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If Brad said it all started with one particular conversation, he’d be a liar.
It’s easier to say it did, though, to have one singular point in time where Brad can confidently say, there, that’s where I realized. Unfortunately, it’s never that simple – and he should’ve known it definitely would not be easy or simple when it comes to dealing with Ray Person.
Case in point: the phone on his bedside table is ringing incessantly, waking Brad from the light sleep he’d fallen into after a long day of training with the Royal Marines.
“Ray.” Brad says his name with as much disdain as he can muster up at this hour. “ Are you aware your verbal harassment is costing me an arm and a leg?”
“But, Brad,” Ray says, the epitome of innocence, clearly unaware what time it is in England, “weren’t you aware when you signed up for the Marines they could cost you an arm and a leg? Or both? ” He laughs on the other end of the line, the tone shriller than it would be if they were face to face. Brad almost pulls the phone away from his ear. “Also,” Ray cheerfully continues, “you don’t hate it that much, otherwise you’d already have hung up on me.”
Brad takes that as the obvious open invitation it is, and hangs up on him.
Three seconds later, his phone is ringing again, and Brad begrudgingly answers. Ray continues as if nothing happened. “Your presence is sorely missed at Pendleton,” Ray tells him.
“And how would you know that? You haven’t set foot in the damn place since you left two months ago.”
“Aw, you kept count? That’s so sweet. You know what, I should send you a calendar, then you can count down the days until you see your best pal Ray again.”
“Absolutely not,” Brad says. He has zero desire to explain any odd incoming mail to the Royal Marines, and, knowing Ray, he’d pick something gaudy and tacky.
In the meantime, Ray continues unabashed: “You wanna know how I know about Pendleton? Well, Brad, I do this thing, you might’ve heard of it: humans open their mouths, and sound comes out through vibrations. It’s called language.”
“Oh, is that what they’re calling it in the Midwest these days?”
“Wait, you mean you didn’t have to sign up for remedial English when you joined the Marine Corps?” Ray sounds outraged, but so much so that Brad knows he’s being hyperbolic.
Against personal judgment, the corner of his mouth tilts up. Luckily, Ray isn’t here to actually see it. “Ray, that privilege is bestowed only on those unfortunate enough to have been raised on a diet of second-rate meth laced with lead.”
“Excuse you, it was only first-rate meth for me. With a slight sprinkling of lead on top, of course.”
“My bad,” Brad says. He checks his watch. “Was there anything particularly enlightening you wanted to share with me today, Ray, or am I allowed to go to bed now?”
“No, nothing,” Ray brightly says. “Just missed your dulcet tones, Sergeant.” Brad can only imagine the constant smile that’s been on Ray’s face during this entire conversation – but it’s not hard to conjure up the shape of his eyes, face and mouth in his mind’s eye, the way Ray looks when he’s very clearly amused.
Brad sighs. “Great,” he says, wondering if he should tell Ray to shove his dulcet tones up his ass so he can enjoy them longer.
“You said you were going to bed?” Ray asks. “Oh, shit, it’s late there isn’t it?”
“I’m glad you’ve finally learned your world is bigger than the town you grew up in. You’d think the Marines would’ve taught you about time zones, but apparently not.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Ray says. “I’ve been working night shifts and I have no concept anymore about what time is, let alone time zones. Guess I’ll leave you to sleep in your super soft Royal Marine provided bed, huh?”
Ray hangs up after saying goodnight, and Brad spares a couple of moments to stare at the ceiling of the bedroom. He hasn’t been here that long, but the distance makes it feel longer than it really is. Even so, hearing Ray brings him right back, as if any second now Ray will turn up to knock on his door.
Over the next couple of weeks, Brad receives a variety of e-mails from Ray’s account. The first one is a long rendition of this year’s family Christmas (the shenanigans include a half-frozen turkey, uncle Gary nearly setting the tinsel on the Christmas tree on fire (“but don’t worry, he does this every year!”) and auntie Beth ending up in the ER because someone forgot she was allergic to peas (“this doesn’t happen every year, thank fuck, but at least I had an excuse not to eat the frozen turkey – this might be a surprise to you but I like my teeth where they are”).
