powerful, but raw and unpolished. Accented.” I still dreamt about it. “She came to the States from Trinidad before she started high school.”
“I can see why you were taken with her.” Luna reached for a second beer for himself. “She’s a beautiful woman.”
“She was a beautiful girl, but she was vulnerable.” With a shit upbringing. “Which is why I waited two years to enlist.”
Luna glanced at me with surprise. “No shit?”
I nodded once. “I waited until she graduated high school because I didn’t want to deploy and leave her alone. Knowing I was putting my life on hold for her, she took extra classes and graduated a year early.” I was proud of her for that, but she’d always been determined. She deserved every ounce of success she had.
“Then you deployed?”
“Then I enlisted, went through basic and came back here before deploying. She arranged a party to send me off. Invited everyone we knew, including my brother.” My jaw ticked, and my hands fisted around the bottle. “Halfway through the party, I found her in my bedroom naked with my brother.” I drained the second beer.
“Jesucristo,” Luna muttered.
Grabbing both bottles, I stood.
Luna shook his head. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have taken Vance’s call.”
“Yes, you would have.”
He eyed me. “Trefor’s maybe. Not Vance’s.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She was in trouble. “Neither of us would have ignored the call in the end.”
“You’re probably right,” Luna agreed.
“Not probably.”
Luna stood. “The only easy day was yesterday.”
“Trefor rubbing off on you?” That was a Teams saying.
Luna snorted. “Never.”
“Thanks for the beers.”
“De nada.” Slapping me on the shoulder, he glanced at the night sky. “Storm’s coming. Tropical depression winds.” He shook his head and smiled. “Gotta love Florida.” He stepped off the boat, but then he looked back at me. “We’ll catch the pendejo.”
Instinct hit, and I glanced up the dock. Scanning the shadows, I looked for anything out of place. “Plan on it.”
His hand going to his piece, Luna followed my glance. “Trouble?”
“Don’t know about tonight.” I scanned the marina. “Definitely the coming week.”
Luna’s gaze cut to me. “I got your six.”
“I know. Ditto.”
He nodded, but then he stood there a moment.
I waited.
“That video of her, the one of her on a porch step when she was younger, singing that sexy song—you took that, didn’t you?”
I’d long since deleted any trace of myself online, but that video had never gone away.
I nodded once.
Luna asked the one pertinent question in all of this. “How’d it get out?”
I told him the truth. “I made both the biggest mistake of my life and best decision ever.” I’d sealed her fate. “I uploaded it.”
“Love.” Luna shook his head as if it were a dirty word. “Hasta mañana.”
I didn’t bother pointing out it was already tomorrow. “Oh eight hundred,” I confirmed.
Luna walked up the dock and got in his Escalade.
Unable to shake the feeling that I was being watched, I scanned the marina one last time. Seeing no one, I locked up and headed below.
My phone where I left it was buzzing with unread alerts.
I picked it up. Three texts.
Songbird: You can’t be angry forever. That is a game no one wins.
Songbird: I blame myself more than you could ever know. Every day I regret my actions, the mistakes I made.
Bullshit.
Songbird: If you don’t want to respond anymore, fine. But know the woman you used to love, not the famous singer, she is sorry.
Anger drove my thumbs across the screen.
Me: The woman I fell in love with is gone.
Her reply was almost instant.
Songbird: You wanted me to be someone I wasn’t.
Me: I wanted you to be safe.
Songbird: You never wanted me to be famous.
I could hear the accusation in her voice as if she had spoken, and I only got angrier. I was never going to hold her back. Not intentionally.
Me: No, I never wanted you to sign a contract with an asshole who would’ve taken advantage of you.
He would’ve raped her, then passed her around.
Songbird: And now we’re here.
Something about her response, her choice of words, it pricked at my conscience, but I was too pissed off to pay attention as I self-righteously typed a reply.
Me: You got what you wanted.
The whole world knew her name.
Songbird: The man I knew was never petty or cruel.
Me: Nothing petty or cruel about what I said. I stated fact. You wanted to be famous. You got there, and you would have gotten there whether you signed that exact contract ten years ago or not.
Songbird: Says the man who knows nothing about the