Deploy, Part One (Rawlings #1)(48)

Fuck him.

***

Rachel Leal, now Rachel Rawlings, reached up and kissed Declan on the cheek. “It’s crazy how different you seem,” she said with a sweet smile as she hugged him against her once more, laughing against his cheek as she squeezed his shoulders. “Hard as a rock.”

Declan’s eyes glinted with pride when he heard her words, just as they had all day long with everyone he’d passed.

Rachel let him go and walked toward her husband’s truck, Mark Rawlings, Declan’s cousin, who was also home for the Rally. Seconds later, Justice charged outside and got back in her Honda and left without a backward glance.

Most around Declan kept up the conversation, the ‘welcome homes’ and ‘you look good’ right along with all the taunts, but Atticus wasn’t smiling. From across the parking lot Declan could see Boon wasn’t either.

Declan said a few, “I’ll catch you laters,” then walked back inside to see what his grandmother could have said or done to upset Justice.

Missy looked up at him with a sweet smile, one she always saved for her serious Declan. “I told her to go.”

“Why?”

Missy pulled off her glasses and sighed, looking over her grandson. The one she always knew would be the hardest to love because he was so much like his grandfather—and had no idea how to say what he felt. The world was black and white and color was a risk, a threat, and a dare. Yet, a rose had stolen Declan’s heart when he was just a boy climbing trees. “Because I don’t give a damn what Monty Souter says or does. He’s an ass and Justice is not his or his son’s.”

She’s not mine either, Declan thought bitterly.

That girl had put him through hell. First she jerks with his head, makes him feel shit. Then she doesn’t write. Then she floods him. Then she got him in a world of hell. And to top it all off she looked at him like he was a stranger just before.

Fine.

“Go on now. She’s already trying to get out of the Rally.”

“She’s what?” It was one thing to think something, to prepare yourself for the worst so the blow wasn’t so bad when you finally heard it, but to know for sure you were forgotten, dropped like a bad habit—it scorched Declan.

“Where is she?” Missy asked, as she stood finally getting that Declan wasn’t the reason Justice left early, at least he wasn’t the reason Missy assumed—that he’d asked her out.

Declan shrugged and went to walk away.

“Boy.”

He paused and turned.

“You need to get your head right. Fragile ground.” Missy crossed her arms. “Tested souls need a strong embrace.” She lifted her brow. “A soft landing. Cuts both ways with the pair of you.”

“Wrong time,” Declan said with a stiff nod before he turned and left.

He had been calling Nolan non-stop for days and hadn’t gotten a response. He expected him to be home before him because that was the plan but he wasn’t, and everyone was looking at Declan like they were waiting for the big unveiling of a lie. A truth they already knew anyway.

Clearly Nolan was not with him. Needless to say it had already made his graduation odd, and uncomfortable. It made him feel even more detached from the life he left behind.

Now, after asking all of Nolan’s closest adventure buddies—the ones he was set to leave with in a week’s time, where he was and getting an ‘I thought you knew’ or a ‘haven’t seen him,’ Declan had no choice but to drive to his father’s bar and tell him face-to-face what he knew.

This deal of Nolan’s had always made Declan uneasy. When he watched him drive away months ago he felt a pain cut right through him—an impossible urge to call him, tell him to wait, they’d figure it out together. He didn’t though, because at the moment he wasn’t sure if he was regretting the path he chose because of his brother, or Justice...his head could not have been more twisted as he turned and walked inside, forever changing his life.

Declan had only been in Bradyville for just under two hours; he didn’t go to his family at first. He hit up the buddies of Nolan’s he could not get to answer the phone—their family. Nothing. It was like he vanished off the face of the earth, only Declan was the only one that knew he had.

Since Declan’s first night at boot camp he’d had nightmares about Nolan, ones where Declan couldn’t reach him no matter how hard he tried. Declan would raise up, covered in sweat then drift back down, his mind going back to the last thought he had before he closed his eyes—Justice. And then he’d dream of her. His first week at camp, before he knew for sure something was wrong, he’d felt it.

Knowing he had some kind of bond with her now. Even having her out of his sight, silent, didn’t stop it. Which only infuriated Declan.

Women leave.

Women are not happy or faithful when their man is out fighting. And when their men do come home—they leave. It was a mantra, a truth, he’d had since he saw his mother leave without even the slightest hesitation, one he never thought he’d find himself questioning, especially as young as he was.

Justice made him question everything.

He didn’t have time to question anything. His thoughts should be headstrong on his brother—where the hell he might be, but no. One glimpse of her and she had hurt him just as deeply as the uncertainty he felt mounting on his shoulders.