Page 18 of Enforce This
“Trista,” I hesitantly corrected.
“Sorry,” he lifted one side of his mouth in that lopsided smile again, “I’m just saying… The man she sent over there had to adapt. He went into survival mode, and that changes a person sometimes. You can’t hate the man for doing what he had to do to survive over there.”
“You think he had PTSD?”
I’d never given it much thought. I’d never bothered trying to see the world through Mark’s eyes.
Eric’s breath visibly hitched with those four little letters, and I knew I’d hit close to home.
“It’s getting dark out there. We should get some rest.” He shifted off the dresser and started toward the bed.
“Is that what happened to you?” I couldn’t help myself.
He froze, every muscle in his body going stiff. I rose from the sofa and faced him, but I didn’t get any closer.
“I wasn’t medically discharged,” he reminded me.
“You were dishonorably discharged over drugs.” I knew that much from the way the other girls talked at the nursing home.
That was how I had kept tabs on Eric over the years since my little crush developed. My co-workers loved to hit up the Steel Disciples’s parties out at Mark’s compound and often brought back little tidbits of gossip.
He slowly turned to face me and for a moment, I thought maybe I’d gone too far. Why was I prodding this stranger? A man I only knew in my fantasies.
“Cocaine,” he managed after an intense stare down, that left me shifting my weight and mentally calculating how many steps were between me and the door. “I was dishonorably discharged over a quarter gram of cocaine.”
When I didn’t say anything, he charged toward me, and I sucked in a wild breath and side stepped toward an ancient-looking bookshelf. He didn’t reach for me, though, he blew past me and disappeared into the kitchen. A few moments later, he returned with a saltshaker and silently unscrewed the lid.
He poured a tiny pile of it on top of the bookshelf that I stood beside. It was smaller than a dime, but bigger than a pencil eraser.
“I know you don’t know what a quarter gram looks like,” he whispered, “but just so we’re clear. I wasn’t packing weight. Just a couple of lines of blow. Enough to make me numb, to let me forget the shit I had seen over there. I was on leave. Home for two weeks and the only thing in the world I wanted… Was to forget.”
I swallowed and digested his words, my eyes on that tiny pile that had changed his life.
“That’s why you became a Disciple?” I whispered, suddenly feeling like shit for being such a bitch to him.
Maybe he wasn’t biker trash. Maybe he was just someone trying to cope with the hand he was dealt.
He didn’t answer me, he ripped back the covers and gestured to the bed.
“You take it, I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.” He didn’t look at me.
He didn’t want my pity or any type of apology.
I took a deep breath and looked at the bed and the tiny room we would be sharing for the night. I was seeing him in a different light, sure… But… He was still a Disciple. His definition of what was morally acceptable and mine were vastly different…
What if it was a trick to get me into the bed so he could do something crazy?
I quickly decided that I didn’t want any part of that bed and moved toward the sofa instead. I grabbed the blanket I’d been using earlier and tried not to look at him.
“What are you–?” he blurted out, but he didn’t move to stop me when I stretched out on the sofa and brought the blanket up to my chin.
He huffed, and I heard the humor in his breath.
“Suit yourself, babe,” he whispered, causing my jaw to drop.
It took me a moment to recall that most of Mark’s friends had talked like that. It was one of the things that had stood out to me about his little get-together that day my parents were late. The men were always calling the women by pet names. Babe. Sweety. Or the one that had amused me the most at nine years old, ‘Sugar Tits.’
Perhaps it was my asking my mother what tits were, that had resulted in my not seeing Mark again until the actual day of his wedding to Princess.