Dark Side of the Cloth by Brooklyn Cross
Dean placed his feet up on the chair beside him as he stared at the slowly dying flames of the bonfire. He’d lost count of how many nights he’d sat around a fire just like this one with his unit.
“Mind if I join ya?” Morry sat, not waiting for a reply. She swiped his feet off the chair and plunked herself down.
“I didn’t say yes.”
“I also know you wouldn’t say no. Besides, I brought you this.” Morry held out a beer for him to take.
“You always did know the fastest way to my heart.” The bottles clinked as they toasted and then fell into a comfortable silence.
“Do you ever see them?” Morry asked.
“Who?”
Morry gave him her classic fuck-off look. “You know who I mean.”
Dean nudged at the flames with his foot, embers rising into the dark sky. Thunder growled in the distance as if it, too, was remembering the dark times. “I see them all the time. Awake, asleep, in the flames, it doesn’t matter. They follow me around as surely as my own shadow.”
“This is going to sound crazy, but I thought I saw TK sitting at my kitchen table one morning. I even said hello and started pouring myself a coffee before my brain caught up on the impossible. When I turned, he was gone. I’m going insane, aren’t I?”
Dean laughed, his voice drawing the attention of the large group of bikers hanging out at the next fire over. “Woman, you’ve always been insane, but not because you saw TK in your kitchen.”
“You’re a jerk.”
“I can’t deny that.” His smile slowly faded. “Makes sense you’d see him. The two of you were tight.”
“You think so?”
“Hell yeah, he would take any opportunity to see you naked, even in death. He’s probably looking out for you as your bonafide fuck angel,” Dean teased.
Morry burst out laughing.
“Well, that explains why my lights flash when I masturbate.”
Dean spit out the sip of beer he just took, the spray going all over the place.
“Hey, don’t get me all wet!”
“That’s not what you were begging for earlier.” Dean gave Morry a wink as she punched him in the arm. They’d always been like this with one another. The easy banter, the harmless teasing, but they always had one another’s back.
“You know I never thanked you for saving my ass.” Dean leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me shit. You would’ve done the same for me.”
“I would’ve stayed there holding Perez and just let them have me. I was done, but you…” Dean took another sip of his beer.
“Shut up! I don’t want to hear any more of this sappy ass shit coming out of your puss mouth. I did what any soldier would’ve done, and you saved me multiple times. That’s what we do. Hooah!”
“Hooah,” Dean replied and decided to change the topic before Morry chose to beat him up for real. “You liking your new life and all this?” He pointed the beer bottle at the bikers that were still giving him side-eye.
“Yeah, they are good men. Maybe not as trustworthy as our unit, but I’ve carved out a good home and am building something great. Never hurts that I get to kill shitheads.”
“Yeah, that is a good part of the gig. Feels like we’re accomplishing something. Like all the hard work and training isn’t going to waste, like I belong again.” Dean glanced at Morry as shadows from the fire danced across her face—the light catching the scar that traced the side of her jaw. He remembered all too clearly how close she’d come to losing her head when shrapnel from a car explosion found them before they found cover.
“I hate that we took the heat for that op. That shit was not our faultno one should’ve known we were there. So many times, I have gone over what went wrong, and I keep coming up with the same answer.”
“We were sold out,” Dean finished for her.
“Exactly, and if I ever figure out who the fucker was, I’m going to rip off their tits or balls and feed their shit to them. I’m going to go all Wu-Tang Clan on their ass,” Morry practically growled.
Dean smirked as he pictured her doing just that, and not surprisingly, the images came with ease.
“So tell me about this Jeremy guy?”
“Not much to tell. I barely know him. He robbed a friend of mine, stole her money, and left her for dead.”
“Oh well, it makes sense now as to why you’d like him.”
“Fuck off.” Dean laughed, mostly cause it was true.
He had a strange habit of collecting odd personalities around him. They kinda fell out of the sky and then stuck like Velcro, bloody sticky rain that he dragged around. It was what made Yasmine so unique. She was different. She made him want more out of life than simply dishing out death like roast beef at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
“You took a real risk bringing him here. This close to your father’s reach—that takes balls. So tell me, why him?”
“In a way, I guess because I get him. I see a lot of me in him and what I could’ve ended up like if I had stayed. There is real potential behind that arrogant asshole. I’ve seen it in his eyes, and the remorse he felt for what he did, was real, which tells me he’s not completely lost, just fumbling in the dark. Besides, if he doesn’t get his shit sorted out… then kill him.”
“See, this is why you can’t have nice things.” Morry laughed, but Dean didn’t.
However, Morry was right. It was why he and Yasmine were destined to fail. What had he been thinking of pulling her into this life with him?
“That was a joke, man. You’re supposed to laugh.”
Dean swigged back the rest of his beer and stood. “I better get some shuteye if I’m rolling out at the ass crack of dawn. Thanks for taking Jeremy in. Shoot me the odd text with an update.”
“You got it,” Morry said.
He started toward the house he was staying in when Morry called out to him, “Oh and Dean. You’re welcome.”
He looked over his shoulder at her, but she wasn’t looking at him. That was her way of saying she never wanted to talk about her saving his life again. Smiling, he pushed open the door to the house and knew it would be the last time he saw Morry for a while. She was right. It was too dangerous to travel this close to his father and his territory.