Come Back to Me

by Mila Gray

  ‘You and Kit,’ he says.

  Oh. Damn. ‘How did you find out?’ I ask, shooting a glance over his shoulder. Are my parents around? Riley seems to pick up on my nervousness because he steps inside my room and shuts the door.

  ‘You know, if you’re going to record your sexcapades Paris Hilton style then don’t go leaving phones lying around.’

  My jaw drops open. He saw the photos on Kit’s phone? Oh my God. I want to die. My cheeks catch fire. I stare at him in horror, but Riley just grins at me.

  ‘I . . . We . . . They were just . . . ’ I stammer.

  He holds up a hand. ‘Stop. I don’t want to know. I told Kit the same.’

  ‘So . . .’ What? What is he saying? Is he mad? ‘Are you OK with it?’

  ‘Not with the photos part or with the idea of you guys, er, you know . . . ’ He wrinkles his nose in consternation. ‘But yeah . . . I’m cool with it, I guess.’ He looks at me. ‘How long’s it been going on?’

  I shrug, not really wanting to admit it. ‘Since you got back.’

  Riley shakes his head. ‘Man. You know, Jo says she knew all along, that it was obvious at the beach. I thought he was into Didi.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what we wanted you to think.’

  He shakes his head at me some more. ‘What about Mom and Dad? You going to tell them?’

  ‘No!’ I say. ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘Yeah, I figured you’d say that.’ He stands there for a few more seconds, chewing on his lip, nodding to himself.

  I wonder if he’s going to tell me to tell Dad or warn me off Kit, but he does neither. He just walks to the door, pausing to look over his shoulder just before he opens it. ‘And . . . if you’re gonna . . . you know . . .’ He wrinkles his nose looking pained.

  My eyebrows lift. Is he talking about sex?

  ‘Make sure you use protection.’

  I pick up the nearest object – a book – and throw it at his head. He ducks, laughing, and darts out the door, closing it behind him, and I stand there for a full minute staring at it, speechless, trying desperately to erase that last comment from my brain.

  Didi stands beside me as I wait outside her house for Kit. He’s late.

  ‘And remember to stop at the stop signs, don’t just pause,’ she says.

  ‘Got it,’ I answer distractedly as I stare down the street. Where is he?

  ‘And if you get a guy examiner, totally flirt. It worked for me. And pray you don’t get a woman. They’re way meaner.’

  I glance in Didi’s direction. ‘Stop making me panic.’

  She grins brightly at me. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. Everyone except complete morons passes first time. And besides, you have Kit.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, you got that part, didn’t you, in the play? And no one found out that you ditched school . . . and even Riley was cool when he found out about you guys. Kit’s like your good luck charm.’

  Yeah, I suppose she’s right, I muse. Kit is something of a good luck charm.

  ‘I’m telling you,’ she continues. ‘Kit’s like one of those leprechauns from the Lucky Charms commercial.’

  ‘Well, he’s a late leprechaun who won’t be getting lucky for the foreseeable future if he doesn’t show soon.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Didi asks.

  ‘He and Riley had their fitness test this morning.’ I look again at my watch. ‘But he said he’d be here by now.’

  ‘He’s probably picking up five dozen roses or scattering petals down the freeway to spell out your name.’ She smirks at me. ‘Or maybe he ran home to bake you special good luck cookies.’

  ‘Shuttup!’ I say, just as Kit’s truck appears around the corner. ‘Oh, finally,’ I say, throwing up my arms. He tears down the street and screeches to a halt right in front of Didi’s house. Jumping out the truck he races around to me.

  ‘Sorry, sorry!’ he pants.

  He’s wearing his shorts and running shoes and a sweat-stained, dirt-streaked T-shirt. His face looks pretty much the same as his T-shirt. He kisses me on the cheek and I smell his sweat and soap and deodorant – is it weird that that turns me on and makes me think instantly of sex?

  ‘You’re late,’ I say.

  ‘You’re gorgeous,’ he answers, taking my hand. ‘Come on, we gotta go.’ He starts tugging me towards the truck, waving at Didi. ‘Hi, Didi. Bye, Didi.’

  Didi waves, her eyes slightly glazed as she admires his sweaty form.

