He exhales slowly, like he has to release the weight of the world. “It’s my sister…”
Something tightens low in my chest. “Is she okay?”
Gabe used to talk about his little sister—his hermanita—all the time during our deployments.
The baby of the family.
What the hell was her name?
“She’s heading to New York, and I could put her up at a hotel, but I just… need to know she’s somewhere safe.”
There’s a pause. Then a sigh so low and ragged, it feels like he’s trying to scrape the words off the bottom of his ribcage. Gabe’s never shy for words.
“Talk to me, man.”
“She’s been getting a little unwanted attention lately, and I?—”
He stops, cutting himself off mid-thought.
Whatever he’s wrestling with, he needs backup. And Gabe rarely needs backup.
Instead of sipping my coffee and letting him shoulder it alone, I meet him halfway.
“Do you need me out there?”
“Not yet, but I might. I just need…” He pauses, thinking it through. “I need to stay out here a little longer and send her somewhere safe.”
My spine goes rigid, tension coiling tight between my shoulders. I know that edge in his voice.
Helpless frustration burrows to the bone.
I switch into protect mode. “Say no more. She can come here.”
She…
Hmm.
I press the heel of my hand into my eye socket, trying to remember…
Gah. What is her name?
I remember the photos. Dozens of them.
Braces. Thick glasses. A perpetual messy ponytail, always looking like she’d just rolled out of bed.
When we first deployed together, he showed me one shot of her in a wrinkled K-pop T-shirt she clearly made herself. She managed a look that only blissfully ignorant teenagers and the visually impaired can pull off.
“You mean stay with you?” he asks.
I stare at the phone. Has he lost his mind?
No. I do not mean stay with me. Between a job with more responsibility than a head of state and three kids who chip away at my sanity daily, I’ve got my own shit.
I mean, put her up at a hotel.
A nice one.
With twenty-four-hour security on rotating shifts.
