Page 46 of Haunted

“For some of us.”

His jaw compresses, just an instant too fast.

“Can I come in, or are we doing this in the hallway so your neighbors can enjoy it?”

I should say no. I know the shape of this. I’ve read the pamphlets. I’ve sat in the beige rooms. But it’s late and I’m hollowed out from the parking lot, and I know exactly how loud he can get in a hallway if I make him stand in one. “Roger that,” I say, and step aside. “But make it fast. What do you want?”

“To see how you’re doing.” He wanders past me into the middle of the room like he’s clearing it—the window, the nightstand, the exits. He always did that. “Saw you on the news. The anniversary thing. Ten years.” He shakes his head like it’s a grief we share. “Got me thinking.”

So that’s what pulled him out of whatever hole he’s been in. My face on a memorial flier, and he read it as an invitation.

His eyes snag on the sketchbooks. “You drawing now?” he asks.

“They’re not mine.”

“Whose are they?”

“Nobody’s.” I slide them into the drawer, and his eyes track my hand the whole way. I know I’ve told him something, though I couldn’t say what.

He sits in one of the chairs at my table, uninvited, and drags a hand down his face. Up close he looks tired in the way that used to make me want to fix him. “Look. I know things ended badly. I’ll own that—I let some things get out of hand.”

“Tracking,” I say, dry—the old way of telling him I’m following.

“Tracking.” He laughs. “Don’t you miss it? The Corps. The brotherhood, the mission, the structure. Being part of something that mattered.”

“That’s a stupid question. You know the answer.”

“I do.” He stands, slow. “Civilians see the flag and the haircut and they think they get it. They don’t get anything. They can’t. But you and me—we speak the same language, Broussard. You can’t manufacture that.” He crosses the room to me, and here it is, the reason he drove six hours. “I want us to get back together. You and I make sense like nobody else does, and I was an idiot to lose you. I just—” His voice drops, warm and rueful, the love-bomb right on schedule. “You make me crazy, Broussard.”

The whole time he’s talking I’ve been watching his hands—the right one resting on the back of a chair, the left loose at his side—and I’ve missed half of what he said. That’s what our marriage was, right there: pretty words on his lips, but my eyes watching his hands.

“I’m done making you crazy,” I say.

He blinks.

“You sure about that?”

“Okay. Time to go.” I hold the door open. “I’ve had a shitty day, and I’m not going to stand here and let you cosplay as a Marine. You’re not one.”

His face hardens instantly. “You watch it. I went through Parris Island just like you did.”

“Yeah. But I didn’t get a dishonorable discharge.” I wrench the door wider. “You’ve had your look. Out you go.”

“You’re so sexy when you’re angry.” He smiles, and puts his hand on my jaw.

I take his wrist off my jaw and turn it—not hard, just enough—and walk him back toward the door with the flat competence of a man trained to move other men. He’s strong. He was always strong. But I’m calm and he isn’t, and calm wins.

“Get your hands off me,” he snarls, which is fucking rich.

I get him over the threshold. He rounds on me in the hallway, and the smile is gone, and this is the face I married and spent two years failing to understand.

“Goodbye, Nash. Don’t come back.”

“What’s his name?”

“There’s no name. I just don’t want you. The divorce should have been a clue.”

“Oh, there’s a name all right.” He isn’t smiling now. “But he won’t get to have you. I promise you that.”