"Nevermind. Here"s the new deal, dad. I"m moving in. You didn"t give my room away, did you?"
"Actually, I did."
I sigh, softly. May glances at me, annoyed.
They gave Lance Hawk"s room after he moved out, at the end of the hall, the biggest of the bedrooms on the second floor.
"Oh well, I"m sure there"s some room somewhere unless you and Helen got busy and n.o.body told me."
Silence, but I can somehow hear Tom"s annoyance.
"I made myself very clear," he says. "You need to go back where you came from."
"Oh, how awful," Hawk says in a mocking sing-song. "You"d throw out your unemployed veteran son? I"m sure all the vets and their families in Paradise Falls would love to hear that."
I can practically hear Tom"s teeth grinding.
"What"s your angle here, boy?"
"I don"t have one. I wanted to come home."
"You can stay, for now, but if you lay one finger on your stepsister, you"re out. You"re to have no contact with her, at all."
"So which room do I get?"
"Take one of the ones upstairs. I don"t care. This is temporary. You"ll be moving out soon."
"Okay, I"ll go check it out, then."
Footsteps. The door opens and closes, and May snaps the vent shut. We both scramble away from it, and lean up against the wall.
This is insane. He can"t be moving in here.
"This is great," May chirps in a soft whisper.
"What? Are you crazy?"
"You can get back together."
I scowl at her. "There"s no getting back. We were never together."
May rolls her eyes at me. "Riiiiiight."
I must be turning red, I can feel the heat on my face. I seize May by the shoulders and look her in the eye.
"May, this isn"t a game. We both know it. We can"t screw around, here. If Tom told Hawk he has to stay away from me, I have to stay away from him. Understood?"
"But-"
"No buts!" She gives me a sullen sigh and her shoulders droop as I let go of her. Rising, she flops on her bed and looks at me.
"You like each other."
I sit down next to her. "I don"t know if I like him or not."
"You mean like, or like-like?"
I glare at her, over my shoulder.
"Alex-"
I fold my arms and huff. "May, you know what he did to me."
She sits up, and pulls the collar of her robe up around her neck.
"Do I? I heard what they were saying, same as you. Sounds to me like Tom made Hawk leave."
I swallow. Or try to. My throat is dry. I need something to drink I need a shower.
"May," I sigh. "Just let it go, okay?"
"Why?"
I scowl at her.
"I saw the way he looked at you. Before you smashed the hot dog on him I mean."
May rests her hand on my shoulder.
"He wasn"t there when I needed him." I say, softly.
I shrug out from her touch and give her a look. She rises to her feet and turns away from me, signaling I should go so she can get dressed. With a weary sigh I trudge to the door on aching feet, half expecting Hawk to be standing in the hallway waiting for me, but he"s not there.
I slip into my room, grab a towel and my own robe, and slip into the bathroom. The blessed heat of the shower soaks into me as I stand under it, letting it cascade down my back. I"m so tired. Tired of everything. My feet hurt. My head hurts.
After I soap up and rinse off I turn the water off and, teeth chattering, wrap myself up in my robe, dry my legs, and walk slowly back to my room, like I"m dragging something heavy behind me. Inside, I lock the door and sit down on the bed, and start brushing my hair.
Tap.
What the h.e.l.l?
Tap, tap, tap. It sounds like something hitting my window.
I turn, and there"s Hawk, hanging upside down and grinning, rapping on the gla.s.s with his knuckle. Tucking my robe tighter around my body, I turn and throw up the sash. A wave of warm air flows in.
"Hi, can I come in?"
"No."
He does anyway, crawling through the window and bouncing on my bed until his legs are in and he swings them around and sits up.
"Get. Out."
"That"s not the response I was hoping for."
I turn to face him. "I heard what your father said. You need to stay away from me. Somebody might hear us. Go back out the window. How did you even-"
"I"m a master of sneaking out of this house, trust me. Come on, Alex."
"Don"t "come on Alex" me, Hawk. I told you, we"re done."
No matter how many times I say it, I still feel a flutter in my chest when he looks at me, and more than that, heat rising from between my legs. My robe doesn"t show much. It"s a big white fluffy monstrosity that"s a size too big. I got it after I got tired of Lance leering at me in my old one, and bought one for May, too. All he can see is my neck, but his eyes on my throat make me press my legs together and squirm on the bed.
