When in December (Home Haven #1)

Chapter 9

nine

. . .

Aaron

I paced through the empty cabin. The homemaker, interior designer, DIY mess of a woman I had started to see, had left.

Just like that.

It was what I’d wanted.

She was gone. She’d gathered most of her things up; she hadn’t paused before she headed to her car and left like hell was on her heels.

My phone continued its overly loud ring from the nightstand. The obnoxious sound pulled me back out of my head. I pressed the cool glass to my ear and dropped myself on the mattress that remained on the floor. My legs stretched out in front of me.

“What?” I answered.

“Hey.” The person on the other end didn’t pause at my abrupt greeting. “How have ya been?”

I was halfway to clearing my throat when I froze at the voice. “Barrett.”

“Yep.”

Shaking my head, I took a deep breath. “You said you’d stop calling.”

His distinct, terribly jovial laugh was another sharp sound pulsing through my skull. “We both know I’ve never been the best at keeping my promises.”

My jaw locked, hand curling tighter around the phone as I gritted out my next question. “Why are you calling me?”

“Not for any sort of courtesy call to see how you are—that’s for sure. I’m back in the area, like I told you I would be. I was thinking ’bout ya.”

“Isn’t that nice?”

“It’s bad for my goddamn peace of mind, but I do, so don’t tell me I shouldn’t. I figured I’d give you a call and see how you’re doing back stateside these days.”

How am I doing?

I swallowed. It would’ve been easier to gulp down sand. “When did you get back?”

“About two weeks ago. Most of us are on leave for the next month. Maybe anyway.”

Most of us.

Might as well of been none of us.

“It would be good to see you. We should go out and get a round at the Bar on Main tonight,” said Barrett.

I picked at my sweatpants as I sat. The homemaker was right. There was a stain on one leg. I had no idea how or when it had gotten there. “I’m good.”

“Come on. You know you liked my stories while you were laid up. Who else would’ve talked to your grumpy ass?” Barrett paused when he noticed I still wasn’t laughing with him. “Don’t be like that, brother.”

“I’m not your brother.”

“Sure you’re not.” He wasn’t deterred. “One drink. That’s it.”

I sighed, looking around the room I’d sequestered myself in. It was a wreck. “One drink.”

“I’ll be there at seven.”

“Seven.” I hit the End Call button.

Once, I would’ve answered that phone and immediately been in my car for Barrett. Now, I wanted to scream.

I clenched my fists as I shut my eyes and threw my phone on the bed. I started to pace again, my feet trailing back and forth over the cold floor that the homemaker had also helped the construction crew stain to meet their deadline before they left. Even they had been surprised at how good of a job she did.

“A real pro,” the lead guy, Frank, I thought, had said.

I hadn’t even thought to ask him for his name. Or talk to any of them at all.

I’d wanted to be alone. And I was alone now. Pacing. Walking. Because I needed to breathe to walk.

“Deep breaths,” the psych had told me on base after I got back and was still in the hospital, ready to be cleared after they pulled about eight different kinds of metal from my leg and the side of my body. “When you’re overwhelmed, that’s all you need to do. You have no other assignment or post to worry about, but taking deep breaths right now.”

They forgot to tell you that, sometimes, it didn’t matter. Sometimes, you couldn’t breathe anyway.

So, instead, I kept moving until my body took a moment to calm down. It was fine. I didn’t need to do anything.

But the house was quiet.

My keys, which I hadn’t touched in days, sat in front of me.

And, fuck , I never liked being alone.

The Bar on Main still smelled exactly like I remembered. It stank of piss, stale air freshener, and crisp French fries they always had arriving a little burned in a cardboard cup. The dive bar had been a staple in the town for years, and it looked as run-down as ever, yet still, for some ungodly reason, it was packed to the brim with people.

A few heads turned my way when I stepped inside. It took a crack of pool balls and other indecipherable sounds to fill my ears before I turned right back around to the humid heat outside.

“Hayes! Wait up!” a voice called out after me.

Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I stopped in the middle of the parking lot.

Barrett caught up with me, coming to see my face. I noticed the way his eyes scanned me up and down before once again meeting my eyes. There was a smile on his face. There was always some kind of smile on Barrett’s face.

At one point, I’d thought it was because he was stupid, but Barrett always had an incorrigible personality and sense of humor, constantly looking for the bright side.

Reminded me of someone else who had been butting themselves in my life lately.

“What’s going on?” Barrett cocked his head to the side. “I thought I saw you walk in.”

I shrugged toward the place. Looking down at my feet, I kicked at the ice and dirt. “It’s loud in there.”

