The medic halted his tenth check of his first aid kit. “Pause button.” There was a nostalgic expression on his face. “A night at the beach.” After another silent moment, he went back to repacking the kit. That was all he said, but Steel got the sense that whatever time he wanted to relive was a turning point for the man.
“Well, I want a rewind button so I can wake up that second morning with Gem and keep her from doing a flit. Again.”
“Didn’t want to stop her the first time?” TB asked.
“Too dumb to know better then, and I probably would have fucked it up. Second time, I would have been smart enough to have at least gotten her number.”
There was some gentle ribbing of the blond superhero look-alike, which he took with a big smile.
It was too much to hope they would forget him.
“Yo, Steel! What about you?”
“I don’t know.” It was all he could say, and he hoped they would let it go.
“Steel, you know the rules. When the question has been asked, you have to give an answer. No passes,” Nemo pushed.
Everything came bubbling to the surface. The anger. The pain. The shame. It felt like all the negative emotions inside him had been slowly percolating for months, and now they reached boiling temperature.
His control slipped. With a violent shove off the tree trunk he was sitting on, he stood. “I want a stop button so I can die in that shithole Argentinian bar rather than destroy everything good in my life.” Ignoring their shocked, nonverbal responses, Steel crossed back into the jungle from where he’d arrived minutes earlier.
As soon as he was far enough into the trees to be out of their sight, he stopped and stared into the inky blackness. What was he doing? His past wasn’t his team’s fault. No, all of that was on him and the people who had turned his world inside out.
Expelling a long breath, he tried to imagine blowing away his mistakes with the air leaving his lungs. It didn’t erase the past, but it helped him regain control over his emotions and push back the memories, which were threatening to drown him more and more lately.
He felt the movement behind him rather than heard it. Based on the nearly nonexistent tread, it would be Waters. Only another SEAL would hear him, and that was probably by design so he didn’t startle Steel with his approach.
When the sound stopped, he patiently waited for the man to speak. They stood in the silence of the night, listening to the living things around them. “Cherry checked last week, like she always does. The next space that opens up at the facility you wanted, she’s making it happen.”
He struggled to speak around the lump in his throat. “Gracias.”
“De nada. You know… You’re doing the right thing, if that’s what’s eating at you,” the man offered.
“I know.” He hung his head. “I have a confession.” Gathering his courage, he admitted, “I stopped in to see her not too long ago.”
“Fuck!” Waters whispered. “We’ve discussed this, and you said you wouldn’t do it again. You know how dangerous it is to do that.”
“Don’t worry. No one saw me, except her. And she didn’t recognize me, so it’s not like she could tell anyone I was there. She probably forgot within seconds of me leaving.”
“Maybe you should tell everyone,” Waters suggested.
“Why? What good would it do them to know?”
The reply was sarcastic. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you just told everyone you wished you were dead, then you stalked into the jungle with more weapons on you than evenyounormally carry.”
“Were you always this dramatic, or has your Hollywood girlfriend turned you into a drama queen?”
He heard the smile behind the reply. “Probably a piece of the pre-Kubrick me sneaking through.” The smile slipped away. “They’re your friends, and they’re worried about you. You’ve been on edge for a while now. I get it. We’ve all gone through bouts of that over the years we’ve been together. Cherry and I are doing all we can to help while respecting your wishes, but the others are getting suspicious. You’re tighter than an overwound jack-in-the-box. When you finally release, it’s going to be messy.”
“I’ll make sure to hand you a washcloth when I release all over you,” he grumbled.
Waters let out a disgusted nonverbal. “Thank you for that image I’ll never get out of my head.” A hand clamped down on his shoulder. “I’m just trying to warn you. You might think you have your emotions under control, but from where I’m standing? You’re frayed at the edges and one pull away from unraveling completely. Do I need to take your weapons from you?”
“Good luck finding all of them.”
“Steel, I’m serious.”
He turned in the direction of his team leader’s voice. He couldn’t see more than a blob next to him, but the fact that he was there at all was reassuring.
