And now that we had that settled, there was another subject Sly and I needed to have out. He knew it too. We'd spent over a decade away from each other, but he could still read my mood as well as he ever did. "So what's up your ass?" he said.
I straightened my back and leveled a stare at him. In a lot of ways, Sly and I had been tiptoeing around each other since I got back. We tried to feel each other out. It wasn't like us. It had never been like us. If we had a beef with each other, more times than not we resolved it with words and sometimes fists, just like real brothers. He turned his palms up in a questioning gesture, waiting for me to get to the point.
"Why didn't you stop her?" I finally said.
Sly exhaled and set his coffee cup down; in fact, he almost slammed it.
"You know," he said. "I think this is a conversation I'm going to need a much higher blood alcohol level to get through."
I clenched my fist and pounded it once on the counter top. "I'm not in the mood for jokes, Sly."
He shifted and turned to face me. "Are you seriously asking me that?"
"I am." My voice came through gritted teeth. I harbored even more anger on this subject than I realized. Sly swore me an oath when I went inside. I would keep mine to the club; I would never do or say anything against them even if it meant I could have freed myself. It wasn't our way. But it was the club's job-it was Sly's job-to protect what was mine when I couldn't. Among other things, that meant Ava.
"What the hell was I supposed to do? Lock her on a chain and give her a water dish?"
I pushed my chair away from the bar and stood up. I tore a path back and forth in front of him. Rage simmered so close to the surface. I truly hadn't meant to lose my cool with this. But I felt in my heart if this had been a woman of Sly's I could have found a way to keep her out of Iraq, for God's sake. "Don't sit there and try to spin this as anything other than you not looking out for her."
Sly's eyes narrowed. He stood up and took a step toward me. We were almost nose to nose; I clenched my fists at my side and thrust my chest out. He did the same. If this was going to come to blows, like a brother or not, I'd knock him on his ass.
"Don't you fucking stand there and accuse me of that. I get where this is coming from. But yours wasn't the only life that got ripped apart when you went inside," he said. "You did what you had to do in there, we did what we had to do out here."
We both stood stock still. The slightest move by either of us and this conversation was going to turn into something else. And the thing is, I wanted it to.
"You could have stopped her," I said. Some small part of my brain told me to quit right there. I blamed Sly and I didn't. I'm not proud of everything that happened next, but I'd spent too much time checking myself, keeping things bottled deep. "You should have stopped her. What happened to her over there is on you."
And there it was. My words hung there between us and I felt a tinge of sadness at the same time my anger rose. I couldn't help it. The memory of those scars on Ava's perfect skin still had me reeling. Then there was that deadened, sad look that came into her eyes as she struggled to tell me what they meant.
"Once." The word came out of Sly's mouth as a snarled hiss. "You're still the closest thing to a brother I'm ever going to have. And what you suffered, what you lost is more than even I can imagine. So for that, I'll let you say that to me once. Not again."
"She almost fucking died," I said. We were still nose to nose, chest to chest. My blood boiled in my ears. There was something deep brewing in both of us that probably had a hell of a lot less to do with our words and more to do with what was in our blood. "She's covered in shrapnel scars. She won't talk about it with me yet but she's got deeper scars on the inside. It was your job to stop her. I never would have let her go."
Sly moved first. He crossed his arm over my chest and pushed me back against the wall, thinking he could hold me there. Coffee cups that had been hanging next to the shelf near my head crashed to the ground and shattered. "She went there because of you, asshole. Not me. I told you, you weren't the only one whose life got ripped apart. And I didn't know she was going until she called me on a pay phone after she'd already reported to basic training five hundred miles away."
Red rage clouded my vision. Later, I'd understand what happened next really wasn't about Sly at all. It was about me trying to take back some control and make someone pay for everything I'd lost. Even if I knew Sly wasn't the one who owed me anything. I dropped low, grabbed Sly around the waist and shoved him back as hard as I could. We toppled backward in a heap of arms, legs and flying fists, crashing over the top of the bar and sprawling onto the kitchen floor.