Barrett paused before nodding. “You’re right; it is. I came to talk to you and won’t even be able to hear ya. Let me go and grab two, and we can sit out here. Don’t you dare leave before I get back out here.”

“Isn’t there some law against open containers?” I asked, meaning it to come out teasing, but my tone fell flat.

“I don’t think the old sheriff will come to bother us in the back of my truck. Do you?”

Probably not.

Barrett smirked, knowing he was getting his way. “I’ll be right back.”

A minute later, he ran back out of the bar and put down the cold metal bed of his truck. I didn’t even mind the thick and heavy sort of cold, and neither did he. We were both used to it.

He twisted off the cap with the corner of his shirt wrapped around his hand before he offered the bottle.

I dipped my chin in thanks, lifting it to my lips to take a swig. At least we didn’t have to worry about our drinks getting warm out here. “Didn’t think you’d turned into a rule breaker, Barrett.”

“Eh, decided to stop sweating the small stuff.”

“How’s that working out for you?” That time, my voice sounded a little better. More like I was attempting a joke. I cleared my throat, dipping my head down before looking back at my friend.

He gave a shake of his head as he nudged toward a small paper dish, like the kind you got at football games—red-checker-patterned and always felt greasy when you held them in your hands. “Still working on it.”

“French fries?”

Barrett took two at a time and ate them. “Looks like you could use some. Maybe more than that.”

“What are you trying to say?” I asked. “Commenting on my looks? I always knew you thought I was hot.”

He chuckled. “Letting yourself go. What happened to the gains?”

“Left me somewhere during when my leg was shot up,” I said.

“Eh, excuses.”

I stuck a fry into my mouth and paused. My forehead creased as I attempted to decipher the taste I was getting that wasn’t just burned?—

“The new bar guy who deals with the fries apparently got into adding spices to the fries.”

“It sucks.”

Barrett laughed, eating a few more. “Really does.”

I took a few more and chewed, listening to the music that slipped through the cracks of the bar.

“How long are you back for?” I finally asked Barrett once I had about a quarter of my beer left. My fingers started to turn numb, but neither of us suggested moving, even to the cab of his truck, which perpetually blew hot air out of the vents, even in the summer.

Barrett tapped his finger against his bottle like he was nervous. “Actually, I’m deciding on that.”

“Deciding?”

“Not sure if I’m ready to reenlist for another deployment for a while.”

For a second, I wondered if he’d said it just to get my attention. Either way, it worked.

“You’re retiring?”

“I wouldn’t call it that. Too young and handsome to retire,” he joked.

“You’re going to leave?”

“Maybe. Just not … reenlist. Maybe I’ll leave. I don’t know.”

“You have to be kidding.”

“People do it all the time.”

“That’s …” Fucked up? Perfect? I didn’t know how to respond.

“I’m tired,” Barrett said. For the first time, I heard it in his voice. The happy-go-lucky man that usually sat next to me let his head sag as he held his beer in two hands. He sucked on the side of his cheek. “You know I love the Army. I was good at it. I liked the structure. The challenge. You assholes.”

Another joke we shared that neither of us laughed at.

Because it was just the two of us, along with a few others who had never come to see me at the hospital but still had been part of our core group for the past decade. Some more, some less.

But still, I couldn’t believe it. “We’re all tired, Barrett.”

“Like you’re going to run back into where we left tomorrow.” He chuckled.

I stared at him. I shrugged. “I’m sure going to try.”

“Now, you have to be the one who’s kidding.”

I stared at him.

“Hayes. Come on now. You did your duty. You got a Purple Heart,” he said. “You’re not going back out there. I saw your file that day, along with you. They discharged you.”

“They medically discharged me,” I corrected. “If I show them I’m fit, I’ll be fine.”

“But you’re not fine, Hayes.”

That was his opinion.

It was as if he could read my thoughts.

“You nearly lost your life out there. You had internal bleeding. You could’ve lost your leg. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you aren’t as steady on it as you used to be, ambling out of the bar like you did.”

“I’m fine.”

He shook his head, taking a deep breath. “What’s your plan then?”

“I …” I didn’t have one. God, my thrilling part of the day had been messing with the woman deciding how to dress up the cabin with fringe throw pillows. “I don’t know. I’m going to get myself back in shape eventually. Find a doctor to clear me and my leg for service. Get back in the game.”

“That’s what you want to do?”

I paused. Yes. No. “Don’t you? What else is there?”

“This can’t be all there is,” said Barrett quietly. He took another sip of beer. “Not for me anyway. Especially not now when my team is down. It’s not the same as it once was when we were kids.”

