I chuckled. “No, it’s just, in my line of work I tend to know who’s who.” I paused and let my eyes rake over him, finally feeling a little more confident as I took in his dark beauty. “Believe me, I would have remembered someone like you.”
“I got my ticket from my employer. He and his wife couldn’t attend, so they offered the tickets up to the first takers at work.”
“What kind of work do you do?”
“Construction.”
I nodded, but didn’t comment.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nuh-uh, Elliot. Doesn’t work like that. Not tonight, anyway.”
I sighed. “You don’t look like you work in construction. If I had to guess, I would have said you were a soldier… or a cop.”
“What makes you say that?”
I forced my eyes up from where I’d been toying with my coffee cup. “You act relaxed, but I can tell you’re aware of everything that’s happening around us. When we came in, you picked this booth, even though there were some closer to the door. It’s near the back exit, right? And you took that side so you could see anyone coming through the front door.”
Cruz studied me for a long moment, his already dark eyes going even darker. “I was a soldier,” he finally said.
Since I could tell Cruz wasn’t much older than my own twenty-five years, I couldn’t help but wonder why someone in his prime wasn’t still in that line of work. But it wasn’t any of my business.
“I received a medical discharge and never went back.”
It shouldn’t have surprised me that he knew what I’d been thinking. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s none of my business.”
“Yes, it is,” he said. “Trust goes two ways, Elliot. I can’t expect you to hand over pieces of yourself and not give back the things that make me who I am.”
My heart swelled at that, but I tried to quell the emotion. There was no way he was feeling what I was. Not yet.
Probably not ever.
I forced the self-doubt away and said, “What happened?”
Despite Cruz being someone who was always aware of his surroundings, he hadn’t yet looked tense. Now, though, it was hard to miss. His shoulders straightened and I saw him raise his hand to his head before slowly pulling it back. The move was odd – like he was trying to break himself of a habit. He leaned forward in the booth again and said, “I was in Germany. We’d just finished a mission and were preparing to head home after our debriefing. I was in Special Forces.”
I didn’t pressure him to continue when he fell silent. But I did reach across the table to cover his hand with mine. His skin was cold, so I automatically gathered his hand up into mine and began rubbing. His other hand was buried in his lap, so I couldn’t give it the same treatment.
“I was with some of the members of my unit at this bar, but I was tired so I decided to call it a night. I was heading back to my hotel when I was jumped in the alley behind this abandoned building nearby. There were too many of them to fight. I was in and out of consciousness from the beating, but they made sure I was awake when they shot me the first time… and the second.”
If I hadn’t been holding his hand between mine, I would have covered my mouth as the horror trickled through me.
“I was unconscious for the third shot. The kill shot. But the fuckers were drunk, so they missed,” Cruz said as he pulled my hand up and pressed one of my fingers against his head. I could feel the scar that was just above his temple and hidden by his hair.
“Who?” I whispered in horror. “Why?”
“My own men.”
“What?” I gasped in disbelief. “Why? Why would they do this?” I asked as I caressed the scar. In my mind, I knew he wasn’t in any danger anymore, but in my heart, it was like it had just happened.
“It was to get back at someone else. Someone I loved and someone who loved me.”
“Who?”
“My brother, Matias.”
