Everything Changes (27 page)

It had been a little more than a year since Carey had moved to San Diego to be with Jase. It hadn’t been easy, but they were both used to hard work. Carey had immediately started his job with the VA and also volunteered at Naval Hospital San Diego, peer counseling wounded veterans in his free time. Once a month he traveled to Colorado to work a retreat weekend at Hope Ranch. He really had the best of both worlds, and he couldn’t be happier.

Jase’s band had just come out of the studio, where they’d laid down the tracks for their first album. One of the singles from the album had been picked up by national radio stations after extensive local airplay, and they’d found out a few days ago the single had broken into the top forty on the charts. Eloquent Isolation was on its way. Carey was a little worried about how they’d handle the touring schedule once the album was released, but when he started to stress about it, Jase always reminded him to take a deep breath and remember they were taking things one day at a time.

It hadn’t all been sunshine and roses. Jase understandably had a hard time fully trusting Carey at first, convinced that Carey would up and decide to shut him out again. For months he acted like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and one weekend it had all culminated in a serious argument that resulted in Jase having to crash on Quinn and Layla’s couch for a day or two.

But they were committed, and they managed to work it out. Jase had never been one to let anything fester for long, and Carey was learning it was best to talk things out the minute they were both calm and in a better frame of mind. He’d made a concerted effort not to shut down but to be more open with Jase about his feelings. It was working for them, and Carey was seriously starting to think about asking Jase to marry him.

“Go find your man,” Pete growled. “The game’s about to start.”

Carey grinned, pushing up from his recliner and padding into the kitchen. Sure enough, Jase was leaning against the counter, his ear buds in, iPod next to him, tapping a pen on the counter as he listened to a practice track for a song they were working on. He stopped every few seconds to scribble something down on the little notepad in front of him, humming under his breath as he worked out the lyrics in his head.

Carey sidled up behind him and encircled his arms around his waist, kissing the back of his neck. Jase took the ear buds out and leaned back into Carey’s embrace, tilting his head for a kiss.

“Game’s about to start,” Carey whispered, caressing Jase’s lips softly with his own. “Come on back in there.” Jase hummed and deepened the kiss.

“Jesus Christ, get a fucking room,” Quinn boomed as he came into the kitchen. “I can’t believe you’re in here sucking face while there’s football on in there. Gimme some beers.” He groused under his breath as he grabbed several beer bottles from the fridge, shooting them a dark look as he left the kitchen.

Jase grinned. “Guess we’d better get back in there, huh?” He pushed the iPod aside and pulled Carey close, kissing him soundly several times before leading him back into the living room.

A
COUPLE
of hours later, Jase lounged on the bed watching Carey pace back and forth on the small balcony outside their bedroom while talking to a veteran who was having a rough day. Carey had made his cell phone number available for day or night calls from the men and women he worked with. If they needed anything, Carey was just a phone call away. Not a whole lot of them took advantage of that, but when one did, Jase knew Carey would drop everything to talk to them. It was one of the things Jase loved so much about him, that ability to immerse himself completely in whatever he undertook.

Carey finally opened the balcony door and came back inside, throwing himself down on the bed next to Jase. Jase rolled to his side and propped himself up on his elbow.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Carey turned his head on the pillow to look at him. “But this guy is really struggling. He and his wife are having a lot of problems because of his anger issues. Today he screamed at her because she gave him the wrong directions to a store across town and he got lost.”

Jase winced, knowing what was coming.

“To make matters worse,” Carey continued, “his cell phone was dead. He was out of communication in unfamiliar territory and he flashed back to Afghanistan.”

“So he went into survival mode and when he finally got back home he didn’t see his wife, he saw someone who had given him bad intel and put him in what he perceived to be great danger,” Jase finished.

“Exactly. His wife ended up calling the police on him because of how he reacted, and he’s devastated that he scared her so badly. Neither she nor their kids want to see him right now.”

