Honey Red (32 page)

Nick sat, trying to ignore Hannah’s cloying scent. Her honeyed essence was somehow magnified, multiplied times a thousand probably because he hadn’t seen her for so long. He had to clench his hands into fists to keep from yanking her to him, kissing her, holding her, shaking her silly for being so obstinate. He gritted his teeth. Ignoring the wet nose of the dog that was not Brutus, he found the package on the table and pushed it towards her. “Can you open it? Tell me what it is?”

He heard paper ripping, tape being removed. Then his ears picked up on something else, something strange and yet familiar. He tilted his head. But decided it was just the dog. He reached out and felt her, and it was okay. Not Brutus, but fine. He scratched her ears, nervous, waiting. The dog put her head on his leg, whining. “It’s okay.” He whispered.

He truly did feel centered with this dog in his new house. The new pain med cocktail kept the headaches at bay much better. For the first time in over a year he was beginning to feel a bit like the old Nick thanks in no small part to Frank, the guy who’d lived with him the last weeks reminding him that no real Marine would wallow and allow the lame funk he operated under.
Frank and Daisy were a package deal the man claimed. Nick did not get to keep her without the come to Jesus portion Frank provided.

“You are alive, Marine,” the man had barked after Nick had cursed him to high heaven for the second or third time, as he sat sullen and brooding sunk his now comfortable morass of pain and self-pity. “Get on your feet and listen to me.” Frank had been a drill sergeant, no surprise there, and the familiar cadence snapped something together inside Nick’s brain. He’d jumped to his feet, fast, and stood, listening carefully as Frank commanded him.

“You are not allowed to be this way, not anymore. You’re fit, a survivor, a Marine forged bag of muscle and bones, and I will be damned if I let you sit there and sulk your way through the rest of this life.”

Nick’s body had tensed, and his heart pounded but he felt it then…the small beating pulse of purpose, starting somewhere in his gut and working its way up to the base of his skull. Flashes of sensory memory—sights, sounds, smells and touches from Dan, Ian, Hannah, Alyssa, his baby nephews—made him flinch but he had stood tall, firm, and kept listening.

“I will not allow you to toss this chance away. This dog was trained at great expense to be your eyes, your companion, and you sit there and ignore her like so much shit on your shoe? Hell, no.” Frank had been in his face then, breathing heavy and speaking straight into Nick’s by now eager ear. “The enable-Nick-to-be-a-lame-ass time is fucking over. Do you hear me? This.” He’d grabbed Nick’s hand and put it on the dog’s harness. He’d shivered all over, guilt and anger running rampant through him. “This is your new reality Marine. And you are too smart, too strong and too worthwhile to let it slip away because you are a whiny-ass child. You are not a child. You are a man. Fucking act like one. Now.”

Frank had kept talking. And Nick had kept listening. And by the time the man had left, he felt good, not great—that would likely never happen again now that his time with Ian and Hannah seemed over—but good and independent enough to allow a small bit of satisfaction to creep in under all the usual “my life sucks” bullshit that he’d been living with for the last year and half. He even entertained the concept of reaching out to Ian and Hannah, once his ten-day emotional boot camp was over, hoping he could relay some of his own remorse at how he’d acted to them both.

Then, this package showed up the day after Frank left. So he’d called the first person he thought might help. Ian had ignored him. So, his next one was to Hannah, and he had never been happier to sense another human being in his space as he was now.

“Um, let’s see, there is a picture. You and…Dan.”

He sucked in a breath. His hands shook as he placed them both on the table. “What else?”

“A hand-written letter, looks like it’s from Dan’s mom. A CD that says ‘To Nick, from Dan’.” She rustled around some more, and he heard them. The distinctive clink of metal on metal. He put his head on the table. She took his hand and put them in it. He closed his fingers around Dan’s dog tags, felt their sharp edges cut into his skin. “And one more thing,” she whispered. He sat up, held out his other hand and clutched the fabric of what must be a folded American flag to his chest. His chest constricted. “Nick,” Hannah said. “Honey,” she put her hand on his face. “Take a breath.”

He did, but it made a noise, and he realized it was a sob. He sat, gripping his dead lover’s dog tags and the flag they’d draped over his coffin, crying like a fucking girl. Hannah came around behind him and put her arms around his neck. They stayed like this a while, until he got control. “Read it to me.”

She sat. Nick heard the rustling of paper, and that same strange, almost sub-radar blipping noise, but the sound of Hannah’s voice drowned it out.

“Dear Nicholas,

My name is Janice Anderson. Daniel was my son. My only child. I hope you can understand and forgive me for taking so long to do this but I was only able just this past month to go into his room and open up the box of his stuff that the Marines sent me. I feel terrible about keeping this from you, but please know it wasn’t intentional. I knew my son well. He was smart, talented in the kitchen, athletic, loving, and gay. And I was proud of him.”

Hannah sucked in a breath and continued. Nick’s eyes burned but his heart was starting to release a small fraction of the agony he’d lugged around since coming home
,
blind and alone.

“He had a package of stuff with your name on it, including this photo of him with a handsome, blond man sitting on a beach who I assume is you and this disk. I didn’t listen to it because it had your name on it and not mine. He left one for me, too. He recited his favorite recipes to me, told me how much he loved me and his father, who died not long after Dan’s accident. He read us some passages from a few of my favorite books—The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, Pride and Prejudice. And sang me a song—my favorite Rolling Stones tune, actually. I have listened to it so many times I get angry at myself for waiting this long to find it.

