Page 97 of Boomer
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Bash said,“I volunteer to go with the BoomMon…Boomie. Yanks need someone who’s not a cowboy.” He smirked.
Breakneck leaned over, stage-whisper loud enough for the entire room to hear. “You cheating on me, Boom Boom? I thought I was your one and only bromance.” He pulled a face, deadpan, then turned to glare at Bash. “You trying to steal my battle boo?”
“Focus up,” Iceman said.
Breakneck chuckled and followed the group out of the room. Boomer paused when his cell chimed. He pulled out his phone and saw he had a text message from Ansel. He opened it.What do you think of the progress so far, Boomer?He touched the image, and it opened fully.
The sculpture stopped him cold. It was a clay rendering, still rough around the edges, still in progress, but the emotion punched straight through the screen. Ansel had sculpted his father from memory, or maybe from feeling, sitting on a low stool in front of an easel. The posture was quiet, slouched just slightly, as if the weight of the world lived in his spine—but the hands...
God, thehands.
They were oversized, not perfectly scaled, butalive,frozen mid-brushstroke, caught in the act of turning thought into color. One hand cradled the palette, smudged and layered in textured markings Ansel must’ve pressed in with tools or fingers. The other hand extended toward the canvas, not yet touching it as if he was hesitating. As if he was reaching for something he wasn’t sure he deserved to finish.
There were no facial features yet. Just the soft planes of a face bowed in quiet concentration. But the body, lean, vulnerable, wholly human, radiated focus, longing, and that unmistakable ache of someone who lived for what he could create, not who he could be.
Boomer swallowed hard, his throat thick.
This wasn’t just a boy sculpting his father.
This was a boy trying to keep him alive.
Taylor came up beside him, her voice low. “What is it?” she asked, her fingers brushing his forearm like she couldn’t help herself.
The contact, the way she touched him like he wasirresistible, sent his gut twisting with all the emotion still bottlenecked in his chest.
He turned the phone toward her. “Look at what your nephew’s done,” he said, voice gravel-rough. “Taylor…it’s?—”
Her breath caught.
Tears surged into her eyes, sudden and unrestrained. She looked at the screen, then away, blinking rapidly, shoulders trembling as she tried to hold it together.
“Oh, Emil…” she whispered. She took a breath. Then she looked back at Boomer. “Thank you,” she said, voice thick. “For what you’ve already done for him.” Then she leaned in, eyes shimmering, her hand sliding from his forearm to his chest. “I love you even more for it,” she whispered.
He grabbed the back of her neck, his grip firm, and locked eyes with her. “MeirEin und Alles,” he whispered. She was his one and only.
Her hand tightened on his arm. Without a word, she pulled him back into the room, arms sliding around him like she couldn’t stand the space between them.
She pressed her mouth to his, a kiss with no heat, but all heart. Soft. Tender. Somehow more overwhelming than anything they’d shared before.
When she pulled back, her eyes glistened. “I’ll be watching your gorgeous back out there.”
Boomer exhaled, chest tight. “And I you.”
Breakneck didn’t like it.Not one fucking bit. Iceman kept everything close to the vest, always had. He hardly ever gave anything away. But right now, he looked worried.
Boomer and Taylor disappeared back into the debrief room for a private moment before the op, and whatever passed between them had shifted something. Breakneck wasn’t the only one who saw it.
He glanced at the others, Hazard, Kodiak, Skull, GQ, Preacher. None of them had missed it either.
He walked over, lowered his voice. “Boss?”
Iceman exhaled. Long. Controlled. His eyes scanned the team, and Breakneck noticed it then, that look. Every single one of them had it. Something silent. Something he wasn’t part of. “I want you to watch him,” Iceman said. “And her.” Breakneck’s stomach clenched. “He’s compromised,” Ice added, voice flat. “She’s his life.”
The words detonated something inside Breakneck. He could barely contain thesavage heatthat rose in him. “Then why the hell is he going on this op?”
Iceman’s jaw twitched. “It’ll kill him if he doesn’t, and we need him.” There was a pause. Something old and haunted flickered behind Iceman’s eyes. “In Paris…with Rose…” he murmured. “Fuck. I walked around in a constant daze.” He shook his head like he could still feel it. “You all got me through that goatscrew with No Safe Haven. Rose…she did things to me that altered my life. Changed my thinking. Gave me a future I didn’t know I was allowed to have.”
