Fuck.
He shut the door.
“Jesus, brother, she’s pretty.”
He’d looked her up already.
“Those curls, whoa. Nice eyes too,” he went on.
“Just tag her files, Gerbil,” Branch sighed.
“Well, you have fun tagging her. Can see why you quit abstaining to take a shot with this one.”
“I haven’t been abstaining.”
“I mean relationships not sex.”
“We’ve been seeing each other two days. It’s not a relationship.”
“You want me to look out for her, John. Two days, shmoo days. If you want me to watch over her, it fucking is.”
Christ.
“Can I stop talking to you now?” he asked.
“I hope you don’t ‘slam, bam, thank you, ma’am’ her like you do me,” Gerbil razzed.
He called her ma’am but the one doing the slamming was her.
That was something Branch was not going to share.
“Can I give you a new name when I give you a new identity you can use to set up house and make babies?” Gerbil asked.
At that moment, Branch didn’t want to make Gerald Raines eat a bullet.
He wanted to make Gerbil eat one.
“You picked it, brother,” he reminded him.
“I was having an off day setting up fake identities,” Gerbil mumbled.
Christ, maybe he didn’t want to kill Gerbil.
He wanted someone to kill him.
“Just find out why those files were opened. I’m hanging up now.”
“John,” Gerbil called.
“What?” Branch asked impatiently.
“You’re allowed to be happy. We were all fed the same line of bullshit to enter that fucked-up game. The majority of the missions were solid. We helped people. We saved lives.”
“We took them too.”
“It’s the job of a soldier, brother.”
“And some of the jobs were dirty.”
The words were heavier when he said, “That’s the job of a soldier too.”
He unfortunately wasn’t wrong.
“Think about it,” Gerbil urged. “This pretty girl of yours, if she’s a good woman, give her a straight shot to try and make you happy.”
This from a man who’d yet to make spawn because he rarely left his bunker because he knew precisely just what was in the dark that should terrify you out of your mind.
“I’m not sure happiness is in the cards for men like us, Cameron,” Branch replied quietly.
“That might be the straight-up honest truth, brother, but the true death is the death of hope and you die that death still living, you might as well just be dead.”
“Are you writing a self-help book in your spare time?” Branch joked to lighten the mood.
“Don’t bust my balls, man, ’cause if you … you find it in yourself to hope for something, then go for it, your black brother from another mother might feel the strength to resurrect his own hope. And maybe, just maybe, we live the lives Rob, Di, Benetta, Lex and Piz weren’t given a shot at, this world might turn out not to be the shithole I know it to be.”
And after delivering that, Branch knew the conversation was done.
Because Gerbil hung up on him.
ten
I Don’t Regret It
EVANGELINE
Evangeline speared some leaves in her huge salad, lifted her fork and looked to Amélie before taking a bite.
“Let me think about it,” she said.
They were having lunch. Leigh had called that morning to ask if she had free time. And fortunately, because she enjoyed having lunch with Leigh and hadn’t in a long time, she did.
This invitation, Evangeline knew, came because Amélie had her back and was wasting no time in making sure she was dug in.
And Evangeline was delighted to dig right in.
After her friend, who worked at a vet that also had a small no-kill shelter for animals, just shared pictures of two dogs and three cats who were looking for a home, this lunch was also, Evangeline discovered, about trying to get her to adopt a pet.
She did not find this annoying and she also didn’t find it a surprise. This was Amélie’s way.
Not to mention, Amélie knew Evangeline’s dog had died of cancer about a month after she’d met Kevin. He didn’t like animals (she should have known then he was screwed in the head) and their relationship at the Honey and in life had progressed swiftly. So even though, back then, Leigh encouraged her in a gentle way to get a new member of the family, she’d held back because of Kevin.
She hadn’t done it since him because she got caught up in other things and didn’t think she had the time and attention required to welcome a new pet.
“All right, chérie. Dr. Hill’s practice is there when you’re ready,” Amélie replied.
“How many furry babies do you have now?” Evangeline asked after taking her bite, chewing, swallowing and while forking up some more.
“My two feline beauties that you know who miss you, so you must come visit, and we got a dog for Olly. He’d lost his and the time was right.”
Amélie’s cat Cleo probably missed her, that kitty was sweet and social. Her Stasia had been so sadly abused, she took a cat’s aloofness to new levels so she probably never even knew Evangeline existed.
“Things good with your Olly?” Evangeline asked, sparking a smile at her before taking another bite of her salad and watching Amélie’s face turn to sheer beauty as it got soft with thoughts of her lover.
“They are,” she replied, her voice as soft as her expression.
“I’m happy for you, Leigh,” Evangeline replied quietly in return.
“Me too. I was beginning to give up hope. He was a dream come true.”
Those words hit Evangeline in the stomach in a way she couldn’t quite decipher if it was very good … or very bad.
“I’m glad and I can’t wait to meet him,” Evangeline said.
“I can’t either, darling.” Her look changed slightly, but Evangeline caught it. “And I’m looking forward to when you return to us at the Honey.”
Evangeline shifted in her seat and also straightened in it. “Leigh—”
Leigh lifted an elegant hand (the only thing she could do—everything was elegant about Amélie).
“That’s all I’m saying, Evangeline. No more on that topic. You know you’re welcome. You know we all want you back. You know we all want you to heal. And you know, I, personally, feel it’s crucial to you in a myriad of ways to return to your true self, your passions, who you are, to complete that healing. It’s up to you to decide when it’s time or if there is a time. But I’ll say to you now, if a hurt that cannot heal was delivered to you, that’s understandable too. A break of trust like that in our world is very hard to overcome. There will be no judgment. We all will understand that too. And we’ll take you however you give yourself to us.”
God, she loved Amélie.
Which made it immensely difficult to sit there and listen to her saying the things she’d just said without sharing that she needn’t worry. She was taking steps to heal that hurt.
But more, it was difficult to sit there and not talk to a sister in the life about the path she’d chosen to do that, the partner she had in that effort (who didn’t know he was her partner in that sense) and the new kind of difficulties she’d bought herself in trying to perpetuate a vital break in a man who might prove unbreakable.
Which might again break Evangeline’s heart in a way she sensed already in what she had with Branch, especially after what he gave her that morning, would be far harder to heal than what Kevin had done to her.
Amélie would have good advice. She’d listen and she’d share. Or she’d just listen, if Evangeline simply wanted a sounding board.
But she couldn’t say a word.
And it stunk.
Damn, but she hated Branch’s stupid NDA.
All she could do was look in her friend’s eyes and say, “I think I’m making some strides in that too.”
Relief rushed swiftly through Amélie’s eyes and Evangeline knew her friend was trying to protect her by trying to hide how deep that went.