Chapter 21

With the morning I had, I should've known shit was going to go awry.

It had started off perfect, too perfect.

Something I'd learned since I started waking up next to Nebraska—first thing in the morning she was sweet.

Drowsy, cuddly, and sweet.

Now that I took full advantage of—giving her soft and slow in the morning, taking my time, giving her intimacy while at the same time giving it to myself. Quiet, easy, closeness. Things I reckoned she'd never had. Things I didn't allow myself to take with the life I'd led and the suggestion of what that kind of closeness would imply.

But Nebraska was different.

I wanted the closeness and all that it implied. I wanted the quiet, easy times when it was about losing myself in the moment. It was about touch and feel. It was about using my body, hands, lips to deliver a message. It was about affection—something else that Nebraska had never experienced.

Early morning was when her guard was down. By the time she got a cup of coffee in her, she slipped right back into who she'd been taught to be. The walls came up and the mask was firmly in place. She stayed that way until I got her alone and in bed again.

Night and day.

Around Smith she was all-business. Period. A few of her fake smiles, but even those were rare.

So, yeah, I should've known she was going to close up tight the second we were back up in the office. I'd fucked up and was unprepared, but even if I would've planned accordingly I still would've vastly miscalculated her response.

It had started in the Escalade. The closer we got to office the worse it got. As soon as the elevator doors closed us into the lift she looked like she was going to come out of her skin.

I caught Smith's eye. His gaze flicked to Nebraska standing between and just in front of us, then back to me.

He didn't miss it.

Not that you could.

Whatever was eating at her occupied the air around her.

The doors opened and Nebraska hustled out. Before she could turn toward the hall to the conference room I nabbed her hand. Her reaction was over the top. Not only did she startle to the point her body jerked, she also attempted to yank her hand free.

"We'll be right in," I told Smith. I tightened my grip and damn near dragged her to my office.

Without further protest she followed.

This was my first warning shit was not right. Nebraska had no issue voicing her opinion.

As soon as we cleared the threshold of my office I released her hand and shut the door.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

She was looking me dead in the eye but she was totally vacant.

What the fuck?

"Straight up, baby, I'm not stupid. If your body language and silence wasn't obvious, which, I hate to break it to you, you're not hiding there's something wrong. You using woman-code for ‘back the fuck up, I'm gonna throat punch you' would've done it."

Her eyes got squinty.

But no right eye twitch.

Again, what the fuck?

"For your information, Mr. Smarty Pants, the woman-code word for ‘back the fuck up before you get throat punched' is ‘you're right'. Which means ‘you're wrong, but we're over it', and the next step is physical violence. Nothing means nothing."

Mr. Smarty Pants.

If she didn't look like she was ready to have a breakdown I would've laughed.

"If nothing's wrong then why do you look…" I trailed off not knowing what she looked like.

Scared.

Nervous.

"Are you worried about meeting with the team?" I finished.

That got me the universal woman stare that clearly stated I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.

Contradictorily, she said, "No."

I didn't believe her but I knew better than to call her out.

"Then what's wrong?"

"I told you, nothing. But if you don't like that answer we can try this one…none of your business."

"Thought I explained that shit last night."

"What shit?"

It took a lot to remember the woman standing in front of me had never had anyone in her life give a shit about her. So much so it was a struggle to lock down my temper. I was applying for sainthood if I managed to check my anger. If any other woman thought she could take me on this ride and throw attitude like Nebraska did, I'd jump the fuck off and she'd see the back of me.

Overly argumentative women were a total turn off. Bullshit games and drama were not my thing. At least they never had been, until Nebraska's prickly ass walked into her father's study and I got an eyeful. Now it seemed I had a taste for drama and attitude.

"I'm not going to let you retreat."

"Nothing's wrong."

"Bullshit."

Her right eye twitched. Now we were getting somewhere.

"God, you're such a—"

"Careful, baby. I didn't check but I'd venture to say you still got my handprint on your ass."

