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He squinted at her, wondering if she truly didn’t know who he was, wondering if somehow his mom had orchestrated this whole meetup. Then he noticed writing bleeding through from the back of the card. He flipped it over to read a quickly scrawled note:
Redeem for a free bowl of soup—Bryce.
“You’re giving me a coupon? To PattyCakes?” The words were his way of digging into her motive, yet his tone must’ve been wrapped in barbed wire from the way she winced.
“Um, yeah. It’s a really good café.” Her smile fled as she shrugged. “Feel free to swing in sometime.”
Then she was gone, jogging over to her car, where she put both hands on the trunk, pushing up and down to make the car jump like an amusement park ride. The two girls in the back giggled and shrieked, the sound muted but still carried by the spring breeze.
He watched her get in the car, still trying to figure out if this had all been some strange, elaborate setup by Mom, or Drake, or even his younger brother, Zander. But then he recalled Cecily, and the way she was stuck under the shelf. That couldn’t have been premeditated. He might’ve spent more time figuring it out, except just then the unmistakable stench of baby poop hit him like a cloud of tear gas.
Cupping his hand over his nose, he turned to Elise, who grinned, flashing those eight tiny teeth, and the swollen gums of teeth to come—which, according to his brother, were the reason for the diarrhea. Erupting teeth apparently came with erupting diapers.
He glanced at his watch, then at the baby.
“If we hurry, we have enough time to get you hosed down before Staff Sergeant Mahoney arrives.”
***
As it happened, he was right. At exactly 11:30 a.m., after he’d cleaned up Elise and dressed her in the last clean outfit in the diaper bag—a black long-sleeved onesie with the wordsMy Little Black Dressspelled out in glittery gems above a scratchy tutu-like frill—the door to his garage banged open.
“Staff Sergeant Matthews!” came Tarun Mahoney’s crisp bark from behind the ’69 Cougar Eliminator Ryker had suspended on the lift. “Front and center.”
“Here.” Ryker held Elise with one hand on the makeshift changing table he’d rigged atop a rolling metal toolbox as he battled with the diaper. “Give me a sec, Mahoney.”
“I’m not asking for a blow job. But a salute would be nice.” Tarun appeared carrying a pink pastry box, his face expressionless under his close-cropped hair. Yet his eyes glinted with pride as he pivoted in his woodland cammies to show off his insignia: three chevrons above two rockers, a set of crossed rifles in between. “Especially when I stopped at your mom’s place for celebratory cupcakes.”
His best friend, his brother-in-arms, his fellow staff sergeant, had finally been promoted.
Ryker’s stomach plummeted to his knees. “You made Gunnie. Congrats, man. I’d salute,” Ryker said, wiping his hands on the fiftieth wet wipe, buying time as he fixed his face. “But I’m digging baby crap out from between my fingers.”
Gunnery sergeant was the next rank Ryker would have achieved, had he not been injured. It was the last rank before master sergeant—the same level as his late father.
It was all he’d ever wanted, to achieve master sergeant. And it was forever out of reach.
“Did someone finally make you a father?” Tarun squinted at Elise as he set down the pastry box. “Funny, your mom never mentioned it when I chatted her up a few minutes ago. All she said was to drag your ass out of this place. Not in those words, of course, but Patty always gets her point across. It’s one of the things I love about her—that, and her cooking. Those new soups and sandwiches are incredible. She gave me a sample as I was waiting for the cupcakes. Why didn’t you tell me your mom had hired a new chef and expanded the menu?”
Because I didn’t know. Because I avoid the café, my family, and all civilians as much as possible. That may make me a rotten son, but my presence lately is far worse.
Ryker kept those words to himself, his gaze on Elise. He lifted the baby to his shoulder, thankful for her warm, baby-powder-scented body between him and his friend.
“This is my niece, Lisi. Well, her parents call her Elise, but I think the name is far too serious for such a little one. Officially, I’m watching her for the weekend so Drake and his wife can focus on the upcoming book launch they’re having at an abandoned sanitarium up in Rochester.” Ryker allowed Elise to lean forward and grab at Tarun’s lid.
Tarun ducked his head, obliging the baby’s tiny hands, and allowing her to take off his camo cap. He smiled as she screamed in delight, then focused his perceptive brown eyes on Ryker.
“And unofficially?”
“Unofficially, it’s another ploy by my family in their never-ending quest to fix me. Make sure I’m not…at risk.”
Tarun was quiet for a beat, his gaze penetrating. “Should they be worried?”
Ryker grabbed a premade bottle of formula from Kate’s diaper bag and headed toward the makeshift coffee bar. It was situated next to the dilapidated front end of a vintage yellow-and-white Volkswagen bus he’d bolted to the garage’s wall. Jabbing the hot-water button on the Keurig, he handed Elise to Tarun.
“Hold her while I warm up a bottle,” he said. Tarun obeyed, holding Elise under her arms a good distance from his chest, as if she were a delicate bag of something toxic. Which, with her latest diaper explosions, wasn’t far from the truth.
Elise’s chubby little legs kicked delightedly and she belly laughed as Tarun made faces at her until Ryker at last had the bottle sitting in a bath of steaming water inside an old coffee can. Yet Ryker knew his buddy wasn’t going to let him off without a direct answer. He waited until he’d retrieved a rolling stool for them both and took Elise.
Ryker snagged the baby blanket from atop the VW bus’s front end and draped it on Elise, settling her in the crook of his left arm. “I’m not suicidal. I want to be left alone. That’s all.”