  ‘Aren’t I driving?’ I ask as Kit opens the passenger door for me.

  ‘No. I’ll drive. You can’t get pulled over for speeding on your way to your test. Wouldn’t look good.’ He slams the door shut behind me and sprints around to his side.

  ‘So how’d it go?’ I ask as he pulls out of Didi’s street.

  ‘I crushed it. It was a piece of cake,’ he answers with a lopsided grin. ‘Must be all the workouts I’m having.’

  ‘I hope you don’t slack off on the workouts now that the test is behind you,’ I tell him.

  ‘As if,’ he answers.

  We both fall silent after that. He’s leaving the day after tomorrow – that’s what I’m thinking. And I’m fairly sure he is too. There isn’t going to be much time for workouts. Kit reaches over and squeezes my hand.

  ‘How’d Riley do?’ I ask, trying not to focus on the negative.

  ‘Yeah, fine,’ Kit says, his eyes on the road.

  ‘Did you beat him?’ I ask, figuring the answer is no. If he’d beaten Riley he would have been bragging about it already.

  ‘Yeah,’ Kit says.

  ‘You did?’ I say, turning to him in surprise.

  ‘I got a two hundred and ninety-eight and he got a two hundred and seventy-three.’

  ‘Wow. He must have had a late night or something.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ Kit mumbles shiftily.

  I narrow my eyes at him, wondering what he knows that I don’t. I am, of course, totally ecstatic that my brother didn’t kill Kit when he found out about us, if a little less thrilled that he saw semi-naked pictures of me on Kit’s phone, but ever since he found out about us it feels like there’s something going on between the two of them that they’re keeping from me. Riley’s been acting weird ever since, and I don’t get the impression it’s just about Kit and me, though I might be wrong.

  Kit drops me at the test centre, gives me a sweaty kiss and tells me he’ll wait. I feel like I’m being waved off to war, but luckily I’m back in half an hour, waving my paperwork in his face and jumping up and down.

  ‘I did it! I passed!’ I scream.

  Kit picks me up and swings me around. ‘I knew you would.’

  I kiss him. ‘Didi told me you were my lucky charm. She was right.’

  Kit frowns. ‘Oh, she did, did she? I hope you told her I was a lot more than that. I hope you told her that I’m a total stud in the bedroom too.’

  ‘Are you ever going to drop it?’ I ask, rolling my eyes.

  ‘Come on . . . I gave you a multiple orgasm. That’s got to buy me some kudos for a while.’

  He’s never going to let that drop, and at just the mention of it the memory bursts pinprick-sharp into my mind and I get a shudder down my spine. That was quite possibly the best two hours of my life.

  ‘It’ll buy you an invite to my place tomorrow,’ I tell him.

  Kit winces. ‘The party?’

  I nod, making my eyes all big and round. I desperately want him to come. It’s the party my mom throws every time Riley leaves. Unofficially it’s always been Kit’s going-away party too. He always comes, standing as far from my father as possible. ‘Please?’ I say.

  ‘Really?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah. I want you to be there.’

  ‘With your dad. In the same room?’

  ‘You’ve done it before,’ I say.

  ‘Before, I wasn’t sleeping with his daughter,’ he says with a wry smile.

  ‘He doesn’t know that,’ I say, running my
hands over his chest.

  He lets out a sigh. ‘I’ll make it worth your while,’ I say, trailing my fingers up his chest.

  He arches an eyebrow at me. ‘Oh yeah?’ he asks. ‘Sexual bribery?’

  I nod.

  ‘OK. I’m there. But you better pay up now.’

  35

  Kit

  Riley calls me the morning of the party asking if I want to shoot some hoops. I can tell from the relief in his voice that he and Jo must have come to a decision, and when I meet him down at the courts he lopes over to me.

  ‘How’d you feel about being a godfather?’ he asks, grinning.

  I slap him on the back and pull him into a hug. ‘Bro, that’s awesome. Congratulations.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says, nodding hard. He looks shit scared but also buzzing. ‘It’s the right thing. I love her. And we’ll manage . . . somehow.’

  I nod. What else can I do?