“You’re serious.”

Taking a deep breath, he sat up straight once more and dipped his head, as if he were deciding what the hell he was going to eat for dinner tonight after our now-cold taco-Tuesday-flavored fries. “Yeah.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked him.

“I’m sure I’ll figure it out.” Barrett took another sip of his beer before he turned toward me. “You will too, ya know.”

I already had it figured out.

“I have him too, you know,” said Barrett.

I raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

“Oz.”

At the name, my heart skipped a short beat. That didn’t make sense. Ozzy … Oz was with Vassar. He was meant to stay with Vassar. Above ground or not.

“No, you don’t.”

“He was in rough shape. When they flew him out, they weren’t sure he was going to make it. He’s doing well enough now though, like the rest of us,” explained Barrett. “Didn’t you see him at the funeral?”

To be honest, I’d barely even registered the funeral when it was happening. It was quick. Or at least, it felt quick. I barely came to terms with the fact that Vassar?—

I’d seen him just before, when we were sitting in the truck overseas, hopping out like idiots after being cooped up for so long. He had been laughing as he twirled off the path like some little girl singing in the rain and …

Vassar was gone.

Vassar was dead and in the ground with a flag draped around his casket, which I imagined his mother had spent every penny she had that he’d sent home to her. It might’ve been steel or oak —the same color of his eyes, which he squinted up at the sun with every day that I knew him—but I wouldn’t know. Not for sure. I was just out of the hospital and half dead myself on pain meds.

I remembered it had been sunny.

And the whole thing had felt like a joke.

“You should see him,” suggested Barrett.

“No,” I said.

“He’s in good shape.”

“No.”

A few people wandering out of the bar glanced in our direction.

Barrett, however, didn’t even flinch. He let his legs dangle over the back edge of his truck before he looked at me and shook his head.

Don’t look at me like that, I wanted to tell him.

“I’m not going to stop reaching out my hand,” insisted Barrett softly, his voice not holding an ounce of the thick anger that dripped off my own. “Not for Oz. Not for you. Not for Vassar.”

“You shouldn’t say?—”

“Why not?” he asked. “Why not, Hayes? Vassar would be ashamed, you know.”

“Why do you think I care about that?”

“Because I know I do. And whether you believe me or not, I live every day, thinking about him,” he said. “Pretty sure you do too.”

“Then … you must not know me that well anymore,” I said.

Barrett laughed loudly. The sound rivaled the music. “Shut up, Hayes. You know I know you all better than I know myself half the time.”

Swallowing, I didn’t answer him. Being next to Barrett only served to stir up all the memories and thoughts that I’d pushed down the past few weeks and hoped had maybe disappeared forever, like I’d disappeared—or thought I could for a little while until I sorted myself back out.

Barrett didn’t get the memo.

He conned me into another drink, though I barely tasted it before he yanked me into him for a hug. “I’ll see you then.”

“What?”

“At my party. After I get back from visiting a few other family members I promised I would see if I made it back in one piece, I’m hosting a party at my new place.”

“You have a place?”

“You know it,” he said. “I told you, I’m thinking about sticking around for a while.”

“And I’m going to tell you again that I think you’re going to get bored and reconsider.”

“I don’t think so this time. My house. Holiday party. I’ll send you the address, and you’re going to be there,” Barrett said. “Bring someone if you want.”

I made no promises. “Like I’m bringing anyone.”

“Then, just make sure you bring yourself,” he said. “Though I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you sooner.”

“I hope not.”

He shrugged with another smile that I never liked on him.

“You better not mess with me, Barrett,” I called out after him as I made my way back to my truck.

He laughed loud enough that it echoed against the dark sky. “Who said I was messing with you?”

I should’ve gotten out of the truck immediately. I should’ve shoved the door open and made my way inside the cabin a few feet away from the detached garage. Instead, I shut my eyes for a minute. My head lolled back against the passenger seat as I listened to the silence, feeling the oddest sensation of cold seeping through my layers until I was sure my bones would turn to ice.

When I blinked my eyes back open, I saw the small light was on in the mudroom—or what, according to the plans, would eventually become the mudroom if I ever called to get the washer and dryer back on the calendar to be delivered. Was the homemaker back?

I swore that she’d left after she yelled at me.

Told me I was a jerk and to leave her alone.

In the moment, I’d reveled in hearing the words I screamed at myself half the time. Now, I felt empty.

I slammed the truck door open and headed inside.

Poppy? I almost asked aloud.

It was silent.

