As the reporter began snapping photos, a man ran out from a nearby shop. He was running straight towards me. Darby turned towards him and threw up the palm of his hand and started yelling, “Stop!” The man did not.
I froze. The other girls froze, too. My brain was screaming at me to run back to the armoured Humvee. But my body was incapable of moving, I was paralyzed.
The man ran past Darby and continued towards me, yelling something in Arabic. I started to stumble backwards, rigor still consuming my body.
Darby raised his rifle and ducked his chin towards his shoulder-strapped walkie-talkie. “Come in, Corporal—come in. We’ve got a possible Alpha Bravo. Doesn’t look armed, but he’s moving in on the BCs, over—cancel that, the Hajji’s got something in his hand!” Darby aimed his weapon and yelled again, “Stop, or I’ll shoot!” He couldn’t shoot. If he shot, the bullet would have ripped right through the attacker and hit me. If Darby shot, the man would have let go of whatever was in his hand—which could set off a suicide vest.
My heart was pounding against my chest. Backing up, my legs began to shake and I fell to the ground. The man stopped over top of me and bent over. He was speaking quickly, and I didn’t understand a single word of what he was saying. His hand was clenched in a fist around a pen-shaped object with a button protruding out the top.
Darby moved in cautiously with his rifle drawn. “Hands up, motherfucker!” The other girls backed away. “Step away from the girl.”
Gage came running out, gun drawn.
Darby was quick to yell, “Don’t shoot. He’s holding a trigger. He might have a vest. Don’t fucking shoot!”
That didn’t stop Gage, who acted fast, grabbing the man from behind and clasping his hand shut on the trigger in his hand, and spinning the man away from me. I wanted to crawl away, but still, I remained frozen.
Gage pinned the attacker to the ground. Miller came running out from the building. He approached the man cautiously, speaking in calm, slow Arabic. Gage’s face was red, using all of his strength to keep the attacker’s hands immobile, so he couldn’t press that button in his hand.
The Iraqi man squirmed and then looked up at Miller and spoke.
“What’s he saying, Miller? Tell him to stand the fuck down. What does he want? Ask him what he wants.” Gage said, his voice loud and deep like a lion’s roar.
Miller and the Iraqi man exchanged some Arabic dialogue. After a moment, Miller laughed. “He wants Miss April’s autograph.”
“Autograph. Naghham. Autograph,” the Iraqi man said with a big smile suddenly across his face.
“Jesus Christ,” Gage said, lifting the man up and inspecting the item in his hand. It was a pen.
Relief washed over me, but I remained paralyzed on the ground, my heart still racing. It was the first time in my life that I’d felt like I was about to die. And during that moment, the only thought on my mind was: I wished Gage was there.
And the moment Gage came out from that building, the thought that I might die left the front of my mind.
He risked his own life to save mine. Had the Iraqi man been wearing a suicide vest, Gage just might have been killed saving me.
Darby helped me up to my feet and I looked over at Gage. His face was white and his gaze was turned inwards. He was staring off into the distance, catching his breath.
“You okay?” Darby asked. Darby’s face was also white.
“I think so.”
Everyone’s face was white. Everyone thought I was a goner the moment that man ran past Darby. There was one face that wasn’t white, but was instead beaming with vibrancy—the reporter’s.
He checked the pictures on his camera with a big smile. He didn’t freeze during the attack. He was too busy snapping photos to be worried.
He showed us his favourite shot. It was a clear shot of Gage picking up the Iraqi man and turning him away from me. I was on the ground with my arm up, blocking my face. Everyone else was a good twenty feet back, frozen, petrified. It was like an old painting of Hercules wrestling the bull, Achelous, to the ground.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I took my dinner back to my bunkroom and ate alone that night. I knew that Major Richards was going to make some long-winded speech about heroism, like he always did when anything remotely scary happened, and everyone would take turns patting me on the back.
I didn’t want any of that. What they were all really saying was, congratulations on being dumb enough to tackle a possible suicide bomber to the ground to save a Barrel Cleaner.