Jase could totally picture it, how the man’s situational awareness had turned into fear the more lost he became, and how, in order to try and control the fear, anger had taken over. For a soldier in a war zone that anger could be a lifesaving asset; at home with innocent civilians, not so much.

“I’m going to meet him for breakfast in the morning, Jase. Maybe you’d like to come, just to talk to him? I think it would help him to hear things from someone other than just me.”

“Of course,” Jase replied, leaning over Carey and kissing him softly. “If you think I can help, I’ll be there.”

Carey lifted his arms and linked them around Jase’s neck. “I do think that. I’m so proud of how far you’ve come in your own recovery, Jase. But this guy needs to hear that it’s okay for a warrior to ask for help, that it’s okay to rely on therapy and even medication if a professional thinks it’s necessary.”

Jase thought of his own pill bottles in the bathroom cabinet. With his doctor’s blessing he’d started weaning himself off the antianxiety meds, and he was using the cognitive behavioral therapy that he’d been taught in counseling to help with anxious thoughts when they cropped up. When a panic attack did happen, he found that using his yoga breathing right from the start would sometimes reduce the severity. There were times, though, when the only thing that helped him get through it was taking that pill.

Things had definitely improved. Having Carey a reassuring weight next to him in bed every night was reducing the frequency of his nightmares, even if they weren’t completely gone. The last time he’d had one it had been particularly bad, and Jase had lain trembling in Carey’s arms afterward, his hoarse sobs unashamedly filling the room.

“Shhh,” Carey had soothed, rocking him. “I’m here, Jase.”

Eventually Jase had calmed, and Carey brushed his fingers down Jase’s cheek tenderly. “You know, the price of letting me so deeply into your heart is that all the poison you had compartmentalized and locked away in here”—he placed his palm on Jase’s chest—“is being allowed to seep out.”

“It’s not seeping out,” Jase had rasped, “it’s fucking gushing.”

“But maybe that means it’s almost purged, then, my love,” Carey had whispered. “You’re going to be okay, Jase. It always has to get worse before it gets better.”

Now Jase kissed Carey softly. “I’ll help that guy in any way I can,” he assured him. Carey smiled, then pushed Jase gently away so that he could go get ready for bed. Jase settled back against the pillows to wait for him, his arms crossed behind his head as he reflected on the past year.

Their friends had been nothing but supportive of them. The recording label had been skeptical at first of the idea of their newest addition having an openly bisexual lead singer, but Jase refused to hide his relationship with Carey in any way. The label had had to concede defeat after a series of successful concerts when Jase brought Carey on at the end to proclaim his boyfriend had moved to California to be with him and made him the happiest man in the world. The fans had gone wild, even more so when Carey grabbed Jase and kissed him passionately right there on the stage.

Obstacles had been faced head-on and overcome, and Jase was as emotionally and mentally healthy as he’d been in years. Everything he and Carey had gone through, separately and together, had brought them to this point, and Jase knew with a fierce certainty that it had all been worth it.

As Carey came back to the bed and settled in Jase’s arms, Jase’s thoughts turned toward the future. He’d been thinking about asking Carey to marry him, for the two of them to show the world they had made it through the worst and come out the other side. Jase would ask Carey to spend the rest of his life with him when the time was right, but Carey had already made Jase the most important promise of all—the promise to take things one day at a time.

Day by precious day.

About the Author

M
ELANIE
H
ANSEN
has spent time in Texas and Florida prisons… for work. She’s been in a room with a seventeen-year-old mass murderer who was also one of the most soft-spoken and polite teenagers she’s ever met. After a thirteen-year career as a court reporter, she can tell many stories both hilarious and heartbreaking.

She grew up with an Air Force dad and ended up marrying a Navy man. After living and working all over the country, she hopes to bring these rich and varied life experiences to her stories about people finding love amidst real-life struggles.

Melanie left the stressful world of the courtroom behind and now enjoys a rewarding career transcribing for a deaf student. She currently lives in Arizona with her husband and two sons.

Contact Melanie at

Twitter: @MelJoyAZ

Email: [email protected]