His other emails are a variety of complaints, mainly about the job market (“being able to unfuck the comms while being shot at should totally count as being able to work under pressure, but apparently the good people at the latest place I applied to don’t think so”), but also about being unable to find his own apartment, the gossip he heard about Camp P via Walt (“look, the guy may look like an angel, but he hears everything”) and, without fail, every single e-mail there’s a comment about Brad needing to check on the Royal Marines’ endowment, if you catch Ray’s drift.
So far, Brad hasn’t taken him up on that, and he won’t anytime soon either.
Ray calls him a second time the next year, a few months later, and the first thing he says is, “Better make this quick, I think I had a heart attack when I got the phone bill last time.”
“I told you so,” Brad says, amused.
Contrary to what Brad expects, Ray just barges into the subject he intended to call about, even ignoring Brad’s jab. “You heard about the deployment, right?”
“I heard,” he confirms. He doesn’t mention Gunny Wynn called him two days ago, shared the news, and then brought up how Ray had called him. If Ray wants to bring that up on his own, fine. It’s not like Brad doesn’t know how he feels, being in Britain instead of over there with his guys. Brad had known that’d be a possibility when he signed the papers, and although he’d hesitated for a second, he knew he’d be doing both himself and the men in his platoon a disservice if he turned the offer down for that reason alone.
“I heard about it from Walt,” Ray rambles on, “he called me about it last Thursday, and they had less than a week to prepare. I just—I didn’t think it’d suck this much, being on the other side of it, y’know?”
Brad could say all sorts of things now – but he supposes an, “I know,” will do.
“I keep thinking, what if me being there would make a difference, what if I should’ve gone back, what if—”
“You don’t help yourself or them by thinking like that, Ray. Even if you showed up tomorrow at the gates of Pendleton, they wouldn’t send you along with the platoon.”
“I know that, I’m not a complete imbecile,” Ray says, clearly annoyed by this fact. “Although, if I had to go another round of desert warfare with Encino Man as our very astute commander I might’ve blown my head off.”
“Ray,” Brad says, “why do you think I’m in Britain?” Aside from the obvious.
There’s a burst of laughter from the other end of the line. “Brad, you magnificent bastard! I fucking knew it!”
Brad can’t help himself, and grins. He’s glad he’s in his own private quarters for this particular conversation, because no matter what, Ray always ends up making him smile, or even laugh. (Although it’s usually in combination with a shake of his head at some of the utter idiocy that comes out of Ray’s mouth.)
After Ray’s had his fill, he adds, “Thanks, Brad.”
“If you wanted to make sure your brothers know you’re thinking of them, send them a fucking care package.” Brad barely hears Ray’s exhaled you’re a genius, and when he glances at his phone screen, Ray’s hung up. “Typical,” he mutters, shoving the phone back where it belongs.
The Royal Marine training regimen doesn’t leave much time to spend thinking on Ray, or Bravo. Brad conducts training exercises, yells at men, encourages men, writes too many reports, and moves to a different base on the other side of the country. For a long time after that, he has barely any time for anything but Royal Marines business – he hastily writes short e-mails to his parents to let his family know he’s still alive, but other than that, he lets his social relationships fall to the wayside.
It’s not until he gets a text from Ray (and he’s received multiple texts, all of them Brad had put aside to respond to later, until later turned into forgetting completely) that just says, I sure hope rumors of your death are greatly exaggerated, but just in case they’re not and this number is no longer assigned to the esteemed Brad Colbert (staff sergeant and lousy best friend): please disregard this text
Brad dials before he even knows what he’s doing, “What do you mean, rumors of my death?”
“Brad! You’re alive!”
“Of course I’m alive, you moronic halfwit. What gave you the idea I wasn’t?”
“Alive and well,” Ray cheerfully amends. “Did you know your e-mail has had an automatic out of office response for four months?”
“Of course I know that, I set it up myself,” Brad says. “It means I can’t be reached, not that I’m dead. Jesus Christ.”
“Does your mother know that? She’s called me multiple times just to tell me about your out of office reply.”
Brad pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yes, my mother kno—how the hell did my mother get your number?”
Oddly enough, she hadn’t told Brad about it in her e-mails either, in a manner contrary to her usual barrage of news about people Brad didn’t even know. (Seriously, he had no idea who ‘Auntie Edith’ was, because she’d been an old neighbor of theirs before they’d moved when Brad was three years old. Somehow his mother still thought it was appropriate to tell Brad that apparently this Edith had fallen from a stepstool and broken her hip, and his mom had also put his name on the get well soon card she’d bought for her.) Point was, if she really was in touch with Ray, he’d expected her to tell him about it simply because she told him everything.
