Page 54 of The Next Day


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Laughter bubbled up and loosened the damn frog in his throat. “Tell me exactly in detail how you would have posed for those.”

She laughed out loud; he closed his eyes and pictured those rosy lips turned up in whole-hearted amusement.

“Phone sex isn’t cohabitating or consummating.” He grinned, shifting the pillow under his head to get comfy. “Although, video-chatting would be way better, then you can show me exactly what you’d be wearing, or not, for my dirty pics.”

“As much as I would love to accommodate you, especially after our laundry room adventure, I’m going to pass tonight.”

“Tomorrow then?”

“We’ll see. Goodnight, Zane.”

“’Night, Freya. Thanks.”

“Anytime. Seriously.”

Closing his eyes, he indulged in the what-ifs.

16

FUBARed

Fuck. Nothing was going the way it was supposed to. Having no plan had seemed brilliant. What better way to let the last few years fade?

Zane stared into the closet at his muddy black running shoes, teetering against Jack again. Biting his cheek, he forced air in and out before the fucking waterworks started. Not that he was some macho ass that refused to cry. Hell, if anyone deserved to have someone down on their knees, screaming at the sky and furiously crying rageful tears of life’s-not-fucking-fair, it was Jack.

Freya had talked him down last night, but he couldn’t call her every time he opened the damn closet. The run had burned off a lot of it. About a mile in, he’d felt the blissful sensation of an empty mind, cool air flowing in and out of his lungs, muscles burning with the lactic acid of escapism.

Then he’d seen the empty garage spot that Freya would eventually be filling with a car; a bleak reminder that she was in a tough place in life. Teetering on the edge of success and failure, her lifelong dreams at risk of shattering on impact, she didn’t deserve to be dragged down by a needy ex-SEAL that didn’t even have a dream. He didn’t have anything to fill that void she needed filling, and he loved that she would kick his ass for implying she didn’t have all her shit together.

The headache hit as he’d dashed up the stairs, each footfall echoing off the hills in the distance and pinging right back into his pulsating skull. After slamming the front door, egging on his headache, he’d mindlessly kicked his shoes into the closet. Crashing into the tin can, he’d nearly spilled the ashes across the floor…ashes. Fuck that. Ground up carcass that was too damn stubborn to burn.

Searing hot brine coated his eyes as he shifted his shoes to the side. Staring down at the latest set of muddy footprints to tarnish the can, he growled, “Come on, man. Asher was the goof-off playboy. I was the quiet, socially awkward one. You were the heart of us. The guy that knew when to laugh, when to grit his teeth and dig in harder, and when to go with the flow.”

He dropped to his knees, the impact vibrating into his hips, his ribs, his pounding head. “Asher blames himself for us leaving you guys. Not his fault; he followed his gut and it was the right thing to do. Your stubborn ass said we should go check it out, that you’d keep all those family men safe while we risked our expendable asses.”

Boiling down his sweat-encrusted cheek, the tear trailed down and sloshed onto the floor. “Dumbshit. You knew. Maybe not consciously, but you knew staying was a fucking death sentence, and you pushed us to get the hell out of there. Too damn stubborn to die that day, you let me drag your ass back to the LZ. Fuck, man. Ifyoucouldn’t keep it together, couldn’t tolerate the pain, living with the quiet of life on the outside, how do you expect me to?”

His throat raw, vision useless from the damn watery coating, he wiped the shit that drained from his nose and rose to his feet. He picked up his phone and texted Asher,Pick a spot; we’re scattering next time you’re home.

A few minutes later, his phone buzzed.K.

Turning to hit the shower, he caught sight of the time. Stupidly, recklessly, he drifted to the window. As he’d hoped, or dreaded, Freya strolled barefoot across the lawn, yoga mat tucked under one arm. She unrolled the mat and gazed out at the endless vista, feet anchored to the ground while the wind tossed her hair around in a turbulent mass. From afar, he breathed with her, letting his brain calm enough to go about his day.

He stalked to the shower and let the hot water rush over his skin. Sandalwood and tangy grapefruit with bits of oatmeal formed a refreshing foam as he scrubbed the morning away. The corner of his mouth quirked up at the oddity; while he’d been at the barber, Freya had, apparently, not only found an irresistible lotion of black tea and honey that he’d licked off her the other night in an indulgence that shouldn’t have happened, but she’d picked up a bar of soap that “made her imagine him naked.”

Hell, even if they could make this work, she was so far out of his league it wasn’t funny. Sure, they’d both traveled the world. He’d inhaled the top of the sky in numbing freefall, felt the pressure of the bottom of the sea threaten to crush his skull, broken his heart rescuing the darkest parts of humanity… while she’d reveled in the light, from painting and sketching from hills upon hills of grapevines, to smiling children where smiles were priceless, and even to one of his favorite goofy sketches of her own feet.

Full-on smile taking over his face as he resolved to ask her for the self-portrait foot sketch for the lonely spot on the bathroom wall, he tipped his head back and rinsed the suds from his body. Hand trailing down, goosebumps forming in his wake, he let himself enjoy one of the solo aspects of married life before it was gone. Closing his eyes, he relived the heat, the exquisite pull of her mouth on his cock. Not a trace of shyness, she’d shown him just how sheltered of a life he’d led before meeting her. How much he’d craved her without knowing what had been missing.

After drying off and pulling on an ancient pair of cargo shorts and a black t-shirt, Zane slipped on a pair of sneakers. No way was he sitting inside today. Too much time in his head already.

What, he’d been up for two hours, and had already pushed his body beyond anything he’d done in months, cried his fucking eyes out, debated the safest way to end his mistake of a marriage, then jerked off at the very thought of the woman that he really, really shouldn’t have in his life. Maybe he should go back to the Navy. At least then he knew… well, he knew what to do when he got up in the morning, what his day would look like, and would be so wrecked from exhaustion that he’d sleep through the night.

As his feet hit the gravel at the base of the steps, he saw Freya wandering across the field, her cheeks flushed from her favorite way to welcome the day. She glanced his direction and offered a soft smile that tugged at that stupid pang again, a pathetic hope that her heart was doing the same fricking pitter patter that his was.

Pushing past the burning in the hollow cavern of his chest, he nodded toward his truck and said, “Need a ride into town this morning? I can wait.”

She shook her head as she continued toward the main house. “No, thanks though.”