Sly got in a good blow to my jaw, I got in a better one dead square to his nose. I drew first blood. We called each other every vile thing we'd been raised on. Rolling end over end through the kitchen, we both got to our feet and I got my fists up, ready to take another swing. Sly dropped low and meant to charge me again. Before he got the chance, a shower of ice-cold water rained down on both of us. Sly slipped in it and landed on his ass.
"That oughtta cool ya off, ye couple a thick-heided mongrels!" Mo McGillivray had lived in Northern California for thirty-odd years, but when her temper flared, her Irish brogue got thick. And she was spitting mad right now. She stood in the center of the kitchen aiming the spray nozzle from her sink straight at us with the same murderous intentions as if it were a broadsword.
"Had enough or are ya ready for another? Neither of you have more sense than you were born with. Rip each other's throats out if ye like but do it outside." Water dripped down Sly's bloodied nose and he looked from me to Mo with wild eyes. He looked ridiculous. I raised a brow and wondered if I looked any better. Shrugging, I ran the back of my hand over my chin then offered a begrudging hand to Sly to help him up. He batted it away and tried to stand up. He slipped again in the water. He hung his head in surrender then shook his head, spraying droplets of water everywhere like the mongrel Mo had just called us. Then he clasped his hand in mine, giving me a solid grip, and I helped him to his feet. The rage I'd felt seemed to slough off like I'd opened a release valve. Sly's posture seemed easier too when he let go of my hand.
"I kept her as safe as I could," he said; his voice held no trace of the vitriol we'd thrown at each other just a few seconds before. "That girl has a calling and I wasn't going to stand in the way of it. And that's how it was. She's home, she's safe. And what she did mattered. It wasn't for me to take that away from her. And it's not for you either. If you don't see that, you probably don't even deserve her."
My shoulders sank. He was right. I knew he was. Ava was Ava and maybe I was a fool to think that I could have stopped her myself if I'd been here to try. Still, his words stung and I had half a mind to take another swing at him to make it stop.
I jerked my head up to Mo, letting her know she could holster her sprayer. She set her mouth in a hard line and pointed a finger in warning to Sly. A harrumph from the doorway let me know we had a bigger audience than I realized. Charlie leaned in the kitchen doorway chewing on a toothpick. He pushed himself away from the wall, wrapped an arm around Mo and led her out of the kitchen.
"I suppose we both had that coming," Sly said. "Glad to see your skills are still sharp." He leaned his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose. Blood still trickled down his chin.
"Are you kidding me?" My head jerked toward the doorway again. Ava stood there, straight and tall, her blonde hair long and wild around her shoulders. She wore a black tank top and skin-tight jeans. Her feet were bare. I stirred again at the sight of her. She had her hands on her hips and the same fury in her eyes Mo had just leveled at us.
"Aggh!" Sly said. "Just reminiscing about old times, darlin'."
Ava shook her head. She stomped across the kitchen floor and smacked Sly's hand away from his nose. She put a hand on his forehead and angled his face further back.
"Sit down," she ordered. Guiding him with her hand still on his head, she forced him onto one of the bar stools around the kitchen island.
"You!" She turned to me. "Get some ice out of that freezer."
"Yes ma'am." I gave her a mock salute. She wasn't amused.
"For the moment, that's Captain to you. Go!"
I did. I came back with a bag of frozen peas. Ava had the blood cleaned off Sly's face and was busy tapping his cheekbones with her fingertips. She'd found a red-and-white tackle box that apparently served as the club's first aid kit. She snorted a couple of times but wouldn't look at me. God, she was sexy as hell like this-in charge and pissed off at me. It took everything in me not to hoist her over my shoulder and haul her back up to bed, caveman style.
She turned, opened the tackle box and took out what looked like a tampon. Hell, it was a tampon. She snapped off the string and shoved it up Sly's right nostril before he could protest. He groaned and I winced in sympathy.
"I don't think it's broken, but I could be wrong," she said. "Again. Keep that up there and put this on it." She handed him the bag of frozen peas. "Any chance I can get you to see Joleen in the E.R. today? She's on at seven and can fast track you. I'd feel better if you had a doctor take a look at that."