It had nothing to do with heroism. Had the guy been armed, Ashley would have been blown up, along with Darby and the rest of them. All I would have done by running in and jumping the fucker was increase his kill count from seven to eight.
I also didn’t want to be around a large group of horny, babbling idiots. I was still shaken, still struggling to get my mind straight. During the ride home, Darby had to drive because my hands were trembling too much to drive in a straight line. A bunch of drunken Joes, screaming in my ear, weren’t going to help calm my nerves.
I was angry with myself—angry, not because I acted stupidly on impulse, but because I knew exactly why I jumped the guy, and I knew that it wasn’t an impulse move at all, but a completely intentional one.
I jumped the guy because I didn’t want to see Ashley hurt. I was falling for her. And I hated myself over it, because I knew that she didn’t really like me back—no more than her manager told her to, anyway. I wasn’t just becoming the man I dreaded, I’d already become him.
As I finished eating, there was a knock at the door. I had a feeling I knew who it was, and I was right—it was Ashley. She had a sad smile on and she lingered in the doorway for a moment before asking to come in.
Before saying yes, I stared at her and tried to figure out what it was about her that made me jump that civ back in town. She was pretty, but so were most of the others. She was smart, at least she seemed smart, but again, I’d met a lot of smart girls before. She was from the same part of Washington as me—her and a thousand other girls. The reason I liked her failed to present itself.
I let her in and she took a seat on my bed. “Thanks again,” she said. “For tackling that guy back in town. I really appreciate it—I know you didn’t have to do it.”
I nodded, unsure of what she wanted me to say. It was clear that she wanted me to say something; she just sat there, staring at me expectantly, with that sad smile still on her face.
“That what you came to tell me?” I asked.
“I know you aren’t done your tour for a while, but I thought when you’re home, maybe we could meet up.” She kept her eyes down at her hands where she was pointlessly fumbling with her pinkie ring, pulling it off, slipping it back on, and twisting it around.
“For another photo-shoot or something?”
“I thought like coffee, maybe.”
“No,” I said. I thought about telling her ‘sure,’ and pretending like it was a great idea, but I didn’t see the point in lying to her. It was pointless. I wouldn’t be home for two years. In those two years, she probably wouldn’t even remember my name.
There was no sense in giving her or myself a two-year long sense of false hope. Two years was a long time to be left along with an idea. Ideas grow fast. Thinking, ‘Oh, in two years we’ll go on a date,’ was just setting both of us up for a big disappointment in two years, not to mention all the lost time thinking about her over those two years. It made more sense to rip off the Band-Aid.
And there was a very good chance I wouldn’t come home, and that wasn’t fair for her—to keep her waiting, to keep her anxious, every day, and possibly to break her heart.
Her eyes became teary. If it was acting, it was damn good acting. If it was real, then my decision made even more sense—it saved her two years of worrying—worrying that I was off fucking BCs, and worrying that I would be blown up by some idiot with a suicide vest while on ground patrol.
“I like you,” she said.
>
“Don’t.” I didn’t like seeing her tear-up, but ending anything before it started was the best thing for both of us.
“I know you like me,” she said, looking back up at me with those sad, expectant eyes.
“I don’t.”
“You’re lying.” She was right, I was lying, but it was what she needed to hear. She sat silently, staring, her eyes watering.
I just stared back at her. “What do you want me to say? What are you waiting to hear? It’s not going to work. Sorry.”
“Why can’t we just try?”
I got up and looked down the hall, making sure the reporter wasn’t lingering around the corner with his camera, waiting to catch some sappy moment that would capture the hearts of all of Ashley’s fans, the world over. There was no one, she was alone. I looked back into the room. Ashley was standing now, her feet touching and her hands clasped together at her waist, looking vulnerable, sad, and beautiful.
I closed the door. “If this is part of your little show for that journalist—”
“—It’s not,” she interrupted.
“I could have been killed today. I don’t give a shit about your acting career or your Playboy spread, or whatever. I don’t care.”
“It’s not for the journalist. I don’t care about that.” She looked down at her feet. Her hair fell down in front of her face and she gently pushed it back, over her ear.
