Halos and Heroes Ch. 08

Thank you all who have been reading and following along. I always appreciate getting feedback. It helps with becoming a better writer and it’s always an ego boost, so feel free to reach out. I will always respond!

The usual spiel: This isn’t a stroke story, (more porn with plot.) Be warned, it’s very long. 33+ chapters, which is why it was originally published under novels/novellas, but readers asked for it to be put under gay male due to content so here we go. To restate, this isn’t a stroke story, though it will get very erotic eventually. You have to stick with. Be warned, it’s very long. 30+ chapters… and many sexless ones to come before it gets sexy, though the story does move on emotionally and intimately between the man characters. Secondary characters help round things out and move the story along as well.

Disclaimer: There is a very intense flashback scene to a combat zone scenario in this chapter while Sam is at a bar, so please know that ahead of time in case that kind of situation is triggering.

As always, this story is dedicated to all of the brave service members and their families who sacrifice so much every day so that the rest of us can enjoy the liberties that they swear to protect and uphold. Thank you all for your service.

*****

Diplomacy is the art of saying “Nice doggie” until you can find a rock.

—Will Rogers

You know better.

That was my immediate thought when I looked at the new storefront of the old bar I used to frequent whenever I was home on leave. The neon sign in the front window was as alluring to me as the call of a siren to sailors. I knew that once I set foot inside, it would be the end of the S.S. Trammel; washed up on the treacherous reefs of broken promises and discarded sobriety. Nothing good would come of me going in. But each time I took a step away, I heard the shots of those men saluting my brother, saw Sofia’s stricken face, and felt the disapproval in the barely audible voices administering judgment behind my back. I’d always been proud to represent the U.S., but today I’d fucked up and disgraced my uniform by engaging in the altercation with the idiot at the funeral. The moment I’d gotten home, I’d stripped it off and hung it in the very back of my closet. That part of my life was over. I just wished I’d done it more justice in the end.

I rubbed one hand over my face. After Emma’s interruption in the car, Ben and I hadn’t gotten a chance to solidify any plans for tonight. I was on my own since Sofia had gone to bed early, and Adelyn had taken Emma over to the home of a friend who also had a daughter Adelyn’s age. Sitting alone in my room felt stifling even with all the windows wide open, so I’d decided to go out for a walk to buy a pack of cigarettes and clear my head. I’d completed only one of those tasks.

My fingers brushed over the slick cellophane of an unopened package when I shoved my hands into my back pockets. Beside it, my phone felt heavy. A quick call to Max could turn this around. When he talked dirty, it was as potent as whiskey, and usually took the worst of the edge off. He’d talk me down from this ledge and I could go back to Sofia’s. Back to pretending that everything was going to be fine now that I was back in Florida. Everything forgiven. Forgotten.

My tongue pressed hard against the slick inside of my teeth before I freed one hand to push the door open and walk inside. The place was packed and showed no signs of letting up. Dim lighting, sleek dark wood booths, and leather bar stools made the bar more upscale than I remembered. The clientele was an eclectic mix of the locals. Mostly young and yuppie, with a few hipsters and blue collars thrown in for variety. A snapshot of the changes in my old stomping ground.

After a quick perusal of the crowd, I selected a stool at the far end of the bar, away from the main hum of conversation. I ignored the elaborate, detailed drink menu a perky, pixie-faced bartender with a nose ring perched in front of me. Instead I ordered one of whatever was on tap. Just because I was willing to overpay for a beer didn’t mean I needed to know its damn name. I’d had the same philosophy about many of my hookups in the past. Discretion hadn’t always meant being discriminatory. Especially after Devlin.

A tap to the bar put a shot of whiskey in front of me to chase my beer. There was no dramatic, musical accompaniment to narrate my slide into what would inevitably become an epic bout of self-pity. The silver lining was that between the inflated prices, and the five other packs of cigarettes I’d picked up and stacked neatly on the bar, my tab was going to be a short lived thing.