“Mike’s wife was nice enough to give it to her. She figured I was in touch with you the most.”
Brad doesn’t even know where to start with that. Brad’s plenty capable of coming up with horrifying scenarios on his own, yet, the idea of his mother and Ray communicating and gossiping about him behind his back had never come up. The two universes just did not cross. It was as if Ray was breaking some sacred oath Brad had never bothered bringing up. “So, you know,” Ray says, “you could just call her. You use a machine, you’re actually holding it in your hand right now, punch in a few numbers, and—”
“I know how telephones work, Ray,” Brad snaps.
“I hope so, because who the fuck else would I be talking to right now.”
If Brad was prone to migraines, he’s willing to bet he’d be developing one now. “My mother knows I’m alive, I e-mail her.”
“It would’ve been nice to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, though,” Ray says, and Brad blinks.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m just saying, it would’ve been nice to hear from you that you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere in England.”
“Scotland,” Brad corrects automatically.
“Whatever, same difference. Anyway, people who are your friends like knowing you’re not dead. I like knowing you’re not dead. Because I—” Ray stops, and Brad can audibly hear him clear his throat. “Just answer your fucking e-mails once in a while, Brad. I don’t think those tea-drinking fuckers are hoarding all the internet to themselves.”
Brad only acquiesces because he knows if he doesn’t, Ray will continue badger him about it – refusing to take no for an answer.
“Hey, did you know your mom also called me because she wanted to know if I – or anybody else – had any pictures of you? I think she’s planning a surprise picture album for you, homes. Do you think she’d send me some baby pictures of you if I asked? Because—”
Brad hangs up, and takes a deep breath. His phone goes off again, but he doesn’t answer. Probably for the best. (For a guy worried about international call rates, Ray apparently doesn’t care that much about his upcoming phone bill. Brad’s doing him a favor, not picking up.)
(And, yes, maybe he does check out his e-mail inbox once he has a little more time to himself, and he writes replies to people who’ve been waiting for them for too long. Notably, Nate Fick, who had sent him a long article about Roman occupation in Britain before Brad had even moved to Scotland; also, Reporter, who e-mails him to ask if it’s alright if he sends a couple of his photos to Brad’s mother, because she’d sounded very nice on the phone (Brad makes a mental note to tell Ray to stop giving his mother people’s phone numbers); and Ray himself, who’s sent him a whopping one hundred and thirty two e-mails in a two month span. Brad reads all of them – although he doesn’t tell Ray this.)
Ray, he writes,
it’s unfortunate your troglodyte brain cannot comprehend this, but I have responsibilities and can’t waste my time entertaining your every thought (should you ever have any).
No, I am not lying in a ditch somewhere.
Obviously.
Brad
- If my mother shares any baby pictures with you, I will personally make sure your own mother disowns you
Ray’s next e-mail technically isn’t an e-mail at all, the only text in it is a LoL, and there’s a JPEG attachment of 3.4 MBs with just a string of numbers as the title. Brad is tempted to e-mail back and tell Ray he’s not about to fall for his attempt at sending Brad unsolicited pornography, but if Ray wanted to send him porn he’d probably go the extra mile and send him an actual VHS through snail mail or something absurd like that.
He clicks on the attachment, and waits painstakingly for it to load on his screen.
At least Brad can tell after half the image has loaded that it’s not porn.
He leans closer to the screen, finding Ray’s taken a picture of an assortment of letters on a table. Pretty much all of them have a logo at the top, but the resolution is too low for Brad to be able to make out the majority of them.
He does recognize the one on the bottom left. It’s a letter from the University of California San Diego. He can also make out that the first word in the letter is Congratulations! When he gives the other letters another glance over, even if he can’t tell what colleges they’re from, he’s pretty sure they’re all acceptance letters.
Well, at least Ray had stopped moping about not going to Iraq and used his brain for once.
He types out a short reply: Which of these do I need to warn beforehand, in case they want to have restraining orders ready?
In return, Ray sends him some lovely ASCII art of a hand with its middle finger raised.
