by Wood, Vivian
I lean close to her face to sling my jacket around her shoulders. She takes advantage of my momentary distraction to slide her hand around the back of my neck, tilting her head up and pressing her lips to mine.
I deepen the kiss, opening my mouth against hers. Already I’m breathing faster, my body tightening with want. Even though I’ve had her a hundred times, even though we’ve already fucked tonight, I need her.
Rachel pulls away with a quiet moan. “Sorry, that was supposed to just be a thank you kiss—”
I cut her off by kissing her again, which makes her giggle. It makes me smile as I kiss her. She bursts out laughing. That’s how it is with her sometimes.
“Gray,” she manages. “I’m sure you brought me to this beautiful midnight picnic for a better reason than to make out. We can make out anywhere.”
“It’s true that we can make out any damn place we want,” I tell her, brushing her hair back from her lovely face. She quirks her lips. Just now, lit by nothing but the moon, she takes my breath away. “But I thought that since I missed your birthday because I was overseas, I would celebrate your half birthday instead. So… happy seventeen and a half.”
She lights up. “Is it my half birthday?”
“Yep. It’s January 16th.” I reach for the picnic basket, pulling out a bottle of champagne. “And I figured we could celebrate you getting into Columbia University at the same time.”
She blushes, averting her gaze. “How did you find out about that?”
I pop the champagne, pouring it into two plastic cups. “You posted it on Facebook. My sister read about it and told me.”
Rachel bites her lower lip. “I forgot that I was friends with Olivia on Facebook.”
I roll my eyes a little. “You guys are the exact same age. When she found out that I was dating you — practically dating royalty, as she calls it — she was so excited. And when you accepted her friend request she was like…. over the moon.”
She sighs, picking a piece of lint off her jeans. “I wish that she wouldn’t make such a big deal out of who my family is.”
I should tread lightly here. I know that.
“Being part of the family that runs the biggest chemical company in the world is a pretty big deal. Even if you have ripped jeans on. Even if you choose to date guys that your family doesn’t approve of…”
Her mouth draws tight. “My parents don't even know you.”
My mouth curls up. Humor is a defense for me. “They know that my family is white trash from New Jersey. They know that my mom is such a junkie that she can’t stay out of family court to save her own life. They know that we met two summers ago at this very golf course and have been inseparable since.” I pause to draw in a breath. “Then there is the fact that I’m in the military, which they view as being poor, somehow. And by your dad’s standards, that is the unforgivable fact. What more do they need to know?”
She throws up her hands. “I don’t feel that way about you. You know that, right?”
Her tone is just a little desperate. I didn’t mean to make her panic with my unsubtle attempt at humor. Still, I try to placate her by grabbing her hands and bringing them close to my heart.
I look down into her eyes. “I’m just kidding.”
I’m actually not kidding at all, but she doesn’t bear any of the responsibility for either my super methed-out family tree or her own starched and polished one. It’s better to pretend and let her be happy.
She gives me a weak smile and picks up her cup. “Cheers?”
I clink my cup against hers and take a sip of the champagne. It’s foamy and cool, the bubbles tickling my nose as I drink. She takes a sip and then makes a face.
I think that she’s going to critique the champagne. I’m only twenty and I have a pretty tight budget for every single one of my five days of shore leave. In the scheme of things, the quality of the champagne didn’t seem particularly important.
But she doesn’t make fun of the poor quality. She just says, “where on earth did you get this? Last time I checked, you were still not old enough to buy liquor.”
My face heats. “One of the guys in my unit bought it for me.”
“Ah. Okay. That makes more sense.” She falls silent for a moment, taking another sip of the wine. She pulls my jacket tighter around her shoulders and looks at me with a trace of amusement. “Even though it’s cold, I’m so glad we are both here. Life is so much better when I’m with you.”
My stomach flip flops. “Yeah?”
Her smile deepens. “Yeah.”
“Come here.” I pull at her, turning her around to rest in my arms. Hopefully this way she gets some of what little body heat I have. I should have made her grab her coat when we left my beat-up car, but I was too excited to think this far into the future.
She leans back against my chest, her hair close enough that I don’t have to lean down much to smell it. Her scent is clean with a hint of vanilla. I close my arms around her shoulders, marveling at the size difference between the two of us.
I could crush her so easily. I have to remember to always, always be extra gentle with her.
She looks up, brushing a lock of her hair back. “God, the stars are amazing tonight.”
Putting my cup down, I turn my gaze to the night sky. “They are. That’s Delphinius over there…” I use a finger to trace the constellation. “And Sagitta…”
Rachel sets her cup down too and takes up my free hand. Entwining our fingers, she kisses my hand. My fucking heart flutters.
Jesus, she has got me wrapped around her pinkie finger. All she has to do is crook her finger and I will come running, no matter where I am.
I squeeze her hand hard for a second. She looks back at me with a smile.
“This is the best date you’ve ever taken me on. Everything is just so magical right now,” she sighs.
Sweeping her hair off her neck, I drop a kiss there at the most tender spot. She shivers just like I knew she was going to.
