Page 31 of Jonas (Silver Team #4)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Why is the Dawn dish soap in the bathroom sink?” Derrika yelled.

I finished pulling on my clean shirt before I yelled back, “I took a shower outside.”

I was still trying to arrange my thoughts when Derrika came into the living room dressed. I didn’t understand the scowl on her face, but she was back to the angry pirate look with her brow raised.

It took a great deal of effort not to laugh. Thankfully, I pulled it together enough to ask, “What’s wrong?”

“Is that why I had no water pressure in the shower?”

Fuck .

“And Dawn? You took a shower and used dish soap?”

I wasn’t seeing an issue. In the field, you washed with whatever you could get your hands on.

“Yeah. Why?”

Her gaze went to my hair.

“Even your hair?”

“Baby, you know people use Dawn to clean the oil off birds after a spill.”

Her lips thinned.

“Something to know about me.”

“Okay?”

“The Toyota I left back at the apartment was given to me by Anson to drive. I own an F-250.”

Of course she did.

“What color?”

“Black, why?”

I couldn’t stop my smile. “We have matching trucks. Just bought mine.”

She stopped frowning and smiled back. “So you know.”

“Know what?”

“I own a gas-guzzling truck for no other reason than I want it. So, I can’t be a card carrying environmentalist but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about the environment.”

This time it took more restraint not to laugh when I said, “Okay.”

“Seeing as I care about the environment, I have a love-hate relationship with the oil companies. But that love dies and hate consumes me when there’s an oil spill.”

“Agreed.”

“That means I don’t like watching those commercials where the birds are being cleaned off with Dawn.

Don’t get me wrong, I love that they’re being saved, but I hate watching them.

And I’m allergic to those SPCA commercials and the Wounded Warrior commercials, and the Saint Jude ones nearly send me into an allergy fit that takes hours to overcome. ”

I was a little late on the uptake but I finally got it. That was her cute-as-fuck way of telling me she was a crier.

“Baby,” I murmured.

Both of her hands went to her waist, and her hip cocked to the side.

“That doesn’t mean I’m not a badass, Jonas.”

Taking in all that was her—the disgruntled look on her face, her wet, tangled hair piled on top of her head secured there with a rubber band, the plain gray tee, the toes of her Lowa boots visible under the hem of her faded jeans.

I was totally right that first day—Derrika Layne was not into skirts and dresses.

Further from that, she was too comfortable with her face bare to suggest she wore makeup on a regular basis.

All of that was appealing. But it was more—Derrika as a whole—her openness, her humor, her intelligence, her wit, the deep and meaningful way she understood the world around her.

She didn’t mask pity with empathy. She’d listened to me tell her what had happened to my brother, took it in, processed it, felt the tragedy it was, understood how Adam’s loss affected me, how my stepfather’s abuse had shaped me into the man I would become.

With all of that, I didn’t stand a chance.

On top of all of that, she was gorgeous, a great kisser, and a fantastic lay.

“Jonas.”

“When I first moved to Annapolis after being gone for ten years, I bought a townhouse,” I told her.

“I have an apartment in Norfolk. I haven’t seen the inside of it in six months,” she returned. “My truck is in storage at a mechanic’s garage. He starts her up once a week and drives her around the block but I haven’t driven my truck in half a year.”

Good to know she actually lived close to me. But apartment living must be torture.

It had been for me.

“I bought the townhouse to live in while I built my house. I bought five acres from a farmer on Kent Island. The drive sucks ass, bridge traffic is a nightmare, but I make that drive into work every day because I need those five acres. I’m allergic to people.

They make my skin itch. More times than I care to admit, I’ve had to sit my ass on the bathroom floor with the door shut to drown out my neighbors.

Not just the arguments I could hear through the walls, which set me on edge, but the kids playing outside. ”

“Kids playing?”

I sucked in a breath and did what I always did—shoved the visual memories back into the box.

“Derrika, I spent ten years rogue. I was sent into the worst places imaginable. I saw and did things no human should have to see or do.”

I saw the flash of understanding in her eyes. So her next prompt was a gentle mumble. “Kids?”

“I saw kids yanked off the streets and shoved into vehicles. Saw them being sold. Saw them innocently playing in the street and mowed down by gunfire. Saw them used as shields, as diversions, as decoys, as martyrs. It’s the kids that haunt me.

No person should ever have to see a child blown to pieces. ”

The horror that suffused her face felt like a kick to the balls, but if we were starting something with the intention of seeing where it would go, and that turned out to be a forever kind of together, she needed to know who I was and what she was dealing with.

“I’m still adjusting to being stateside.

I can handle people and crowds, but only so much.

I do the work I do because it feeds a need in me, but also because I no longer fit into regular society.

I find people bitching in line at Starbucks exhausting.

I despise the media in all its iterations, including socials.

I do not like politicians, or brass, or any man or woman who sits behind a desk under the umbrella of protection me and my brothers and sisters in uniform provide, and look down their noses and condemn the decisions that need to be made in real time on the battlefield.

I retreat to my land. Retreat , Derrika.

It’s the only place I feel comfortable. And I want kids, but I’m afraid I don’t have what it takes to be a father because all I know is yelling, fists, and harm.

I’m afraid with everything I saw I’ll be overprotective and overbearing and I’ll smother my children out of fear something will happen to them. ”

“Jonas.”