In a postscript he adds, Not to worry, Brad, I already accepted one of the offers and they’re very happy to have me! Also, your mom invited me to Thanksgiving this year, so you can offer your congratulations to me in person!
The last sentence makes Brad stop in his tracks.
Without even looking at the calendar, he knows he has that week booked off himself. Six months ago, he’d made plans to return to the States during Thanksgiving, and he knows his mother knows he’s coming.
He’s of half a mind to call her to ask if she wants to adopt Ray.
(Brad’s known the guy for several years, and even if his table manners aren’t fit for a barn (let alone his mother’s dining table), somehow he still manages to be charming to a large majority of people. And if Brad said he didn’t get it, he’d be lying. Unfortunately.)
Brad ends up not replying to Ray. After all, if he pretends it doesn’t exist, it won’t happen.
He’s brought out of his delusion when his mother calls and asks him if he knows what kind of potato Ray would prefer. “We don’t really… talk about that kind of stuff,” he tells her, and her oh sounds so disappointed he adds, “I’m sure he’d be happy to tell you himself.” After which he realizes he just invited his mother to call Ray, something he wants to prevent.
“Oh, I know he would, but wouldn’t it be a nice surprise if there was something he liked? What about vegetables, does he have a favorite of one of those?”
“Mom,” Brad says, “I’m pretty sure Ray will eat anything you put in front of him.” And Brad regrettably does mean anything. “Why’d you invite him?” He could talk around this, but she knows him well enough that he doesn’t bother dancing around subjects. If he did, she’d just chide him and tell him to be straight with her.
“Honey, didn’t he tell you? He’s moved to California to go to school here. I don’t think he actually wanted to tell me, but he said he would’ve gone home if his mother wouldn’t be out of state. Did you know he has family in North Carolina?” Brad did not. “Anyway, I know what the price of plane tickets is like at this time of year, so I thought it’d be nice to offer to have him stay with us. But next time, honey, please feel free to invite him yourself. You know any of your friends are welcome to stay with us if they don’t have family to visit.”
“Right,” Brad says, feeling too awkward to admit that he hadn’t known any of those things, because he hadn’t asked, and Ray hadn’t told him.
“Anyway,” she changes the subject, “you let us know when we should come pick you up at the airport in November, alright?”
When she’s hung up after various more pleasantries, Brad is tempted to send Ray a sternly worded message about invading the Colbert household – although it’s not like Ray invited himself, so he refrains. (But then Brad’s pretty sure any sternly worded notes from him would just encourage Ray further.)
The thing is, Ray doesn’t bring it up in his e-mails or texts, so Brad can continue to pretend they’re not seeing each other anytime soon.
Instead, he sends Ray an e-mail that just reads: Why does my mother know you have family in North Carolina?
Of course, Ray goes on a diatribe that regular people talk to each other about inane subjects, Brad!
Brad reminds him that Ray is not, in fact, regular people – and smiles to himself when Ray’s only reply to that is damn straight!
Contrary to what he expects, Ray’s barrage of e-mails does not stop in September, when college classes start. Instead, he enlightens Brad about his lectures and seminars (don’t tell my old drill sergeant but 5 am PT does prepare you for college – I was the only one awake at my 9 am class this morning), his weird roommate (I’m half convinced he never leaves the house but then where does he get the new orange juice bottles from?) and his continued relationship with Brad’s mother (she keeps wanting to know my favorite potato recipe, but I don’t have one? I don’t think she believed me when I said that.).
So, aside from responding to his family’s e-mails in a timely manner, Brad now also finds himself responding to Ray’s stupid one-offs and stories about how his roommate somehow broke their fridge – again. And, when he finds the time, he responds to the other men who send him messages (Fick every other month or so; Tony once in a blue moon; Walt when he has news to share).
Ray doesn’t just tell him funny stories and anecdotes, or various complaints about his friends, family and college, though. Occasionally, he finds it in himself to be more sincere.
Don’t tell Walt I said this, but I’m glad he’s back. That they’re all back. I think I would’ve talked myself into a guilt complex if something had happened to him. You should be glad you’re over in England, Brad, because if anything happened to you over in sand country I don’t know what I would’ve done.
It’s so earnest Brad doesn’t know what to do with it.
It’s not like Ray doesn’t know the risks associated with being a Marine, and Brad’s been pretty clear he might be deployed with the Royal Marines as well. But he knows that’s not what Ray really meant.
