Page 31 of Sharp Lies

He leaned in and whispered, “Using a barbecue is one thing. The sauce, though, that’s where the secret is.”

“And what do you know about it?” I asked, halfway surprised at my sudden willingness to argue with him. This was, after all, a man I’d been terrified of up until this week.

“Plenty. I grew up on the stuff. Grandpa owned a restaurant that sold only barbecue, and I was privy to his secret recipes.”

I paused. This was already more than I’d ever heard about him, and that made me suddenly nervous. But as long as he’d brought it up, I figured I might as well dive in. “Where did you grow up?”

“Nashville. The home of all good food.”

“Well, that explains the accent, I guess.”

He looked surprised at that. “Do I still have an accent? I thought I’d gotten rid of it.”

“Only when you get wound up. Like when you’re shouting at me about my dog.”

He had the grace to look sorry for that, and I immediately forgave him for having shouted. Besides, I wanted to hear more about his childhood.

“So you grew up in Nashville? Do you still have family down there?”

Suddenly his face closed off, like this was the one thing he didn’t want to talk about. “I do. Don’t talk to them, though.”

Right, so that subject was off the table. Got it.

“Guess that explains why you moved to Illinois.”

It didn’t, evidently, but Warren was willing to tell me the story of getting to Illinois. Evidently he’d been a mechanic in the Marines and had been stationed in the Middle East for most of his service. There had been some sort of accident there, though, and he’d been sent home but not discharged. Instead, he’d been set up as one of those recruiters in an office. They’d needed someone in Chicago, so that was where he’d gone.

“And then you ended up in Oakville?” I asked, not understanding. “What were you doing, commuting to Chicago?”

“No. I got discharged from the Marines and liked the area, so...”

Right, what wasn’t he telling me?

“Why did you get discharged?”

He looked at me for several long moments, evidently trying to decide whether he wanted to answer or not, and I was just about to tell him it didn’t matter when he suddenly started talking again.

“Some of the things I saw in the Middle East were... Well, they haunt me, you could say. The sounds and feel of being back there... It’s like nothing you could ever imagine. The constant explosions. The soldiers dying around you. The people who live there starving and terrified. You get these things into your head, and it’s hard to get them back out again. And it starts... It starts coming out in ways you don’t mean for it to.”

I reached out and touched his hand softly. “Like panic attacks when there are loud noises?”

He flipped his hand over and took mine in his, my skin soft against his calluses. “And the sudden need to defend people when you think they’re defenseless,” he whispered. “The inability to function when you feel you’re too exposed. Lots of things that make it hard to work a normal job.”

I squeezed his hand. “Isn’t the military supposed to help you with things like that?”

He snorted. “They don’t have time to help people who’ve been wounded by the things they’ve seen and done over there. They only have time to recruit new soldiers. Those of us who’re hurt end up trying to deal with it ourselves.”

His eyes were haunted when he looked up at me again, and my heart beat heavily for him. This was a man who’d gone to fight for our country and come home alone and damaged, with no one to help him get back on his feet. And then, if I was guessing right, he’d been fired for not being able to function in a job in a loud city.

No wonder he was so intent on keeping everyone out of his life. He’d gone too long without having anyone he could trust.

I was opening my mouth to say something—I still didn’t know what—when a shadow suddenly came between us and the crackling fire.

“Lily?” the shadow asked, sounding shocked.

I looked up, surprised and somewhat dazed to find that there were other people in the world. I’d been so focused on Warren and his story that I’d forgotten we were at a restaurant where other people had access to us. Hell, I hadn’t even remembered about the food we were waiting for.

My eyes came to rest of the man who’d interrupted us, and I frowned. I knew this guy. Why did I know this guy?