“Ohh,” she says, her voice gone breathy. “Do that again.”
“As you wish.”
I kiss her neck again, smiling at the way she giggles. And that is the moment that I know that she is it for me. The only one I want, the one I can’t live without.
I’m lost in a sea of her laughter and loveliness. And more than that, I am not of a mind to even think about being rescued. I’m happier just drowning in an ocean of Rachel.
I’m going to marry this girl. Not now, of course. She’s got so much growing up to do and I’ve got at least three more years of the Navy.
But someday? She’s going to be mine and no one can tell me any different.
I bury my face against the smooth skin of her neck and let her soft moans carry me away.
Chapter Nine
Grayson
Rachel is right and oh so very wrong all at the same time. She’s right that I left her to the wolves, as she put it.
But she has no idea what I’ve been through. No idea that I almost took my own life in the fallout of that event. No idea that it took me a year and a dozen stabilizing meds just to feel like I could exist on my own again.
Maybe I should’ve gone to her back then, told her everything. But my deep sense of shame — of not being the man I was supposed to be, of not saving any of the men who died around me that day — kept me from doing that.
I’m still fucking pissed off at her for saying that shit. I stay pissed all evening. When I go to bed, I have angry dreams about my mom shouting and me cowering when I was little. My anger snowballs into something like rage and I am powerless to stop feeling like I’m looking for something to punch.
By the time I wake up again, I am furious.
I don’t want to deal with any of this. I don’t want to see Rachel, or remember how sweet and beautiful she used to be.
A voice in the back of my head scolds me and tells me that she’s still stunning, but I’m not interested.
It just… it isn’t fair.
; I realize that it isn’t really about Rachel, per se, but I still don’t want to see her face that morning. Unable to cope like a normal person, I deal with my anger by taking a pre-dawn hike to the nearest waterfall and submerging myself in the blisteringly cold water.
As I hike back down to the base camp, nearly frozen, I see that the sunrise has passed by more than half an hour. Other people are rising and moving around the camp. In particular, I watch as Aiden and Rachel make their way into the mess hall, intent on their conversation.
I’m not willing to face anybody just yet, so I just grab a few protein bars from my backpack and inhale them. Nate makes his way over to me from the mess hall, looking like he is taking my temperature.
“Grayson.” He greets me as I’m sitting on a wide tree stump, finishing my meal. I glance up at him.
“Hey Nate.”
He puts his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels. “Rachel passed her wilderness survival test last night.”
Ah. So that’s why he’s taking my temperature. He’s trying to make sure that I’m not going to blow up at Rachel’s treatment of me or something like that.
I shrug. “Cool.”
It’s far from my true feelings, but I am nothing if not a master of hiding my emotions.
Nate looks relieved. “I thought you could use the morning off. She will get a lesson about the parks from Aiden. Then you are scheduled to teach Rachel CPR and survival medicine this afternoon. It’s easy stuff, you just walk her through another handbook.”
Another piece of the puzzle falls into place. Aiden was probably telling Rachel that he’d teach her about the national parks this morning. It eases some weight that I didn’t even know I carried to hear that he was just following orders.
I’ve done a lot worse than that under the command of others.
Nodding to Nate, I feel my knotted muscles start to loosen. “Alright.”
“Great.” He claps me on the shoulder. Someone across the camp calls his name and he heads that way, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
I have time to kill. I have so much going on inside my head that it feels almost heavy. That’s never any good.
So I grab my heavy work gloves and my axe, heading through the woods for the place I was when Aiden found me a few days ago. It doesn’t have a name, it is just high up across from Mount Carrie. Verdant and quiet, it offers me a kind of solace that I only get in the mountains.
I like this spot, enough to come back to it time and again. Anytime I need a break from whatever is happening at Whiskey Bend base camp, I come up here to dig post holes or chop wood. And right now is a perfect example of why I need this place.
All the crazy mixed emotions I’ve been feeling for the last few days, all the thoughts about what could’ve been and the wishes that I had done it all differently…
I pour all those feelings into chopping wood. I take down a big, old tree that I had my eye on before. It is dying, causing a fire hazard. Not to mention the fact that the tree is in danger of falling, threatening any unsuspecting hikers that happen by this place.
Thwack. Heave.
Thwack. Heave.
Thwack. Heave.
I’m soon out of breath and sweating. I pause and peel my cotton t-shirt off, taking a second for a little water from my canteen. Then I go at it again, venting my rage and regret and my heartfelt sadness, watching it wash away as I continue to sweat.
Thwack. Heave.
Thwack. Heave.
Thwack. Heave.
By midday, I am all but boneless, both mentally and physically exhausted. I throw my shirt over my shoulder and head back down to the base camp. It’s hard to think, which is just the way I like it.
I am rounding one of the last bends before I get into camp when I run smack into Rachel. I hit her hard, sending her sprawling across the ground. She looks up at me and her breathing hitches. Her eyes wander down to my chest, which is still bare from my exertions and damp from perspiration.
