“But why would you want me to stay the fuck away from him? I’m delightful, goddammit! I’m funny. I’ve got guys lined up around the block. Why wouldn’t he want to be with me?”
Evie looks at me like she just caught me with my hand in the cookie jar, then puts her hand to her ear. “I’m sorry, say what?”
I snarl and say, “Fine, ignore the last part.”
“Oh honey. Even if I do ignore the last part, which…ha, no chance of that… there is so much to unpack in everything you just said. For the sake of time, the thing I want you to take away from this is that ifhedoesn’t have a part in making the decisions around how you can make things better for him, thenhehas not properly been centered. Try again.”
I cross my arms and pout. Dammit, I’ve beentrying.
“You look as mad as a wet cat.”
“I am! Mostly at myself, which, by the way, I don’t like at all.”
“Why are you mad, specifically?”
“Okay, well, I can’t talk about it specifically because there’s this shit that happened in Iraq that I can’t fix, you know? And…” I flit my fingers over my eyebrow, looking anywhere but into my friend’s concerned honey-colored eyes. “I—I just—fuck. I try really hard not to cause anyone any more pain. So, putting him in the hospital and nearly breaking his toe weren’t exactly in the game plan, you know?”
I take a few breaths to recover from my mini-tantrum. I chance a look, and sure enough, Evie’s eyes are melted gold, with care and concern in her expression. “Of course I know, sweetie.” She and I finish our slices, and she looks at me for a moment. Handing me another slice, she says, “You and Nick are so alike.”
I raise my eyebrow in disbelief. He and I look like brothers, but our personalities are night and day.
“Neither of you talk about your service unless prompted. And you? You’re worse than Nick. He’ll at least talk about being a SEAL—you barely mention that you were in the Navy. Remember how I was shocked the first time I saw Nick’s prosthesis?”
We look at each other and snort. She’d nearly fallen out of her chair when he had to remove his leg to make an adjustment, and she’d already known him for almost six months.
Rolling her eyes, she continues. “Well, it was a couple of monthsafterthe incident with Nick’s leg that I put together that my buddy Roly istheRolando Martinez, Jr. who survived three days in the hands of the enemy. I can’t imagine that it’d be easy to survive the trauma of war without making some decisions that, as a civilian, you might regret.”
I avoid her truth-serum eyes. “Yeah, well, it’s the decisions I made off the battlefield that haunt me.”
“I’m assuming these are the super Top Secret decisions that you can’t talk about under pain of death.”
“Something like that.”
“Mmm.”
We finish our slices, and Nick wanders by, slyly taking the box of her peaches-and-rosemary pizza before heading out to meet Elijah for dinner.
I follow him out the door with my mouth agape. “Iknewit!”
Evie bites her lips and looks down.
“I always suspected, but was never totally sure.”
Her amused eyes pin me in place. “Don’t say anything! If the Rock can have a massive cheat day, Nick can have the occasional slice of pizza.”
“Fine.” I shake my head. Up is down, left is right, and Nick loves pizza. Consider me floored.
“Okay, so let’s get back to Heath.”
Ugh. “Let’s not.”
I’d like to say that she took the hint, but…no. “Let me ask you this: Are you going out on Jean-Pierre’s boat tomorrow?”
“Of course, wouldn’t miss it!”
“Well, there’s a pretty good chance that Heath is going to be there. How are you going to handle that?”
Shit. Hadn’t considered that.