It"s not helping that I can"t take my eyes off him. His chest is just huge, and when he leans forward his arms flex and the big triceps muscles go rigid. The tattoos draw my eye naturally, my gaze flowing along the length of his powerful arms to his big hands, but it"s his eyes that draw me the most. Blue eyes like clear skies.
I am very, very angry with him, but I can see he"s been hurt. There"s sorrow in those eyes, and shame, and something else. Part of me, a big part of me, wants to throw my arms around him and bury my face in his neck. After all these years and everything that happened I want to help him.
I stand up and tighten the belt holding my robe and grab a c.o.ke from my mini-fridge. I offer one to Hawk, too, and he takes it. His fingers brush mine, warm and rough against the smooth cold surface of the can.
He cracks it open and takes a long pull and says, "After I left here, I went into the Navy. Recruiter told me I"d be on a nuclear submarine. I thought that was ideal. Long periods away from civilization, no contact with the outside world."
Hawk stares at the can, turning it in his fingers. "Instead they sent me to corps school."
"What"s that?"
"Corpsman is like a medic," he sighs. "After I went through the program, I spent six months at the naval hospital in Philadelphia. I became a corpsman technician. Sort of a mix between a physician"s a.s.sistant and a nurse pract.i.tioner."
"Did you have to do, like, surgery on people?"
He takes another drink and smacks his lips like he just took a pull of whiskey.
"Yeah."
"Oh."
"After that I was attached to the Marines."
"Don"t they have their own guys?"
He shakes his head. "No, they"re our own guys. Marines are technically in the Navy. Anyway I was sent to Afghanistan, did a year there, then a year in Iraq."
I swallow a cold mouthful of soda, but it doesn"t seem to do anything for my dry throat, or the growing sense of dread, like a heavy ball of tar in my stomach.
"Did something happen?"
He looks at me, then looks down at the floor.
"I decided I want out in Iraq. The unit of Marines I was with was on patrol, and a firefight broke out. Couple of our guys got hit, but not bad. The other side got it worse. We practically knocked down the building they were using for cover.
"I went in. I found a kid in on the first floor, he couldn"t have been more than twelve or thirteen. There was a rifle right by his hand, blood on his palm, blood on the stock where he was holding it. He took a shot to the stomach. Bad."
He sighs, and it turns into a shudder.
"Gut shot is a bad way to go. If the bullet hit him a few inches away, he might have lived- he"d need a bowel resectioning, and it"d have been touch and go, but the way he was. .h.i.t with the time it would take to evac him after our own guys there was nothing I could do.
"He said stuff in Arabic, but I only knew a few words, basic stuff. I had no idea what he was saying. Five minutes ago this kid was shooting at me, trying to kill me. Now he was just lying there saying the same things over and over again. I pieced it together later. He was praying. Then it changed. He started asking for his mother over and over again."
"He-"
"Yeah."
"Oh."
I sit down on the bed next to him. He stares at his soda can, turning it in his fingers. Slowly, I take one hand and rest it on top of his. His skin is warm. He turns and looks at me and I feel a warm heat slide down my back, like I"m starting to melt. The hurt in his eyes burns.
I lean over and touch my lips to his cheek.
"I"m sorry."
"So am I."
His breath tickles my lips when he talks.
"I think about all the things I should have done. I should have stayed. I should have fought, but I couldn"t. I had to leave."
All I want is to be taken in his arms. It"s like being hugged by a fortress. The shaking stops. My breathing slows. Hawk runs his hand lightly over my damp hair and touches his lips to my forehead.
"Alex," he murmurs. "I want it to be like it was. I want you to trust me again."
"Hawk, we can"t, we can"t. He doesn"t make idle threats. He"ll kill us all. This is bigger than you realize."
I push away from him. "We had our time. It"s over now."
"Alex, please-"
"Not again, Hawk. I can"t let anybody in ever again. You should go."
He looks at me and I want nothing more than to spread my robe open and crawl on top of him. I want him above me, inside me.
He opens the window and carefully crawls out, planting his feet on the moldings that run under the windows, testing his weight before he swings out and grabs something. He puts one foot on the sill of my window and starts to climb up.
"Alex," He says.
"Just go."
"I love you."
He rises up out of view and disappears, and I close the window, fall on my bed, and sob.