“I got the bottle,” he said, breaking the ice and acknowledging the impossible.
“Did it help?”
He thought on that for a second. Four days after Oli’s funeral, he’d accepted a special delivery at his front door. A 3-liter bottle of Jack Daniels bourbon, with a card.
“I hope this helps.
My condolences,”
He’d signed it, but even if he hadn’t,Aberlour would have recognized that messy, scratchy handwriting anywhere.
“No,” Abe said, honestly. “Alcohol doesn’t help—” he said, relaying that fact like hard-earned wisdom. “But I drank it anyway.” It had taken him a few weeks to get to the bottom of it—and then he’d picked up the phone and called.
Shawn cracked a smile, finally.
“I’ll admit, I was surprised you called.”
“Didn’t have a reason not to anymore,” Aberlour said, putting all of his cards on the table. He needed to make sure that Shawn knew what he was getting into.
Oliver had asked him once, why Abe had never been with anyone else. For years, he’d stayed celibate. Uninterested and lonely. Why? After all, Aberlour wasn’t a bad looking guy. He was young and fit. He could have found someone—
At the time, he hadn’t known what to say.
Now he knew.
It was a testament to the things they’d seen and done over the years that Shawn did not take it as an insult. He didn’t balk,didn’t complain about being second choice—he merely smiled and nodded, like he understood all too well.
“’Fraid you’re a few years too late,” Shawn joked, smiling. As he did so, only one half of his face lit up. The other stayed as it was—frozen, disfigured. The smooth skin there had been severely wrecked by fire and time. His eyes were still the same though. Keen intellect and strong personality—inspecting every inch of Abe’s features while they talked.
“Drank the miracle Kool-Aid and went straight?”
“Fell down on a grenade and lost all my charm,” Shawn responded with a grin. He put up a good front, but Aberlour could tell he wasn’t nearly as confident about his altered appearance as he pretended to be.
Aberlour snorted.
“Is that what you’d have called it? Charm?” he questioned, amused.
The SEAL threw back his shoulders, a familiar twinkle of excitement appearing now that Aberlour had directly challenged him.
“You took my number,” Shawn pointed out, his right eyebrow—the one that wasn’t scarred—lifted inquiringly.
“I was just a jarhead—couldn’t risk getting my ass kicked,” he lied smoothly, dancing around telling Shawn what he really wanted to hear.
“Ah, yes—Squad Leader Gavin Aberlour, known for playing it safe. That rings a bell,” Shawn said, snorting.
“Don’t pretend you’d heard about me,” Aberlour responded, rolling his eyes.
“Of course, I had—the Force Recon Marine who could shoot anything, anywhere, anytime.”
Shawn sounded entirely too serious about that for Abe’s peace of mind.
“What?”
“Why’d you think we cornered you guys at the target range that day? You’d made quite a reputation for yourselves long before we boarded that ship. And you—the guy who never missed, with that 20/20 aim, and whatnot—,” Shawn said, with a shrug, like it ought to be obvious. “Had to see if you lived up to it.”
Aberlour was struck mute hearing this story from Shawn’s perspective.
“I’d never seen anyone outshoot Dajar—it was—” he hesitated, “hot.”
