Page 33 of Trigger Discipline
Yet he wanted to hear it. Clung to it like a lifeline he didn’t know he needed.
“By the time I realized that the voices were too loud. I was outnumbered by the ghosts I carried with me. Started drinking to silence them. I was functional with the drink. Convinced myself I wasn’t an alcoholic.”
Blake had seen it a thousand times. Firefighters and EMS self-medicating with booze was all well and good until one beer turned into ten, then when the beer wasn’t enough, liquor. Then, as a tolerance was built up, liquor wouldn’t be enough anymore. On and on in a vicious cycle.
“Functional until you weren’t.”
“Isn’t that how it goes?” Gabriel finally lifted his head, tapping the gun on his knee.
“I tried so hard to hold onto every life I took. But it didn’t matter. The lives I meant to take were not half as bad as the one I didn’t.”
Gabriel raked his fingers down his face, sighing into his palm. “They called it an accident, but it wasn’t. That young soldier didn’t accidentally walk into my office and try to talk to me. She didn’t accidentally get ignored because I was too hungover to notice the pain in her eyes. She didn’t accidentally write a letter saying goodbye. She didn’t accidentally pull out her service weapon and pull the trigger.”
His teeth squeaked with how hard he clenched them. Staring out into the scrubby grass as if all the answers he ever needed grew between the weeds. Like he could find the words he needed to forgive himself, or maybe forget, could be found in the shade of an old privacy fence.
“Phin was the first one who caught onto the drinking. Never could hide anything from my battle brother.” His lips curled, but it wasn’t a real smile. A halfhearted attempt to remember something more pleasant.
“He walked into my room and punched me in the face. Locked me in the bathroom and wouldn’t let me out. Called in sick to my superiors so I wouldn’t be dishonorably discharged. Kept it quiet. To this day, I think he’s the only one who knows. And now you do, too.”
Blake didn’t know what to do with that responsibility. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to hold it, but he also knew he would never drop it. Would break his arms before he let this secret out into the world. This secret that was more than a secret. A hushed tether between them, a bond that could not be erased. No matter where Blake went in the world, this would be something of Gabriel’s he had.
Shuffling, Gabriel reached into his pocket and pulled out the crochet hook he’d seen him fiddling with. It was old, all the gold paint nearly flecked off. “After I came out of the bathroom, covered in my own sick and ready to claw my skin off, Phin handed me this crochet kit. Pretty sure he got it at a truck stop.” He thumbed the hook. “Told me to crochet every time I wanted to drink,”
“Did it help?”
“Made a lot of scarves.”
Blake swallowed. “Why did you tell me?”
Gabriel didn’t answer for a moment, and when he did it came with those softly burning hazel eyes. The spark in those irises were more than a spark of life, though that was there. No, it was something different. Like speckled starlight on a glassy lake—there but not. The light conditional on a thousand variables that had to come together to produce something so simple and breathtaking.
Finally, he shrugged. “I guess I wanted to.”
I trust you.
Blake heard it even if Gabriel didn’t say it. He’d asked for honesty and been rewarded with truth. With trust.
They’d touched before. But now, even with the inches between them, it felt intimate. Each studying the other with thoughts concealed behind closed lips but broadcasting with eyes that didn’t know how to lie.
“You know, I think you’re actually pretty badass.”
The spell broke with an almost audible shatter. Blake blinked like he’d just stepped into the light. “What?”
“Earlier, you said you weren’t. But you had a working vehicle and could have run. Could have gotten to safety, but you stayed to help. Jumped into the fray to save us.Unarmed.” He lifted his eyebrows like this impressed him. “Not everyone would do that.”
He snorted. “I don’t think anyoneknowswhat they’d do during an alien attack. Not the kind of thing you can prepare for.”
Gabriel pushed himself to his feet, offering a hand to Blake. He took it, marveling at how easily Gabriel pulled him up.
After talking, the panic in his chest was replaced with a heaviness. Exhaustion, for sure. Standing so close to Gabriel he was acutely aware of how disgusting he was. He needed ashower. Blake wasn’t sure which was worse, the dried blood crusting to his skin or the dirt and sweat.
Gabriel reached forward and tucked a strand of Blake’s hair behind his ear. “You should get some sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I’m the commander,” Gabriel reminded him. “I’ll sleep after my men.”
Blake rolled his eyes, stepping around Gabriel to wrench open the door. “God, you are the most dramatic person I have ever met.”