Halos and Heroes Ch. 04

Thank you all who have been reading and following along. I always appreciate getting feedback. It helps with becoming a better writer and it's always an ego boost, so feel free to reach out. I will always respond!

The usual spiel: This isn't a stroke story, (more porn with plot.) Be warned, it's very long. 33+ chapters, and many sexless ones, which is why it was originally published under novels/novellas, but readers asked for it to be put under gay male due to content, so here we go.

I will also post disclaimers when appropriate about any potentially triggering content given the PTSD themes Sam deals with.

This story is dedicated to all of the brave service members and their families who sacrifice so much every day so that the rest of us can enjoy the liberties that they swear to protect and uphold.

Although references in this novel may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations within are complete works of fiction. They are not a resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental. In an effort to do the United States Army justice, and to show my respect to my country, I have applied all possible efforts to merge fact and fiction to entertain, while portraying the military, and the hardships and achievements of soldiers, with respect, dignity and accuracy to the best of my abilities. It's my hope that I've done you all justice, and that all of the creative licenses taken with this novel are understood to be the efforts of imagination, and not any judgment or disrespect against the U.S. military. Thank you all for your service.

***

In some families, please is described as the magic word. In our house, however, it was sorry.

—Margaret Laurence

The smell of sizzling bacon fat hit me the moment I walked into the house. When I entered the kitchen, Emma had her back to me. Adelyn stood on the other side, flipping pancakes and plating scrambled eggs with an efficiency I'd never seen outside of Food Network TV. Adelyn ignored me as she set a plate in front of Emma. My glance over the counter revealed a pancake in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears added to the perfectly round main circle. With a neat side of bacon and a hearty helping of eggs, their breakfast had the calorie count needed to fuel a grown man for a week. I eyed Emma's skinny arms as she poked a fork into her eggs. She offered a sunny smile, one eye nearly obscured by the buttery smudge on her eyeglasses.

"Hi, Uncle Sam. Are you having breakfast with us?"

I considered my answer as Adelyn's glare tried to reduce me to a pile of ash. The eggs looked runny, but keeping the peace seemed worth the sin against my taste buds. "Sure, if there's enough for me." I smiled.

"There isn't," Adelyn assured me, dumping the still-steaming pan into the sink where a traitorous amount of scrambled eggs clogged the drain in a mini mountain. "You're a big guy, and we're out of eggs," she said, ignoring the little globs floating up mournfully in the sink's rising water line. "The other plate is for Mami." The hand set on her narrow hip dared me to challenge her.

"You can have some of mine, Uncle Sam." A forkful of scrambled eggs forced itself into my line of vision from Emma's direction, interrupting the standoff between Adelyn and me.

"Thank you, sweetheart, I appreciate that." I gave Emma her fork back. "Why don't you finish your breakfast, and I'll just have whatever's left, okay?"

She nodded and refocused on eating. There was a grumble of sound from Adelyn's corner, but she finished fixing Sofia's plate without another word to either of us.

Emma ate with her left hand, maneuvering an orange crayon with her right to fill in an oddly formed shape. I studied her from the corner of my eye as I got up to help myself to a cup of coffee from the pot.

They'd both changed so much from my memories. Emma had a heavy fringe of bangs now that hid her eyebrows. Her face was heart-shaped, less refined than her sister's. Dark hair was braided into a thick tail down her back. The little plastic balls on her hair tie, in the same blinding shade of orange as her shorts, wrapped around the bottom of the braid and clicked against the edge of the bar stool every time she moved. Both girls had their mother's olive skin and big, almond-shaped eyes, but Adelyn had inherited the deep blue of my family that looked even brighter because of the inky black color of her hair. I assumed it was the result of teenage rebellion from a bottle, because she'd always had light brown her like Connor and I. There was also a hint of wave to it like mine when it got too long. Either girl could've been mistaken as my kid, which made sense because Connor and I were identical twins. But it was a surreal experience to see our family genes manifesting themselves in two people I no longer knew.

"That looks nice, Emma," I said to break the silence. "I like the..." I peered closer. "Orange flowers?"

"You do?" She added another distorted blossom to the page. "Good. Then Daddy will like it, because you're like the same person. I'm making it for him to take to heaven."

Adelyn was an angry blur as she zoomed out of the kitchen, leaving Sofia's plate behind. Emma didn't seem to notice, continuing to color happily.

"We're not really the same person, honey. We just look a lot alike. Most brothers and sisters resemble one another, like you and Addie do."

"But me and Addie don't lookexactly alike," Emma argued as she picked up a purple crayon. "You and Daddy do."

I was spared trying to explain genetics when Adelyn reappeared in the doorway. Her eyes were suspiciously pink when they met mine, but her black eyeliner was still pristine.

"Emma, you need to finish getting ready so we can go to Lauren's."

"That's Addie's friend," Emma informed me. "She has two sisters. Hannah is my age. Becca's just a baby, but she laughs a lot when you tickle her feet."

"Come on, Emma. I left your pink sneakers by your bed. Make sure you brush your teeth before you come back down."

Emma slid off the stool, leaving her picture behind. "Okay, Addie. Uncle Sam?"

"Yes, Emma?"

"Are you going to live with us now?"

Agreeing to anything even semi-permanent right now was a mistake. I knew that. But when those big brown eyes met mine with hope I nodded. "I'll be sticking around for a while, kiddo."

After a little half wave to me and a happy smile, she bounced out of the kitchen, leaving me with Adelyn.

I remembered my older niece as an awkward, sweet kid with knobby knees and braces. The braces were gone, and her knees were obscured by the sizable granite island between us, but there was no hiding her hostility.

"Seriously? What are you, some sadist like Dad was? Do you get off on breaking promises and making little girls cry?"