I ignored her tortured whisper and gave her the rest.

“I know myself. I know my trauma. I know my damage. I got a lock on all three, but that doesn’t mean when shit overwhelms me I’m not a dick.

I also know how to apologize. Which is something you need to get if we’re gonna ride this out.

I’ve never been in a real relationship and certainly not since I’ve been home.

I’m gonna fuck up, I’m gonna stumble, I’m gonna be a dick.

I told you I won’t ever lie to you. You can add to that, I’ll never, not ever , raise my hand to you or my voice.

And the last thing you need to get is, I am who I am.

You won’t ever change the man I am. In that same vein, you are who you are.

I won’t ever pressure you to change. But I also know if this gets serious?—”

“This isn’t already serious for you?” Derrika interrupted me.

Fuck .

Not even ten hours in and I was already putting my foot in it.

“Right, let me rephrase. When the serious this already is turns into something permanent, I cannot live in an apartment in the city. And permanent to me means permanent , as in I’m not down living in Maryland while my woman lives in Virginia, and on top of that taking jobs that take her away from home for six months at a time.

I lived that life—not with a woman at home, but with men and women who had partners waiting on them.

I saw the stress that causes, but I also saw and heard about the strain it put on the relationship and the unhappiness it causes.

I get sacrifice—again, I lived it—and now I’m at a place where I’m done sacrificing.

My team doesn’t deploy, none of the teams do.

That’s not to say an assignment won’t come up that takes me out of the country for a few weeks, but it won’t be months. ”

I braced for the backlash, but instead, she shrugged.

“I take that to mean if this turns permanent it’ll be me moving to Maryland.”

Among other things, but I didn’t point that out.

“You can take that to mean, when this is done I want some time alone with you at my house. You can also take that to mean that I know you’re not built for apartment living and if you need a place to retreat before the serious we are in now turns permanent, my house and my land are available to you.

I know five acres isn’t a lot but it’s better than neighbors. ”

“I want that,” she immediately told me.

“You heard the part about me fucking this up, right?”

This time she hesitated. Old insecurities and coping methods started to creep up.

My first instinct to shield myself against rejection was to emotionally shut down and shut out the person who meant to do me harm.

That instinct was so ingrained, so woven into the fabric that made me who I was, I couldn’t stop the chain reaction.

Most people have a solid fight-or-flight embedded in them. Mine was kill-or-escape. I didn’t argue or yell—I attacked and didn’t stop until my opponent was dead. The only other option available to me was to leave.

I stepped back, putting more space between us. My gaze went around the room planning my exfil when Derrika’s voice lashed through the room.

“What’s happening?”

“We need to get to the big house?—”

“Now?”

“No, ten minutes ago.”

I snatched my phone off the coffee table, and without looking back, opened the front door.

“I don’t know what just happened or why you shut down,” she said to my back.

“I also don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

I heard what you said about fucking up, and just to point out, you running for the door without explaining to me what’s going on is fucking up.

But you’re right, we need to get to the big house. ”

I clenched my teeth and stepped out onto the porch. My feet hit the gravel walkway when I heard the door close and Derrika’s boots stomp down the stairs.

“The last thing I’m gonna say is, everyone fucks up. Not just people like me and you. No one’s perfect, Jonas.” I felt the muscle in my jaw jump. “But those fuck-ups don’t get unfucked unless you communicate.”

“You hesitated,” I said without breaking stride. “I thought you were going to…”

Jesus fuck, this was going to be harder than I thought. Opening up about the past was the easy part. Opening up about who I was, was not as difficult as I thought it would be—or not difficult because Derrika had paved the way.

Admitting I was a fucking coward, yeah, that shit wasn’t easy.

“Thought I was going to what?”

“Reject me.”

I felt her approach, so I wasn’t surprised when she wrapped a hand around my bicep, yet I still stiffened.

“I get that,” she whispered. “I wasn’t hesitating. I was thinking about what you said and the best way to respond.”

Stopping abruptly, I hauled Derrika in front of me. Her hands went to my chest to break her fall, my arms went around her, and I held her close.

Now for the hardest part.

“I lied to you,” I admitted. “It was unintentional but a lie all the same. I told you I had a lock on my damage and I hope to God as this goes on, that doesn’t prove to be false. What I didn’t think about is my response to that damage. That I need to work on it, and I will.”

Derrika’s eyes widened before they softened and her forehead dropped to my chest.

I gave her that, then gave her more honesty.

“Sucks, Dee Dee, but I’m gonna have to ask for your help with that.”

Derrika lifted her head. Her eyes snapped straight to mine.

She didn’t need to say anything, her eyes communicated she was all-in to do whatever I needed her to do.

Therefore, even though it took a great deal out of me not to take her mouth to show her how much that look meant to me, I held her gaze and savored the burn.

“Thanks, baby.”

“Don’t thank me, Jonas, I’m not as adjusted as you are. I have a feeling I’m gonna need more patience from you than you’ll need from me.”

I didn’t believe that for a second. The woman was so well-adjusted it was fucking with my head.

I didn’t tell her that.

Instead, I wondered why the fuck I was fighting kissing her when I was free to do just that. So, I stopped fighting it, uncaring my team was about to get another show, and I didn’t stop until she whimpered into my mouth.