“Don’t tell your Mama I brought you here. She wants you to be a doctor.”
My father had served five years in the Navy before he met my mother, then he had a reason to lower his anchor. She was and will always be his true north. He’d said it so many times, it stuck.
The sounds of Eric and the woman he brought to the hotel with him fucking draw me back to the present. They are loud enough to make me want to leave the suite and sit out in the hallway. But I can’t, can I? I am his bodyguard, and that means I have to remain in these kinds of uncomfortable situations.
I close my eyes again, but all I hear is screaming, gunfire, and Marcus, then seeing a face I have been trying to block out for years.
I feel hands slide up my thighs, and I startle awake. “What the fuck?” I hiss.
Looking down, I find the rainbow-haired woman Eric brought to the hotel room. The girl is looking up at me like I’m her next meal. “I’m Sierra,” she says, biting her lip, her hands running over my thighs, inching closer and closer to my dick. “I’ve always loved a man in uniform.”
That’s where I’ve seen her. She’s an up and coming musician.
I sigh. “I’m not in uniform.”
“Void told me you’re a military man,” I bite my tongue, trying not to correct her.
“You should get off me and back into Eric’s bed before he notices you’re gone.” I stand, and her hands fall. She pushes to her feet but doesn’t move away from me.
“Don’t pretend you don’t want me, sugar,” she purrs, looking up at me.
“I don’t. Now go away before I wake him up and have him kick you out on your ass.”
I don’t believe for a second that Eric cares about this woman. She’s just another lay, the second this week actually. But he is the kind of asshole who’ll kick a chick out of his bed in the middle of the night. I don’t want that to happen, even to her.
She stands, her chin rising in defiance. “Your loss, pretty man.”
I shake my head as I watch her sway her hips back to the room. I put on the coffee machine and brew myself a cup of the strongest kind. I take the cup out onto the balcony and look out at the streets of LA, already alive at 6:00 a.m.
There is something about this morning that reminds me of Marcus. I can’t help but recall the times we’d stood on the deck of the ship, staring out at the sunset, goofing off, talking about all the things we’d do once we made it home.
I was the one who’d delivered the news of his death to his parents. His mother hadn’t said a word, but she shook so fiercely, Marcus’s dad had to lead her out of the den and put her to bed. And as I stood to leave, her howls came. They’ve been part of my nightmares since.
I told Marilyn Windsor that a man named Marcus had really liked her, had since we were kids. She’d smiled, shed a small tear, and got her father, the Mayor, to place a memorial bench in the park in his honor. Marilyn and I kept in touch for a while, but I eventually stopped responding to her. I became tired of talking about Dough. Instead, I made sure I was sent on the most dangerous missions. Losing myself out there was the only thing that held me together.
I think about my own mother and the fact that I haven’t seen her in years, not since I retired from the Navy. I push down the memories I prefer not to relive and make my way back inside. I start up my laptop and scroll through the usual emails from the office until one, in particular, catches my attention. A new job. The kind of job I try to stay away from. I’m about to ignore the request to send my details when Eric and the women start up again. I may need a break from celebrities. I let out a groan then read the email more closely. I can never do worse than this, at least I doubt it. I press reply, giving the sender my contact details. Now I wait.
* * *
Sitting on my porch, I take a large sip of bourbon. The more I drink, the less I feel. My life consists of a series of binge drinking episodes and work. I know drinking’s not good for me, but it seems to be the only thing that drowns out the pain. It hurts to love, which is why I will never do it again.
I look at the picture in my hand. It’s been five years since Aurora died. Five long, excruciating years, and on most days, it feels as if it happened yesterday. That dreaded call, the plane ride back home, the casket I couldn’t get close enough to. Mourners calling me for weeks after, offering words to placate me that only made me angrier. There was nothing anyone could say to make what happened okay. A hit and run. An accident. One that took everything from me.
That’s the reason I moved out here in the first place. Not the loss or the overwhelming grief, but the way people pitied me. My family walking on eggshells around me, the accusatory way Ro’s family looked at me.
I’m far enough from people to avoid their looks of sorrow that seem to haunt me even all these years later.
I wonder if everything would have been different if I hadn’t extended my time in the Navy. I’d been torn back then between continuing to fight the war and protect the people of my country, something I’d sworn an oath to do, or stay and marry Ro like we’d planned.
In the end, it’s the what if’s that plague a man the most. The voices that remind you that while you were out saving the world, nobody was protecting yours.
