by KL Donn
Dear Maverick
A Love Letters Short Story 3
KL DONN
Edited by
KA Matthews
Copyright © 2017 by KL DONN
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication or any part of this series may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your respect of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This book is a work of fiction. The names of characters, places, brands and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and owners of various products and locations referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication or use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Warning: This book is intended for readers 18 years or older due to bad language, and explicit sex scenes.
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Contents
Blurb
Acknowledgments
Prologue
1. Maverick
2. True
3. Maverick
4. True
5. Maverick
6. True
7. Maverick
8. True
9. Maverick
Epilogue
Next in the Love Letters
About the Author
Also by KL DONN
One Call Excerpt
Blurb
Whoops!... She butted in!
Dear Maverick,
You weren’t supposed to get my letter.
I only needed to vent.
But, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Dear True,
I thought you were fake.
Then you rambled, and lost your filter.
Sometimes you just need to connect with someone.
Acknowledgments
Thank YOU!
Yes YOU! And you, and the person to your right! Can’t forget your left!
Thank YOU to everyone who asked for more of this series.
I absolutely adore these short books. As a reader myself sometimes I just love a quick and happy read. With the Love Letters that’s always been and will continue to be my intent!
I hope you’ve loved Mav & True as much as I did writing them!!
Dedication
For every quirky, happy, insanely optimistic girl out there!
This ones for you!
Prologue
True
“Please, please, please, True.”
I shouldn’t have such heartless feelings towards my best friend Lena for begging me to write to her cousin overseas in a branch of the Navy, but I can’t help it. I’d rather stick my hand down the garbage disposal than write to a man I’ve never met.
“Don’t you dare think about it!” Lena warns stepping in front of the sink. The glare I send her way would shut anyone else down. Not her. She’s like a bull in a china shop. Or is that dog with a bone? Maybe both.
“I don’t want to, Lena,” I tell her for the fiftieth time this week, I’m sure.
“I know. But you’d be doing me a huge favor. He and I never got along, and I don’t even think he likes me, why would I write to him?”
“I can’t imagine why.” My droll comment and eye roll are missed by the other woman.
“Puhleaseeeeeee, True!”
“Get off your knees, you’ll scuff my floor.” I have to walk away. Her damn puppy dog eyes are beginning to work on me.
“He can be a good guy,” she calls after me. “It’s not like you’ll ever meet him! He lives half a world away.” Her shrug isn’t comforting. At all.
“C’mon, Lena, why do you really want me to write him?” There has to be more to this story.
Letting out a heavy sigh, she confesses. “I’m worried about you, True. Ever since douche canoe cheated on you, you’ve been…sad. I hate seeing you like this. Ever since preschool, you’ve always been happy and chipper. Never missing a smile. Now, I can’t even remember the last time I saw you crack a grin for crying out loud!” Tears hover in her eyes, and I worry if she’s right.
“I haven’t been that bad.” My words are muttered.
“True, you’re twenty-one, and you haven’t been out since dick-smack left.” She refuses to use Eldon’s real name.
“I’ve been out.” I try to defend my actions.
“You’ve been to the grocery store,” Lena fires back. “He really is a good guy. Mav is… soft, quiet. Just write him a letter, mail it, don’t mail it. Do it for you. Connect with someone, True.”
“I’ll think about it, Lena.” Pacified, my friend heads home, and her words follow me into the night, leaving me tossing and turning in my stupid, lumpy bed. Creaking floors and walls make it nearly unbearable to stay still without screaming my head off with fright.
Connect with someone.
I can do that.
Chapter One
Maverick
Dear Maverick,
You don’t know me. I’m your cousin Lena’s best friend. Wow, it feels even more awkward and desperate reading it than hearing it out loud.
My name is True Sidero, I’m 21 years old, and a full-grown loser.
Okay, maybe that was a tad harsh, but Lena told me I didn’t have to mail this letter, so I’m allowed to be that way, right?
Connect to someone.
It’s what she told me, you know. Like I can’t connect to someone in my part of the world. I can. I just don’t want to.
I don’t even know why I’m writing this when I don’t intend to send it.
Gah!
This is so fucked up. My life is so fucked up. I should be planning my stupid wedding, not dishing my dirty laundry to some soldier half a world away. There should be flowers and dresses, and bridesmaids hating me because I’m making them wear ugly dresses while I get the super cute, white, off-the-shoulder one I spent over a year making!
All those ridiculous needle pricks, back aches, and lost hours of sleep, for nothing!
