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“Is it?”
Ryker bit back the immediateYes,searching for his truth—an excavation that was always excruciating when he was with Tarun. Something about their shared past—the fact that they were both middle siblings, Tarun from a Vietnamese family where he was the first ever to enlist, and Ryker from a family whose men had been Marines practically since the battle against Montezuma—had brought them together in basic training. Then, after they’d both been deployed to Afghanistan, fought side by side there…well, it made sense Ryker was unable to lie or hide the truth from Tarun as he did with civilians and even his family. Ryker finally spoke.
“I’m sick of watching my brothers live out their happily ever afters.”
Tarun’s eyebrows rose.
“Brothers? I mean, Drake’s been married to that event planner who got him to write romance in addition to horror—what’s her name?”
“Kate.”
At the name, Tarun snapped his fingers on both hands in a three-snap, staccato gesture, an old habit he’d had ever since Ryker had met him in boot camp years ago.
“Yes, her. So if it’s not Drake, I assume something’s new with your baby brother, then?”
Ryker shook his head, snagging the bottle from the coffee can and testing the temperature by dribbling a bit of it on his left wrist, jostling Elise’s head into a weird angle to do so. Luckily, the kid was so good-natured she just gave a gummy smile at the awkward manhandling, grabbing at his hands as he guided the bottle to her mouth.
“Nothing new, exactly. Zander and Imani are still engaged. No date for the wedding, but they’re madly in love.” Ryker watched Elise sucking contentedly on her bottle, her eyes slipping closed. He envied her security and innocence. “I’m happy for them. But it feels like the universe is giving me the middle finger.”
“And?” Tarun prompted, doing a rolling, “give me more” motion with his hand. “What’s really got your RBF in turbo-mode? I noticed you favoring your left leg. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine—”
“Don’t lie. Not to me.” Tarun traced the chrome VW emblem, lingering on the ragged hole in the outer edge of the “V,” the other piece of evidence in this room of the damage done by the IED’s detonation. “When you save a guy’s life, it’s a rule—”
“That you get to be up in his business for eternity?”
“It’s your HO rearing its ugly head again, isn’t it?” Tarun asked, undeterred by Ryker’s words. “Have you gotten any bloodwork?”
Ryker supposed it was the bond forged from their shared wartime experience, as Tarun was practically psychic when it came to the bizarre twists and turns of Ryker’s mind and mood. While his family knew of his battle with trauma-induced bone heterotopic ossification, only Tarun knew the extent of the mental and physical pain the rebellion of his own cells caused Ryker, growing in soft tissue and muscle, with no way to halt the sneaky enemy other than radiation…or more surgery. The latter was what kept him up at night.
“It might be HO.” It was all Ryker could make himself admit, even to Tarun. “I’m due for bloodwork in another month.”
“Maybe you should get a bone scan—see if there’s any shit forming in there,” Tarun said, and when Ryker didn’t answer, he shook his head. “John Wayne used to say, ‘Life is hard. It’s harder if you’re stupid.’ Don’t be stupid. I’ll drive you to Walter Reed, or maybe your brother can hook us up with the fancy copter he rents to take you in an hour—”
Ryker cut him off. “You know what’ll happen if I say anything. Drake will drop the rest of his book tour, Zander will postpone his classes, my mom will freak out and close down the bakery to hover. All because I’ve got some renegade cells acting up. It’s not serious enough yet to be an attention whore. I’ll double down on my ibuprofen.”
“Allowing your family in your life isn’t being an attention whore. It’s being a real boy.”
Ryker smirked at the familiar accusation. “Who wants to be a real boy when you can be a cool-ass cyborg?”
“You got any swelling?” Tarun asked.
Ryker knew his best friend wouldn’t drop it until he had visual proof, so he shifted Elise and hefted the edge of his gym shorts. With one hand, he rolled down the sleeve above the cuff of his prosthetic, revealing that the scarred pink-and-white tissue of his residual limb was only mildly puffy and irritated.
“See? It’s fine.”
“If it’s not your HO, what’s going on?”
Ryker gazed at Elise. She was such an angel. Such a blessing…then his mind strayed to the beautiful woman from the grocery store. Bryce. The one he’d almost asked out on a date—a first for him in more months than he cared to admit. Then she’d said that comment about parenting, assuming he was Elise’s father, and the comment had ignited in his belly and bottomed out his chest at the same time.
“These never-ending trips for radiation on my hip and knee to keep the HO at bay. Although they’re careful, the docs told me it’s pretty unlikely I’m ever going to…have kids.”
“And?” Tarun asked, as if that weren’t enough of a buzzkill.
“And that makes me not an attractive target. For women.”
“Oh, but your winning personality and ready smile is winning hearts the world over? You think the possibility of your sterility is the only reason you’re not lighting it up on Tinder?”