  ‘I’m going to marry her,’ he says next. ‘When I get back. That way she’ll be on my insurance and get all the benefits. If we had time, I’d do it now.’

  ‘You’ll have to leave the MSG,’ I say. It’s one of the rules; you can’t be married if you’re a marine security guard.

  He tosses me the ball. ‘Yeah, I know. I’ll see if I can transfer back into our old unit.’

  I start dribbling down the court. ‘That’s . . . Man, that’s big news. You tell your folks yet?’

  ‘Nope. Going to tell them later,’ Riley says as I take a shot.

  ‘You prepared a bomb-proof shelter?’ I ask, catching the ball after it drops through the hoop.

  ‘I’m going to tell Jessa first. Figure she’ll be the only one that’s happy for us.’

  ‘I’m happy for you too,’ I say.

  Riley grabs the ball from my hands and jumps, slam-dunking the ball through the hoop and letting out a whoop.

  Three hours later I’m standing on the doorstep, straightening my Dress Blues and checking the shine on my shoes. A trickle of sweat runs down my back and I pull on my collar. There are at least two dozen cars parked along the street and the sound of the party is travelling over the garden fence. I’ve been less nervous taking point in patrols through hostile territory in Iraq. I’m hoping that I can blend in – there’ll be at least a dozen of us in uniform – and that Jessa’s dad doesn’t notice me. Not the first time and no doubt not for the last, either, I wonder what the hell I ever did to deserve his hatred, other than burn down his garage, that is.

  OK, there were a few other times I got Riley into trouble – but he made the decision to tag along with me. I didn’t pressure him to ditch school or stay out all night clubbing in our senior year. It was his idea to streak across the bleachers, and if his Spiderman mask hadn’t come off just as the TV cameras zoomed in, then no one would ever have known it was us. I didn’t encourage him to try weed that time in tenth grade either, and the garage was a joint effort – Riley lit the fuse. But his dad always blamed me for everything as though I was the corrupting influence on his perfect son. The straw that broke the camel’s back was my convincing Riley not to go to college and take the officer route into the corps. Not that Riley needed much convincing – he wanted to get out the house at the earliest opportunity and away from his father. But rather than admit any of the blame might lie with him for that one, his dad placed it squarely at my door.

  I remind myself that it isn’t all about me. That his loathing for me goes further back, has something to do with my mom. I keep wondering if maybe Jessa’s dad had the hots for her or something, but the thought makes my blood curdle. If that’s the case I don’t want to know.

  Jessa opens the door before I have a chance to ring the doorbell. She’s wearing a short blue sundress which shows off her legs and her tan, her hair is down and she’s wearing some kind of lip gloss that makes her lips look edible. Without thinking, I reach for her. For a brief moment she presses her soft body against mine and I get a tantalizing whiff of her shampoo and her vanilla body lotion before she dances out of my arms.

  ‘I’m going to be an aunt!’ she whispers, her face split with glee.

  ‘I’m going to be a godfather!’ I say back.

  We high-five.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she says, pulling me inside the house and shutting the door. ‘I’m worried Riley’s going to choose now to make the announcement. You know – safety in numbers.’

  Shit. I hadn’t thought of that. But she might be right. It’s what I’d do. Though if I ever get Jessa pregnant I’m going to inform her father from a separate state, maybe even from a separate continent. And I’ll still be sure to wear a bullet-proof vest because that man has connections.

  I walk into the kitchen, glancing back over my shoulder and catching Jessa checking me out. I square my shoulders and feel my chin lifting. It happens every time I wear my Dress Blues: that feeling of pride that swells through me making me feel invincible. It’s probably the feeling I’ll miss most when I leave the corps. But it doesn’t come close to the feeling I get waking up with Jessa in my arms, I remind myself.

  I follow Jessa through into the back garden where there are tables spread out and about thirty or so people drinking beer and wine, chatting in small groups as waiters hover with trays laden with more drinks and canapés. Classical music plays from speakers hidden in the bushes – the same bushes where I first kissed Jessa. I wish I could drag her behind them for a replay, but she’s already running back to answer the door again.