I sipped my beer slowly as I looked over the bar to get a feel for the place. There were a smattering of pool tables in the corner where a group of rowdy college-age kids were competing for the attention of the girls levent escort filling the sidelines. The rest of the customers were a little more subdued. They clustered in small groups and the occasional twosome for the impression of intimacy, although I doubted couples like the middle-aged guy in the cheap business suit and his belly-baring blonde companion in the red halter top were long-lost friends.

Sitting by my lonesome in an ancient pair of blue jeans with my dog tags still visible against the backdrop of my plain white tee shirt made me stick out like a sore thumb. But no one bothered me as I made my way through a second beer and two more shots. After that third dose of Jack with the alcohol humming in my veins, I began to embrace the diverse vibe of the room.

On the surface it all seemed a little mismatched, but there was an underlying need for normality that drew us all together. No one who drank enough to have cabs called for them—which seemed to happen often—was well adjusted. But put us all together in one room and it worked. With the way my week had been going, I fit in here with everyone else who suffered from broken dreams they drowned in expensive booze.

“Another round, honey?”

Although I’d tried a few times to tell her it wasn’t necessary, the tiny bartender who’d been slipping me free drinks all night after she’d seen my tags, smiled, revealing teeth that braces had been good to.

“Looks like it’s been a long week for you. You here on leave for a while? Your face isn’t familiar and I know all the regulars.”

“I used to live around here, but I was enlisted in the Army for a long time. My last tour was up,” I lied, tired of having to explain my complicated life. “So I decided I was done and came back home to the States.” I forced a smile. “Another beer would be great. Thank you.”

“Sure thing. Anything you need tonight, you just holler.”

The invitation in her voice and the sway of her slender hips explained all the free drinks. Today’s modern women weren’t wilting flowers waiting to be plucked. Aside from taking out an ad, she’d done all she could to guarantee I’d ask what time her shift ended. Unfortunately, her partner at the bar held more appeal for me.

Fair haired and suntanned, there was just enough stubble dusting his hard jaw to make him look legal. I watched his ass as he moved around the bar, too drunk for self-preservation. He caught me looking, winked and then continued mixing the drink he was making.

The female bartender followed my gaze, her expression changing from sudden disappointment to amusement. “Ooooh. I see. My bad. I should’ve known. All the good ones are married, gay or way too complicated, right?”

I smiled and put a hefty tip into her jar that almost wiped out my remaining cash supply. “Thank you for the beer, Ma’am.”

“Oh, you’re polite too. Darn it. Well, the offer still stands if you change your mind.” She leaned into the counter, giving me a solid look down her blouse. “Just a piece of friendly information— watch out for that one. He’s a player.”

We both turned to look at him, then each other. “Thanks.” I tipped my head to her for the advice and she strode away with another smile.

She didn’t need to worry. He was pretty, but not my type. I’d never been the kind of man who wanted someone still in training wheels. Devlin had been enough of a project without adding the ingredient of impetuous youth into the mix.

And like that, my mind shifted to Ben, bringing up that handsome face and the solid weight of his hands on my shoulders. How he smelled like sunlight and woods.

My lips quirked at the romanticized analogy. I wasn’t a hearts and flowers kind of guy, which meant that I’d reached my liquor quota. But I still finished the free shot that my bartender set down in front of me. Spiraling room be damned. If drinking too much led me to Benjamin Santiago, I wasn’t going to knock it. Better to fantasize about someone you had no future with than to reminisce about a painful past.

My fingers tightened on the neck of my beer bottle as I swirled away from the memories of Ben toward others I should’ve kept forgetting…

* * *

The black shadows crumpling against the green backdrop of my night vision were the only confirmation that I’d hit my targets. It was a millisecond of a reprieve, because the men shooting at me were determined to take me and my unit down after the aftermath of the IED blast that had destroyed our Humvee and scattered us all around the abandoned village.

I’d tried shouting for my team to respond about their locations a dozen times, but the heavy gunfire tossed my words back to me unanswered in in the violent soundtrack for our little world of shit. Enemy grenades lit up the sky in incandescent green flashes as another wave of bullets whizzed overhead. Too many of them topkapı escort were chipping away at the stone walls of the building five of us had taken refuge behind after we were ambushed. There were only four of us left now, because Micky Macey wasn’t going home.

