“That's like super-secret special missions,
right? The kind that you have to keep all to yourself and not even
your loved ones know the information?” The well-timed and even
better-played jab hurts like a bitch and half. Fuck. She's even
clever when she's ragingly pissed.

“Something like that.” Lordy catches on,
while Glove seems to have become distracted.

“Goddamn, look at that ass in the red dress,”
Glove growls out, yanking Haven’s attention away from me.

I turn my head to see what their attention
has settled on. Leighyani. I forgot how much she loves this place.
Goddamn it. This night was meant to be sweet and meaningful but is
just getting worse and fucking worse.

“Now that I might commit to,” he says as they
all continue to stare, me with my eyes back on Haven. Damage
control. I need to get her out of here. I have to explain myself. I
have to make this right even if it means me sleeping on the couch
as punishment or her not speaking to me for the rest of the
night.

I clear my throat, stand up, and make the
easiest excuse to jet, “We're gonna split. We've got plans early in
the morning.”

I acknowledge and embrace Lordy first in the
process. He leans over and whispers, “You did good, Grim. Real
good.”

Lordy pulls Haven over to say good-bye, and
Glove leans over to whisper, “I didn't mean to fuck that up for
you, man. I figured she knew.”

“I know,” I whisper and shake my head. It's
not like it's his fault. It's not. It's mine. There's no one here
to blame but me. Only me. And I know what's coming. Believe me. I
deserve every bit of it as soon as I can explain.

She hasn't spoken a word to me since we left
the bar, and as we head away from the glistening allure of downtown
and back toward the submissive suburbs, I can feel the somberness
suffocating us.

After I reach for her hand, only to quickly
be rejected, I sigh, “I was gonna tell you.”

“When? The day you were packed up and heading
out for months?” Her tone raises for the second time—in a way I am
proud that she’s comfortable enough to get mad—but I wish to God it
weren’t directed at me. “When were you gonna tell me, Clint? It's
like you lied to me!”

“I did not lie to you.”

“Whatever.”

“I. Did. Not. Lie. To. You.”

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head,
getting increasingly angrier.

“I was waiting to tell you.”

“Waiting for what?”

“I didn't wanna ruin your birthday. It's just
a few days away. It's important to you. It's important to all of
us. I didn't want to take even the slightest bit of joy from that.
So, no, Haven. I didn't tell you. I didn't lie to you. I'm not
keeping a whirlwind of secrets from you. I would never do that to
you.” That's true enough. There are so many things I didn't want
those words to ruin. Listing just one seems like justification
enough.

“And what's gonna happen to me?”

“What do you mean, what's gonna happen to
you?”

“Where am I supposed to go?”

“Our house is your home, Haven. You belong
there. I’m getting deployed a month earlier than expected.” The
words taste even worse than the first time I swallowed them. “Once
I'm gone, you can continue living there in our room, filling your
time with whatever it is you decide to. And when I come home, I'm
not just coming home to that house, or Sir, I'm coming home to you.
You are my home.”

As I glide off the highway and stop at a red
light, Haven leans over and plants the softest kiss on my cheek.
She doesn't say anything. She doesn't have to. While she's worried
about where she's going to be when I leave, I'm worried about the
same thing. Sir was right when he told me I needed to let her go
and experience her life, so what happens if she realizes that she
may be my home, but I'm not hers? What happens to me then? To our
lives? That's the underlying horror of facing the fact that, in
just less than a month, I have to walk away from my home and
possibly never return to it. I fucking hate emotions.

Ever since Glove fucked up and mentioned the
fact our orders got moved up, Haven has been beside me every chance
she gets. I mean, under my arm while we're walking. Both arms
around me while seated. It's like hearing the words were some sort
of wake-up call that I won't be here for her every day, so suck me
up as much as you can in the meantime. It's increased her sexual
needs to, which has increased my frustration. She's taken to
straddling me during our sessions, clawing at my back with her
nails, and moaning softly. Fuck. Just thinking about it has me hard
again. Good Lord, I'm not gonna last like this much longer. Might
die of a stroke before I make it back to the field.

Strolling over to the solid brown building
where Sir is patiently waiting alone, I adjust my navy-blue polo
collar that got disoriented in the quick change. I'm glad my
check-in on base didn't last as long as I thought it was going to.
We needed to be here for Haven, even if she didn't ask.