Some nights you were glad for peace and quiet, other nights you want to be busy, and I found that I wanted it more than normal just now. Rory had been set on DB since she’d started working with us, and that had been funny to watch as a spectator, but now that she was making it clear she was interested in me? It was awkward, and it really wasn’t funny when you were going through it. That’s why I was happy to deal with the calls, and also why I’d volunteered to drive the women home, knowing full well I’d have to listen to them arguing the whole way. I’d rather be deaf than uncomfortable.
After what had happened last night and the day I’d had, though, I was exhausted. So, when I walked through my front door and Ranger didn’t beg to be let out, I didn’t think anything of it and collapsed on my couch with my eyes already shut. Really, I’ll blame it on exhaustion and anything else I can think of, because that beats the fact that I wasn’t aware of my surroundings and who might be in them. That was until that person made themselves known.
“Surprise!” A voice I hadn’t heard in months yelled, just before a heavy body landed on my lap and something hit me right in the balls, shooting them up into my skull.
It was like nothing I’d ever felt before in my life (thankfully). The second the weight hit my lap I opened my eyes, seeing my big brother – my Irish twin – grinning at me. Any happiness was canceled out by something hard and sharp hitting me right in the center of my nuts, which had pushed up when I’d sat down meaning that they were a prime target if something obscure happened, like your brother appearing in your home out of the blue.
I don’t know if it was the gagging groan that came out of me, the hand that tried to punch him in the face, or the fact I’m fairly certain that I turned purple, but he shifted digging whatever it was into my balls again and then lifted up. “Oops, sorry,” he snickered, patting the weapon on his hip. “Forgot about that.”
Men discuss the pain of a crotch shot a lot. We start when we’re young, we continue after the first hit, and it just keeps growing as a conversation after it. So, I’m fairly certain me describing it as the worst pain you’ll ever feel is pretty much a fact. I’d been winged by a bullet on my left hip, I’d had a bullet hit my Kevlar, I’d broken my arm, my leg, and I’d been punched in the face numerous times – but nothing compared to the pain I was in right then. It was like every nerve lived in that one area. When you were hit there all the oxygen was sucked out of your body, every nerve started screaming, your gut twisted itself repeatedly, and quite frankly shitting yourself wasn’t out of the question. I hadn’t ever shat myself after a hit to the balls yet, but I intended to live for at least another sixty years, so there was time.
“Why?” I gasp groaned, leaning forward to see if it would put the poor little guys back in the right place and untwist my intestines.
Plonking himself down on the recliner, Garrett pulled the leaver for the leg rest, and made himself comfortable. “Got back, saw Mom and Dad, decided to come visit you,” he explained, making it sound like an everyday occurrence. “Oh, and I’m on medical leave for the foreseeable future.”
That got my attention. Slowly raising my head – seeing as how movement was difficult enough as it was at that moment – I looked over the tall figure sitting nonchalantly in my chair. “What?”
Not making eye contact with me, he shrugged as he took in the room. Nothing had changed, and he knew that, he was just avoiding the inevitable. “I had an incident two weeks ago, nothing serious, but I have some burns that need to be looked after. Because I joined the ROTC when I was eighteen, I’ve done my active time and then some. I agreed to do eight years of service after I joined, I’ve done nine. Now I go into inactive for a while, and then I’m done.”
Taking in what he’d just laid out, I tried to prioritize my questions. “You got hurt?”
Standing up, he raised the side of his t-shirt, showing me what I knew were burn dressings. “Yeah, we were pulling out of an area near Raqqa, and went over an IED that had been missed. Thankfully, it wasn’t set properly, so no one was killed, but it still did some damage.”
Seeing as how the dressings started underneath his jeans and ended near his shoulder blade, I asked, “How bad is it?”