"Careful, honey. That might work while you have my head muddled and I'm naked but I promise—you try that shit while I'm pissed and fully dressed, you'll learn the true definition of getting your balls busted."

I hadn't been entirely correct in my assessment. Not only did I now have a taste for drama and attitude, I totally got off on the way Nebraska delivered it.

"Head muddled?" I asked through a smile.

"I think I want to shoot you now."

Fuck yeah, totally got off on her throwing attitude.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Bullshit. Tell me what's wrong."

"I'm worried about Charlie," she shouted.

Well, fuck.

"I haven't talked to him since…well you know. And no one's mentioned him."

Not since she found out he'd kept a really fucking big secret from her.

"So ask Kira for a—"

"I can't ask Kira about Charlie."

"Why the hell not?"

Belatedly she glanced around my office. There wasn't anything special about the room I tried my very best to spend as little time in as I could. Unlike the others, I hadn't added a single personal item to the space. The cream walls were bare. The desk had a closed laptop sitting on it and nothing else. A high-back leather chair that I had to admit was comfortable as fuck, but still I loathed my ass being in it. And two chairs on the opposite side of the desk.

Nothing else.

"Is this your office?" she asked.

I knew she was deflecting but something in her tone made me answer, "Yep."

Her eyes moved around the room again, going as far as craning her neck to look behind her.

"You've worked here awhile," she rightly pointed out.

"Yep."

"Have you not moved your stuff in?"

Stuff?

I had no idea where she was going with this and we had a meeting to get to.

"We got people waiting on us—"

"Why haven't you decorated your office?"

We didn't have time to talk about the state of my office. But since this topic seemed to mean something to her I gave her what she wanted in hopes we could get back to Charlie and why she felt she couldn't ask Kira for an update.

"I come in here only when I have to. Get work done then get the hell out. I'm not a behind-a-desk kind of guy."

Her gaze came back to me.

"I can see that. But still, where's your stuff?"

"What stuff?"

"You know, pictures of family. Awards. Cool snapshots of you and your buds in multi-cam strapped with gear. A plant. I don't know, posters of hot chicks on Harleys or bathing suit models on the hoods of hot rods. Stuff."

I didn't find it pertinent to the conversation to tell her I'd never had a poster—not hot chicks, not bathing suit models, not of a band, nothing. Growing up, my mother would lose her mind if I tacked something up in my room. A half-naked woman would've sent her into cardiac arrest. My father wouldn't have said anything one way or another about it. He deferred to his wife and followed the same rules of the house that I did.

"I see my family every day. Why the hell would I need pictures of them? As for the rest, I don't need to display awards. I earned ‘em, don't need to show that shit off like a douche who wants whoever walks in to know how important he thinks he is. I don't need a plant in here because I'm never in here and I'd kill it. And I'm forty-five."

"I know how old you are, Easton, but I don't understand what your age has to do with anything."

Of course she knew how old I was and not from me telling her. She had a full workup on my entire team.

"Right. So seeing as I'm a grown-ass man, bikini posters wouldn't be douchey, they'd communicate to whoever walked in that I had a small dick and couldn't get past it, never learned how to use the pinky dick those posters would say I had. We both know that's not the truth. And straight up, posters are just lame."

"You see your family every day?"

"Yep."

"But they live in Alaska," she carefully told me something I was very aware of.

Another tidbit of information her dossier would reveal. A month after I joined the Navy, my parents up and moved to Anchorage. They hadn't told their son before he left for basic that his father had taken a new job and the move was imminent. They hadn't written me a letter to tell me about the move. No, not my parents; they moved, didn't give me a new address, and I only found out when I completed Battle Stations and was allowed a phone call home. During which time, I also found out with my father's new job being so far away they wouldn't be coming to my Pass-In-Review.

"My family is in the conference room waiting for us."

"Easton," she whispered.

I felt the burn of her pity. The sympathy-laced whisper that was so unwelcomed I forgot who she was and what she'd gone through.

"Don't."

My warning was met with her jerking her shoulders back.

