Surrender Read online

  If a Navy SEAL who lost his leg in combat tells you that you belong, you don’t question it. Also, he’s not wrong about the Oprah interview. I’d told her about lying in the mud, witnessing a friend’s violent death right outside of my house. What I didn’t say is that I’d loved Leopold, and he’d loved me. I also left out the part where I ran back to my house and found my mother’s kitchen knife.

  I may have been only fourteen years old, but I was already over six and a half feet tall and very strong, and not a single man who put his hands on my Leopold walks this earth today. While I still sometimes struggle with having witnessed his brutal murder, I have zero guilt or trauma about removing his murderers from the equation.

  Hm. Maybe I do belong here.

  That’s good, because a lot of the guys here are hot.

  Like, really… hot.

  So, I’m not exactly gonna fight him on that, you know?

  I am more comfortable with admitting to myself that I am gay, but I’m still not out, not really. It’s not that I’m worried about being a public figure; I have plenty of money and don’t require anyone’s approval. I’m not even concerned about the dating scene because I already know who I want.

  Jake.

  I have since the moment I met him and he spoke to me in French with that soft Texas accent, the twang and the purr tangling on his tongue like velvet. From that first moment, I wanted to taste it… to taste him.

  And I know that he wants me in the same way.

  I just have to figure out how to navigate my public life with wanting to date a person trying to navigate their own recovery. His progress over these last several months has been amazing to witness. He prioritizes his sobriety, he seems to be more centered, and Scout says that he’s been able to pay down a lot of his medical and attorneys’ bills since he’s been staying at her condos. I think he’s self-conscious about living rent-free, but he more than earns his keep in their small condo community.

  He’s also slowed way down on the dating merry-go-round, and this most recent guy is already on the bubble. Put it to you this way: I have not been jealous of a single man he’s been with in this last year, and his newest pseudo-rich asshole is no exception.

  Now that Jake is settling down, I hope that I am able to show him that he can trust me, and that he’ll let me care for him with my well-read, if inexperienced hands.

  “Jean-Pierre, can you show them how to get into eagle pose?”

  My attention snaps back to the class, and I preen a little because Jake needs my help. To get into the complex position, I stand on one foot and bend that knee, then cross the other leg over the standing leg, forearms crossed in front of me, hands in a backward clasp. It’s a fun pose because you’re supposed to hold it for a minute, then spread your arms out like wings and place your foot on the ground like a bird landing on a branch. With my wingspan, it’s pretty impressive.

  When it works.

  I do well in the first part, making sure to concentrate while in the twisted pose. When I see Jake looking back at me with affection, biting his lower lip, my ankle wobbles, then my knees go soft, and finally I lose my balance entirely. I have to plant the second foot, but then the mat goes out from under me and… ouch.

  There’s a lot of me, and I make a big noise when I hit the ground. Jake freezes—it hurts my heart when he does that—but within seconds he’s shaken it off and makes his way through the class to kneel next to me. “Jean-Pierre? Mon dieu, tu es blessé? Dois-je appeler quelqu’un?”

  He puts his hand on my face in a tender gesture, and I lean into it. “No, my friend. I am not hurt, save for my pride. No need to call anyone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I smile, despite the bruise beginning to form on my arm. “Oui. I just got… distracted.”

  His eyes go a little shy as they get caught on my gold eyeliner. He wears eyeliner sometimes, too, but only ever in his signature black. Like I said, I’m not really out, but with these small touches… I’ve stopped actively hiding it. It was a suggestion from my ex-wife, and a good one, I think.

  He spends a few extra seconds gliding his hands over my body, just to be sure, and when his eyes meet mine again, the Koenig flush that I have become so enamored of creeps up his throat and face in a path that I want to follow with my tongue. I run my hand up and down his arm to reassure him and say, “I’m not hurt in the slightest. I promise that the falls on the basketball court were far more brutal.”

  I allow him to help me get up, and after reassuring him again, we begin the class once more. Thankfully, the drama seems to have drummed the chatty out of everyone, and we finish our session in relative quiet.

  After class, I stick around and help him with the mats and other yoga gear. It’s usually pretty easy to talk to him, but he’s looking down and his brow is furrowed. I’m guessing that he’s in his head about how the class went.

  Even when they don’t go to plan, I know that he enjoys these classes; the way his darkness lifts is evidence enough of that. I’ve only ever seen him that light when he talks about art, which in his hands is a gorgeous mixture of paint and photography and found objects. Over the last several months, I’ve seen him go from a completely closed-off piece of obsidian to something softer, more pliant. He’s never told me his story, but I’ve caught enough of the side conversations, recognized enough of the trauma in the way he holds his body, that I know he’s been through some serious trauma recovery. He rarely freezes anymore, which is why I know that now is the time.

  Still, there is the occasional something—a loud noise, a particular smell, various agitating factors that are difficult to predict—that makes him stop midway through sentences and strides, like someone else has access to a pause button over which he has no control.

  I’m about to break the silence and see if he wants to join me for coffee when a man with a confident bearing and a cane walks over to us. Jake sees him and braces, then turns to me. “Jean-Pierre, I need to chat with my old friend. I’ll call you later to see how you’re doing.”