He knows, because he would’ve felt the same if Ray still had been with Bravo 2, if he had been deployed with everyone else back in March. It’s irrational, but the sense of relief that came with the knowledge Ray would be home, safe, had been unmistakable. At the time, he had firmly filed it away and hadn’t thought of it again – until now, at least.
But like everything else, they don’t talk about it. Not really. He can’t, Ray knows he can’t, and the fact they’re going to be meeting in just a month or so doesn’t change that.
It’ll be good practice for anytime they’ll meet again in the future – and Brad knows they will, their social circles overlap so much it’s bound to happen. (Ray told him on one particular occasion when they’d been out drinking with the platoon that Brad did not have a social circle, he had a social dot. And that dot was very firmly in the middle of Ray’s social circle.)
Brad’s not particularly nervous when he boards his flight at the end of November. He hadn’t let anyone else know he’d be back stateside; if he had, he’d be forced to go to a multitude of Marine meet-ups and associate with a bunch of people he rarely cares to admit he even knows.
(It’s unfortunate that his plan is already falling through, though, because Poke had texted him yesterday to let him know Brad was coming to dinner with him and his wife this week, whether he liked it or not, because I know where you live, dawg. Brad telling him he wasn’t going to be around at his own place didn’t discourage him, because apparently, dawg, I know where your folks live, too! At that point Brad had stopped fighting it and agreed. It was bad enough that Ray and his mother talked, he didn’t want to add the esteemed Antonio Espera to that list.)
As promised, his parents pick him up at the airport. His mother hugs him too long, and his father shakes his hand because he’s never been great at physical gestures, and then they make their way home. In the car, Brad is reminded why he usually does the drive home by himself, because both his parents want to know what it’s like in Britain – a silly endeavor, because Brad knows they’ve visited the damn country before.
“Oh, but you absolutely must see Edinburgh Castle,” his mother insists from the passenger seat. “Or Aberdeen!”
“Too busy for that, mom,” Brad says, and his mother actually sighs and shakes her head, as if she doesn’t know he’s there for work instead of a vacation.
“Your mother’s right,” his father says from behind the steering wheel, sitting diagonally opposite Brad, who, if he must sit in the backseat, sits behind his mother because she moves her seat all the way to the front for him. “Aberdeen’s lovely. You know, when your mother and I visited…”
Brad’s heard this story on several different occasions already (including when he told them on the phone they’d be moving him from Devon to Scotland), so it’s easy to just nod along at the right times and places while he keeps an eye on the scenery.
(To be fair, Brad’s seen the inside of quite a few pubs, but that’s not exactly the kind of thing you share with your well-educated parents. Unless, of course, said pub is several centuries old and it’s an interesting part of history, in which case they can overlook he spent his time drinking instead of appreciating the ancient brickwork.)
It’s nice to be back, though, even if it’s only for a short while. There’s something about coming back to the place you grew up, seeing all the same familiar spots. Brad’s never been particularly attached to the idea of home, but he has to admit that at the very least the weather’s much nicer here.
It’s warm compared to Scotland, and he spends an afternoon on the beach the second day he’s back. Another afternoon is spent with Poke, his wife and kids. (Brad would say he hated it, but he didn’t. He has a pretty good time, actually, and Poke tells him as much when they’re standing by the front door when Brad’s about to leave again.
“Why are we friends, again?” Brad asks, exasperated.
“Because you have no sense of self-preservation and you like my wife’s cooking,” Poke says, easily.)
On Thursday, Brad wakes to his mother already in the kitchen, half the counter filled with various bowls and aluminum foil. He gets put to work putting together a salad, which he likes to think he’s decent at – but his mother’s eyebrows tell a different story when she looks at the bowl with an assortment of vegetables in it. “I suppose it’ll do,” she tells him, shaking her head and mumbling something about how the Marines ought to have taught him better than that. “Tell your father he needs to come down to stuff the turkey. That’s what he wanted, so he’ll have to do it.”
Brad obliges, and makes himself scarce while his parents bicker in the kitchen about the appropriate amount of turkey stuffing.
It’s just going to be the three of them plus Ray, this time around, but his mother still cooks as if his sister and her family are going to show up anyway.
