Pas de Deux: Part One (A Cross and Pointe Novel Book 1) (15 page)

Sammi gave an enthusiastic nod, unable to speak due to the monstrous bite she’d just taken. She swallowed. “Possibly the best thing I’ve eaten here besides my mother’s cooking.”

“Your mom’s a good cook?”

“The best.”

He grinned. “Wish I knew what that was like. My mom, God bless her, she loves to cook but she’s mostly terrible at it. When my sister and I were kids, Pop used to pay us quarters to pretend we liked her meals, just to protect her feelings. These days, he does the cooking.”

Sammi chuckled, pulling a piece of bread off her sandwich to swipe up cheese whiz. “Ma grew up in my nonna’s kitchen. Sunday dinner is a staple in our family and she always makes enough for an army. Although, there’s almost that many people in my parents’ apartment every Sunday.”

“You got a big family?”

“Pretty big. Two older sisters, Niq and Toni. They’re both married and have two kids apiece. Then there’s Uncle Gino, my dad’s brother. So it’s pretty crowded in there. But that’s what makes it so much fun. And loud.”

“You close to your sisters?”

“Very close. Had a lot fights growing up,” she added wryly, “but we’ve always been close.”

“Sam…Niq…and Toni.” Cillian chuckled. “You three sound like a bunch of wiseguys.”

Sammi laughed too. “When Niq was born, Pop decided to name her after his father Dominic because he didn’t want the name to to go to waste. Same thing with Toni—she’s named after Dad’s grandpa, Anthony. I got my mother’s father’s name, Salvatore. Somehow everybody called him Sam. Don’t ask me why.”

“My mom would’ve had a shit-fit if my pops tried to name my sister after a man.”

“That’s why she insisted on feminine versions—Dominique, Antonia, and Samantha. Nobody ever calls us that, except for her, and that’s usually only when she’s pissed off at us.”

“When did you move to Boston?”

“Toni came out here with her husband first, then my parents and I moved last year when—after, um—” Sammi cleared her throat, taking a sip of her drink, and Cillian tilted his head curiously.

“After wh—”

“Then Niq and her husband moved out here earlier this year,” Sammi interrupted hastily. “My parents invested in the apartment complex and then opened the bakery. They always wanted a couple family businesses.”

“And what about you?”

“I really wanna teach dance full-time. I’ve been planning to open my own studio for a while now, and I’m getting closer. Not having to pay rent helps, since I live in the place my parents own. I’m saving all my money for the place I want.”

“Dance studio sounds pretty cool. My niece is into dance. Where’s your studio gonna be?”

“There’s a spot downtown, an old building that hasn’t been claimed yet. I’m saving enough money for the down payment so the bank will grant me the loan for the rest. I’m scared someone will snap it up before me.”

“Teachin’ at the rec center getting old?”

“No, I love teaching at the rec. Just wish it was my place.”

“Do you dance? I mean, like, performances or whatever.”

Sammi lowered her eyes and shook her head. “I haven’t danced onstage in a long time. I don’t do that anymore. I just teach.”

“Why?”

“Just—just not my thing anymore.” She flashed a quick, wry smile. “There’s a local talent showcase coming up in June. Jazz tried to be sneaky and entered me.”

“You gonna do it?”

“Hell, no.” She made a face. “It did kind of inspire me to practice my choreography skills, though. I’ve been working on a piece. Just to stay in practice.”

“That sounds hard. Coming up with all those dance moves.”

“You know, I’ve always thought dancing and fighting were similar. You have to know your body, it has to be strong and trained. There’s certain precise movements and technique that only work when you do them absolutely correctly. When I watch you spar with someone, it’s like watching a pas de deux.”

“
A what
?”

“It’s a ballet term, meaning literally, ‘step of two’. It’s a duet, where two dancers move in perfect harmony with each other. It’s really beautiful.” She looked away, toying with the edge of the cardboard tray. “So is the way you fight—the way you move.”

Cillian cleared his throat, suddenly feeling warm and uncomfortable in that not-unpleasant way again. “So what made your family move from New York?” He glanced over at her, frowning at the way her body stiffened suddenly, her shoulders hunching up around her ears like she was flinching. “Sammi?”

