“Why’d you decide to leave D.C.?” I asked just to even the playing field. To let her know I’d heard about her walking away from Matherton’s team just like she’d heard about me. To let her know I didn’t want to talk about my departure any more than she wanted to talk about hers.
She didn’t get a chance to respond before Tristan came in, flustered with a worried energy pouring off of her. My body automatically responded to it, ready to move where needed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My grandma took a bad spill, cracked her hip. They’re going to do surgery on her tomorrow.”
“Oh no!” Dani said.
“Mom’s upset,” Tristan said, waving at her phone before sliding it in her back pocket. She turned to the cupboard and started grabbing things and throwing them into an oversized diaper bag. “She can’t leave Bailey while her husband is in South America building that stupid bridge. There’s no way my sister will survive the triplets on her own. She’s barely recovering from her C-section.”
“So, you’re going?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm to counter her nerves.
She nodded.
“How long are you going to be gone?” I asked.
“I don’t know. A couple of weeks at least. When Ted gets home from South America, Mom can join me in New York.”
“New York?” Dani asked, surprised. Tristan’s parents lived a few blocks over from Tristan’s rental, so it was easy to assume her grandma was close by. I’d met the woman only a handful of times, but she was the spriest eighty-nine-year-old I’d ever met. She wouldn’t let you forget it, either.
Tristan took in the items in the diaper bag with a frown. “Yeah, Grandma lives in a small town upstate.”
She looked up from the bag to Dani before turning to me. “Can you look after Molls for us? I don’t want to take her. I don’t know what my schedule will be like with Grandma at the hospital, and you know how she gets if she’s left alone too long. I don’t want her to destroy Gram’s house.”
My heart rocketed to a stop. Shit. The one fucking time she actually asked me for help, and I couldn’t say yes.
“You know I would, but I’ve got to be on base on Monday.” Her crushed face had me backtracking. “Let me see if I can make arrangements to bring her with me.”
It wouldn’t have been the first time a SEAL team had a dog with them.
Dani snorted. “The therapist will love that. Bringing Darren’s dog to your first session.”
Tristan’s hand holding another can of baby formula dropped, and she looked at me with huge eyes. “What’s she talking about?”
The question was delivered to me, but I didn’t know how to answer it. I didn’t want to acknowledge how bad I’d fucked up before I’d landed on her doorstep Friday night.
“You didn’t tell her?” Dani’s voice was full of reproach.
“Tell me what? What the hell is going on, Nash?”
“I punched Dainty,” I told Tristan. I’d talked about the new team with her some, enough for her to know the guy had been driving me completely batty before Friday’s debacle.
“Why?” Tristan asked.
I shrugged. “Does it really matter why?”
“Yes, it matters. It’s going to matter even more when they put you in front of the review board.” It was Dani talking. Dani, who knew the ins and outs of the military because she’d grown up in a military family.
Tristan just stared at me, tears welling up in her eyes before she brushed at them, got up, and continued shoving things in the already bulging bag. “He’d be so mad at you,” she said so quietly it was hardly a whisper, and my heart about jumped from my chest because I’d made her cry several times in the last two days. She was right. Darren would have skinned me alive for so many reasons, but losing my cool with Dainty was one of the biggest ones.
“You need to get yourself together, Nash. Before it’s too late,” Tristan said, zipping the bag, heading toward the stairs.
“Me? I need to get myself together?” I said, moving two steps in her direction. She was the last one to talk. She didn’t sleep, barely ate, and was functioning only enough to take care of Hannah. She was a walking zombie without emotion unless she was looking at her little girl.
Dani jumped off the counter and stepped in between us. “Whoa. Just stop before one of you says something you’ll regret. Tristan, I got this. I’ll stay and take care of Molly. Nash can go deal with the consequences of his dumbass male ego.”
Silence settled down over all of us. Guilt hit me like a thousand-ton brick because I couldn’t help Tristan with either of her problems. I couldn’t go with her to New York or take care of Molly. I had to drag my fucked-up ass back to Virginia Beach, see the shrink, and hope to God I hadn’t screwed up my Navy career beyond repair.
Dani
FINALLY // BEAUTIFUL STRANGER
“Your eyes, so crystal green
Sour apple baby, but you taste so sweet.”
Performed by Halsey
Written by Frangipane / Kurstin
Molly ran up and down the beach, barking at the waves, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. She had more energy than I could even fathom, but she was sweet and mostly well-mannered. She begged for food and sat in your lap, but that was the worst of it.
We’d never really had a dog growing up. I wasn’t sure why, when I thought about it. Even with Dad in the Navy, we’d stayed at the house outside Wilmington. Mom and Dad had wanted us to have a stable home life in one location. It had certainly made it harder on their marriage. And maybe, at the end of the day, that was why we hadn’t had a pet. Four kids had been enough to keep Mom’s hands full.
Molly finally found
