Page 16 of Salt Kiss
But I still had to kill him. Kill him where the mountains were high and the trees were thick and where we were so, so far away from where we’d been born.
I had to kill my best friend, and my father thinks I should still be in the army.
“I have to go. I’m on duty right now,” I lie. “I’ll call later. Love you.”
I hang up as quickly as I can and then brace both hands on the edge of the counter and lean over it, breathing hard. The combat stress counselor told me to breathe in a special, count-to-four way when the memory of Sims got like this, when I could see him and smell the evergreens and feel the cloying winter mist on my cheeks.
Sims is dead and I killed him and I have to breathe now.
After a minute, I can stand up straight, and after another minute, the memory is just a memory again.
A hero. My father called me that when he greeted me as I stepped off the airplane.You did a hero’s job, Son. Stand proud.
Here I am shaking in a near-empty apartment instead. I need something to do. Something to—
I can’t be here alone with my thoughts a second longer. Before I can think better of it, I’m shrugging on my ill-fitting jacket and taking the elevator upstairs.
If the door is closed, I’ll know for sure he doesn’t need me. I’ll do push-ups until I can’t think anymore. I’ll walk across the bridge and then go for a run so long that I nearly lose my way in the dark. Something.
But the door to Mark’s office is cracked, and so is the door inside that leads to the hallway and his suite beyond.
I tell myself I’ll just peek in, just to satisfy my very natural, very professional concern that he might need me for security and then go back to my apartment.
But the door to the roof is propped open. Mark’s up on the roof.
I’m just doing my job. He could be with more of those supplicants from last night or meeting with strangers who would benefit from knowing he isn’t unprotected before they get any ideas.
But my certainty evaporates as I emerge from the stairwell and see him leaning against the far railing, a glass in hand.
He’s alone. Alone and clearly deep in thought, and I’m intruding.
I take a step back, meaning to retreat before he can see me, and then I hear my name.
“Tristan,” he says. He doesn’t raise his voice, and so my name comes with the slow wash of water against Lyonesse’s shores. “Come here.”
Regretting the impulse that led me up here in the first place, I straighten my shoulders and walk toward him. He turns as I approach, taking a drink of his whatever-it-is on the rocks and then leaning backward against the railing. Watching me.
“Sir,” I say, getting ready to apologize. “I wanted to make sure that you didn’t—”
He waves a hand. “It’s fine. Stay with me a minute. The sunset is wonderful from up here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you want a drink?” he asks. “There’s a little bar over that way.”
“No corseted waiter tonight?” I say before I can stop myself.
But I’m not punished for my sarcasm. There’s something almost like a smile to his voice as he says, “There’s only you. And alas, no corset. Yet.”
I must not hide my expression fast enough because he does laugh now, a low noise that ripples through me like the ending note of a song.
“Go fix yourself a drink, Tristan. But be quick, the sun’s about to set.”
I shouldn’t make myself a drink in front of my boss, not while I’d normally be working, but the thought of going back down to my empty apartment and staring at the ghost of Sims isn’t any more appealing. So I remind myself that I’m not in the army anymore, and I venture into the small, roofed area that serves as a bar and staging station for food. There’s an excellent selection of European beer—something I did enjoy about my deployments very much—and I help myself to a Zywiec porter.
I go back to the railing and Mark looks at my drink. “I have a small fortune’s worth of single malt back there, and you brought back a beer.”
“I like it.”