Men suck. Like really, really suck big, hairy donkey balls.
God, I sound like some bitter, old spinster cat lady.
Miserably, no one’s girl,
True
Looking around my bunker, I’m waiting to see if someone is gonna jump out laughing. When nothing happens, all I can think is, is this shit for real? Who the fuck writes this shit?
She’s not real. She can’t be.
Fucking, Lena.
That little shit is always up to something. She likely wrote this, thinking I’d be desperate enough to respond back or some fucked up shit.
Crumpling the crazy letter in my hand, I toss it in the trash on my way out to the ops tent. I got shit to do. I can’t be thinking about how much I could relate to this girl if she actually exists.
Which she doesn’t.
Fucking, Lena.
Chapter Two
True
I hate my best friend. Totally and completely. I’m plotting her death while she sleeps on my couch. Hate.
She’s evil. The queen of narcissistic
assholes and she must die a horrible burning death. Or something equally as evil but not so messy because I’m a chickenshit and can’t deal with gore.
I tossed out the letter to Maverick; at least, I thought I had. Turns out the wench dug through my trash and mailed it!
She mailed my rambling, stupid letter to a man who has no idea I exist. Except now he does, and now he knows I’m a rambling idiot.
“Stupid bitch,” I mutter walking past the couch where Lena is fake sleeping, so I don’t clobber her to death.
“Whatever, just open the fucking thing already,” she mumbles.
I pause, wondering if I could get away with it.
“You’d miss me.”
“Not anymore.”
Ignoring the asshole friend on my sofa, I go to my room and lock the door. No way she gets to witness this embarrassment. Ripping the stupid envelope with my stupid name open, my need to murder Lena intensifies.
Dear “True,”
I get it, Lena, you’re bored. Can’t bug me at home, so you do it where I need all my concentration and wits about me. Piss off you spoiled brat, or next time, I won’t “accidentally” run over your foot like when you were 16.
You’ve done some pretty shitty fucking things over the years, but this is your lowest, girl. Go find one of your brothers to pester. I don’t need your shit.
Now, on the off chance that letter was legit and there really is a girl named True Sidero on the other side of this letter then, well, my cousin sucks even more.
She likely mailed this damn thing when you thought you were safe. I wish I could say it’s the first time she’s been an asshole, but it’s not.
Ask her why I ran her damn foot over. You might question that friendship.
Unfortunately, she’s right. (Tell her I said that, and I’ll deny it.) You do need to connect with someone, True. It’s human nature.
I won’t mind hearing from you in the future should you choose to write me again. Barring you’re a flesh and blood human being and not Lena being Lena.
Officer Maverick Conners
I’m laughing so hard the entire bed is shaking and rattling against the wall. I’m kind of glad I’m not the only one cursing Lena. I do wonder about the running over of her foot, though.
Dashing from bed, I rush out to the living room and ask her. “Why’d Maverick run your foot over?”
Lena shoots up so quickly she loses her balance and falls off the couch. “He told you about that?”
Smirking, I finally have the upper hand with this wenchy friend of mine. “He said next time, it wouldn’t be accidental.”
“That rat bastard! What else did he say?” She grabs for the letter I’m holding out of her reach.
“That you’re a spoiled brat. And you need to find better shit to do than mess with people.” She looks sheepish at the accusation, and I almost feel bad.
“Fine. Whatever. I’m going home.”
As she walks to the door, I say to her, “I hope you enjoy all the gorilla humping!”
She flips me off as the door slams behind her.
Her roommate has a new boyfriend, and all they do is have sex. Lena can’t stand it because they sound like zoo animals, so she’s been sleeping and eating her way through my tiny apartment.
Gazing down at the paper in my hand, I wonder if it would be so bad to write Maverick back? Maybe he needs friendship, too.
Chapter Three
Maverick
Dear Maverick,
Well, I assure you, I’m as real as the sunset. True is actually my name, and I am the hot mess I portrayed myself as.
Lena, however, that bitch, ran away without telling me about the running over of her foot. Care to spill?
I’m really sorry about the first letter. Normally, I’m a pretty happy person. I love the stupidest sci-fi movies on Netflix, I have like a gazillion books that make me calm, and generally, I love to joke around.
Stupid men and their stupid “tools” have turned me off from life. (No dumb pun intended.) I guess I’m bitter, and maybe I really am the old spinster lady!
Crap, if I get any cats, just toss me in the looney bin!