I knew she was gearing up to snap back, something I wasn't in the right frame of mind or mood to deal with. So I swung us back to why we were in my office in the first place.

"Why don't you want to ask Kira about Charlie?"

That goddamned right eye twitched right before she stepped closer.

Not a good idea.

I stepped back.

"Ah," she drew out the word, interjecting a fuckton of snark into it. "I see how it is. You give some bullshit speech about how nothing's private between us, you push me to tell you all sorts of stuff I don't want to tell you, but when the tables are turned you get to change the topic. And I'll point out, you changed it back to something I don't want to talk about. But you won't give me the option not to talk about it. How about this, Easton? How would you like it if I told you I wasn't going to let you retreat?"

She'd emphasized a bunch of yous, mes, and I's. Adding to that, she'd squared up with her hand up, finger out, and was jabbing it into me as she spoke.

"Not a fan of the finger, Nebraska."

"Well I'm not a fan of being pushed. Nor am I a fan of being bossed around. Nor am I a fan as you so crassly put it, of the man who I'm banging closing down and acting like an asshole because I expressed emotion at his pain."

The man she was banging.

That sounded all sorts of wrong coming out of her pretty mouth.

"They're not worth the emotion," I rumbled.

"They might not be, but you are."

But you are.

You are.

Her hand dropped, went to her hip, and she proceeded to rip me to shreds.

"You know," she stated, softening her voice. "I never go into a situation without all the intel I can get my hands on. So, you know that I know you joined the Navy right after you graduated high school. I know your parents moved from the house you were raised in to Alaska shortly after. I couldn't find any records of you ever visiting them in Anchorage, though that only means you didn't fly there. I could have no way of knowing why or what that meant but I know enough to know whatever the reasons are, they're not good. That's all I know. I didn't dig deeper."

It wouldn't have mattered if she did, there was nothing there for her to find. No abuse. No neglect. Nothing. Just a whole lot of nothing.

"Though you took a yearly trip to South Dakota. The only family you had there was your grandfather. Once he passed you handled his estate and stopped going."

Once my pop died, there was no reason to go back to South Dakota.

"You don't have to tell me why. You don't have to explain your parents. But what you have to do is remember it was you who asked me to trust you. If you can't—"

"You're right."

Her eyes narrowed.

"I don't have a vagina, baby, so when I say you're right what I'm saying is you're right. I asked you to trust me. And you're right to call me on my shit. I don't talk about my parents because there's nothing to talk about. They fed, clothed, and housed me. The end. My childhood was unremarkable. No story. No trauma. No lies. No dysfunction. Just nothing. When I left for the Navy that didn't change. I just no longer slept under their roof and they were no longer responsible to feed me. But that shit actually stopped when I was fifteen and got a job. By the time I was sixteen and one of them no longer needed to cart me around, I spent as much time away from the house as I could. They had no issue with this. Hell, I'm not even sure if they knew I was gone."

"I caution to say this, but that's dysfunction, honey."

I shrugged, not knowing if it was dysfunction or simply two selfish people who never should've had a child.

"What I know is, it was fucked growing up not having anyone give a shit about you. You can slap whatever label on it but that's the truth of it. So, again, my family is in the conference room. Smith, Jonas, Cash, and Garrett, those are my brothers. Theo slipped in when Garrett left. Kira and Layla joined the team and they have my heart. Zane and the rest have become family, too."

"Is that why you didn't fake your death like Theo did?"

Jesus fuck, the woman was thorough.

"Yep. No need. I didn't have a family like Theo did who would miss him. As you know, Cash didn't either."

Suddenly her features went soft and the tension left her body. A look I'd only seen first thing in the morning, when she was still sleepy and hadn't climbed behind her walls.

"I don't want to ask Kira to look into what Charlie's doing because I don't want anyone to think I'm weak."

Christ.

No prompting, no fighting, no coaxing.

"Why the hell would anyone think you're weak for asking about your father?"

"He lied to me my whole life."

"He kept a secret," I corrected, unsure why I was defending the asshole.

"That's the same thing."