For the barest second, a note of desire rises in the air between us, unbidden. It’s been a long time since I’ve been around anybody that looked at me that way. Mostly I keep to myself up here, that’s what’s so wonderful about this job.
But for a moment, I remember what it used to be like. Being wanted by women. Being ogled by them. Being the object of a woman’s desire.
Of Rachel’s desire.
I forgot how amazing that could be.
God, until this moment I don’t think I realized how much I long for those days when Rachel was mine.
Fucking, fucking bastard son of a bitch IED. It ruined my fucking life!
With the next breath she ruins it, though. Her expression turns sour as she picks herself up off of the ground. “You should really be more careful where you’re going.”
Just like that, the brief moment is over, the bubble popped. I roll my eyes.
“It’s not my fault. You ran into me,” I point out. “And then you bounced off me and fell, because you are a tiny person.”
Her jaw tightens. “I am a normal size for a woman.”
Rachel is pissed now and I can’t help but goad her. “Yeah. A tiny woman.”
When she dusts herself off and crosses her arms, I get a little pleasure out of knowing I’ve really annoyed her. “You are impossible. You didn’t used to be so… so…”
She makes a strangled noise deep in her throat. My eyes narrow.
“Did you want something or were you just going to fling accusations about how I used to be at me?”
She pulls a face. “You’re supposed to go through wilderness first aid with me. It’s the last class I have.”
I check my watch, trying not to roll my eyes again. “Alright. How about you meet me at the same little cabin as we were at yesterday in fifteen minutes?”
“Okay.” She shrugs.
“Fine.”
I leave her there and hustle through cleaning myself up. As I do, I wonder what it is exactly that I want from Rachel.
Acceptance?
A roll in the hay?
For her to just tell me that everything is going to be okay?
I chuckle to myself, because there’s no way in fuck that any of those things are going to happen. Not without some serious explaining on my part, and I honestly don’t even know where I would start with all of that.
Smelling my t-shirts to find the least sweated-on of the bunch, I make a note to do another load of laundry before I head out on the trail with Rachel.
Because heaven forbid she might know that I stink sometimes. I roll my eyes at myself. Still, I put on another coat of deodorant just for good measure.
Not for Rachel. Just for everyone’s sake. At least that’s what I tell myself.
When I finally walk down to the little cabin, pine needles crunching beneath my feet, she is already inside. Ducking in the too-small cabin, I start to feel a prickling sense of unease as soon as I’m inside the cabin. The walls are so close, giving me the sensation of being squeezed. At least that is how my lungs feel.
I look at how little space I’ve been given in this little room and my throat starts to close.
“Are you okay?” Rachel asks, her brow furrowing.
I nod even though the answer is clearly no. “I just…” I pause and suck in a breath. “We should study outside.”
Grabbing two of the Red Cross handbooks and Whiskey Bend’s additional addendums, I am out of the door before she even has a chance to respond. Rachel trails after me as I stalk over to the nearby picnic tables.
Clearing a table of the ever-present pine needles, I motion for her to sit. She does, although she looks wary of me. Like I’m a ticking time bomb and she’s trying not to set me off sooner than planned, I guess.
Out here though at least I can breathe a lot better. Because the picnic tables weren’t designed for someone of my stature, I sit on the actual table and hand her a copy of each handbook.
“Okay.” I open the first aid handbook to the first chapter. “Here we
go. Systematic Approach to Assessing, Recognizing and Caring for Adults.”
Her eyes are on me, watching. But I try to focus on the material. Letting my attention drift to her means I would wonder about her.
Whether she still has that cluster of freckles on her lower back that looks just like the Lyra constellation. Whether she still gets that intense look of concentration when she’s about to come, a breathless expression of pure want.
Those thoughts could lead to naming all the things I regret in this life. And selfishly, I just can’t afford that today.
But deep in the back of my mind, those thoughts still swirl around and around. And Rachel is finally done, when she’s taken the test and qualified for official park purposes, the thoughts are still there.
“You passed the test.” I glance at her from where I’m sitting, my guard up all the way.
Her lips lift in the ghost of a smile. She obviously wasn’t worried about not passing.
“I guess that means we are going on this trip, then.”
My heart thuds a little too loudly. I swallow and clear my throat. “Yep.”
For a second, her gaze locks with mine and it’s like she can see right through me. Before her beautiful brown eyes, I am without pretense or preamble, naked and bare for her inspection. Her lips quirk as if she is going to say something.
Then at the last second she shakes her head instead. Pushing up from the picnic table, she turns away, calling over her shoulder.
“See you, Gray.”
Gray.
I feel the word is an arrow, going straight into my heart.
It’s been five years since anyone has called me that.
I stare at her walking away, swinging that pert ass of hers.
I am so, so very fucked if she keeps calling me that.
Chapter Ten
Grayson
I dream of Rachel that night. Of what our lives were like five and a half years ago, of what I hoped they would be forever. It’s a refreshing change from dreams of IED explosions and crawling on my belly through the hot desert sand, so I can’t say that I mind.