Battered Not Broken (37 page)

“Not so much my specialty as the only thing I can cook. You’d be good at cracking eggs too if you ate them every day.”

“Okay. So no eggs on the menu for whenever you come over and let me cook for you.”

He shrugged. “I never said I didn’t like them.”

“Still. A little variety may do you good. Are you ready for these?”

He whipped the eggs with a spatula he’d pulled from a drawer. “Yeah.” Accepting the plates one by one, he dumped the diced tomatoes, peppers and mushrooms into the pan, topping it off with a generous portion of shredded cheese before he began stirring again.

She gathered up the plates she’d cut the vegetables on and headed for the trashcan, ready to dispose of the unusable parts – the core and seeds of the pepper and the dark spot where the tomato’s stem had once grown.

The trashcan’s contents were surprisingly colorful. “Flowers?” she asked, eyeing what appeared to be a discarded bouquet.

Chapter 20

“My parents sent them.” Ryan sounded like he was making an effort to keep his voice neutral, but an underlying thread of agitation was audible anyway.

“Oh.” A dozen little pangs of curiosity shot through Ally as she stared down at the unappreciated flora. “Is that your cellphone?” Several pieces of black plastic were scattered throughout the trash, peeking from between petals and stems. It looked like the device had been run over by a car.

“They called, too.”

Or maybe thrown against something. Ally frowned at the thought. “I didn’t even realize they knew how to get in touch with you.”

“They have their ways of finding things out. They made some calls, bothered some people from my old unit until they wheedled the information out of them.”

The memory of Ryan tensing as he spoke to an old marine friend on the phone flashed through Ally’s mind. “Oh.” She bit her tongue as she finally discarded the unused bits of vegetable that remained on the plate she held. Obviously, the conversation with his parents hadn’t gone well.

When she returned to the counter, he was still stirring what was clearly going to be one giant omelet. “Sorry you couldn’t get in touch with me. I was just so pissed that I threw my phone. That was pretty fucking stupid – now I don’t have one.”

“It’s okay.” She thought back to the way he’d looked when she’d first arrived that day. To look at him now, he seemed transformed. Would he have answered her text that morning if he’d been able to? Her gaze lingered on his shoulders as he watched the omelet, a spatula at the ready. It didn’t matter. Whatever had happened, she couldn’t deny that she was relieved to be with him now.

“They found out I’m not enlisted anymore.” He kept his gaze on the cooking omelet. “Wanted me to come back to New York. Like nothing ever even happened.” He grimaced down at the frying pan.

“Oh.” What else was there to say? It felt good to hear him open up to her, even if it was just to share the bare facts of his conversation with his parents. She didn’t really know enough to interject an opinion.

“Yeah.” He lowered his spatula and slipped one corner beneath the edge of the omelet, apparently testing its doneness. “Between that and the flowers, it was pretty obvious they’re out of their minds.”

“I guess it is pretty strange to send a guy flowers for his birthday.”

“I’m sure even they didn’t think I wanted flowers. They sent them to let me know that they know my address – where to find me.”

The matter of fact way he said it made his parents sound kind of creepy. It also reminded her of Manny, in a way – specifically, the way he’d been stopping by their house just to let them know he could. “Did they expect you to pack up and come home?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. They really broke out the heavy artillery – or at least, I’m sure that’s what they thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“Offered me a job. A nicer place to live than anyone really needs. Money. All that shit.”

“Your parents have a lot of money?” She wouldn’t have guessed.

“More than what’s good for them. My father is CEO of a multinational construction firm headquarted in Brooklyn. It’s a pretty successful company.”

“So I guess they were disappointed when you joined the Marine Corps instead of pursuing a white-collar career?” It wasn’t exactly easy to imagine. Yeah, work-wise she’d followed in her mother’s footsteps in a way, but it was only at a hair salon and she worked there out of necessity. Her parents would have supported her taking another path if she’d had the chance. Instead, she’d graduated high school amidst the turmoil of her father’s arrest and imprisonment.

“That’d be an understatement. I dropped out of college to join when I was less than a year away from a degree. They were furious – thought I was throwing away my future.” A bitter chuckle escaped him as he flipped the omelet. “Maybe they were right in some ways, but not in the ways they think.”

“What led you to make such a drastic decision?” A military life would be hard enough even with family support. She could only imagine what would drive someone to stick to such a choice without it.

“I wanted to do something on my own – make my own choice, you know? I felt like I was too old to just go along with whatever my parents wanted me to do. I wasn’t ready to settle down forever in the version of life they’d imagined for me. I guess that sounds ungrateful, since my life was an opportunity some people would kill to have.”

“I don’t think so.”

“No?” He looked up for the first time, casting a questioning glance in her direction.

“It’s not like you left to do something selfish. You volunteered for something that wasn’t about you – something that not many people could do. And it wasn’t easy. So why should you feel bad just because what you wanted wasn’t what your parents wanted?”