She pushed the remains of her sandwich away and sighed heavily, looking out the window. Cillian sat patiently, waiting for her to speak as he watched her chew her bottom lip. Finally, Sammi looked at him. The pain in her eyes made his chest tighten, his skin rippling with a sudden wash of goosebumps. 

“Something…happened to me in New York, and my parents decided I needed a change of scenery to get better. We made the decision to move out here with Toni and her husband. Because we’re as close as we are, Niq and her husband came, too, so we could all be together again.”

As though she could read the next question in his eyes, she quickly gathered up their trash, sliding off her stool to throw it away. “It’s getting late. I better go before I miss this bus.”

“Let me give you a ride home.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“Sammi, it’s late as shit, and I don’t think takin’ the bus is the safest thing to do.”

Her face hardened a little. “I’m not some broken little doll, Cillian.”

“I know you’re not. I don’t think it’s safe for anyone to take the bus at this hour. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to. C’mon.” He held open the door for her.

Her forehead creased as her brows drew together, but she followed him silently.

On the walk back to the gym, Cillian shoved his hands in his pockets and glanced over at her. She hugged herself, looking at the tips of her shoes.

Don’t shut down on me.

He told her in the gym that he might be able to help her, and right now, the only way to do that was to talk to her about his own experiences—something he’d never done with anyone other than Matthews and Meyer.

Instinctively, he knew she would understand, because though their experiences were undoubtedly different, they were both in the same painful boat.

S.S. Trauma.

“When I was in Afghanistan,” he began quietly, “I saw some really fucked up shit. You hear about the bad shit that happens at war, but civilians just have no idea what it’s like. And they shouldn’t.”

Sammi glanced at him. “What did you see?”

They reached the truck and Cillian opened the passenger door for her, then got in behind the wheel. He started the engine and pulled out of the stall.

“Aftermath of shootouts, IEDs, suicide bombers. The way people live in fear, every single day. That was the easy stuff.”

Why did I start? This is too fucking hard.

But Sammi had shared something personal about herself, and his gut twisted to do the same. She needed help, and so did he.
Maybe we can help each other
.

Sammi looked at him. “You said something earlier that made me wonder if you have a hard time with…I dunno. War stuff.” She shrugged. “I hope I’m not being insensitive. All I know is what everyone knows, that you saved some soldiers’ lives over there. But you always get really tense when people talk about it. It walk all over you when we were watching ESPN.”

“I hate the ‘hometown hero’ shit. I don’t like being the center of attention. And I just—” Phantom steel fingers crept up his throat, squeezing.
Here we go.
“I’m a fraud. I’m no hero.”

“What do you mean? Of course you are.”

Cillian shook his head slowly. “I didn’t do nothin’ they wouldn’t have done for me, had the roles been reversed. But I had the chance to save someone’s life. And I didn’t.”

“Who didn’t you save?”

“One of my best friends.” His hand tightened on the steering wheel and the phantom fingers squeezed harder. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“My favorite kind.” Sammi flashed him a small, reassuring smile.

“One day on our last deployment, we went on a patrol mission, the four of us. We were bored as hell, so we volunteered to go just to have something else to do. Went to a little town called Husseiba, outside Ramadi. Commander gave us intel that the enemy was holed up someplace in the town, and our job was to track down the location and bring it back so they could organize a mission to apprehend them.”

Heat prickled his skin along his collar. 

“We found the hideout, we found the enemy, ‘cause they weren’t even hiding—they were waiting for soldiers, for us, to come along. That wasn’t anything new, we’d been in dozens of shootouts before then. But…”

I can’t do this.

He didn’t need light to know that his knuckles were white from his death-grip on the wheel, and suddenly, he was out of breath. His heart pounded so fast in his chest that it was impossible to draw in air that would reach the bottom of his lungs.

“It’s okay.” Her quiet whisper in the dark truck cab steeled him.

“This time it was different because they had women and children with them. We couldn’t just leave them. So we engaged the enemy. And…it’s really hard to shoot around human shields.”

“Human…shields? The…the kids?”

Cillian nodded slowly, his eyes on the road. But it wasn’t the dark Boston street he was driving on that he was seeing. It was a narrow alleyway in a tiny town across the world, where everything was the same shade of dusty khaki and everything was hot and bloody and fucking miserable. The
pop-pop-pop
of a rifle jackhammered in his ears and his temples pulsed from the pain of it.