After last night I hadn't been expecting sweetness and light, but the venom in Adelyn's voice still caught me off guard. "Jesus kid...you go straight for the jugular."

"I don't like to dick around when it comes to my family."

"That mouth make you many friends?"

"I don't need any more friends. Especially not ones who walk out on us."

"Adelyn—"

She cut me off with a slap of her palm against the granite. "No. Emma's too young to remember those nights when he lost his shit and went after Mami and me; how hard she hit the kitchen floor the first night. How he slapped me across my face so hard he busted my lip."

I tensed up as she exhaled hard, but didn't stop her tear, partially because I was hoping she would stop herself. But she wasn't doing me any favors.

"The last time he did it, I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. He had a beer in one hand, and was drinking it at the same time he was kicking Mami while she was down on the ground. She was curled into a ball, and his reflexes were slower because he was so drunk. I ran over when he threw his beer can, and got in front of her. I held the knife out toward him, and told him to get the fuck out. Mami was telling me to stop, but I didn't move. And then he smiled at me. Smiled," she snarled. "He told me I didn't have the balls, and then left with his whiskey bottle in his hand." Her wide eyes were suspiciously shiny, though no tears fell

Sweet fucking Christ.

I didn't trust my voice, but she didn't seem to need a response.

"I'm glad he's dead." She moved away to start loading the dishwasher, her back to me as she spoke. Dishes clattered. "If he came back again and hurt us again, I'd have killed him."

"You don't mean that."

Adelyn's voice was flat. "Yes, I do."

And she did. I remembered that wrath. How it felt bubbling up inside until all you wanted to do was smash the world to pieces. Basic training and years of a disciplined Army life had mellowed me, but those conflicted feelings never completely left you. Adding the concrete, black-and-white thinking of a kid into the mix didn't help the situation at all.

"And now we're having this stupid funeral that's going to make Dad out to be some big hero."

"Addie..."

"Stop," she interrupted again. "You don't get to call me that. We all know you're only here because everyone expected you to bring Dad back home. If you really loved us as much as you used to say you did, you'd have finished your last tour, and come home before he used us as his personal punching bags."

"I swear to God that I didn't know about that."

"Now you do, but it's too little, too late," she said in a flat tone.

I exhaled slowly. "Adelyn, as little as it means right now, I'm sorry. You're right. I should've come home. That's on me. Staying away was a mistake, but I swear it wasn't because of any of you."

"Then why'd you punish us for it?"

"Because sometimes people are just stupid." My sigh sounded more like defeat than I cared to admit. "I let my issues with your dad keep me from coming around when he was here. Eventually I was gone for so long I just stayed away, thinking you'd all be better off."

"We weren't." She paused, those blue eyes meeting mine with a hint of hostile interest. "Why were you so mad at Dad?"

"What happened between your dad and me doesn't matter. It was our damage, and we handled it badly."

"Was it because you're gay?"

My eyebrow arched. "Why would you think that?"

Slim shoulders lifted and dropped in response. "He was always so macho and judgmental about people, and sometimes when he was drinking, he said really cruel stuff about you and Max. Then one day you just stopped coming home, and so did Max. I figured maybe Dad said something about the two of you because he was a prick that way."

"No, it wasn't about any of that. It was something that doesn't matter anymore, and I regret that I let it divide my family."

Just when I thought my niece's expression was softening, her eyebrows pinched together when she scowled at me.

"Whatever. I don't really care what your excuse is. Just don't think you can come back into our lives and stir up our shit, especially Emma's. She still thinks Dad was rescuing people over there."

"He was. Whatever else your father might've sucked at, he was good at his job. He saved a lot of people."

"And how many did he kill?"

My pause was blood in the water.

"I bet he liked that," Adelyn snarled. "The news always says you guys get your rocks off killing innocent women and children. He wanted to kill us a few times."

"Hey!" My voice came out louder than I expected, and I didn't realize I'd moved around the counter until Adelyn's fearful eyes met mine at close range. Her expression reminded me she was just a kid no matter how brassy her balls were, and I forced my tone to gentle.

"I can only imagine how tough it is for you to see his face whenever I walk into a room, Adelyn. It wrecks me too every time I look in the mirror now that I know that he hurt you and your mom."

I sighed and closed my eyes. When I opened them, a lone tear slid down my niece's cheek. I didn't dare wipe it away.

"I get that I messed up, Adelyn, but I swear to God that I will never hurt you or your family the way your dad did. That's over. Do you hear me?"

Silence.

"Adelyn, do you hear me? It's over. I will never raise a hand to any of you, ever. Understand?"

A terse nod was her only response.

"And don't listen to the damn news unless it's coming from someone who's actually held a rifle to protect complete strangers."

I sighed as I sat down on the closest bar stool. "Look, without getting into political garbage, I'll tell you that there's good and bad over there. On all sides. Every minute of every day is a choice that people have to make."

"Way to sum it up, Plato."

I ignored the sarcasm. "Sometimes my choices sucked, kid. Sometimes I wish that I could take them back, and other days I'm just fine with the decisions I made because it meant I didn't die. Don't know if that makes me a good person or a lousy one, and I don't care. At the end of the day, I'm just a man who made the piss poor mistake of walking out on his family because he couldn't handle his personal crap. And I'msorry."

Adelyn bit her lower lip, the wooden heels on her shoes clicking on the Spanish tile as she abruptly pushed herself away from the counter. "I need to take Emma to Lauren's."

"Addie..."

She didn't answer me, just headed for the door. "Mami expects you to go with her to the funeral home, so you better get ready. You stink."

I ignored the jab and grabbed a glass for the orange juice I filched from the fridge. When she couldn't make me react, she rushed out of the room again.

Next time I saw Max, I'd show him where he could shove his domestic family delusions.