Page 13 of Always You (Guardian Hall #1)

Chapter Thirteen

JAZZ

I could feel the knots of apprehension tying themselves tighter in my stomach. It had been too long since I’d last had a proper haircut or beard trim, and the thought of shedding the physical markers of the hardest years of my life felt more intimate than I’d expected.

It scared me.

That’s so fucking stupid.

Alex came in, all enthusiasm and smiles, and greeted the barber with a friendly nod before turning to all of us. I was a ball of nerves, sitting at the end of the table waiting my turn, worse now that Alex was here as well. He looked good—smart jeans, a jersey for some team I didn’t know, and his hair wasn’t quite as neat as usual, as if he’d been wearing a hat and shoved his hands through it. He was still beautiful.

He always would be.

“Wha’dya think?” Daniel asked and struck a pose, pointing at his new hairstyle. “Sexy-ass or what!”

Alex snorted a laugh. “Looking good, Dan.”

“Coulda been a model.” Daniel had decided to lose the beard, go for a short haircut, and preened. It made me smile, and the nerves slipped a little. It was the kind of banter that used to be the soundtrack of my days in the Army, back before life had become a solo mission.

As I waited my turn, I watched others get snipped and shaved, their faces emerging from beneath overgrown hair like sculptures from stone. Daniel laughed along with Alex as he made coffees and piled cookies onto plates. I stayed silent. Every so often, I would check out what Alex was doing, and a couple of times, I caught him watching me.

I wonder what he thinks when he looks at me?

Probably, that he was lucky he hadn’t tied himself to me, given the shell of a man that remained.

The second time, he smiled at me cautiously; I smiled back, but it was one of those fake you-caught-me-looking smiles, and I knew the moment he realized because his joy dimmed.

Great. Now I’m fucking this up as well.

Then, it was my turn, and I didn’t know if I wanted anyone to see. A couple of the guys had already left. Alex and Daniel lingered, chatting about baseball of all things, while Daniel pointed to Alex’s jersey. When the barber—a volunteer named Dave—draped a cape over my shoulders, I felt edgy and off-center. As his comb ran through my hair, the sensation was so foreign that my muscles tensed.

“I’m Dave,” he introduced himself the same way he had to each of the others, waiting for me to reply.

I cleared my throat, swallowing the rank and last name on the tip of my tongue. “Jazz.”

“Cool name.”

Should I say thank you? Instead, I closed my eyes because I didn’t want to see myself in the mirror, and if my eyes were closed, then I might be able to ignore Alex.

“Just a tidy-up?”

“Please.”

“How long’s it been since you had a cut?” Dave asked, his scissors working in a rhythm that was soothing in its own right.

“Too long,” I murmured, opening my eyes briefly and catching sight of myself in the large mirror propped up in front of me. The man staring back was halfway between a stranger and the person I remembered from before. I felt relief and anxiety as Dave tidied my beard, shaping it rather than taking it off. The beard was a part of me, a part of my identity I wasn’t ready to let go of just yet.

It gave me somewhere to hide.

“Do you want me to take the beard off completely?” Dave’s question was casual, but it struck a chord deep within me.

“No,” I said firmer than I intended, then deflated. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.” Fucking idiot.

“It’s all good, man,” Dave said with a smile. “One step at a time.”

“Can you just make it less… yeah… just less.”

He nodded without judgment and went back to work. I could feel the weight of my hair, the length of my beard, being lifted away, and glancing in the mirror—with my hair now short and my beard neater, but still full—I saw the ghost of the man I used to be. The transformation wasn’t complete—I was still very much a work in progress—but in that moment, with the sight of my dark brown hair in curls on the cape, I felt lighter.

As Dave dusted off my shoulders and removed the cape, I offered him a genuine, if shaky, “Thank you.”

“You look good, Jazz,” Alex murmured as he had to Daniel. Then, he gestured to the coffee and cookies. For a moment, I wanted to smile, to hear him banter with me, but after something as simple as a haircut, I felt raw, as though the shears had stripped away more than just hair. I knew I was different, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for Alex to see me this way and analyze the man I’d become.

When he’d walked in, all energy and easy chatting, my stomach had knotted, and it was still so tight I felt nauseous. I could feel his eyes on me, and I wanted nothing more than to disappear into the shadows. It wasn’t only the haircut; it was the fear of what he might see when he really looked at me. Would he find traces of the boy he’d fallen out of love with?

Would his expression fill with regret?

Or would there be relief that he was free of me?

I grabbed a couple of cookies and left.

I didn’t want Alex looking at me at all, not yet.

The financial meeting had been a necessary evil, one of those things Marcus insisted I attend. Carl, the veterans’ benefits liaison, sat across from me in a small office that felt too warm, too enclosed.