(Katie had let him know something came up with her husband’s family, so they’d see them instead. She promised she’d try to come over on the weekend before his flight back, though. He supposes if there’s one thing to be thankful for at Thanksgiving this year it’s that Katie and Ray can’t gang up on him together, because he fears they’d get on like a house on fire.)
When the doorbell rings around three, Brad gets the door (his father is somewhere in the yard, and his mother is busy making pie for their dessert).
“Hey!” Ray says, smiling widely when he sees Brad. He lifts a tote bag he’s holding in his right hand, bottles clinking against each other. “I got some wine for your folks! Wasn’t sure what they’d like so I just picked a couple of bottles with French sounding names.”
“As long as it’s not boxed wine,” Brad says, stepping aside and ignoring the odd flutter in his stomach at the sight of Ray on the doorstep.
“Do I look like a soccer mom to you? I got us some beers, by the way.” He holds up the packaging in his other hand, and – well, at least it’s not Coors. Brad isn’t sure what it is, though, because he hasn’t seen that particular packaging before.
Brad allows Ray to go ahead to the living area, and watches his mother coo over Ray once she spots him, like she had a few days previously with Brad at the airport.
(“You didn’t have to!” she tells Ray about the wine.
“Of course I did, my Ma raised me right,” Ray says. “Sorry if they’re not to your taste, though. I don’t know a whole lot about wine.”
“Oh, we like almost everything,” she assures him, and Brad raises an eyebrow. If there’s one thing his parents are picky about it’s wine.)
Now that he can get a good look at him, Ray looks good, Brad realizes. The last time they’d seen each other in person, he’d still been gaining back the weight he lost on deployment, but he looks like he has, now. He looks healthier. More relaxed. When Ray turns his face to look at him and he grins again, Brad realizes his smile has lost its razor blade edge.
Brad hadn’t been worried (he had better things to do), but it’d never completely left his mind, either. When Mike had called him at the beginning of the year, to tell him about Ray’s call, he had briefly wondered if maybe he should worry. If he should be calling or emailing or messaging Ray, feel him out, see how he was doing. He’d remembered the tension lines across Ray’s shoulders, the way his smile rarely reached his eyes those final days in Iraq.
He doesn’t see that man in the Ray standing before him now. As Ray laughs at one of Brad’s father’s (admittedly very bad) jokes, he looks more closely to the guy Brad met for the first time several years ago, radiant youth and exuberance.
There had been no need to worry, after all.
Ray’s put himself back together piece by piece over the course of year Brad’s been gone, and Brad can’t say he dislikes the end result.
At the dinner table, they share outrageous stories with each other (most of them Brad’s already heard before, either from his parents or Ray), and he actually groans out loud when Ray says, “So have you guys heard the story yet about when Brad absolutely refused to abandon our vehicle when it got stuck in the mud?”
“I can’t say that we have,” Brad’s father says, eyes on Brad, clearly amused.
Brad rarely talks about what happens overseas, and his parents rarely press him for details. It’s not like he brings over colleagues often (or at all), so having Ray over is like having a window into what Brad’s life must be like when he’s deployed.
But Ray effortlessly translates what happened in the AO into an engaging story where Brad was (much) less of a grumpy asshole about the whole ordeal (and inexplicably not a single Marine used the words shit or fuck while they’d been stuck).
Later, when it’s just the two of them out on the back porch, Ray says, “Homes, I am so fucking stuffed I don’t think I could move even if I wanted to.” They’re both sitting on two of the available deck chairs and Ray has lit up a cigarette, ash tray next to his feet. “Your mom’s one hell of a cook. Don’t tell my mother I said that.”
“I won’t bring it up if you won’t.”
They’ve also both opened one of the beers Ray brought along, and Ray had laughed loudly at the expression on Brad’s face when he’d finally gotten a look at the label.
(“I had to,” Ray had said. “Just to see your face. But apparently it tastes pretty good, too.”
Brad had sighed. “Only you would consider buying a beer called Blithering Idiot.”
“Takes one to know one!”)
A trail of smoke rises to the sky from Ray’s mouth. “I’m kinda glad your mom brought it up herself. I was gonna do Thanksgiving with Walt, except then he decided to move back to Virginia, so.” He shrugs. “No offense to Walt, but I’m not exactly dying to see his home state.”
“So instead you were going to spend Thanksgiving by yourself, in your apartment, all by yourself?”
