Page 7 of Business vs. Pleasure

“Remember that time right after we got married, when we put some chicken in the oven, and then we decided to have a quickie while it was cooking? But then it wasn’t a quickie after all?”

“Holy shit. What the hell do you guys have around your house that can burn someone to that much of a crisp?”

“It was August’s idea.”

“Okay, yeah, that makes sense. My God, you could film a horror movie on that property.”

“Not safely,” Ricardo muttered.

“Fair point. Anyhow. So August is pissed at you, someone got burned beyond recognition on your property, and now you don’t know how to get back in your husband’s good graces.”

“Pretty much.” He pressed his elbow into the warm stone and rubbed his forehead. “I fucked up so bad, Eve. I don’t—I didn’t want to go back on my word. I just don’t know how to be this person. I don’t…”

“You don’t know how to be anything but a soldier,” she said softly.

Ricardo deflated. “Exactly. I’ve been a soldier of some kind since I was a teenager. There’s always been an objective. An enemy. Something. Now, I…” He rose and flailed a hand for no one’s benefit but his own. “I don’t know who I am.”

“That sounds tough,” she said. “To tell you the truth, I always wondered, even when we were still young, how you’d handle retiring from the Army. A lot of the guys I served with—they got out and didn’t know how to be civilians. Kind of seemed like that would be you.”

He considered that, and to some extent, it was true. “I don’t miss the institutionalization.”

“No, of course not. But being a soldier—a fighter. I think that’s always been you more than being a killer.”

“I never liked killing,” he said. “It was just part of the job. And I think… I’m happy with August. I couldn’t be happier. But I just feel… like I’m not doing anything.” He paused and huffed out a laugh. “For fuck’s sake, I even tried gardening.”

Eve sputtered on the other end. “You? Gardening? How did that go?”

“The landscaper fired me.”

She snorted. “I’m not surprised.”

Ricardo managed a sad chuckle. “Yeah. Me neither.” He wiped a hand over his face and tilted his head back to look up at the sky. “But I haven’t found anything else to do.”

“So you started looking at jobs again.”

“Yeah. And I shouldn’t have. I know. I wouldn’t have taken any, especially not without talking to August. I just…” He closed his eyes and pushed out a long breath. “I don’t know what to do.”

“To fix things with August?” she asked. “Or to keep from going insane in your own gilded cage?”

“Both.”

“I mean, I know how to fix the first thing, but you won’t like it.”

“Try me.”

“Ricardo. You know exactly what I’m going to say. And I can hear you rolling your eyes, so don’t even try to deny it.”

He’d been halfway through doing exactly that, so yeah, she probably could hear him. “You want me to talk to him.”

“Obviously.”

“Fuck.”

“No, you can do that after you and he talk.”

Ricardo tried to laugh but failed miserably. Talking about things like this had always been hard for him, and few people knew that as well as Eve did. This one was extra hard for the same reason a lot of his issues had been with her—not because he didn’t want to admit he’d fucked up, but because for all he could face bombs and gunfire, he hated facing the hurt in a partner’s eyes. He still hated himself for the times he’d made Eve cry. He’d had some unpleasant go-arounds with August, too, but this was the first time he could truly say he’d hurt him. That he’d cut him deep in a way that he didn’t know if he could fix.

“You love him, don’t you?” Eve asked.