“Yeah.”
“You couldn’t drive there?”
“Can’t really drive across an ocean, now can ya?”
“I guess that’s true.”
“They were worried about me,” he said, his usually bright smile turning into a scowl. “Like I was gonna do somethin’ while they were gone. I ain’t gonna do somethin’ like that.”
“Hey,” I said softly. “I know that. And they probably do too. They’re just worried about you, is all.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, and then, as if he didn’t know how to finish, he shrugged. “I told ’em I’d come here. Not like I don’t have money still stuffed away, and the guys, some of their families, well, they don’t mind forkin’ over for it even though I told ’em not to worry about me. Won’t even let me pay for my own stuff half the time.”
Right, of course, his guys. The men he had led for months—years in some cases. Brothers in arms was the truest way to describe them. And then, on what should have been their last outing, one that shouldn’t have beenthatdangerous compared to what they’d done before, everything had gone wrong. I didn’t know the full details, but I knew they’d come under fire, and then the helicopter that was supposed to get them out of danger had been shot down. Somewhere in the fighting, the crash and fire that followed, Cade had been the only one to survive, albeit with parts of him left behind.
“I know how you feel,” I said grimly. I knew all too well what it was like to have people who shouldn’t, in all good conscience, give a shit about you, but refused to let you go, even though it was stupid, even though it wasn’t asked for, even though it was unwanted. “But I guess there’s not much you can do to change their minds, huh?”
“Nah,” he said with a laugh, and his bright smile came back. That was Cade for you; it was easy to forget he had once led a group of highly trained, dangerous men. “They’re who they are, I guess. Don’t know why they keep tryin’, but I ain’t the one to be judgin’ since there ain’t too much right in this head of mine.”
“There’s not a whole lot right in mine either,” I said, cocking my head. “What’re you doing in my room if you’re staying early?”
“Not early. Just for a couple of weeks,” he said with a shrug. “And I was roamin’ around, and I met a couple of new guys.”
“There’s new guys?” I wondered.
He eyed me, chuckling. “Calm it down. Let ’em get settled before you start your dick hunt.”
I scoffed. “I was just asking.”
“Sure you were.”
“Just tell me how you ended up in my room instead of yours.”
“Well, I didn’t meet one of ’em, just saw ’em as I was coming in. Seemed kinda quiet, but he was talkin’ to Reggie, and the only ones who don’t seem quiet next to Reggie are people like you and me.”
“Cute?”
“Hell, I don’t know, Clay. Ya know I don’t swing that way.”
“You can still say whether he was good-looking or not. You have eyes.”
“Well, I don’t know if he wascute, but he was pretty good-lookin’, I guess. Other one was too, uh, Joseph was his name. The one I actually got to meet.”
“Cute?”
“Jesus, Clay,” he tried to complain, but burst into his booming laugh. “I knew guys straight outta boot who weren’t as horny as you, and they were locked up without nothin’ to do the whole time.”
“Nothing but each other.”
“I meant the straight ones, not whatever horny bisexual you are.”
I grinned; my dirty jokes were getting him to relax because whatever had happened that led him to my room gave me the feeling something had gone wrong. People looked at Cade and saw big, loud, and friendly, but that was about it. What they didn’t understand was that there was something fragile that he did his best to hide from others. He would sooner chop off his other leg with a rusty butter knife than tell someone who didn’t know any better that they had accidentally hit one of his buttons, but I had seen it happen on occasion.
“What’d the new guy, Joseph, right?”
“Yeah?”
“What did he say or do?”