  My eyes narrow, and I wonder who the hell this man is. “Of course, Jake. I look forward to it.”

  Before walking out the door, I turn and watch as Jake greets the man with a complicated handshake. “DB in the flesh. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  The man he’s talking to is black, in his early thirties, and wearing civilian clothes, but the perfect posture despite the cane, the perfectly edged high-and-tight fade, and my own creeping agitation give him away.

  That man is military; I’d bet my life on it. I glare at him so that he knows he’s being examined, memorized. I want to know what he is doing here, and I wonder if this is the man with the pause button.

  Chapter Two

  Jake

  “Jake, buddy, it’s good to see you. But you gotta tell me, was that Jean-Pierre Sehene giving me murder-eye?”

  DeShaun Blaylock, DB to his friends, standing with me in the world’s tiniest kitchen, is still very much a fan of the gym. He and I attended the Naval Academy at the same time, each of us with plans to go on to BUD/S training and become big damn heroes. It’s laughable when I think about how idealistic we’d been. At the end of our youngster year, a few of us were invited to take a series of advanced aptitude tests, which set us on a completely different path. Life quickly disabused us of the notion that we were meant be anything remotely heroic.

  In addition to an IQ of one hundred fifty, I tested lower in leadership but higher in art and analysis, and the way those combine in my brain made me a valuable asset for operations outside of the typical Naval Academy career path. A straightforwardly analytical mind works in ways that can be predicted. Add an artist’s thought process to the mix, and you can keep your enemies on the back foot for a long time. Sprinkle in some covert technology training, and now you have an unpredictable asset with the keys to all of the locked doors.

  At the beginning of 2/C, while everyone else was signing commitment papers, my small cohort was given the opportunity
to sign up for a different kind of training and a different, more constitutionally ambiguous career path. It was exhilarating… until it was not.

  Now, what was he talking about? Oh, yeah. Jean-Pierre. “Um, yes. He is quite protective. Of this space.”

  “Yeah… of the space,” he says, raising his eyebrow. “You okay, dude?”

  I’ve gotten a little glazed, to be honest, and I answer truthfully, “Sure. I’m glad to see you, but it brings up some stuff.”

  “Me too,” he says quietly.

  We hang with the awkward silence for a beat or two, then DB picks up where he left off. “So, wait, Sehene is gay?”

  I focus on the wall, which is uncomfortably close. “He’s not out as far as I know.”

  DB isn’t buying it. “He’s wearing gold eyeliner.”

  “That he is,” I respond, checking out the table, my shoes, the new coffee machine, pretty much anything except my old… supervisor? I guess technically he was my commanding officer, but our organization did not use or have a lot of parlance around rank.

  “Mmmhmmm.”

  I gesture to the table in the closet-like kitchen, and while he sits, I make a point of locking the door so that we won’t be disturbed. Hoping to clear the cobwebs, I snark, “Wait, shouldn’t I be calling you ‘sir’ or something?”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “Oh, fuck no. We’re both civilians now.”

  I scoff at the designation. “Yeah, well, neither of us are civilians by choice.”

  DB pats his knee. “Too true. Though, I have to say I’m relieved to see you looking so healthy. In your goth way, that is.” He gestures at my layered black yoga gear.

  I roll my eyes and lift both of my middle fingers.

  He leans forward, placing his forearms on the table. “Seriously, though. I’d heard that you were struggling after what went down in Paris, but it looks like you’ve turned it around.”

  “Struggling. That’s a cute way of putting it. But yeah, two years sober last month.”

  A grin splits his handsome face. “Outstanding. The team and I have been rooting for you.”

  “The team? I assumed after I crashed and burned, they’d want to disown, you know, the asshole who couldn’t hack it.”

  DB lets out a long, low whistle and scrubs his head with the palm of his hand. “Okay, lots to unpack here. First, if you’re an asshole, then I’m an asshole. Second, remind me—what’s the truth about torture, Jake?”

  I blow out a puff of air, frustrated. “Everybody breaks.”

  “That’s right—everybody breaks. Everybody gives up secrets. Everybody responds to pain with information that is helpful to the enemy. Do you have any clue—any clue at all—what the Russian team said about us after all of that went down?”

  I bump my closed fist on the counter, annoyed and frustrated. “No, of course not. I was revoked and sent packing. Nobody told me anything.”

  Ignoring my petulance, he answers the question. “According to the allied team who captured them, they said, ‘Don’t fuck with the Americans.’”

  I look up, shocked. “Really?”

  Nodding, he responds, “Yeah, really. Breaking under torture is personality agnostic, and you didn’t even fucking break.”

  “They weren’t exactly asking me questions.” I’m not even sure they had a goal in mind. I felt like a CPR training doll, but with less tongue and more cigar burns.

  “Yeah, well, the ambushes that affected every branch with a ground presence came to a halt and never happened again with the same frequency or list of casualties as before. That means you didn’t offer us up, either.”

  “Didn’t occur to me.” Lie.

  “Sure, Jake. I believe you.”

