It was past midnight, but I knew she’d still be awake. Like me, she rarely slept.
I fumbled with the door handle and had barely stepped out before the driver drove off, almost taking my toes with him. I crossed the street and rang the doorbell because my key was buried somewhere in a bag I could barely unzip.
Molly barked, and I heard her tell the dog to hush as she reached the door. I knew she was looking through the peephole, wondering if she should let me in at this hour. Probably knowing what state I was in before she could even smell it. The locks clicked, and the door opened a fragment of the way. Her entire being was a shadow from the dim light behind her. I couldn’t make out the expression but was sure it was a frown, graceful eyebrows burrowed brushed together.
“Aren’t you supposed to be working on recert with your team?” she asked. Molly, her toy fox terrier, was whining behind her, ready to hurdle into my arms.
“Just let me in,” I told her. I had a couple of other places I could have landed once I’d left the base. One of them was so foreign to me I wasn’t sure I’d ever belong there again, and the other had a friend who reminded me too much of what I’d lost.
“How drunk are you that you couldn’t unlock the door?” she asked.
“It’s been that kind of day, Tristan.”
She sighed but opened the door wider. “Don’t wake the baby.”
She was saying it to me as much as to Molly who was already jumping at me to pick her up. I did, and she licked my face as I ran my hands over her body.
“Hey, Molly-Molls. Miss me?”
Molly had been a new addition to the household right before our last mission. Puppy training had been the last thing on Tristan’s mind after it, and I’d taken over the job as much to occupy my time as to help. Molly had kept me from drowning in my regrets.
I followed Tristan into the tiny living space which was littered with baby stuff. A swing, a bouncy chair, toys, and a pile of baby clothes needing to be folded on an overstuffed, turquoise couch. I’d been with them when Tristan and Darren had bought the couch down in Tampa. They’d argued over the color until Darren had smiled and just let her buy it.
I turned back to my best friend’s widow to find her standing with her arms across her chest, glaring at me.
Her blonde hair was up in a messy bun—pretty much the only way I’d seen her for almost a year. The shadows under her eyes were more pronounced because of the one lamp she had on. Everything was shadowed. Even her golden eyes, normally as golden as her hair, were a dark outline in her pale face. They’d all been golden. Darren. Her. The baby.
Now, there was only a specter left and a baby who giggled like pure light.
Tristan’s feet were bare, and she had on leggings with holes in them. Ones she never would have worn before…back when she cared what she looked like for Darren. But what made my breath get caught in my chest was the SEAL team T-shirt she wore.
The hell I was living? It wasn’t anything compared to hers. I’d lost my brother. The one person I probably loved most on this whole planet, and yet, I still hadn’t loved him as she had. Body, soul, mind. They’d been the epitome of America’s heartland. Bulletin board cutouts of what America was supposed to be.
She sank onto the couch, pulling at the laundry pile and folding a shirt so small it barely fit her hand. Molly squiggled to be put down. I complied, and she ran, jumping into the pile of clean clothes.
“Get off, you wild dog,” Tristan said, pushing her away.
“I’m going to get some water. Do you want anything?” I asked.
She shook her head, and I made my way to the kitchen. Molly came scrabbling after me. Their home had always been my home. Even when I’d basically lived with Angie for a few months, Darren and Tristan’s place had still felt like the only spot I could truly be me. Truly take off my body armor and let down my guard.
I knew this house better than my own these days. The kitchen and living area were on the ground floor with two bedrooms upstairs. The basement was furnished with a sleeper couch and Darren’s unopened boxes. Whenever I was here, that was my place. It wasn’t a punishment, even when it felt that way, staring at the boxes with his shit in it, but the second bedroom upstairs was Tristan’s studio. The baby shared the main bedroom with her mama.
I handed Molly a treat from the container Tristan kept on the counter before I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and returned to the living room. My eyes caught on a set of pictures which had been hung on the wall below the staircase since I’d been gone. The first was a picture of their wedding day. Darren and I both in our dress uniforms, Tristan in a dress so full it would have made Cinderella jealous. The other pictures showcased their life together as teens and our life together since I’d become a secondary member of their family. Every picture stabbed at me.
I looked over to find Tristan watching me.
“My mom hung them. I couldn’t…” She shook her head against the tremble of tears and emotion. “I don’t think I ever would have put them up. But now that she’s done it, I can’t make myself take them down.”
I swallowed the majority of the water bottle before finding a seat in the armchair with Molly. The armchair had always been my spot, even when Darren was still alive. They’d sat cuddled together on the couch like they were one creature instead of two.
“Why are you here?” she asked again, a baby’s sleeper left unfolded in her lap.
“You know why I’m here,” I said.
“I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“Need or not, I owe it to?”
