“Neither are you.”
“No, I’m not currently in a relationship. That doesn’t mean I don’t have attachments, people I care about and who care about me.”
I knew what he was getting at, and this wasn’t the time, the place, or the ever. Before he could take it any deeper, I slapped him on the back.
“Look, we can call in Dr. Phil, or we can get the hell out of here and move on to the next mission.” Move on, that was always what came easiest to me. I didn’t form attachments because I didn’t want to, not because I wasn’t capable. Attachments—to people, places, or things—were inconvenient or screwed you over. Because there was only one thing certain, and it was change.
“I’m serious.” His eyes narrowed into a look I’d seen too many times in our ten years of friendship.
“Yeah, well I am, too. I’m fine. Besides, I’m attached to you and Havoc. Everyone else is just icing.”
“Mac! Gentry!” Williams called from the door on the north building. “Let’s go!”
“We’re coming!” I yelled back.
“Look, before we go in, I left you something on your bed.” Mac rubbed his hand over his beard—his nervous tell.
“Yeah, whatever it is, after this conversation I’m not interested.” Havoc and I started walking toward the meeting. Already I felt the itch in my blood for movement, to leave this place behind and see what was waiting for us.
“It’s a letter.”
“From who? Everyone I know is in that room.” I pointed to the door as we crossed the empty courtyard. That’s what happened when you grew up bouncing from foster home to foster home and then enlisted the day you turned eighteen. The collection of people you considered worthy of knowing was a group small enough to fit in a Blackhawk, and today we were already missing Ramirez.
Like I said. Attachments were inconvenient.
“My sister.”
“I’m sorry?” My hand froze on the rusted-out door handle.
“You heard me. My little sister, Ella.”
My brain flipped through its mental Rolodex. Ella. Blond, killer smile, soft, kind eyes that were bluer than any sky I’d ever seen. He’d been waving around pictures of her for the last decade.
“Gentry, come on. Do you need a picture?”
“I know who Ella is. Why the hell is there a letter from her on my bed?”
“Just thought you might need a pen pal.” His gaze dropped to his dirty boots.
“A pen pal? Like I’m some fifth-grade project with a sister school?”
Havoc slid closer, her body resting against my leg. She was attuned to my every move, even the slightest changes in my mood. That’s what made us an unstoppable team.
“No, not…” He shook his head. “I was just trying to help. She asked if there was anyone who might need a little mail and, since you don’t have any family—”
Scoffing, I threw open the door and left his ass standing outside. Maybe some of that sand would fill up his gaping mouth. I hated the F word. People bitched about theirs all the time, constantly, really. But the minute they realized you didn’t have one, it was like you were an aberration who had to be fixed, a problem that needed to be solved, or worse—pitied.
I was so far beyond anyone’s pity that it was almost funny.
“All right, guys.” Captain Donahue called our ten-member team—minus one—around the conference table. “Sorry to tell you that we’re not headed home. We’ve got a new mission.”
All those guys groaning—no doubt missing their wives, their kids—just reaffirmed my position on the attachment subject.
…
“Seriously, New Kid?” I growled as the newbie scrambled to clean up the crap he’d knocked off the footlocker that served as my nightstand.
“Sorry, Gentry,” he mumbled as he gathered up the papers. Typical All-American boy fresh out of operator training with no business being on this team yet. He needed another few years and way steadier hands, which meant he was related to someone with some pull.
Havoc tilted her head at him and then glanced up at me.
“He’s new,” I said softly, scratching behind her ears.
“Here,” the kid said, handing me a stack of stuff, his eyes wide like I was going to kick him out of the unit for being clumsy.
God, I hoped he was better with his weapon than he was with my nightstand.
I put the stack on the spare inches of the bed that Havoc wasn’t currently consuming. Sorting it took only a couple of minutes. Journal articles I was in the middle of reading on various topics, and— “Crap.”
Ella’s letter. I’d had the thing almost two weeks, and I hadn’t opened it.
I hadn’t thrown it away, either.
“Gonna open that?” Mac asked with the timing of an expert shit-giver.
“Why don’t you ever swear?” New Kid asked at the same time.
Glaring at Mac, I slid the letter to the bottom of the stack and grabbed the journal article on top. It was on new techniques in search and rescue.
“Fine. Answer the new kid.” Mac rolled his eyes and lay back on his bunk, hands behind his head.
“Yeah, my name is Johnson—”
“No, it’s New Kid. Haven’t earned a name yet,” Mac corrected him.
The kid looked like we’d just kicked his damn puppy, so I relented.
“Someone once told me that swearing is a poor excuse for a crap vocabulary. It makes you look low class and uneducated. So I stopped.” God knew I had enough going against me. I didn’t need to sound like the shit I’d been through.
“Never?” New Kid asked, leaning forward like we were at a slumber party.
“Only in my head,” I said, flipping to a new article in the journal.
“She really a working dog? She looks too…sweet,” New Kid said, reaching toward Havoc.
Her head snapped up, and she bared her teeth in his direction.
“Yeah, she is, and yes, she’ll kill you on command. So do us both a favor and don’t ever try to touch her again. She’s not a pet.” I let her growl for a second to make her point.
“Relax,” I told Havoc, running my hand down the side of her neck. Tension immediately drained out of her body, and she collapsed on my leg, blinking up at me like it had never happened.
“Damn,” he whispered.
“Don’t take it personally, New Kid,” Mac said. “Havoc’s a one-man woman, and you sure as hell aren’t the guy.”
“Loyal and deadly,” I said with a grin, petting her.
“One day,” Mac said, pointing to the letter, which had slid onto the bed next to my thigh.
“Today is not that day.”
“The day you crack it open, you’re going to kick yourself for not doing it sooner.” He leaned over his bunk and came back up with a tub of peanut butter cookies, eating one with the sound effects of a porn.
“Seriously.”
“Seriously,” he moaned. “So good.”
I laughed and slid the letter back under the pile.
“Get some sleep, New Kid. We’re all action tomorrow.”
The kid nodded. “This is everything I ever wanted.”
Mac and I shared a knowing look.
“Say that tomorrow night. Now get some shut-eye and stop knocking over my stuff or your call sign becomes Butterfinger.”
His eyes widened, and he sank into his bunk.
…
Three nights later, New Kid was dead.
Johnson. He’d earned his name and lost his life saving Doc’s ass.
I lay awake while everyone else slept, my eyes drifting to the empty bunk. He hadn’t belonged here, and we’d all known it—expressed our concerns. He hadn’t been ready. Not ready for the mission, the pace of our unit, or death.
Not that death cared.
The clock turned over, and I was twenty-eight.
Happy birthday to me.
Deaths always struck me differently when we were out on deployment. They usually fell into two categories. Either I brushed it off and we moved on, or my mortality was a sudden, tangible thing. Maybe it was my birthday, or that New Kid was little more than a baby, but this was the second type.
Hey, Mortality, it’s me, Beckett Gentry.
Logically, I knew that with the mission over, we’d head home in the next couple of days, or on to the next hellhole. But in that moment, a raw need for connection gripped me in a way that felt like a physical pressure in my chest.