  I hover on the outskirts, like a diver hesitating on top of the highest diving platform. It’s a semi-formal affair and I recognize a lot of the people, though none that I know well enough to make conversation with. Most are high-ranking officers from the base. There are whole galaxies of stars visible on all the lapels. I spy at least one general and a couple of colonels before I quit counting. Their wives flutter like butterflies at their sides. I spot Riley in one corner with Jo beside him. She’s holding his hand and he’s giving her a reassuring smile, though she looks as uneasy as I feel.

  Jessa’s father is holding court and I recognize one of the people in the group that’s circling him like beggars around a king; it’s that guy Todd – the guy who was trying to flirt with Jessa at prom. What’s he doing here? Then I remember Jessa telling me his dad just transferred to the base at Pendleton. Todd’s wearing a suit and tie. He looks more like a pen-pushing accountant than a soon-to-be officer and I can feel my jaw tensing just looking at him. I’d like to see him survive a single day at grunt camp.

  It bugs me to see him here, especially looking so comfortable within the inner sanctum, and I realize with a jolt that I’m jealous and that thought makes me even more pissed. Todd looks up just then and catches me glaring at him. He nods his head politely in my direction and I give him a curt nod in reply, praying like hell he doesn’t say anything to Jessa’s dad about me being her boyfriend. That would be just perfect.

  My eyes skip across the group and light on Jessa’s mom, who looks harried, laying out food on one of the tables, fussing at the tablecloth. I walk over.

  ‘Need some help?’ I ask.

  She looks up and I notice the relief on her face when she sees it’s me, and also the faint fog in her eyes – a look I recognize from the old days with my dad. Is she on something?

  ‘Oh, Kit,’ she says in a wispy voice. ‘That would be lovely.’

  I help her pull the plastic wrap off some of the dishes.

  ‘Don’t you look handsome,’ she says when we’re done. She strokes a hand down my arm. Her lip trembles, reminding me for a moment of Jessa when she’s trying not to cry.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I ask, lowering my voice.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, forcing a smile. ‘I’m just having quite a day.’ She gestures around her. ‘It feels like you only just got back. And you’re both going again.’ Her eyes skitter over to Riley and I see her lip tremble again.

  ‘Look after him, won’t you, Kit?’

  My attention snaps back
to her.

  ‘Riley,’ she qualifies. ‘He looks up to you. Promise me you’ll take care of each other over there.’

  I nod, feeling a stab of guilt and more than a little awkward. It’s always hard saying goodbye to relatives before we deploy overseas. Suddenly I get a painful prelude of what it’s going to be like tomorrow to say goodbye to Jessa.

  Her mom pats me on the arm and then her smile fades as she glances over my shoulder. She hurries off and I follow her gaze to find Jessa’s dad glaring at me.

  He looks away, a slight sneer curling his lip, and my stomach clenches as I see him rest his hand for a brief moment on Todd’s shoulder. It’s as if he’s making a point, letting me know that I’m not worth his time because I’m not an officer in training.

  For a second I think about turning around and leaving, but just then Jessa sneaks up behind me. ‘Hey,’ she says quietly. I turn to her and instantly feel my muscles unknotting. She’s like Valium in human form.

  Seeing my expression, she frowns. ‘You OK?’ she asks.

  I nod. ‘Yeah. What’s he doing here?’ I ask, jerking my head in Todd’s direction.

  ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘His dad and my dad are friends.’

  ‘Looks like Todd and your dad are having a little bromance.’ I can’t help the bitter tone in my voice and Jessa hears it and gives me a curious look. I kick myself, reminding myself that I’m here to support her, not to act like a little kid. I’m about to apologize when there’s a chink-chink sound and we all look up. Riley’s walked into the centre of the lawn and is banging a knife against the side of his glass. Jo trails after him, smiling self-consciously. Shit.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Jessa whispers as Riley sets his glass down on a nearby table. ‘Kit, he’s really going to do it.’

  ‘Everyone, can I have your attention?’ Riley asks.

  The chatter dies down instantly, curiosity fully piqued. Someone kills the music. I glance quickly at Jessa’s dad. He’s frowning at the interruption. I can’t wait to see how he reacts to the next bit of news. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I think about diverting Riley somehow, but there’s no way of stopping him now. He’s smiling at Jo and everyone’s waiting. The only thing I can do is stand here and show my support.