I lift a hand before he can finish, because I don’t fucking think I can survive hearing the rest of that sentence. My chest already feels carved hollow enough as it is.
“It’s okay,” I say, my voice sounds hurt to my own ears. “We’re all good here.”
Silence slams into the room after that.
I walk out past Carter without looking back. The second I turn away, my eyes finally give out. I wipe at my face fast before either of them can see it.
I push through the shop door into the lot. The air out here hits cool and flat. I stand by my car with the keys in my hand and don’t get in yet. I just stand there, trying like hell to be the man who didn’t just walk into that office and hand George every fucking piece of me.
The truth doesn’t slam into me all at once. It creeps in slow and heavy, pressing into places I have nothing left to protect with.
Nobody warns you that sometimes, the worst part of a fallout isn’t losing the person. It’s knowing you handed them something real and honest, and they didn’t have the balls to hold onto it. They just let it slip through their fingers like it was nothing.
Once you’ve given all of yourself to someone, once they’ve really seen you, there’s no way to take it back. It stays out there, and you’re left standing with parts of you missing.
I wish I could say I’ve regretted telling him anything, but I don’t. Believing he’d fall with me...that might have been the mistake.
37
George
Lance’s car pulls out of the lot.
I stand at the office window and watch the taillights until they disappear past Fourth Avenue.
I pin my gaze to the paper Lance gave me because the second I turn around, I have to deal with what I just did to both of them.
The office door opens behind me. Carter steps back inside.
He doesn’t come at me right away. He just stands there, arms loose at his sides. I know him well enough to recognize when he’s holding himself together by force.
Carter’s always been controlled, measured. Six years side by side and I’ve never seen him lose his temper. Turns out everybody’s got a line.
He crosses the office fast and hits me hard enough to snap my head sideways. The crack of it fills the room.
I take it. I don’t raise a hand or step back. My jaw throbs instantly, the ache settling deep into the bone, but it still feels like I deserved it. Maybe it’s even overdue.
Carter stands in front of me, breathing steady, eyes locked on me. His knuckles are already turning red. His face isn’t twisted with rage, though that would have been easier to deal with.Instead, it’s the face of a man who’s held himself together for years and has finally reached the breaking point.
He drags the chair from the corner, flips it around, and drops into it with his arms crossed over the back. When he talks again, his voice comes out low, every word wrapped in iron.
“What the fuck was that, George?”
The words stick in my throat. There’s no point making excuses. “Exactly what it looked like.”
Carter exhales loudly, almost a sigh, and gives one slow nod. “Yeah,” he says. “Looks like I know you better than I thought.”
He drags a hand down his face and looks away, shoulders set. His temper rides just under the surface.
“When you came home on leave after we first met in the Navy, my sister’s situation fell apart and I didn’t know how I was going to handle it from the other side of the world. You put money in my account before you even knew why. When I tried to pay you back, you told me to forget it. You never said a word about it again, not to me, not to anyone here.”
His jaw tightens slightly. “And there’s a hundred other things too. Don’t think I forgot any of them. It’s like that time in the engine room on the ship when I fucked up a repair and nearly got us both written up. You took the blame and stayed late fixing my mess with me. I know who you are, George. I know what kind of man you are. That’s not the problem.”
I don’t really have a response to any of that, so I just let him go on.
“I needed that file so I had to come into the office, but I couldn’t help hearing the end of the conversation. It’s not my business, whatever it is between you and Lance. You thought what you did today was to help him figure out his life, but you decided for him, of what it should look like. When you couldn’t talk him out of it, you used me to do it for you.”
The truth of it sits there between us. I don’t argue with it.
