“Hey! Heard there was a party going on here, and no one invited the fun guys.” Jake jogged over to where I stood and elbowed me in the ribs as he came to a halt. “Get it? Thefun guys? Like fungi? Because we’re working in your yard?”
“Yeah, I get it. But it’s not funny, so I’m not laughing. What are you doing here?”
Shaw lumbered over. “Clearly crashing a private deal between you and Hughes, here. What the fuck, Mac? How come you snubbed the rest of us?”
“I didn’t snub you. I didn’t invite Owen, either. He just happened to see me and offered to help.”
“Cool.” Max hefted a huge burlap bag out of the back of the Jeep. “We stopped at the garden center and got some lawn food. It’s organic, because I promised Samantha I wouldn’t put chemical crap on your grass.” He grimaced. “Her words, not mine.”
“Clearly.” I watched, bemused, as my friends began to spread out over my yard, some of them ducking into the garage to retrieve more equipment. This was just peachy. What the hell was I going to do with them, and what if Tasha came over?
“Derek.” Kade stopped next to me, laying a hand on my shoulder. “I know you didn’t expect all of us today. But we want to help, okay? We want to do ... something. For the last few months, we’ve all felt so fucking helpless, and now this feels like something we can do. This isn’t us feeling sorry for you. If that was it, we’d have taken care of this sorry ass mess ages ago. We want to supportyou, not because we think you need us to help you.”
I sucked in a deep breath. Kade was perceptive, because I had been getting my back up about just that very thing. “Okay. I guess I can understand that.” I swallowed hard. “It’s tough, you know? To not be like you guys anymore. To be the one who doesn’t fit. Your lives are all going on. Max is getting married. You’realreadymarried, and you have a kid. Shaw has Delia, Jake has Harper ... and all of you are moving ahead in your career. Meanwhile, here I sit, stagnating.”
Instead of arguing with me like I’d expected, Kade only nodded. “I can see how you might feel that way, especially when the pain was so bad that you were having trouble functioning. But everything seems to be getting better now. I can tell just by watching you move. I was saying to the colonel yesterday that I figured you’d be back at work pretty soon.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “It’s been on my mind, too. I guess maybe I’ve been afraid to think about it—that I’d try and fail. That’s what I worry about the most, you know? Finding out that I’ll never be as good as I was before. Right now, I exist in a state of potential, and it feels ... safer. What if I can’t be who I used to be, Kade?”
His eyes were steady on me. “Then you’ll figure out what comes next. But you gotta think about it this way, Mac. We’re all getting older. We’ve been in the Army for over ten years. None of us are going to be the same. And that’s all right.”
With a grin and punch on my shoulder, Kade headed over to where the others had gotten busy. I watched him go, his words lingering in my mind, and then I picked up my shovel and followed him.
* * *
“Damn, we do good work.” Shaw sank onto the porch step next to me. Behind us, the rest of the guys sprawled. We were all filthy, tired and smelly, but holy shit, did it feel good to be here, with all my buddies, looking out on the work that we’d done.
And fuck if I hadn’t pulled my own weight and then some. Maybe I didn’t move quite as fast as some of them, but I’d lifted, clipped, raked, dug and mowed for three solid hours.
“Derek, man, if you don’t win yard of the month again now, the contest is rigged for sure.” Max nudged my arm with his foot.
“Yeah, that’s true,” agreed Jake. He cracked open a beer and took a long swig. “God, I can’t move, but I really need to get home. Harper’s done in a few hours, and I promised I’d cook for her tonight.”
“Home?” Owen mimicked his word. “I’m assuming that you’re not talking about the barracks, dude. When you say home, you mean her house, don’t you?”
Jake didn’t look at all fazed. “Yep. That’s exactly what I mean. Home’s where Harper is.”
And the weirder thing was that no one made fun of him. No one called him on being whipped or complained about what he’d said. They all just let it slide.
A small blue car turned the corner, cruising slowly down my road. Kade squinted out toward the road.
“Hey, look, that chick’s totally scoping out your front yard, Derek. She’s slowing down and ... huh. Why’s she stopping?”
I already knew the answer to that question, because once I’d gotten a decent look into the car’s window, I’d spied a head of bright red curls. My heartbeat sped up a little.
“Isn’t that ...” Shaw’s voice trailed off. “Yeah, it’s the physical therapist. What’s she doing here?”
I cleared my throat and fought my body’s natural instinct, which was to jump to my feet and race over, take Tasha by the hand and show her what I’d done, like a little kid eager to show off his handiwork.
“Doing the yard work today was kind of my homework assignment from her, and she said she might stop by to make sure I followed through.” I wasn’t going to share that it was me who’d made the suggestion.
“Talk about hands-on care.” Jake’s voice was low, and I knew Tasha couldn’t possible hear him, but still, his words burned.
“Shut the fuck up.” I twisted so that I could see his face and he could get a look at the fury on mine. “You hear me? I don’t want you to make her feel uncomfortable.”
Jake’s eyebrows soared almost into his hairline. “Ooookay ...” He looked as though he might have said more, but Max elbowed him in the ribs, and he snapped his mouth shut.
Meanwhile, Tasha had switched off her ignition and climbed out of the car. She meandered up the driveway, and I noticed that she was studiously paying attention to the borders of the lawn, with the fresh mulch and flowers, and to the newly-mown state of the grass. She didn’t look our way at all until she was on the sidewalk that led to my front door. When she did acknowledge the lot of us, it was with a big smile.