“Not by myself. I’m pretty sure my roommate was inviting some people over. But then I’m pretty sure they were gonna smoke pot, not eat turkey. And I’m also pretty sure they weren’t willing to share.” The look he gives Brad is exaggeratedly miserable, but he can’t keep a straight face for long.
They share another pair of grins with each other, and Ray shakes his head fondly. “Man, when I told you your mother invited me, I kinda expected you to tell me to get lost.” He laughs at the expression on Brad’s face. “Don’t worry, I know now that if you had, your own mother would’ve kicked your ass.”
“Speaking of mothers,” Brad deflects, “is your mother really in North Carolina now or did you just make that up?”
Ray laughs again. “No, she really is, homes. And I wasn’t gonna fly in for some dry turkey, let alone drive there. I told her I’d be fine by myself – and, you know, I am! All ‘cause of you fine people, of course.” He reaches out and pats Brad’s knee.
Brad wants to ask if everything’s really alright now, although he’d phrase it more like of course the reason you’ve got it together is because of other people – typical. The single overhead light on the porch (with a singular mosquito buzzing around it) creates shadows on Ray’s face as he turns to look towards the ocean in the far distance.
As if he can read Brad’s mind, he says, “I really didn’t know what I was gonna do after I left. Before, I had all you guys, and if I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to be doing, someone was bound to tell me.” He glances back at Brad. “Mostly you.” He presses the stub of the cigarette out into the ashtray, and sets it back down beside his feet when he’s done. “I had a purpose, you know? I guess I thought I’d feel the same after I left, that I’d just know what to do with my life. But I didn’t. I felt pretty aimless, actually. I wrote those college applications because I had to do something. Also, my mom kept nagging me. I didn’t know at the time if I was gonna accept any yet. I was pretty sure I wasn’t gonna, actually, especially after everyone left. I thought I’d made a huge mistake. Even after we talked,” he admits, seemingly with ease.
“You still ended up picking college.”
“Yeah. Turns out, I’m actually good at this college shit. Who’d’ve thought?” He a sip from his beer, and adds, “But you were right, you know? I could feel sorry for myself, wish I was there – but I wasn’t helping anybody with that, including myself.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear the Marines gave you your brain back. Finally.”
Ray shakes his head, smiling. “Took a while, didn’t it? But yeah. I figured that my obsessing over re-upping wasn’t because I actually wanted to be there, it was so I could put off the other shit I had to do. And we got through Iraq, so I should just stop pussyfooting and go to college. It’s not bad, so far. Beats getting shot at in a tin plated Humvee.” He grins at Brad. “Although I do miss your commentary, Sergeant.”
“You mean you miss the sound of your own voice before I tell you to shut the fuck up,” Brad replies. Considering the amount Ray had talked in their vehicle, Brad would be surprised if it wasn’t true.
“But you like telling me to shut up!”
“Oh, do I?”
“Almost as much as listening to what I say. Don’t tell me you don’t – you only hung up on me twice during our phone calls, and you actually picked up when I called back!” Brad’s taken aback that Ray even remembers that, because it must’ve happened months ago. “You say you just put up with me, but buddy, actions speak louder than words. And your actions say you like me.” Ray smiles broadly, and Brad snorts, taking a drink from his own bottle. Aside from the apt name, it’s surprisingly good beer.
“And what do your actions say about you, Person?”
Ray taps the side of the bottle against the arm rest, his eyebrows furrowing. “You probably don’t wanna hear this,” he says, and Brad mentally prepares himself for a diatribe on something like the mental fortitude of college students surviving on caffeine and stolen ADHD meds, “but you know I picked San Diego for a reason, right?”
Brad stares at him, schooling his face as if it doesn’t reveal that Ray’s knocked the air out of him with his words. Ray stares right back, no hint of a joke behind his lips this time.
He doesn’t further explain himself, doesn’t say I know you asked me not to talk about this or you don’t think I like California that much, right or even Jesus, Brad, did you seriously expect me to never mention it again?
Brad wishes he would so he could tell him off and this never gets brought up again. He remembers the tense feeling in his chest last time, the way Ray had glanced up at him, his brown eyes open and unguarded.
And as much as Brad wants to make a joke about why Ray picked this city (let me guess, your college’s close proximity to the San Diego Zoo means you won’t have to look far for a good match), Ray isn’t joking.
