Squared Away (Out of Uniform 5)

“No. Just want sleep.” He headed for his room, turning at the last second. “Good night. Maybe we can talk tomorrow. I just...can’t right now. Okay?”

“Okay.” Fuck. Mark hated this. He’d screwed up. Again. And the only person he had to blame was himself. It was up to him to find a way out of this mess, find a way to get Isaiah happy again. He needed a happy Isaiah. His happiness was worth everything. Even confronting your own stupid fears? That really was the question wasn’t it? How much was he willing to risk?

Chapter Nineteen

Isaiah hated this morning already, hated this day. All his usual optimism was replaced by a black cloud of ick hanging over his head.

“Can we talk after I drop the girls off?” Mark kept his voice low as he got a cup of coffee. That. That right there was the source of Isaiah’s dark mood.

“We’ll see.” Isaiah continued with waffle distribution. Liam banged his fists on the high chair table. The baby was fussy and teething again, which had meant an interrupted night of sleep for Isaiah. Like he needed worse sleep—not having Mark next to him had been punishment enough.

Mark was on his second day off, which ordinarily would have Isaiah running in happy circles like one of the kids, but instead they had to talk. And Isaiah didn’t want to talk. He sucked at talking. He’d told Mark he’d be patient, but fuck. It was hard.

The buddy from his team and his wife had pretty much lobbed a softball right at Mark, and he’d cowered like a first grader stuck in the outfield for the first time, wide eyes, shaking hands, slack mouth. So Isaiah had saved him. A-fucking-gain. But he couldn’t keep doing that. He had his own self-respect to consider. How hard would it be to just say, “Yeah, this is my guy.”

Very. Apparently.

Fuck. Isaiah just wasn’t sure he had it in him to promise to keep waiting for Mark to decide what the hell he wanted.

“Okay, who’s ready for school?” he asked once the kids finished eating.

“I don’t know where my shoes are,” Daphne wailed. “The pink ones. With sparkles. It’s pink day. I have to have them.”

“Okay. Where did you see them last?” Mark was quick to spring into action, before Isaiah could even finish wiping the baby’s face.

“I don’t know.” Daphne eyes were liquid, tears threatening.

“Don’t we have a cubby for shoes?” Typical military guy, Mark asked like things just always ended up in their rightful place because he decreed it. Never mind how hard it had been holding down the fort while Mark worked long hours. So a few shoes escaped the cubby. Life happened.

“It’s not there!” Daphne ran back from the hall shoe cubby. “They’re gone.”

“Okay. You look down here,” Mark nodded at Isaiah. “I’ll take her room, the upstairs hall, and the kids’ bathroom.”

Isaiah just blinked at him. He got that Mark was good at orders—it was just part of his personality and training. And sometimes Isaiah liked that part, very much. But today? Not so much.

“Please,” Mark tacked on at the last second when Isaiah didn’t get moving. “Unless you want to take upstairs?”

“Nah. I’ll start in the family room.” Isaiah headed to the family room and checked under all the pieces of furniture, but no shoes. None in the lesser-used living room or formal dining room either. Not surprising as they hadn’t eaten there once since the accident. Maybe now we never will. Now was not the time to harbor fantasies about big family holidays in this space. Ridiculous sentimentality had no place in the multiple conversations he and Mark needed to have.

No shoes on the back patio or in the kitchen. He was just about to check the laundry room when the doorbell rang. All this day needed was an unexpected visitor. He raced to the front door, almost taking a header as he approached the door, tripping over...two small pink shoes.

Fuck my life. “Yeah?” he swung the door open to reveal a young pimply-faced guy with overly large teeth and bored eyes. He looked Isaiah up and down.

“You Isaiah James?”

“Yeah,” Isaiah said, tempted to lie because this couldn’t be good. And sure enough the guy thrust two packets of papers at him. Isaiah grabbed them out of reflex to keep them from tumbling to the porch floor.

“Congrats. You’ve been served.”

The weasel of a kid hurried back to a little car double-parked on the street, leaving Isaiah standing there slack jawed. Hands trembling, he opened the top one. And immediately saw red.

“Mark,” he bellowed.

“Yeah?” Mark came running, kids chasing behind him. “Oh hey, you found the shoes!”

“F—screw the shoes. What the hell is this?” He thrust the papers at Mark before opening the second packet. “And there’s more. Mark, what the F—heck?”

“I... I’m not sure. I wasn’t aware...”