“It’s obvious to me that he loved you. He said so on his recording. Told me about how you met, how smart you were, although you tended toward being an overbearing asshole, pardon my French. And how right you were for him. I don’t know if you realize this Nicholas, but you were Dan’s first boyfriend. His first real sexual experience. I didn’t know that until he told me on the recording, and part of me wishes I still didn’t. Some things are better left private even between parents and children. But there it is. He somehow knew he would not be coming home from that horrible place. So, he wanted me to know everything.

“So, I am giving you as much of him as I can and ask that you forgive a lonely woman’s tardiness, her inability to face reality and go through her dead son’s things in hopes of finding something special – which I did. You.

Yours sincerely,

 Janice

Nick shook all over. His head pounded. He stood, bumping his legs against the table then sat, still clutching the dog tags and flag like a little kid with his blankie. His mind was blank, dark, on fire, and frozen all at once.

Hannah touched his hand. “Do you want to listen to the CD? I can put it on and leave you with it. So you can have some privacy.”

“No!” he croaked out. “Please don’t leave. If you don’t mind listening with me, I mean.”

“Sure thing,” she said. He heard her put the disk into the player. “Come, sit by me.”

The dog led him to the couch. He dropped onto it, still hanging onto the tags for dear life; he let her put her arm around him but sat frozen and terrified. Until the rich sounds of Dan’s voice floated out from his expensive speakers, he was singing, accompanying himself on the guitar, picking out the tune in his typical semi-half-assed way. Alan Jackson.
Fuck
.

Nick sucked in a breath, Hannah held his hand and they listened, the lyrics rolling through him like waves, making his head pound at first, then somehow, relaxing him. But once Dan got to the third verse, he couldn’t breathe. “Turn it off…” he choked out grabbing Hannah’s hand hard. “God.”

But Dan’s voice kept coming. He read passages from his favorite books.
Catcher in the Rye
,
The Old Man and the Sea
,
The Stand
, even some non-fiction stuff Nick liked like
The Tipping Point
and
The Blind Side
. Long stretches of nothing but reading, bringing the man back to him as if he had never left. Nick kept a death grip on Hannah’s arm, mesmerized.

Then a new sound, a second voice. Nick’s. Laughing while he taught the hapless kid to play poker. Or tried to anyway. He gulped remembering how that session ended. Dan stopped recording before their arguments about the statistical unlikelihood of having two royal flushes in one game ended in loud, energetic sex in a hotel room on shore leave.

“Oh, Nick,” Hannah held him close, rocked with him back and forth. Then, Dan spoke after reading a few more snippets from books, recited the sports stats of his favorite baseball team—the Reds, which Nick had almost forgiven him for—and his favorite football team—Ohio State, which Nick would never forgive him for. He said simply: “Nicholas. I love you. Now go and live your life. Because I know you’re not—you’re holding back something, probably from someone who loves you as much as I do. I release you. I want you to be happy.”

Nick identified it then—the unmistakable sound of a small fluttery heartbeat. Same as when he figured out his sister was pregnant. He dropped the dog tags and the flag, turned to Hannah and gripped her arms hard. “You didn’t do it, did you?”

She stayed quiet, sniffling.

“Answer me, damn you.” He heard her sharp intake of breath. “Oh, please, Hannah, please tell me I’m not hearing things.” His voice sounded strong to his own ear, reflecting a strength he literally just retrieved, thanks to Dan’s recording. Finally, he knew what he wanted. She stood, drawing his ear to her stomach. And he held onto her, listening, gripping her so she would never leave him again, then spoke. “I knew he was a virgin. He was…a lot younger than me and so fucking amazing.” Hannah ran her hands through his hair, soothing, calming. He let her and then he sensed it again –
his baby’s heartbeat. “I love you,” he muttered as he stood, holding her close and kissing her so hard he didn’t know where his lips ended and hers began.

She broke away. “I’m so scared, Nick. Ian is…wait, did you say you loved me?”

“Shh…” he put his fingers to her lips, ran them across her cheeks, nose and eyes, brushed away her tears. “We’ll get him back. It will be fine. And yes, I did.”

Both of their phones rang within seconds of each other. He pulled his out of his pocket. It was Alyssa’s tone.

“Gavin’s calling me,” Hannah said. Nick felt a lick of dread in his gut as he answered.

He listened to his sister’s voice and then hung up without a sound. He heard Hannah’s gasp, felt the dog dancing around his ankles. The dog that wasn’t Brutus, because he had killed that dog as surely as if he had put a gun to its head when he wouldn’t or couldn’t find his way out of the burning kitchen. By the time the fire department found him, Brutus had sucked in too much smoke and was still lying next to him his hand gripped in his huge jaws. Nick gritted his teeth and let Daisy’s softer, less aggressive presence soothe him. She was a licker, which was something Frank had tried to break her of, but Nick didn’t mind. She got nervous, or thought he was, and she licked his hand until he told her to stop, but usually not until he actually did feel better for it.

“It’s Jamie,” he said. He heard her phone hit the floor.

“God, Nick,” her heartbeat pounded in his ears. He grabbed her arm.

“Get your keys. Let’s go.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Hannah raced into town from Nick’s new neighborhood, cursing and running red lights while Daisy barked enthusiastically. Nick white knuckled the armrest. “Jesus, Hannah.”

She ignored him. Her heart was racing so fast it hurt. Her eyes burned. She had gotten one of her men back and was ready to work on the other one. But Jamie, he was…. “Oh, shit,” she hit her brakes and screeched to a halt at the one red light before the hospital, nearly hyperventilating.

Nick put a cool hand on her arm. She started to shake him off but something about his touch calmed her. He peeled her fingers from the steering wheel and kissed them. “It’s okay. It will be fine. It has to be.” He let go of her and faced ahead again. “I mean if you don’t fucking kill us and my new dog getting there.”