"If you live in black and white, sure. But we don't, and people like us understand the varying degrees of grey."

The tension she'd lost in her shoulders came back tenfold. Clearly I was doing myself no favors pointing out what we both knew to be true.

"You think it's okay he kept that from me? My mother—"

"No, I'm not saying that at all. You know I think it's fucked. I think he should've told you a long time ago. What I'm saying is I don't know why he didn't tell you and neither do you. Zane gave you good wisdom, Nebraska; family isn't perfect and what was meant to protect can hurt. Charlie hurt you but the piece you don't have is the most important one—the why. Straight up his reasons might not be good enough for you. But at least you'll know and move accordingly. But mostly what I'm saying is no one in that room is going to think you're weak for loving your father. You can't turn off love just because you're hurt and angry. It doesn't work that way, baby."

"Do you still love your parents after—"

"Yes. It's a distant love, but yes, it's still there. That doesn't mean I want anything to do with them but I can't deny I love them. And maybe that's all you're left with—a distant, nostalgic love that's rooted in gratefulness. My parents didn't give me much but I didn't have it bad."

She didn't look convinced and I couldn't blame her.

"Our situations are very different," I started to explain but got no further.

"Not by much," she contradicted. "We were both fed, clothed, and housed but neither of us got the important stuff."

I felt my chest compress and my throat felt like someone had wrapped a hand around it and was choking me.

"Zane was right," she went on softly. "I grew up being trained, not loved or cared for. I knew that already. I just didn't understand until I met you, all that I was missing."

I could take no more.

"We need to get to the conference room," I announced.

Hurt saturated her eyes before she covered it up with attitude.

"You're right," she hissed.

Fuck, her girly growl was cute.

I smiled at that, knowing her definition of that statement.

"I am, baby. After you gave me that, I have two options; fuck you on my desk to show you how much what you just gave me means to me or get your ass out of my office into the conference room so we can get this shit over with so I can get you home and fuck you in our bed. I'm good with either of those but I'm thinking you'd appreciate the office not hearing you when I get you to moan sweet for me."

Her eyes narrowed.

"I don't moan sweet for you."

"Right again; you moan sweet for me in the mornings. At night you pant, whimper, and groan. I'm thinking right now with how I'm feeling, the enormity of it, you're not gonna be moaning sweet. I'm gonna get you wild and you're gonna scream for me."

"Easton—"

"Honest to God, Nebraska. You finally gave me you. We need to get the fuck out of this office or I won't be responsible for what comes next."

Unfortunately she didn't hightail her ass to the door. She stared at me with no small amount of panic.

"I promised I'd go gentle. I'm not going back on that but I'm not fuckin' around with this anymore. You said it straight out—until me, you didn't understand what you were missing. Which means I got in there. There's no going back, and if you try, swear to fuck, Nebraska, I won't let you."

I watched with spellbound fascination as Nebraska struggled with her emotions. The battle might've been internal but she looked bloody and beaten by the time her lids drifted closed.

"I won't go down easy." Her whisper tinged with regret.

"That's not lost on me."

"I'm gonna make you want to leave."

I stayed silent and let her finish.

"I'm gonna lie and hide and push you away."

I waited for her to continue and when she didn't I asked, "Is that all?"

Her eyes popped open.

"Isn't that enough?"

Any other woman, it would've been more than enough to get me gone.

"Trust. Me."

Another epic battle ensued. During which she held my gaze. I knew I won when she started sucking in breaths deep enough to make her heave.

"Easton—"

"Trust. Me."

"I—"

"Nebraska, trust me."

"Okay," she breathed.

Two syllables that were nothing more than whisper. One word that floated across the space and slammed into my chest.

Fucking finally.

"Okay," I repeated.

I knew this wouldn't be the last time I had to beg her to trust me.

I knew she was going to backslide.

I knew she was going to fight like the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels to get me to leave her.

It was time to show Nebraska Michaels all that she'd been missing. And if that didn't work, I'd play dirty. It didn't matter to me how I won, just that I was going to win by any means necessary.