“Yeah. You’re right, but they won’t see it that way. They’re not used to not getting their way. And honestly, after all this time, I couldn’t give a shit less.”

The broken phone lying in bits and pieces in the trashcan seemed to tell a different story, but she didn’t say anything about that. It was natural that he was angry at his parents over their rejection – anyone would be, in his circumstances. “Sorry about your parents and … everything.”

He shook his head. “Not your fault.”

“No, I mean, this is a terrible birthday. I wanted to make today special for you, but it’s been anything but.”

He turned to face her, abandoning the omelet he’d been preparing to lift from the pan. “Last year on my birthday, I was in Afghanistan. Spending the day with you – sex with you and even eating omelets with you – beats the hell out of that.” The raw sincerity in his eyes defied her to disbelieve him and made her toes curl inside her socks.

“You were in Afghanistan a year ago?”

He nodded. “It was just after I turned twenty-five that I got caught in that IED explosion. A couple months after that the Marine Corps decided I wasn’t fit for duty anymore and I was honorably discharged for medical reasons.”

“Because of your TBI?”

“Yeah. That and my leg. You know how it gets stiff when I haven’t moved it for a while. Not a big deal at home, but at war it could be the difference between life and death.”

“Do you regret having been discharged – I mean, would you rather still be in the Marine Corps?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think so, other times I’m not so sure. I didn’t completely realize what I was getting into when I enlisted. Don’t know if anyone does. I guess you could say it was a love-hate relationship. But life since then has been… I don’t know. I feel like I’m just existing instead of really living. At least then I had a purpose, even if it was one I was ordered to have.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re existing here, in Baltimore.” Though they’d known each other for less than a month, the thought of never having met him made her feel strangely empty inside. He could easily have gone somewhere else – anywhere else, really.

“I don’t feel that way when I’m with you.”

“What – like you’re just existing?”

“Yeah. When you’re around, I feel alive. Like I’m living in real time again instead of watching everything pass by.”

A distinct warmth rose up inside Ally, sudden and effervescent. “Really?”

“Yeah. When I first laid eyes on you during my first day at Knockout, it was like something that had been missing for the past year or so just clicked into place. I
wanted
something – someone. It was a good feeling. When I was in Afghanistan, I wanted to come home. When I did, it wasn’t like I’d thought it would be. And then I didn’t want anything, really, because I didn’t know what
to
want. Until I saw you.”

The heat his words had kindled inside her rose to the surface, tinting her cheeks with color she could feel. The idea of being the first to capture his attention, to make him feel desire after all that time… It was mind-boggling, really. And hands-down the most flattering thing anyone had ever said to her.

“I didn’t realize…” Her tongue seemed to tie itself in knots as she thought back to when they’d first met, when she’d tried to suppress her physical attraction to him in favor of viewing him with the same careful suspicion with which she regarded all strange men.

“Yeah, well, I couldn’t tell you that then,” he said, finally scooping the omelet from the pan and sliding it onto a dinner plate. “You would’ve thought I was crazy.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy now,” she said firmly.

“Good to know.” He cut the omelet down the middle with his spatula and slid one half onto a second plate. “Here.”

She took it from him, inhaling warm air spiced with the scents of peppers, tomatoes and the other ingredients they’d stirred into the eggs.

They settled down at the table and she cut into her omelet with the side of her fork, her mind still buzzing with the pleasant sense of surprise his words had evoked. It wasn’t untainted, though – there was also the ever-present knowledge of how lonely the past months must have been for him. As flattering as it was to hear him make it sound like she’d broken – sort of – some kind of evil spell, that didn’t mean she was happy he’d had to suffer in the first place.

“Maybe you could come over to my place tomorrow,” she said, laying her fork down on the edge of her plate. “I could cook a belated birthday dinner for you.”

“As long as you don’t think I’d be intruding.”

“You wouldn’t be. It’s just me and my mother, and she likes you.”

“Does she?” He raised his eyebrows as if surprised.

“You’ve been a hero in her eyes ever since you rescued Melissa from those creeps.”

“All right. I guess you can get in some driving practice on the way over. We’ll have to pick the mustang up from my work’s lot though – it’s still there.”

For what seemed like the hundredth time, she was deeply glad she’d gone ahead and gotten a learner’s permit. Thanks to it, she could drive without guilt. “Okay. Maybe we can go out and get you a new phone first.”

He nodded. “I don’t want to be unable to get in touch with you.”

A weight Ally hadn’t realized was present disappeared from her shoulders. The idea of not being able to reach Ryan, and vice-versa, hadn’t been one she’d savored, especially in light of his recent accident.

When they finished eating, he rose from his seat and stood behind hers, wrapping his uninjured arm around her from behind and letting his hand rest on her breast, his fingers conforming to its curve. “You’re still planning to stay the night, right?”