“We retreated to the Humvee and they started chasing us in some shitty little sedan. Meyer was driving, I was in the passenger seat, and Lee and Matthews were in the back. There were only three or so in their car, so we lit ‘em up as we went. Next thing I knew, we ran right into the side of a building, and the Humvee caught on fire.”

He coughed a little, the ghost of acrid black smoke from burning fuel blazing in his lungs.
Not enough air. Can’t breathe.

“I got knocked out for a couple seconds, and when I woke up, Meyer was slumped over the wheel. Lee was out, too, and Matthews had a broken arm. I had to protect my guys, ‘cause I was the only one not hurt as bad. I leaned out the window with my rifle and made sure the bad guys were dead. Then the fire got worse, and I had to get the guys outta there. So I did, I got ‘em out and dragged ‘em as far as I could, and then the Humvee exploded.”

Spring in Boston was unpredictable; it could be warm or snowy. This spring was on the cool side, especially tonight, but Cillian felt a drop of sweat bead on his brow. It wasn’t springtime in Afghanistan. Springtime didn’t exist in the hell of the desert he was in. It didn’t exist there for the damned, in the place that ripped out his soul and never apologized for a single moment of the horror he lived.

Sammi let out a long, shaky breath. “They never shared those details on the news.”

“The media never got the details.”

There was a long silence. “What happened to…Lee?”

“He fell apart after Husseiba. The women and the kids… He started gettin’ distracted on missions; he’d freeze up when we had to clear rooms. The sight of dead bodies of women and kids would make him physically sick. I’d hear him in the barracks after lights-out—for two weeks, he’d cry at night when he thought everyone was asleep. He just…changed.”

“Changed how?”

“He used to be such a smiley dude. Everything was funny to him, he could find the joke in any situation. He’d get in trouble during boot ‘cause he smiled so much and then tried to joke with the drill sergeants, and then we’d all get smoked for hours until we thought we were gonna die.” Cillian smiled a little, then he sighed. “That was the Lee we all knew for years. Everyone’s buddy. After Husseiba, he stopped smiling. Stopped laughing. Stopped joking. One night about three months later, he went out to one of the Humvees—he must have stolen the keys from command—and he shot himself with his pistol. Nobody heard it, because he made a point to use a suppressor.”

“Oh, my God. Cillian—I’m so sorry.”

His eyes stung; the wind in Afghanistan was like no other and without protective goggles, it tore at the eyes and made them water like fire hydrants. When the sandstorms passed through, he and the guys would give each other shit about being crybabies.

“That’s why I ain’t a hero, why I hate being called that. If I was a real hero, I’d have been able to save my friend. I would’ve—I would’ve seen the signs that were just
there
. I would’ve paid closer attention. I would’ve said something to someone, even if it pissed Lee off. Maybe he’d hate me for it, but at least…at least he’d be here today.”

Sammi’s hand crept toward his, then stopped and returned to her lap. “You can’t do that,” she said gently. “There wasn’t anything you could’ve done. You’re not a mind reader, Cillian, and you were at war. He made a choice.”

“I just can’t accept that. ‘Cause at the end of it all, my friend is dead, and I can’t do anything about it.”

The steel fingers dug into his throat hard enough to make speaking impossible for a moment.

“Don’t do that to yourself, Cillian. You don’t deserve it.”

Guilt tore through his chest, through his brain, like a single gunshot. Like the bullet that had ended Lee’s life. “I—I should have—”

“Don’t, Cillian. You don’t have to.”

Her small, cool hand landed on his, squeezing tight around his fingers. Afghanistan receded to the rearview mirror, and he returned to Boston, slowly.

The breeze of the night brushed his forehead like a gentle kiss, chilling his sweaty brow, and he finally drew in the deep breath his lungs craved after all that smoke inhalation. The little cool fingers around his hand squeezed again, calming his pounding heart.

At her apartment, he followed her to the entrance of the building, and then up to her unit. When they reached her door, she turned to face him, playing with her keys before looking up at him shyly.

“Thank you, Cillian. For dinner, for taking me home. For…helping me out. For telling me about you.”