Enough about me and my drama, tell me about you. Lena says you’re in the Navy? That’s exciting, and amazing, and inspiring. Are you deployed anywhere you can tell me about?
What do you think about all that you do? Have you been on active duty long?
Wow, okay, so if you can’t tell, I ramble when I’m nervous, or happy. Come to think of it, even when I’m mad. Basically, whenever I feel anything but tired.
I think.
I’ll leave you to this mess of a letter and go bake something.
Hey! Maybe I’ll include a treat! If I don’t burn it that is.
Weirdly, True
Damn, this girl can talk. I bet she’d yammer my ear off if we were together. I’d like that to happen. There’s something oddly relaxing and amusing about True. She’s real and wholesome all at the same time.
I’m incredibly glad she chose to write me back. It would have been a tad stalkerish if I’d sent her a second letter just to make sure she knew I wanted to hear from her.
True to her word, she included a canister of cookies with a warning note, saying: it’s not my fault. Opening the container, the smell of peanut butter and cinnamon hits my nostrils, and I inhale deeply.
Peanut butter snickerdoodles. My favorite. Guess Lena must have been nice for once and told her friend what I like.
Biting into the first one, a burst or flavor overwhelms me, and I close my eyes to savor the deliciousness of that initial bite.
“You gonna lose your grip there Mav, or what?” Desmond’s laughing voice doesn’t distract me from my girl’s goods, though.
“Dude, best thing ever,” I mumble through another mouthful.
“Whoooey, she’s a gorgeous one, man.” It takes a full minute for his words to register.
“There’s a picture?” My eyes snap to the image in his hand, and I grab it before he can back away.
Dark brown hair, it looks soft and thick, the perfect combination to run my fingers through as I kiss those full red lips. Her deep brown eyes beckon me to peek into her soul. She’s curled up on a sofa in a too big sweater and tight black leggings showcasing full, luscious thighs.
“True,” I murmur running a finger along her photo.
“Didn’t know you had a girl, man,” Des mutters.
“I didn’t,” I say, compelled to search every inch of her picture. Find all the hidden details.
“Another love letter then?” He laughs, knowing our captain and lieutenant found love through anonymous letters a few months back.
“Don’t knock it till you try it, bro.” My words are fading as I leave him to go sit in the crisp morning air. I could stare at her photo all damn day.
Chapter Four
True
True,
I know what your surname means. My boy Desmond has this thing for names, and he told me a little secret. I’m curious if you know it, too.
So, I guess Lena did good for once and told you peanut butter snickerdoodles are a favorite of mine, huh. Can’t keep plotting the breaking of her other foot anymore, I suppose.
I think it’s endearing that you ramble when you’re so worked up. Plus, I don’t mind the questions, it gives me something to do in this desert heat.
So here goes:
I’m in a branch of the Navy, I sort of float around wherever I’m needed.
I can tell you where I am, but only when I come home. Just think lots of sand and not the fun kind.
I love what I do. I love helping make the world a better place, even though it takes longer than anyone would like. We don’t always get the results we want, but in the end, we’ve done something right.
I’ve been enlisted for 9 years. Signed up the day after I turned 18. I’ve always wanted to make a difference in our harsh world, and this was the best I could come up with and still get an education.
I�
��m not only a soldier, but also a heavy-duty machines mechanic, and I enjoy both. Over here, I’m mostly a soldier, but I’ve got the skills for a decent job when I come home.
Speaking of, I’ve got some leave time coming up in 8 months and haven’t seen Lena in a while, so I thought I’d make my way out to Cali and pester the little shit. Maybe you’ll be there, too.
The picture you sent was hot. All soft and supple, with those big chocolate eyes. You could melt a man’s heart with those babies.
Tell me all there is to know about you, True.
Mav
Lena was right, the wench. He’s soft and hard all at once. I wonder if he realizes it?
I spent the better part of the day studying for final exams next week. Anticipation kept me cemented long enough to keep up with it while I waited for the mail to come. The poor mail man probably thinks I’m nuts now.
Lena has been scarce around here the past couple of weeks, knowing how pissed off I was at her. It was a smart move. I’m over it now, though. I think Maverick was on point when he said she was right. Not that either of us will ever admit that to her.
Sending him the picture of myself was a last minute bold move I hadn’t meant to do. Well, I did, but I didn’t. My mom took that picture the last time she was here, and it’s always been one of my favorites. Until I tossed it in the care package, it had been on the fridge. A reminder of the happy me. When I’d been packing the snickerdoodles into the box, it caught my eye, and I thought what the hell. Why not?