Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 37197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
“They were fucking off and not doing their job,” I object. “If Cap wants to come down on me for getting them to do their goddamn jobs, so be it.”
“Come on, man. It’s not that you’re keeping them on task. It’s how you’re keeping them on task. Acting like an asshole and putting the fear of God into them is the wrong way. I know you know that, bro.”
I sigh and pull my helmet off then run my hand through my hair as I look at the scene around us. My guys are busy with the overhaul and are working like a well-tuned machine. As they always do. The performance of my team has always been above reproach, and I’ve never run my squad like a drill sergeant before. My team is loose. We do good work, but we have a good time. I’ve always believed in working hard but playing harder.
But I’ve been harder than usual on my guys lately. I’ve been walking around in a daze most of the time, brittle and angry the rest of it. Harlow breaking things off the way she did has hit me harder than I expected. It’s not the first relationship I’ve had that went to shit, but none of the others had this kind of impact on me.
Harlow walking away from me has left a ragged hole in my heart. It racked me with a pain I’ve never felt before. It’s the dark flip side of feeling as much as Harlow has made me feel for her.
“Come on, man. What’s going on with you?” Darnell presses.
I sigh and look around the site, searching for something to distract myself with. Darnell steps closer to me, refusing to let me get out of this without talking to him. He could be an annoyingly persistent little shit like that.
“It’s Harlow,” I finally admit. “She broke things off with me.”
“What? Seriously?”
I nod. “Yeah. A few days ago.”
“Shit, man. No wonder you’re wound up so tight.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
I take a deep breath and let it, looking around to make sure nobody else is within earshot. Nobody else is around, but I pitch my voice low anyway as I tell Darnell what happened—starting with Micah walking in on us to Harlow telling me she doesn’t want to be the wedge that comes between us.
“Shit, man,” Darnell says when I’m finished with my story. “Your life is like a real-life Jerry Springer episode.”
He laughs but I just glare at him and shake my head. “I knew I shouldn’t have said a fucking word about it—”
“Bro, bro, relax. I’m screwin’ with you.”
“Yeah, maybe you missed it, but I’m not really in the fucking mood.”
“I’m sorry, man. I don’t mean to make light of the situation.”
“Kind of seems like you did.”
“Just trying to keep things light, my man.”
“Like I said, not in the mood,” I growl.
“Okay, okay. Fair enough. I’m sorry,” he replies. “I’ve just never seen you get so bent about a woman before. This is like a first.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So? What are you going to do about it?”
“There’s nothing I can do. She made her decision.”
“And you’re good with that?”
“Do I look like I’m good with it?”
Darnell pulls his helmet off and tucks it under his arm. He purses his lips and looks around, a thoughtful expression on his face. He takes a beat and turns back to me.
“You want to know one of the things I admire most about you?” he asks.
“What’s that?”
“The fact that you never give up. That you never let somebody else determine your fate,” he says. “I’ve known you for what, twenty years now?”
“About that.”
“In all that time, I’ve never seen you give up. On anything,” he says. “It can be annoying as shit sometimes, but I admire it. I respect it. You never walk away from anything without throwing your one hundred percent at it. You leave it all out there on the field, and only when you’ve exhausted every ounce of energy you can and see that you can’t take it any further than you have will you walk away.”
His words echo through my head. It’s true. I don’t give up. I don’t feel right unless I throw everything I have at the wall and exhaust every avenue open to me. But as I consider his words, I have to realize some things are beyond my control. Some things can’t be bent the way I want them to bend just by the force of my will.
“This … this just feels different,” I say with a shake of my head.
“She said she’s breaking things off not because she wants to but because she doesn’t want to be an impediment to your relationship with Micah. Right?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Then make her believe she’s not an impediment,” Darnell says. “Make her see that your relationship with her is separate and apart from your relationship with Micah.”