Page 36 of Boomer
The smell of cinnamon and browned butter, the way she’d looked with flour on her cheek and her hands moving with calm, practiced grace. She’d fed him like it mattered. Let himhelp,even. Pressed dough, flipped onions, gave him a piece of his Oma back, and he treasured those moments.
God.
No one ever talked about her. Not since she passed. Not since his mom boxed up her apron and cried alone in the pantry. But Taylor had remembered. Not because he made a speech about it but because he’d let the memory slip once, and she caught it.
That hit him harder than the kiss.
Anyone could want his body. But that moment? That meal? That quietoffering? It was the kind of intimacy you couldn’t fake. Her kindness told him there was something there, something to care about, and he did. He cared so much it almost made him sick with the wanting.
Maybe he’d had a taste of the life he never thought he’d deserve and that was scaring him the most.
“Man, my head hurts from how hard you’re thinking over there,” Breakneck said.
Boomer turned to glare and stared at the kid’s serious face.
“Haven’t you had enough of shepherding me, little sheep dog?”
“No. I’m not blind, Boomer.” He stared at him, and Boomer returned his gaze to the ceiling. “I know why you were so out of sorts during that black op,” he said casually. “After it.” He scrubbed a hand down his face.I’m so fucked.Boomer didn’t answer. Breakneck didn’t back down. That fucking kid never took the easy way out. “What happened with her?”
Boomer let out a slow breath, jaw tight. “I sent her a text. We agreed to meet here in Lisbon. Then we got yanked on that last-minute black op. I had to stow my phone and had no access to her number. I couldn’t give her a head’s up, and I never showed.”
Breakneck winced, slipping out of bed and crouching down. “Damn. That’s a bad break.” Those deep blue eyes processed like a wise, old hermit. “So, she’s jumpy. Got mixed feelings. A littleturned on by the big, bad Boom Boom.” He looked over. “She’s fucked and you’re fucked.”
Boomer stared at him. Then shoved the kid over with one palm to the shoulder. Breakneck hit the ground laughing, rolling to his feet like it was nothing. Boomer looked at the ceiling for deliverance. He was so wrecked. Completely tangled. Yet it had never felt so good to be this screwed.
PT completed, this time in the gym with heavy tires, the bag, and pull-ups until his arms shook, showered and ready for the day, he headed for the kitchen. He stopped short. Bash was in there with Taylor standing close to her, leaning in, and whatever he said to her made her laugh softly. His gut twisted. They had history. It was easy to see how she looked at him.
This wasn’t a surprise to him that he’d have competition.
He knew what Taylor was. Not just beautiful. Not just brilliant. She was rare, a woman who could hold a line, hold her own, and still look like she belonged in a dream. Any man with breath in his lungs would want her. Boomer had known that from the first moment he saw her in that humid Colombian ops room with her hair pulled tight and her voice cutting through the static like it belonged on the comms forever.
So yeah. If she chose Bash, smooth, unburdened, quick-witted, and handsome in that effortless, European way, it would be her call to make.
It would gut him, not just because he wanted her. But because he wanted her to want him back.
Bash was her age. Probablydidn’tcarry ghosts in his chest cavity or regret in his ribs. They shared history. Laughed easily. Fit together in ways Boomer wasn’t sure he could.
The thought that she might drift back toward something familiar instead of risking something new with him? The thought hit like a load of lead, and it hit hard.
He was competing for more than her affection.
It coiled in his diaphragm, hot and breathless, like the body’s way of bracing for impact. If the way she looked at him was any indication, he was in the running. High on the list. Maybe even already in her heart.
But he’d juggled these kinds of stakes before, precious, glass-fragile things in his big hands, and he’d dropped his share. More than his share. He was praying that this time wouldn’t end with another thing he had to bury.
Getting a second chance with her had shifted something in him. He could feel it, like light sneaking into a locked room. Snapping at Break in the cages had been the wrong kind of release. But he’d been pissed. At fate. At timing. At himself. He told himself he was too mature to entertain jealousy. That jealousy was weakness. Insecurity, and he wasn’t weak, even if his ribs still ached with the things he never said.
Everyone knew people tended to take things out on the ones they loved. Brothers. He and Break…the team. They were family, and as quick as Boomer was to snap, Break not only forgave him, hetendedto him. Made him goddamn toast the next morning. If that wasn’t love, then he was an emotionally bankrupt moron.
He’d had a marriage once, a good one, until he blew it. He knew what love could look like. He knew whathebrought to the table. He was stable. Capable. Protective. Loyal to the bone.
But under all that steel-thread certainty was a truth he refused to look at too closely.
If she chose someone else… If she didn’t choose him… It wouldn’t be because he lost.
It would be because he never showed her who he really was. He’d played it safe. Offered her respect. Admiration. Care. All the things he knew how to give. But not himself.
Not the part that mattered.
