Page 14 of Sleeping with the Dark (The Righteous 3)
“Like hell I do.” The leather chair squeaked as Trev leaned back. “What I need is a new damn chair.” He wriggled back and forth, and as it continued to make noise, he jumped up and knelt down to take a look at it.
“You’re avoiding.” Arek hit his brother with a hard glare. “You’re secluding yourself, locking yourself away in this room, and it’s not healthy.”
“I have many things to occupy my time.” He pointed to the chair. “Case and point.”
“Bullshit, the only thing you have is a seventy-year-old woman working for you and me.” Trev stood and quickly rearranged the items on his desk, making sure nothing was out of place. Arek recognized the signs of his brother’s unease. He was always the same, always had been, he needed to make something orderly, had to put something right.
“I don’t need Cody in my life to fulfill me. I’m not like you Arek, I have never been the type that had to have a relationship, or as you put it, get my rocks off.”
Arek slumped into the chair. He was at a loss as to how to get Trev to open up to him or listen to reason. “You can keep telling yourself you’re fine, but you were never this stilted before. Life is not remembered in days, but moments.”
“What are you a fucking greeting card now?” Trev shook his head, and Arek wanted to hit his stubborn brother’s face. His hand twitched with the thought of connecting with that jaw.
“Fine, that might have been over the top, but you know I’m right, and Trev,” he stopped to make sure Trev looked at him before continuing. “Cody may have been in the wrong to follow you, but he didn’t deserve what you said.”
“Didn’t he?”
“No. The fact you didn’t see him says one of two things—either he is good, or you are out of practice, maybe both. Besides, even if you don’t want a relationship, would it hurt to have a friend?”
“All my friends are dead.” Trev pushed his chair into the desk, signaling that he didn’t want to speak anymore on the topic. “It’s late, and I’m going to bed. I appreciate your concern, Arek, but Cody is a big boy. I’m sure he will be fine. I’m fine. Hell, we are all fucking fine.” Arek watched as Trev left the office, the bottle of tequila swinging from his hand. Trev might insist he was alright, but Arek knew better.
There was something Trev was hiding, something that happened while they were deployed. The mission had been like running naked through hell while being shot at. They all lost so much, but this felt different, it felt too raw.
Arek stood and wandered around the desk to pick up the picture of their unit. He thought he knew everything there was to know about his brother. They were as close as any two siblings could be. So why would he hide what was bothering him? He’d always assumed that the compulsive behaviors and keeping to himself issues would sort themselves out on their own. There was something from the larger picture he was missing. It was hard to picture his orderly brother coming undone at the edges. Trev was always the incredibly strong one. Arek ran his thumb over the image of all the smiling faces from another life before setting the frame down in the exact place he’d removed it.
But now, he wasn’t so sure.
Trev would be happy to get back to the ship. This wall-to-wall hot ass, devil’s sandbox was so not his thing. Give him a cool breeze, waves and sharks over endless stick to your dick granules and stubborn camels any day. It normally cooled off to a reasonable temp at night, but not tonight. Nope, he had what felt like rivers of sweat trickling down his back inside the command tent that did nothing to keep heat out or cool in. Other than shade, the thing was completely useless.
The fabric door to his tent flew open. If it were wood, the force with which it was ripped open would have smashed into a far wall.
Mel marched in and stopped in front of his desk. Boots tossed sand as she came to an abrupt halt. Her back was ramrod straight, hands behind her back and eyes glaring at the tent wall over his shoulder. She waited for him to invite her to speak, but her eyes were snapping mad. He’d become very accustomed to that look over the years. Her mother would say that her temperament was worse than any snapping turtle.
“You may speak, Mel,” he said casually and then turned his eyes back to the map on his desk.
“We need to end things. The guys are all talking and saying the only reason I got promoted is because I’m fucking you. I’m not that girl, I’ve never been that girl, and you know that. Yet, here I am, labeled as the fuck myself up the chain-of-command type,” Mel fumed.
“At ease, Mel,” Trev said.
Mel, Arek, and himself had been friends for as long as he could remember. Their parents were neighbors, and she was born a week before himself and his brother. That was a fact she never let them forget—she was the older, wiser of the three. They’d been like Velcro. She’d always been more comfortable hanging with them than the girls at school. It had been her idea for the three of them to join the Navy together, and he’d found he couldn’t say no to her. Since joining, the two of them had become more than best friends. Dare he say—he was sure he was in love with her. He suspected he always had been.
“Mel, you are over-thinking this for nothing. The guys would tease you no matter what. They always have. This is just the latest thing to bug you about.” Trev folded the large map on his desk. “Do you really care this much about what they say?”
“I don’t care what they say, but I do care what they believe, and so should you. There is teasing, and then there is pissed-off disguised as teasing. They are the latter. They want to know why I was promoted over guys that have been here twice as long.”
“Mel, I had no say over your promotion. You’re not even in my unit.”
She made a strange grrr-ing noise and walked away to stare out the tent. The sun was beginning to set, and the extreme heat was easing only slightly with late-afternoon shadow.
“You don’t understand,” she finally said.
“No, I don’t think you do. You were promoted because you are excellent at what you do. You have what it takes to lead your own team one day, and those that make the decisions have taken notice.”
“Did they ask you about me?” She wheeled around and glared at him.
“Yes, of course, they did, and I told them the truth. Would you have preferred I lie and say you are terrible at your job? Sabotage your chances, maybe tank your entire career so that you could say that I didn’t recommend you get your promotion?”
“No, of course not,” Mel sighed, and he pointed to the chair across from the small desk. She mumbled but made her way over and sat in the simple wooden chair. She looked too beautiful for this place, for this tent, or even that fucking chair. But, he’d never hold her back from her dream, and this was what she wanted. The desire to help others had always run deep in her blood.
