Page 39 of Mr. Not Nice Guy

Frankie groans as she slumps into her elbows against the bar. “What are you, like fifteen? You’re too young to get tied downalready.”

“I’m not fuckin’fifteen—”

“Frankie,” Brennan’s voice cuts through the conversation, and I notice him standing at my right. “Go let Liza sit on your lap for a bit.”

Frankie snorts again and offers him a sloppy salute. “Yessir.”

After she leaves, Brennan sits down on the stool she just vacated and levels me with a hard stare. I respond by staring at my drink again.

“Another Sazerac, Stassarnt?” Travis asks, dropping his tone to a lower pitch.

“Thanks, Travis.”

I’m still staring at my drink, but I can feel Brennan’s eyes drilling holes into the side of my head. A couple minutes stretch before I see Travis set down a drink in my peripheral vision. Then he tops off my glass before stepping away to the other end of the bar, I’m guessing because he can tell Brennan’s about to rip me a new asshole or something. And that’s fine, too. I’m drunk enough now that I don’t care.

“Hawkins,” Brennan starts, and I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I’m gonna talk to you right now, so you’re gonna fuckin’ look at me.”

Sitting up straight, I tug at the knot of my tie to loosen it and then shift around to face him.

“I’m gonna tell you about me and Liza,” he announces, and then Idoroll my eyes.

“I was here for the majority of that, so you don’t need to,” I say, the words coming out lazily, and then I gesture at him with my drink. “In fact, when all of your friends were telling her to get over you while you were in Syria, I was the only one telling hernot to. Did she ever tellyouthat?”

“Yep, and I do appreciate it.” He picks up the lemon peel on the side of the glass and slides it around the rim. “And did you ever wonder why I ended up in Syria? Why I reenlisted when I was old as fuck? Why she and I got into that huge fuckin’ fight?”

I can feel my eyes glaze over. “I was under the impression that the two former items were a result of the latter.”

“Correct.” Brennan drops the lemon peel into the drink and then picks up the glass. “Wanna knowwhywe got in a huge fuckin’ fight?”

I manage to not groan. “Well, I think you’re going to tell me anyway, so why don’t you just go ahead?”

He sips his drink and then tilts it sideways, gesturing in the direction of the group. “I’ve always loved her,” he begins, and I fight the urge to down my entire drink again. “The very day I met her, I was a goner. Within an hour of meeting her, I was ready to turn my whole life upside down just so I could snatch her up and make her mine forever. But I didn’t. Becausesheloved my best friend.” He tilts his glass at me. “I’m sure you relate to that.”

I really hope he’s got a fucking point, and I really hope he gets to it soon. “Yeah, I get it.”

“Yeah.” He sips his drink. “So, I gave up on that. We got to be good friends, she and Connor sorted everything out, I fell in love with Skye, we were all close, and it was all wonderful. I was happy. Life was beautiful.But…” He arches an eyebrow. “There was still part of me that loved her like I had since the moment I saw her. And when that wonderful, beautiful life that the four of us had made was destroyed because of somethingI did, and Liza eventually fell in love withme, I couldn’t fucking handle it. It was unacceptable in my mind because the only reason she finally felt the same way about me that I had always felt about her was because I was responsible for the death of her husband and my wife. So, I did everything I could to sabotage her feelings and the ones I refused to admit that I had. The things I did to her, I would’vekilledanother man for.” He swings his glass in a wide arc at the room. “I destroyed every relationship I had with all these people. Andthen, because I had basically lost everything that I cared about, I reenlisted solely because I knew I would be sent to the most fucked up place in the world, and I was just ready to check out of life like a little bitch.” He lifts his index finger off the side of the glass to point at me. “Does any of this resonate with you, Hawkins?”

I squint. “Not really, no.”

“Really?” Brennan cocks his head. “Acting like an asshole and putting people in harm’s way just because you can’t handle your own fucking feelings doesn’t sound alittlefamiliar to you?”

Oh. Now I see where he’s going with this, and I don’t like it.

He lets me marinate on that for a beat or two before setting his forearm on the bar and leaning toward me. “You’re a nice guy, Hawkins. Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve been a nice guy. When Liza told me about your history with her, the first thing she said was that you’re one of the nicest guys she’s ever known. Your reputation for being nice and a consummate professional precedes you. Your reputation is why we brought you on. You made good on that reputation after you came on board, and you’ve managed to carry this position exactly the way we hoped you would, even though it was in the middle of a situation that could’ve been really uncomfortable given your history with Liza.However.” He leans closer to me and sets his jaw. “That appears to have changed recently. Right around the time Scarlett came along.”

His blatant reference to everything that’s causing me so much shit lately causes irritation to crackle in my veins. “Again, I can tell you have a point to make, so why don’t you just lay it out for me?”

A shit-eating grin quirks his mouth for a second. “Iwill.” He sips down half of his drink and then sets down the glass. “First of all, I already know you fucked Scarlett. That’s one-hundred-percent obvious toeveryone. I don’t knowwhen, but I know you did. So let’s just get that straight.”

I’m drunk enough at this point that it’s getting hard for me to keep my eyes focused on one spot for too long, but I manage to slide my gaze toward his face. “Thathappenedway beforeshe was with us, so let’s just getthatstraight.”

Brennan stares at me for a second with that shit-eating half-grin and then chuckles loudly, reaching to slap his open palm against my shoulder. “And that’s the whole point I’m trying to make, Hawkins. You hooked up with her, then you were suddenly thrust into this semi-intimate partnership, and now you’ve got feelings for her that make you uncomfortable, and I know that’s why you’re treating her like shit. Ialsoknow howmuchyou’ve been treating her like shit, even though you’ve been trying to hide it from the rest of us. And your insistence upon treating her like shit because you can’t deal with your fucking feelings put her safety in jeopardy. So, consider this my fair warning that if you don’t get the fuck over yourself, I’m going to deal with you myself.”

Being called out like this while I’m drunk and while Scarlett’s across town with another man is a trigger and a half, and I pitch forward, gripping the bar for fear of falling onto the floor. “Ido nothave any kind of fuckingfeelingsfor—”

“Yeah, you do.” Brennan presses his fingertips against my sternum, giving me a push that’s more like he’s trying to force me upright again rather than shove me. Once I’m stable, he retracts his hand and uses it to gesture at the tables. “You see all these people? You see all these friggin’ jarheads wearing wedding bands? You realize that every single time one of these guys started catchingfeelsfor these women, they did the exact same thing? None of this is new. When men who are used to stifling every feeling that makes them human are suddenly gripped with feelings they can’t control, they do exactly what you’re doing. This is nothing new. The only thing that’s new foryouis someone calling you on your shit for it. So,again, get the fuck over yourself, or just…you know…” He picks up his glass, hitching one shoulder. “Go get her and let yourself be happy so you can get back to being Mr. Nice Guy again. Because Mr. Nice Guy August Hawkins is what we need you to be.”

I scoff. “Are youhigh?”

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