I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t need anyone’s charity.

“So, all you need to do is sign, and we can apply for?—”

“I enlisted of my own free will,” I interrupted. “No one owes me anything for doing my job,” I said, steady but firm.

Carl had nodded, understanding but insistent. “It’s not about owing you, Jazz. It’s about what you’re entitled to, benefits that are there to support you,” he explained, laying out the documents covering the entire desk.

We reviewed it all—pensions, disability, health benefits, and educational opportunities. Numbers and legal jargon swirled around me like a foreign language, but I nodded along, signing where he told me to sign, just to get him to stop talking, and still feeling as if I were grasping at straws.

When it was over, I was assured that I’d have some financial stability, a thought that should’ve comforted me, but instead, just added to the weight on my shoulders. I nodded, and left the documents folded in an envelope I didn’t want to open.

Next up was the therapist. Her office was a sharp contrast to Carl’s mess of computers and paperwork—it was open, with a large window and a soothing view of the garden. We’d had a few sessions, and even though her name was Dr. Whitman, she insisted on just “ Elena. ”

When I sat down, without thinking, I slipped off my jacket.

“That’s the first time you’ve taken off your jacket in one of our chats,” Elena observed, her tone soft, inviting me to examine the action.

Her observation caught me off guard. I gave a half-shrug because analyzing why I was losing all the layers I’d dressed in on my first day wasn’t something I’d considered. “I’m hot.”

She didn’t push but made a note, her pen scratching on her pad. Her eyes, kind and probing, suggested she saw more than I was willing to admit. It's probably some observation about me removing layers of safety.

Therapy was like dancing on the knife's edge—a careful balancing act between saying too much and not saying enough. We talked about my time in service, about the reasons I’d ended up on the streets. Each word felt like it was being pulled from deep within, and I wondered if I was progressing or just circling the drain.

“… and then Carl said I’d have enough money to give me a fresh start, maybe student loans.” I scrubbed at my eyes.

“And that made you feel…?”

“All I wanted to do was leave the room.”

She nodded. “Why?”

“I don’t know. No, I do. I don’t want handouts.”

“Do you feel as if you’re not owed anything?” she said. “You fought for your country, Jazz.”

Not this shit again. “I wanted to be a soldier. It’s what my dad was, my grandad. It was my choice.”

“I understand that, but don’t you think you owe it to yourself to accept help now?”

That question lodged itself deep in my chest, a bitter pill I wasn’t ready to swallow. Owe it to myself? I wasn’t even sure what I deserved anymore, let alone what I was owed. I’d gone to be a hero but had become evil and twisted. That was on me. I’d grown to care about friends and the local families too much, left myself open to being vulnerable. I’d done this damage to myself.

Not that Elena would agree with that.

But she wasn’t me.

As the session wound down, I was exhausted and drained in a way that was all too familiar. I left her office feeling as if I’d left something important behind, some piece of the wall I’d built around myself.

Was that the point?

Back in my room, with money worries hurting, the therapy session weighing on my mind, and my first visit to the animal sanctuary looming, it was too much again. I lay back on my bed, the envelope with my financial documents resting unopened on the nightstand, and closed my eyes, everything wrong as I rested—my hair flatter, my beard softer, not long on my neck. In the quiet, I could almost hear my heart beating, a steady rhythm reminding me I was alive, that I had survived. My skin prickled with anxiety as I pushed through this one minute at a time.

Do I deserve for life to get easier?

When I joined a couple of the others in the foyer by the front door, Alex was there, checking something off on a clipboard, and my heart sunk. Not because Alex was there, but because it wasn’t just me going for this internship with the animals. Why would the shelter choose me over Raj and Daniel who seemed further down the path to being themselves than I was?

Raj and Daniel were chatting, and I hovered. Then, Alex led the three of us out of the front door and to the left. I stopped dead in my tracks. The air outside hit differently, carrying with it the scents and sounds of a city that hadn’t stopped moving even when I had. My heart hammered, and for a moment, I was lost.

I could remember the last time I stood across the street, watching this place from a distance, trying to muster the courage to step inside. How long ago was that? Days? Weeks? Time had become a blur, and the world outside seemed larger and more intimidating. I felt dizzy.

Someone touched my arm.

Alex.

The familiar touch, the way he curled his fingers into my jacket, his eyes bright with emotion, made me want to bury my face in his neck and hide. Would he smell the same? Would he taste the same? Would he hold me when I cried and never judge me? I should go back. I should run. It wasn’t safe here.

There was too much hope, and I didn’t want to hope.