  We sit for a moment as I contemplate his words and feel a little less shitty about myself. DB continues. “So, you’re the baddest motherfucker our team has ever had, and the fact that you’re grouchy makes half of us like you even more.”

  DB sounds way more complimentary about my service than I do in my head, and I try to siphon off some of that confidence. Still, that begs a question. “What’s the team doing now?”

  DB cocks his head to the side. “You don’t know?”

  I shake my head and gesture my confusion. “Of course not. They cut me off from all intelligence.”

  “We were disbanded about a year ago.”

  “Why?”

  “Budget cuts, the constitution, the president, you name it.”

  “Wait, they fucked up a bunch of people with their training and then just let them loose in the world? What the hell is everyone doing now?”

  “Now that’s the question you should be asking,” he says, reaching into his jacket pocket. He produces a business card, which he slides across the table to me. I run my thumb across the raised lettering. Blaylock Security and Investigations. The cell number has a Dallas area code.

  “I didn’t think that we were supposed to fraternize on the outside.”

  “Eh, that was more of a suggestion. And they fired us, so fuck ’em.”

  Yeah, that sounds about right. “So, you gonna tell me what this visit is all about, or are we going to start braiding each other’s hair?”

  He chuckles, shaking his head. “You still up on your skills?”

  “Which ones? Wet or dry?”

  “Dry. I don’t do wet anymore.”

  “Then yes,” I say with a smirk. The clanging barbells in the background remind me that I’m in Austin, Texas, and not on a mission halfway across the planet. I’m happy to flex my hacker skills, but killing folks, even the ones who desperately need it, is a trigger. One out of ten stars, do not recommend.

  “Good. Would you be willing to lend those skills to me from time to time? There’s good money in it.”

  I think about my shitty El Camino and the never-ending medical bills and the dwindling art supplies and it takes about 2.3 seconds to nod. Scratching my head, I admit, “I don’t have the equipment for it, though.”

  Alcohol leads to pawn shops, at least in my experience.

  “Didn’t think you would. What, exactly, does an uber-hacker need these days?”

  “I’ll send you the details. Fair warning, it won’t be cheap.”

  “Never is,” DB says with a wink. He knocks the table twice, indicating that we’re done with that discussion. With that, he shifts back and narrows his eyes at me, asking a question without asking it.

  “Spit it out, DB.”

  He raises his eyebrows at the sass and asks what his body language hadn’t quite managed to articulate. “How is it that you ended up working with Rolando Martinez?”

  Roly and Nick Martinez are the cousins who own Wrecked, and I’m not surprised that DB had done his due diligence.

  “Family connection—my sister-in-law is his cousin.” I hold out my hands when he takes on a concerned expression. “I know what you’re thinking, and Martinez doesn’t know me like that.”

  “So, he doesn’t know that you worked the intelligence on his kidnapping? That the man who helped him…”

  “No. And I wasn’t the one who managed his file. I work in a space with a particular concentration of vets, DB. Crossover was bound to happen. Hell, he’s not the only one in this gym who has connections to previous ops.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You remember those twin Nordic-looking motherfuckers who took that extra-special ops gig in the Hill Country?”

  “The Bash Brothers? No way. Damn, they’re hot.”

  “No shit,” I say, getting jittery. I’ve gotten better with a lot of things, but small spaces still make my eyelids itch. I don’t usually spend a lot of time in the kitchen with the door closed.

  “So, you’ve not shared anything with Martinez, I take it.”

  I refocus and narrow my eyes at him. “You know me better than that. And anyway, to him I’m just a Buddhist yogi who likes to wear black.”

  He raises an eyebrow at me. “You’re more than that.”

  “And you’re more t
han just a guy with a cane,” I say, flipping his business card through my knuckles.

  “You got that right.”

  We look at each other for several seconds, silent in the knowing.

  “All right, then,” I say, standing up. “We’ll be in touch.”

  DB stands with me, and I walk him out the door.

  I’m definitely going to need a meeting tonight.

  Chapter Three

  Jean-Pierre

  I walk into my condo as my phone rings. “Heath, buddy! How’s it going?” My business manager and I speak at least once a week, and he did such a good job of helping me and Scout set up as angel investors for Wrecked that she’d like to discuss doing more together in the future. That said, this call is more personal than business, and I’m a little nervous.

  “If everything goes well with the closing, I should be moving to Austin in a few weeks, and then we can start thinking ESPN, start thinking podcasts, start thinking chat shows, start thinking bit parts in movies. A buddy of mine has an in with Linklater. There’s a lot we can do with you here.”

  “Well, don’t I sound like a prize piece of ass?” I respond, chuckling to myself.

  “Fuck yeah. I’m newly divorced with three children to put through college. I need your ass out there selling.”

  By this time we’re both laughing, and I think to myself that I am quite lucky to have Heath as a friend. Another call comes through on my cell, and I add my publicist to the conversation.

  “Cricket! We were just talking about new ways to sell my ass. Your ears must have been burning,” I say, joking with her.

  “Hell yeah. We need to be thinking about ESPN, we need to be thinking about bit parts in movies, we could do so much with your brand right now. Heath, wasn’t your friend in that Jack Black movie? The one about the guy who killed Ouiser?”