Page 152 of What We Break
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"Moore, you pack like a fucking tourist," Kowalski calls out, watching me wrestle with my tent poles. "What happened to military efficiency?"
"Efficiency went out the window when I started sleeping in a real bed," I shoot back, finally getting the damn thing to cooperate. I fucking hate tents. I hate camping. But when chief says get your ass on a plane, you get your ass on a plane. "Some of us evolved past sleeping on rocks for fun."
"Evolved," Chavez snorts, cracking open a beer. "That what we're calling it? You went soft, Hermano."
"Says the guy who brought a camping chair that cost more than my truck payment," I point out.
"This chair is an investment in my future back health," Chavez pats the armrest of his ridiculous contraption. "Unlike you savages who think suffering builds character."
Thompson tosses a bundle of firewood down near the pit. "Speaking of suffering, Hatch made me haul all this wood because apparently I'm the youngest."
"You are the youngest," Davis points out.
"By six months!"
"Six months that clearly matter," Hatch says, emerging from his tent with that perfect timing of his. It's like he has a sixth sense. That sense got us out of more than one death trap in the service. "Quit whining and get the fire started. Moore looks like he needs alcohol."
I pause in the middle of staking down my rain fly. "I look fine."
I look like a bomb technician who just cut the wrong wire.
"You look like shit," Kowalski corrects cheerfully. "But that's not news. You always look like shit."
"Thanks, asshole."
"Any time, brother."
This is what I needed. These guys, this bullshit, the familiar rhythm of giving each other hell while actually giving a damn. No walking on eggshells, no watching my words, no pretending everything's fine when it's not.
No watching the woman you love kiss your best friend in your own kitchen.
"How's the restoration business?" Chavez asks, settling into his ridiculous chair. "Still playing with old fireplaces?"
"Still making more money than your sorry ass," I say, and that gets a laugh.
The lie comes easy. Business is fine. The money's still good. But I've been turning down jobs left and right because I can't focus long enough to do quality work.
"Money talks, bullshit walks," Thompson says sagely, like he didn't just fall on his own tent and break a pole ten minutes ago.
"Deep thoughts from the infant," Davis mutters.
Huffing out a laugh, I finish with my tent and grab a beer from the cooler. First sip goes down cold and easy. Finally, 400 miles from home, I can finally breathe.
I take another drink and sit on the cooler lid.
Except I can't turn off my fucking brain. Laine's hair in the morning light. The way she leans into Reid at the stove. That quiet way she sings when she thinks nobody can hear.
Fuck off.
I drain half the beer and look at the lake. There's no fucking escaping her. Leaving the cooler, I join the group around the fire pit. "So what's the plan?" I ask, settling onto a log. "Besides Thompson's continued character development?"
"Same as always," Hatch says. "Drink beer, tell lies about our glory days, and see who can start the most fires without burning down the forest."
The sun's starting to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink that remind me why I used to love this shit. Before everything got complicated. Before I started measuring my life by how well I could take care of Reid, how successfully I could pretend I didn't want things I couldn't have.
