Page 32 of Regal Feather
Ever all but leaped back. I had no idea how he managed to keep the blankets covering him. Most of him. “You thought I did?”
“Yeah?”
With how fast gossip traveled between our families, and how much they liked to add all the flair to their stories, I had assumed as much. It had been a discomfort in my stomach I’d done the best to ignore, because I really, really didn’t want to get into it, but it had been there, merging into every second I questioned the way we worked now. Every second I questioned his touch on my skin, and the way he’d been pushing me to befriend the one guy he knew with a military background.
I supposed it cleared some things up.
“So I’m an even worse friend,” he grumbled. “Fucking A.”
“You aren’t.” I gulped. “I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Why?” He frowned. “You know I don’t give a shit about military bullshit. It’s all toxic masculinity and colonialism and posturing and?—”
“I know.” His rampage, one I felt somewhat guilty for interrupting, pulled a small grin out of me. “It’s not that. I wasn’t…I wasn’t discharged because I failed an op or betrayed my country or any of that shit in the movies. I wouldn’t care if that had been it.”
“Okay.”
Okay.
That was it.
Sure, he stared at me like he was sure I was going to keep talking, but he didn’t push. Just as I hadn’t pushed him upstairs to turn toward me, or do anything else.
I rubbed my chest.
Could I do it? Go down that particular memory lane? It might help him. At least, it would distract him from whatever it was he was still feeling about that…scene.
Had they broken up? Were we going to keep recording every time we fucked? Did I know what answer I preferred to those questions?
“It’s stupid.” I worked my jaw. It was stupid, and voicing it out loud made me feel even more stupid. “I got involved. With a higher up. The powers that be didn’t like it.”
Ever frowned. “You can be discharged for that?”
“Not per se.” To be honest, I wasn’t sure. That part was too foggy. I’d just gone through the motions and pretended terror didn’t take hold of every limb at the thought of what my parents were going to say. If they were going to give me a place to stay, or if I’d have to figure out how to rent something without an active income. I hadn’t fully breathed until Ever’s father had reached out with a contract to be his protective detail. “They added a bunch of stuff to it, but basically, it was either her or I, and I took the fall.”
Ever winced. “You loved her?”
“I…” My heart thrummed against my chest. Feelings were a complicated subject. “We had an agreement. She went no contact as soon as I signed the papers to be discharged. But if one of us were going to lose our careers, it should be the one who didn’t care about being there in the first place.”
Had I been naive? Yeah. Self-sacrificing? Probably. I’d read the reports from the Academy and heard the instructors talk behind my back. Everyone thought it was both my biggest flaw and the selfish reason why they’d want me in their teams.
It made me sick, but it clearly hadn’t stopped me from acting on it.
“Santos.” Ever frowned. “It’s not right. Your name is smeared because someone had it out for a woman in power?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
But I wasn’t going to get into it, into how, after the first night we’d been together, I’d ended up throwing up in the bathroom. How I’d close my eyes when she’d sneak into my place, or how she’d made me take Viagra hours before she showed up so that I could actually get it up. It wasn’t always needed. I hadn’t not wanted it most of the time. It had just been easier to go with it. It had made things less lonely. For a while.
“Well, I hate her.”
He decided it just like that, without knowing even a quarter of the story.
I didn’t know if I should love him for it or be appalled.
I just followed his lead when he pushed me toward his bed and prepared to be trapped between more limbs than any human could physically have.
ELEVEN
