Oscar is devastated when his boyfriend Andrew, is killed in action during a counterattack while they were serving in Iraq. When he takes a six months leave from his life as an active duty SEAL, Oscar hopes to do one thing: getting a grip on his crum...
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Ch. 7: Jumpsuit, cover me.
“Dude, the plan went south. Call me ASAP.”
Metaphorically, Ash had his shit put together but literally, his brain was burning on fire. He’d found a lone bench to sit on at the pier as he tried Chris’s phone for the umpteenth time and just like the previous time, it was automatically redirected straight to voicemail.
“Dammit man, call me as soon as you get this message.” Ash tried Chris’s phone once more, fighting off the strong urge hovering around him to smash his own burner phone due to unadulterated frustration. He still needed the damn device after all, if not more than ever before.
“This ain’t good at all.” The brunette muttered to no one in particular, releasing a long exasperated sigh.
Carrying a duffle bag containing a billion dollars worth of stolen paintings was like walking around with a ticking bomb—an inevitable explosion and Ash felt as if the bomb was about to go off at any given second.
Calm down, fear leads to anxiety and you don’t want to look anxious just about now, do you? Try keeping it together.
Ash called Chris all over again and as expected, the guy didn’t pick up. “Fuck man, I’ve been trying to reach out to you for a while now. Call me back, Chris! This is fucking urgent!”
Ash’s eyes were strained, they felt achy, weak and heavy due to lack of sleep for a couple of days. His tired eyes stared blankly at the people who were walking on the pier over the shining ocean. To them, this was a beautiful night full of new possibilities. The temperature had dropped drastically making Ash terribly shiver, he gritted his teeth stopping them from chattering wildly as if that would work in preserving the last of his evaporating body warmth.
The man was simply out of ideas, his brain seemed to have quit functioning due to the freezing cold air. He needed a better hiding place rather than just sitting on a bench at the bay and waiting expectantly for Chris to come through. There was no way he was going back to Berkeley with those paintings still in his hands, they had to go—immediately.
Why do you always manage to fuck up your life? Ash asked himself but no meaningful answer was forthcoming. First, botchingColumbia and the worst of them all Peyton.
Pure gold is known to be virtually indestructible. It will not corrode, rust or tarnish, and even fire can never destroy it. But it only takes a solution of Aqua Regia to dissolve gold. Peyton was Ash’s gold for almost one year but Ash was toxic Aqua Regia, constantly dragging the innocent guy into dicey and far most compromised situations. As much as the two loved each other to bits, there was no room for Ash in Peyton’s life. Not that their love was not worth fighting for, Ash was just—Ash and sometimes when you love a person deep enough, you’d know when it is time to let them go for the sake of their own good.
