Page 112 of Carrick
He gave a dry smile. “Carrick James—gifted underachiever. Classic case.”
I wanted to reach for him, but I didn’t. He wasn’t done.
“Middle school was hell. I’d get into fights. Usually not ones I started. I hated bullies. Still do. And I couldn’t stand watching some poor kid get shoved into a locker while everyone else pretended not to see. So I stepped in.”
He laughed, short and bitter. “That earned me suspension after suspension. Meanwhile, the little shits whostartedit got a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back for ‘being under a lot of pressure at home.’”
He shook his head. “I was angry all the time. My teachers didn’t know what to do with me. My parents didn’t care. My guidance counselor told me maybe I’d be better suited for a trade school, but I needed to get my attitude under control first.”
He finally looked at me.
His eyes weren’t hard. But they were tired. Like the remembering had cost him something.
“Then I took the ASVAB.”
I tilted my head. “Military entrance test, right?”
“Yeah.” His mouth twitched. “I didn’t take it seriously. I just filled in the bubbles and tried not to fall asleep. But I scored high. Really high.”
He leaned back slightly, propping himself up with one hand. “A week later, I got a visit from a recruiter. Sergeant Major Rooker.”
There was something in his voice when he said the name. Something reverent.
“He didn’t talk to me like I was broken. Or dangerous. Or wasted potential. He just… saw me. Asked me what I wanted to do with my life. What I thought I was good at. No one had ever asked me that before. Not seriously.”
I swallowed hard.
Carrick’s voice dropped lower, softer. “He looked at me like I mattered. Like I could be something more than a statistic. More than a detention slip. He told me I had the kind of mind they needed—strategic, fast, adaptive. Said there were guys who’d kill to have my reflexes. That I just needed direction.”
He paused, like he was holding something close.
“I signed up that week.”
I blinked. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
He looked down at his hands. They were scarred in the way all soldier’s hands are—weathered, steady, practiced.
“He kept in touch all the way through basic. Checked on me. Wrote letters. When I graduated, he was there. Didn’t tell me he would be. He just… showed up.”
I felt my chest ache.
“Said he knew I wouldn’t have anyone else in the crowd. He was right.”
Carrick cleared his throat. “Rooker introduced me to the unit that would change everything. Took me under his wing. And that’s where I met Niko and the boys.”
He smiled then. Not bitter this time. Real.
“They weren’t like me. Not at first. Niko was already command-bound. Jax was straight-up freakishly brilliant. Sully had charm and recklessness in equal measure. Deacon had this calm that made you feel like you weren’t about to die, even when you definitely were.”
He chuckled quietly. “And I was just the chaos. The wild card. But somehow, we fit.”
I tilted my head. “Why do you think that is?”
Carrick’s eyes softened.
“Because none of us had a perfect place to belong before. We weren’t cut out for the nine-to-five, or the polished edges of polite society. We were too sharp in the wrong places. Too broken in the right ones. But together? We made sense. We filled each other’s gaps.”