“The coffee over there is the best outside of our fancy-ass machine,” Alex interrupted my spiraling thoughts. Then, he rambled about coffee and beans and God knows what else. His hand was still on my arm, and I leaned into the touch, aware that Raj and Daniel had stopped walking and were talking as if it didn’t matter that I’d turned into a statue in the middle of the sidewalk.

I remembered how, standing on that street, Guardian Hall had seemed an impossible place, but now, I wanted to go back inside.

Where it was safe.

“… so, then Marcus was telling me it was a good investment, and I wasn’t going to argue with him. I mean, have you ever tried arguing with him? He’s a stubborn ass.”

I took a deep breath. I felt the cool air fill my lungs, steadying the tremor in my hands and the flutter in my chest. If I didn’t pull myself together, there was no way I’d get to work with the animals.

I wanted that.

Alex released his hold on me, and we continued walking, the city unfolding around us with its myriad paths and destinations. Raj peeled away first, ducking into an electronics store buzzing with neon signs and the latest gadgets.

“Raj works part-time here,” Alex explained, and then, Daniel made a beeline for a squat gray building. “And Daniel started at the library last week.”

“So, wait… they’re not with the animals?” I asked with caution.

“Nope, that’s you,” he said with a smile. Then, it was only us walking side by side in a silence that wasn’t quite comfortable, but not entirely awkward either.

Our steps led us to a gate hidden down a side alley that was adorned with a sign reading Guardian Animal Shelter .

“Fuck,” Alex muttered under his breath and went to a crouch. There, tied to the post outside, was a dog—a mutt that looked as if it had run through a patchwork of breeds and landed on scruffy, brown, and skinny. Alex exhaled a sigh that seemed to carry a mix of resignation and compassion before he held out a hand for the dog to sniff and unhitched the leash. The mutt wagged its tail hesitantly, as if unsure of its fate, but hopeful all the same.

I know the feeling.

“Is this one of the dogs from inside?” I asked, but Alex shook his head.

“Abandoned,” he murmured, “left somewhere safe for us to find. We’re a no-kill shelter, and when people know that…” He didn’t have to finish.

There was a note in his hands, pulled from where it had been stapled to the dog’s collar. The message was simple: the dog had been left for the shelter to take in. I watched as Alex scanned the words.

“His name is Bugsy,” he whispered, and the dog’s ears pricked. “Hey, Bugsy.” Then, he offered the leash to me, and I took it, taking some time to scratch Bugsy’s ears and coo at him. I might have lost communication skills over the past few months, but even I knew how to ask a dog if he was a good boy.

Bugsy wagged his tail, then pressed himself against me—the same as Alex had done.

It felt nice.

Together, Bugsy and I stepped inside the gate. As soon as the door opened, a cacophony of barks enveloped us. The shelter was alive with noise, and the unmistakable smell of animals filled the air.

A slim woman with a riot of red hair scurried over to us, ignoring Alex and me and crouching instantly, the same as Alex had done before.

“Who is this sweetie?” she asked us.

I waited for Alex to answer, but he didn’t, so I went to a crouch, my muscles aching. “This is Bugsy. Someone left him.”

She kissed his head and scratched his ears. “Oh baby,” she murmured, and when Bugsy laid down and offered his belly, she petted him until he fell in love with her one rub at a time.

“This is my friend, Abbie,” Alex introduced. “She’s my… friend.”

I caught the hesitation and the repeat of the word friend , which seemed weighed down with other meanings. Was Abbie his partner? Alex had always said he was gay, but maybe he’d found his space as bi. Good for him.

I wasn’t bitter.

“More like I’m his caregiver,” Abbie deadpanned, and Alex fake-growled at her. Then, she stood, wiping her hands on her jeans and offering me a hand to shake. “Hi,” she said with a smile.

“I’m Jazz,” I answered and shook her hand.

Her eyes widened a little, and she glanced at Alex, but then smiled.

“You like dogs, Jazz?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Sure. I mean, yes, I love dogs. I used to have a dog, and… you don’t need to know that.” I tripped over the words.

“You’re hired,” she said with a snap of her fingers.

Hired? Just like that? I glanced at Alex, but he was petting Bugsy. “Thank you.”

“Four hours a day, five days a week, longer if you want it, as and when it fits in with the Guardian program. There’s an hourly wage, it’s not much, but Carl can explain all that as to how it fits in with benefits.”

“I want to earn my own money,” I blurted, catching Alex staring at me and feeling ashamed at the anger. “Thank you,” I said again.

“Welcome to Guardian Shelter,” Abbie said and grinned. “You want to help me get Bugsy settled?”

“Yes, please,” I said, and this spark of joy lit inside me. It was a tiny thing, but it was there.