Welcome Home, Soldier by Deanna Wadsworth

Author:Deanna Wadsworth [Wadsworth, Deanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-64080-302-2
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2017-12-17T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

PANTING, CLAY drew his mouth away. Before things escalated where Clay so desperately wanted—needed—the night to go, he cupped Daniel’s face with urgency. “Danny, wait….”

Daniel’s face shattered. “Dammit, Clay, I always hoped you’d find the happiness I couldn’t give you.”

“I’m not telling you this to blame you. It’s just a fact,” he insisted. “You made the right decision, not coming after me. I would’ve fucked up your life too. If you’d come after me, we never could’ve made it work. I was so messed up, I would’ve ruined everything.”

“You can’t know that!”

Clay shook his head, struggling for words to admit the truth to Daniel. “Yeah, I can.”

While it hurt something fierce when they broke up, in the end, it had been for the best. And if they had a snowball’s chance in hell of giving their relationship another chance, Daniel needed to know what Clay had been through, how he’d fucked up his life.

Most importantly, Daniel needed to understand Clay had finally gotten his shit together.

He was whole again. The man Daniel had once loved.

Maybe could love again.

Clay brushed Daniel’s cheek, his skin not as soft as it had once been but just as inviting. “I don’t want you to blame yourself, Danny. I don’t want you to blame me either. Back then, I couldn’t be in the Army anymore. Not after Basra. I had to leave to protect myself. And you had to do your thing too.”

“I know,” Daniel said, stroking up his side. “I shouldn’t have…. I—”

Inching closer, Clay cupped his face and kissed him quiet. “No. Lemme finish. The nightmares after those fucking Iraqis killed our boys….” He cleared his throat and forced the memories away, but his vision clouded with emotion. “You were there, Danny. You know how bad I was. I got a fucking Purple Heart, and they got a twenty-one-gun salute and a folded flag. How is that shit fair?”

Eyes wide, Daniel brushed Clay’s tears away with his hands. “Shh, don’t think about it.”

“I think about it every time I close my eyes, Danny,” he declared, lower lip quivering. “I still see all that blood. And… and the survivor’s guilt, it fucked with my head. Then after I lost you….”

“I’m sorry,” Daniel cried, wrapping a leg over his, drawing them flush as he grabbed at Clay’s shirt. “I should’ve gone with you. I should have helped you.”

“There was no helping me.” Desperate to feel Danny against him, Clay clung to him. Touching him, feeling Daniel’s warmth and support pushed those old demons away and calmed his racing heart. Finding his center, Clay took a steadying breath. “Drugs and alcohol were the only way to make it stop. To stop the madness.”

Daniel stilled, and his face grew serious. “Drugs?”

The hurt and disappointment in Daniel’s expression cut him to the quick. “Yeah, I was a mess. I was shooting up even before I left.”

“You were?”

Though it embarrassed him, Clay nodded. “That night, on Christmas? I-I was high.”

“You were?” Then clarity came to those hazel eyes, and Daniel nodded sadly.

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