Brad’s an asshole even at the best of times, but if he makes light of this, Ray will never bring it up again – and even if it’s painful to admit, that’s not what Brad wants.
“You know I won’t be back in California for another ten months, right?”
“I’m sure I can manage to keep myself entertained,” Ray says, a faint smile appearing on his face.
“And I’ll be deployed again once I return.”
This time, Ray rolls his eyes. “Yes, Brad, I am aware that you’re a Marine and therefore can be deployed at the drop of a hat. Was that supposed to deter me?” Before Brad can say yes, he continues on. “You know I don’t care about that. I didn’t before you went on your England excursion, and I don’t care now. I’m gonna be here for the next couple of years – at least until I graduate. And I’ll probably be here after that, too. So you’re not getting rid of me anytime soon.”
Ray’s expression is open, and he hasn’t stopped smiling yet. Last time, he’d been apprehensive and careful. Brad hadn’t so much let him down as he had refused to engage.
So he can’t help but be a bit baffled why he would choose to come here, and stay. Everything that had happened beforehand, before he’d left the country, he’d put that away because he’d preferred it over thinking about it. And when Ray had called and acted as if nothing had changed, he’d run with it. As long as they didn’t talk about it, that final conversation had never happened, and Brad could pretend he hadn’t run away in a humiliating display.
It wasn’t as if Ray didn’t know what he was doing. Ray knows him too well.
What he’s not saying is if you don’t want to do anything about this now, fine, but I have infinite patience, and I can wait until you’re ready. He doesn’t have to.
But, if Brad’s honest – is he ever? There’s always another mission. Another obligation. There’s always another deployment.
But at the end of the day (or week, or month, or year), he always comes home.
Brad leans in closer. Ray keeps still, all of a sudden.
Their lips meet.
Ray’s response is as enthusiastic as Brad expected it to be – he feels a hand pressed to his cheek, Ray’s breath against his lips when he briefly repositions himself, and then dives back in.
Ray kisses at a slightly lower intensity than that at which he talks, his mouth soft but firm against Brad’s. When they momentarily pause, Ray leans back and says, “I didn’t think you had it in you.” He presses another kiss to Brad’s mouth. “But I’m glad you did.”
“You better be staying in San Diego for the foreseeable future,” Brad tells him, and Ray laughs.
“You already know I am. I just told you I would. You better start answering your e-mails with more frequency, Colbert, or I might start to wonder.” Ray wiggles his eyebrows, and Brad can’t help but sigh and smile.
His mom pops her head around the sliding door. “I’ve got dessert ready, if you boys want some?”
Ray jumps up. “Yes!” He scrambles over the back of the chair, nearly face-planting in the process, and Brad doesn’t even bother suppressing a laugh. “I’m gonna eat your portion if you don’t get up,” Ray warns.
“I’d like to see you try,” Brad says, amused. “Weren’t you just saying you were too stuffed to move?”
“I always have room for dessert,” Ray confidently says.
Before he goes inside Ray pauses by the doorway, then wanders back to Brad’s chair, leaning over to whisper in his ear. “Your mom was nice enough to offer me the guest room for the night.” Even from the close angle, Brad can see him raise his eyebrows a little. “Are you gonna one-up her or what?”
Then, he’s gone, off to eat both his and Brad’s portion of dessert.
Brad looks across his shoulder, watches Ray standing beside his mother, exclaiming over the ice cream cake she made herself. He looks right at home.
Brad’s a pretty good liar, especially when it comes to lying to himself. Maybe Ray is, too. At least a little.
The conversation they’d had before Brad left, it hadn’t been the catalyst for all of this. It had just been the first time Ray had said out loud what they’d both thought: I’m not imagining this thing between us, right?
It hadn’t started with a single conversation, or one particular action.
It had been everything.
Ray offering to go halfsies on the Humvee supplies. Ray handing him the Copenhagen without Brad needing to ask for it. Ray quietly listening when Brad told him about his ex, then proposing to get super drunk to get Brad’s mind off it.
Ray calling and making sure he was alright, even if they weren’t on the same continent.
Ray kissing him even when he wasn’t sure yet what Brad’s answer was gonna be.
And maybe it was that simple.
Brad stood, and went to join his family inside.
The sooner they finished dessert, the sooner he could show Ray all corners of his childhood bedroom, after all.