There was no holiday music blaring or a small woman’s shoes by the door so that mud wouldn’t be dragged in over the freshly stained living room floor, which I still couldn’t believe she had done by hand for the past week, turning it from faded to a rich darkness that, with the dark paint, made the entire space feel tight and cozy, but not in a bad way.

In a homey sort of way with the white snow reflecting outside the French doors that led onto the patio. I imagined one day, someone would enjoy using them to let out pets or watch their children run around in the backyard while hosting a party with their friends and family laughing together.

But not mine . That wasn’t even a thought I could ever have.

I kicked off my boots, noticing the empty spaces of the house now more than I had before—from missing furniture and mapped-out spaces for deliveries that never came. I hadn’t realized how much I must’ve pushed the little homemaker’s timeline back with all my so-called harmless scheming.

I shut the door to my room behind me out of habit from when Poppy would stay late even though she wasn’t here now. I shrugged off my clothes and reached for the pair of sweats I’d had on before.

She’d had a point. There was a stain on them, and they didn’t smell the best, which meant that I probably didn’t either, no matter if Barrett had been polite enough not to say anything.

Turning on the shower, I let the water run over the black granite like rain before I stepped inside. Everything was working now. More than that, the bathroom addition off the main bedroom was unrecognizable from what it once was. Even unfinished so far, the cabin was turning out nice.

More than nice.

And the entire place felt my style—even if I’d never realized I had one before. How well this Poppy Homemaker woman seemed to know me and this space without ever even meeting the people who lived inside of it almost made me angry. The place was … it could be perfect. I hadn’t wanted it. Most of all, I didn’t deserve it when I’d thought I was coming back home to a cold shack.

I ran my fingers through my hair, which was the longest it had ever been in my life, but didn’t bother to brush it or the shambles of the beard that was also growing to new lengths as I got back into my room. My bag and clothes were tossed all over the floor, and most of the clothes on the floor needed to be washed.

It would’ve helped if we— I had a washer.

I shuffled a heap of the stuff to worry about later into the closet, listening to the crunch of the cardboard box sitting in the back. Pausing, I knelt in front of the wide walk-in closet. Also a new addition. I slid out the cardboard box labeled with my name. Tearing open the flaps, I peered at the teetering stacks of books inside.

I grabbed one of the books off the top, turning the worn paperback over. Block font was stark on the cover, alongside wide eyes staring through a royal-blue background. I opened to the first page. I’d read this one before. Hell, I’d probably read the collection of war stories twice out of necessity for school or pure boredom. My old, tight handwriting was scrawled, almost undecipherable, in the margins. Words were underlined, and quotes detailing the Vietnam War were circled in blue ink.

Flopping back on my unmade bed, I fell back into the story I vaguely remembered. My eyes turned heavy after a while, the book balanced on my chest.

“Come on, Hayes. Let it loose. Best kiss.”

“Best kiss? You gotta be kidding me. Gonna get your diary out next, Vass? Read about your first crush?”

He shoved me. “Come on. You go first then, bud. Share all the gory details.”

I rolled my eyes, taking a drink for no other reason than I wanted to. “I was sixteen. Drunk off my ass and alone. My buddies let me disappear to where all the coats were, and I practically passed out. But then this girl showed up.”

“You sure she was real, Hayes?”

“Shut up. She was there, and she … listened. Then, fuck.” I remembered the strawberry lip gloss that had tasted like sugary candy. I remembered how her hair had been messy yet perfect to slip my hands into when her lips fit just right against mine. Of course, I’d passed out, and she hadn’t been there when I woke back up. Maybe it had been some kind of dream. Teenage girl mirage bred from cheap liquor. “That was it, best kiss I ever had.”

Everyone leered around me as the next question changed to something bigger and likely a lot more lewd, but Vassar smirked, leaning into me.

“Sounds like you found your true love, man,” he joked.

I shoved him again. His dog, Oz, barked at me.

But then, as I forced myself to stop thinking of Vassar, of everyone, for some reason, there was another figure breaking through my clouded mind. It was as if the homemaker were back in front of me. With stupid, kind eyes, she brought me baked goods to try so she knew what to get on the big day—Christmas, when the rest of my family would come to terrorize me as well. Her sweet voice easily turned fiery when I got under her skin as well as she was getting under mine. Her scent seemed to trail through the house more than the paint, light florals and sweet berries sticking around even after she left.

“Have a great life here then. I hope it’s worthwhile. Alone.”

I shifted in my bed, trying to get comfortable. My book slid off my chest and to the floor. I had no idea what I was going to do and I hated it. The unease prickled in my chest for the first time in an overwhelming realization.

All alone.

It was too much.

Not enough.