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It was time for him and Mark to have a serious talk—past time. Isaiah had been delaying, falling back on old behavior patterns of avoidance and not wanting to plan. But now he had to. He spent the rest of the afternoon trying to prove his father wrong—he was an adult. He could come up with a plan. And through it all, he tried to rehearse his conversation with Mark.
But dinner came and went without Mark, and it was late when Mark finally knocked on his door.
“You up?” Mark’s hair was damp like he’d showered at base.
“Yeah. Just working on the plan for the Katz garden.” He needed that contract to be a big one, needed them to tell their friends.
“Cool. Bet it will be fabulous.” Mark gave him a crooked smile as he stripped down to his boxer briefs. He flopped onto the bed, letting out a groan. “Fuck. Tell me something good. Something funny?”
Isaiah didn’t have much—his head was still a jumble of worries about finances and the meeting with the court investigator—but the strain on Mark’s face made him want to try. “Zoe refused dinner because she didn’t want to eat dogs. No amount of explanation convinced her that the chicken hot dogs have zero dogs in them.”
Mark let out a tired laugh. “Good to have principles. Bet she goes vegetarian by ten.”
Will you still be around then? That was what Isaiah really wanted to know. But Mark seemed utterly wrung out, not the time to prod him about how he felt about their relationship. “Liam pulled up on the ottoman for the first time. I got funny pictures of him doing the baby boogie. Walking won’t be too much longer.”
“Wish I’d seen it.” Stretching, Mark put a hand over his eyes. Isaiah could take a hint and flipped off the bedside lamp.
“Bad day?” he asked. They really did need to talk about plans, but it was hard to broach the topic when Mark was so obviously hurting.
“Awful,” Mark confirmed. “But you don’t need to hear about that... Tell me about how Lydia’s garden turned out. Got pics on your tablet?”
“It looks amazing. I’ll show you in a bit.” Isaiah tugged him closer, which was a bit like moving a slab of granite. But he tried, cuddling Mark from behind. “It can wait though. Tell me what’s wrong. I’m not just here for the cute kid stories—I want to hear about your stuff today. Even when it’s shitty.”
“Two bad injuries and four more guys rang out. One was the guy I told you about, the one who wanted to be a medic. I thought for sure he’d make it.” Mark sighed.
“Don’t blame yourself.” He kissed Mark’s neck. “I know you’re giving this your all. Nothing you can do more. You told me yourself that a huge percentage of guys never make it.”
“Yeah. But fuck. I think he saw the injuries today and got scared. Don’t blame him. It was a complete SNAFU.”
“What happened?”
“We were doing surface passage with the boats—taking them out past the sand berm that protects the base. One swim pair had to climb up the berm to survey the compound. But there was a fuckup—huge wave came in, swept them out along with a couple of the boats.” Isaiah could hear the terror in Mark’s voice. SEALs had died during training before—this was real, scary shit.
“Did...did they...” Isaiah couldn’t even give voice to the question.
“It was a close thing. I had do CPR when we got one guy out. Multiple rounds. Fuck.” Mark shuddered. “I did not want to lose him. Never worked so hard with a resuscitation in my life. We got him back, got him stable, but he’s in the hospital now. We’ll know more tomorrow what his prognosis is.”
“Oh man.” Isaiah held him as tight as he could. “And the other guy?”
“Concussion. Dislocated shoulder. Got tossed around pretty good and inhaled half the ocean, but he’ll make it. Thank fuck. I couldn’t have done two resuscitations before the ambulances got to us. Took everything I had and then some. Fuck.”
“You did good.” Isaiah rubbed his tight shoulders. He could totally picture Mark in full-on Wizard mode, running the resuscitation, every muscle straining as he did CPR. And fuck but Isaiah did not want to think about the converse situation, one where Mark was the hurt one. “You did everything you could. I know you. You worked hard. You gave the guy a fighting chance. The doctors and the hospital will do the rest.”
“Yeah. I just... I keep going over it in my head. Over and over. What we could have done differently.”
“Don’t torture yourself.” Holding him close, Isaiah tried to make him believe the words. “It happened. You did what you could. No one would want you driving yourself crazy with guilt.”