I wondered if all of us died tonight, who would tell his wife, Emma, and their two girls, that Daddy had broken two promises before their second birthday; he wouldn’t be coming home from his first deployment to Afghanistan, or following through on his intention of taking them all on a Christmas vacation to the West Coast.

The rest of our unit had been scattered in the pandemonium. With radio communication limited, there was no way of knowing whether any of the bullets flying in the firefight on the other side of the wall were from my people, or if their screams were the ones I was hearing… God the screams. A combat zone was indiscriminate in spreading pain, and the fragments of sound from all sides of this war worked together to drown out every last bit of the already limited communication my team had with each other.

I looked down at the man in my arms. Thomas McLeary, only nineteen, and he didn’t look like he’d make it to twenty. I’d done my best to wrap my utility belt around his thigh to try and slow the bleeding where the jagged remainder of his leg above the knee kept squirting. He was moaning in pain, fluctuating between telling me to leave him behind, and begging me to stay until he finished telling me about the romantic vacation he was going to surprise his fiancée Tracey with when he was stateside in three months.

I focused on ignoring the fact his blood was soaking into my thigh, and kept him seated and leaning with his back against the front of my body. I held him with my arm braced across his chest and reassured him that we weren’t going to die tonight, and since my lonely ass was single, he could give his fiancée an extra kiss for me anywhere he wanted to later.

My attempt at levity when we were both likely to be killed made him smile; a macabre smile in a face that was dirty and bloody. I wiped a hand over my own face to get some of the grit out of my eyes, trying to focus on keeping Tommy awake, and not on my own body that felt like it was on fire where a bullet had caught me on my left side. I’d taken a precursory look and though it wouldn’t kill me, it wasn’t great. Losing a lot of blood was never a good option in any life scenario, but especially not when you were trying to keep conscious.

I exhaled heavily and leaned back, my helmet thunking against the stone wall. I closed my eyes until I felt someone shake my shoulder hard. When I opened them, Devlin, shook me again.

“Not the time to take a nap, cupcake. You gotta stay with us, Sergeant. I can’t deal with anymore of AJ’s fucking awful poetic worship of his wife’s tits.”

“It was her ass, not her tits, Rhodes. Two kids in and a pair of tits turn from your personal playground to meals on wheels. But the ass…oh yeah. Nothin’ like a good piece of ass. So McLeary, now that the Sarge admitted he wants to kiss Tracey somewhere good, that’s a place I’d recommend since we can’t tell him to kiss ours most of the time.”

AJ Morgenson, the newest member to my unit, grinned. Thin as a needle and just as sharp, his wisecracks and crazy stories about his family in Alabama had kept us all grounded out here in these unfamiliar surroundings. When all of us including Tommy laughed, the sound gave a hint of twisted normalcy to the shit show around us.

I covered my head and ducked my upper body down over Tommy’s as little puffs of sand interspersed with small stones peppered me when bullets hit the wall overhead. To my left, Devlin swore and popped up to return fire as I struggled to reload again without letting go of Tommy.

Devlin was the only member of my unit that had been in the Army for almost as long as I had, and a man I liked having at my back. Aside from the fact I’d been fucking him on and off for about a year, he was a good soldier—levelheaded and fearless, like some modern day Spartan. More than qualified to hold my life in his hands, though I’d rather have been somewhere warm and quiet where he could hold my dick instead.

Devlin glanced over at me when he caught my look. No one knew I was gay, which didn’t make any sense because I trusted these men with my life. They wouldn’t have cared about who I liked polishing my candlestick. But even now something held me back, telling me there was no way I could kiss Dev out here, even if it was my last chance before we got our heads blown off. I could put my life on my line for my country, but apparently there were still some risks I couldn’t take.

He eyed me for a moment like he could see into my head, but a gasping sound dragged both our gazes downward. I tossed my rifle to the side and twisted beşiktaş escort Tommy around in my arms so that I could see his face as he started coughing. His blood splattered his chin and cheeks as I leaned down, lightly slapping his face to get him to focus on me.

