Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

mouth.
    Jacob asked softly, "Bad dreams again?"
    "You have to really sleep to dream." Which in retrospect did explain the not-sleeping. He rubbed his eyes. "Look, go back to bed. You'll be getting cold out here." They were having a cold snap, and the apartment felt chilly. Daniel rubbed his arms and shivered.
    "Will you come? We could help each other warm back up?"
    "Maybe in a while."
    Jacob sat on the couch beside him. "Do you want to talk about it? I mean, I'm no psychologist or anything, but it seems like it's getting worse and not better. And I was there."
    "Not really. Not at the end. You don't know." He didn't want Trip to know, didn't want to take the last shine off that innocence Jacob still had. As bad as the sinking of the Gageway had been, it had been nothing compared to Tarawa and beyond. Besides, Jacob didn't remember much of the sinking anyway. Lucky guy had been unconscious for half of it. Daniel shifted restlessly on the couch. "Anyhow, I don't want to talk about it, or think about it. I just want to go on from here."
    Jacob sighed. "Did you at least have a good time out with your friends tonight?"
    "It was okay." He'd gone out drinking and dancing with a couple of the boys from the restaurant where he was a waiter. They were young and carefree and the bar had been dark and loud with music. "It was good."
    "I would have gone with you, you know."
    "Those guys are young. They don't know anything about the war except rationing and scrap drives. It's easy to be around them and just forget for a while."
    "So I'm either too ignorant or not ignorant enough for you to want to be with me?"
    Daniel gritted his teeth. "Yes. Sometimes that's exactly right."
    "Oh." Jacob's eyes showed his hurt.
    "Trip." Daniel reached out as if to touch him and then dropped his hand. "Look, I didn't mean it like that. I need to find my own way. It was..." He didn't want to say what it had been. He stood abruptly. "I'm going to go out and walk."
    "Wait and I'll get dressed."
    "No!" That came out sharper than he meant it to and he saw Jacob flush and look down. "No. You go to bed. You're a working stiff. You have to get up and go to the store in a few hours. I just need to move around a bit, breathe some fresh air, clear the collywobbles from my brain."
    Jacob tried a smile. "Is that what you have in there?"
    Daniel hated that smile. The one that said Jacob was scared and trying to seem reassuring, because Daniel was broken. Daniel wasn't broken. Well, maybe a bit bent. He snorted and the thought improved his mood just a hair. "Seems like it sometimes. I'll be back soon. Don't worry."
    "Okay. Just... be careful? It's pretty deserted at this hour."
    And that brought the irritation rushing back. "I want it deserted. I'm a Navy veteran. I think I can take care of myself."
    "Okay."
    Daniel strode to the closet and pulled out his jacket, stomped into his shoes, fighting the laces, aware of Jacob staring sadly after him. He headed out the door, pausing only to be sure he'd relocked it behind himself, and then hurried down the stairs. He kept his steps as quiet as he could in consideration for the neighbors. Two flights down and then he let himself out into the cool night.
    There was a little moon out, enough to walk by even when a streetlight was out. He wandered aimlessly. Somehow he found he had lit another cigarette and he took a deep drag on it, hand cupped around it in old reflex. Somewhere a dog barked. On the next street over he could hear traffic, even at this hour of morning. A poor fellow with shiftwork, maybe, or some lucky bastard just coming back now from a moonlight sail on his yacht.
    He shook his head at his jealous fancy. No one with a yacht would be so much as driving though this neighborhood. Although Jacob could have had a yacht. Well, a boat anyway. More than he had right now with Daniel. Daniel wasn't sure just how much money Jacob's father had.
    Well, of course he didn't know because he'd never even been to the man's house. Sometimes he felt like Jacob's dirty secret, kept locked away in a tenement, never allowed into Jacob's daily world.
    So maybe Daniel did go out at night with the boys too often and too late. Maybe he did drink and smoke more than he should. He needed a life too. Something that wasn't just working the tables and waiting for Jacob to come home. Something that filled his head and kept him too busy for memories.
    He lit a second cigarette from the first, and turned another corner. The buildings got