“Hey, Tommy, come on man. Help is coming. Just hold on. You gotta kiss Tracey’s ass for me remember? Keep your eyes open. Look at me, soldier.”

“Listen to him, McLeary. Think about that ass. It’s all about the ass. Maybe give it a little lick in between the kissin’.”

AJ sounded calm, but I saw the strain in his face when he hunkered down beside us to place a hand on McLeary’s am. The teasing light faded from A.J.’s eyes as he started mourning our friend like he’d already taken his last breath. I didn’t allow myself that luxury, because I still had two other men under my command that I needed to get out of here. They weren’t dead yet.

Tommy couldn’t talk since he was choking on his own blood, so I just tucked him close to my body, trying to keep my voice steady, and as loud as I could so he could hear me over the gunfire until his body went lax in my arms. I gently slid my hand over his eyes to shut them, and in my peripheral vision I saw AJ make the sign of the cross. Devlin didn’t ask for grace or peace, just turned and went back to returning fire. He and I seemed to be on the same page of getting the fuck out of here.

As I laid Tommy’s body down carefully, I heard AJ trying the radios again. They’d become worthless hunks of plastic and wire after the IED blast had scattered us. They worked, there was just no one answering, which I refused to think about because I couldn’t handle planning any more funerals right now. Trapped, hoping for backup, all I could afford to think about was making it home, not how I couldn’t reach out to any of my team, including Connor. He’d been travelling in the vehicle behind us, and I hadn’t seen him in the chaos that ensued after the attack. I’d wanted to look for him, but I’d found Macey, Tommy, AJ and Devlin first, and had to think about more lives than the one I cared about the most in the world.

My ears were ringing and I shut my eyes again, trying to lessen the sensation of being trapped underwater with no way up.

“Sam… Sam, come in. Sam, you copy? Shit! Sam, can you hear me?”

My com crackled to life, my brother’s voice coming in choppy bits over the line that still conveyed the note of urgency in his tone.

“Connor? Where the fuck are you? What’s your location?”

There was more static and then, “Jammed up… last… building at south end of street… Tate’s dead. Fuck, Sam!”

Although we’d never felt that psychic connection most twins claimed to have, Connor and I’d always had one another’s backs. He’d stuck up for me against our father when we were kids, even when the defiance earned him a worse beating. The same was true for the bullies at school and in the neighborhood. There wasn’t anyone that Connor would’ve let hurt me while he was around, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to leave him behind now even if staying here with the remaining members of my team was the right thing to do.

“Stay down and cover me,” I said over my shoulder to Devlin, but I was stopped from moving when he grabbed my arm, his expression tense as he hunkered down beside me.

“I’m not letting you go out there alone, Sam. A.J. can cover us from here and wait for backup. They’ve got to be coming.”

I shook his hand off. “I gave you a direct order, Rhodes. Stand down!”

“Fuck you, sir!” Devlin snarled, heat flaring in his eyes when I pulled rank. “Where you go, I go.”

To anyone on the outside, our exchange would’ve just been considered testament of the strong bond that soldiers formed in combat. But I read between the lines. We’d been together almost a year and though I felt more for Devlin than was smart in a warzone, we hadn’t ever used the word love. But I knew, and let him it in my eyes when I nodded.

“Fine. Bring up my back. A.J., stay with Micky and Tommy, and cover us. If you let us die out there, I’ll personally haunt your skinny ass in the shower for the rest of your life.”

A.J. blew me a kiss. “I’ve got your back, Sarge.”

I was counting on it, because I’d already started moving. I heard A.J.’s shots as he tried to give us the window of time we needed to make it across the short distance that might as well have been the length of three football fields. I could see the imprinted path of my boots in the dirt getting longer, so I knew we were making progress, but every second I wasted returning fire, was one more added to the already tight timetable we had to get to Connor.

We were close enough now for me to see the place where my brother was holed up. The rest of the buildings provided just enough cover for us to advance until the door was only a few feet away. So close, I could see a prone body on the ground, but not the soldier’s face. Connor’s shout through the broken panes of glass was a Band-Aid on a bigger wound, but I didn’t have time to mourn Tate. Movement from the corner of my eye warned me into action.