“So what, then? You want some sort of long distance relationship? With someone you’ve known for two days? Who you’ve only had a single meaningful conversation with. You don’t know anything about me, Ashley. You think you do, but you don’t.”
She kept her head tilted down but she looked up at me with her shimmering eyes. I wanted to tell her to leave, to not look back, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want her to leave—but I knew we were just setting ourselves up for heartbreak later on. I kept opening my mouth to say it, to say ‘go!’ but no matter how hard I tried, the words refused to leave my tongue.
I thought for the first time of her leaving, and all I could feel was a hole inside of me, a hole from which regret crawled out and tormented my soul. I’d lost the battle with myself. I didn’t want to lose her.
“I know you’re not like the rest of them,” she said, with her head still pointed down and her eyes pointed at me.
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I walked to the door and opened it, stepping aside so she could go.
She walked up to the door and then stopped. “What about me?”
“What about you?”
“Do you think that I’m like the rest of them—like the other girls?”
“Yeah.” She was like the other girls. Sure, she was prettier, she was smarter, she was more talented, but at the end of the day, she wanted the same thing, and like the other girls, she was prepared to do whatever she had to do get it. If Spielberg showed up one day and said, ‘Screw him, I’ve got a lead role you can’t say no to,” she would be gone in a heartbeat.
“I’m not,” she said, finally letting those tears fall down her cheek.
She stepped out into the hallway and stopped, staring down at her feet as if she had more to say. I waited, but she said nothing. She looked so small and fragile as she stood alone in the hallway.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I didn’t tell Gage that my date of departure had changed yet again. I wanted to tell him, but a good chance never came up. As soon as the story of the crazed Iraqi fan got back to my manager, she pulled some strings and had my flight changed. I was going to leave in the morning. As far as I knew, the other girls were still going to stay until the end of the week, as originally planned.
Walking down the hall, I knew that I probably wouldn’t see Gage ever again. I would be halfway to the Baghdad airport before he even woke up the next morning. I couldn’t help but wonder if it would have made any difference, if he would have acted differently had he known it was my last night in the country.
I stopped at the front door of the soldiers’ bunkhouse and thought, I could go back and tell him, just to see what he says. But what’s the point? Even if he would admit that he had feelings for me, it wouldn’t change anything.
He was right—I’d only known him for a few days. He was practically a stranger. I couldn’t expect him to wait two years for me.
I returned to the guest facility but the doors were locked. I’d forgotten that they had started locking the place after that Hastings creep followed me inside. Nancy and Major Richards were the only ones with keys. So I went to the cafeteria where everyone was drinking and mingling, to find Nancy.
I found her chatting up the site’s chef and asked her to let me use the key. She said no. “You’ll have to wait, hon.”
“Why?” I asked.
“After what happened last night, I’m supposed to make sure we all stay together—at least in small groups.” She told me I was stuck waiting until a handful of other girls were ready to go back, and no one in the place had any intention of going back anytime soon. “Why don’t you have a drink. No one’s going to bug you—not after last night, sweetie.”
I sat down at one of the tables, across the room from everyone else. The noise of their conversations made my already throbbing headache worse. Nancy was right—the soldiers kept their distance. For once, no one came up and hit on me.
I kept telling myself that cutting it off with Gage, before it even started, was the right thing to do—that it would save us both a heap of misery and heartache. But no matter how many times I told myself, I still didn’t believe it. There was still that glimmer of hope that maybe I was wrong—that maybe, if we tried, it would work.
I couldn’t handle that haunting possibility. I got up and began to make my way back to the soldiers’ bunkhouse. The tormenting thing was, I knew there was no possibility. I knew Gage would just tell me to leave, to get over it. I knew I was knowingly walking straight into a minefield.
Just as I placed my hand on the bunkhouse door’s handle, I stopped. “What are you doing?” I whispered to myself. Even if he did say yes, that he would wait for me, he was still a stranger. I knew almost nothing about him, other than a few random facts. I needed to suck it up, to let it go.
I turned to go back to the cafeteria, which was becoming louder and louder as the night went on. The mere thought of going back inside gave me a headache, so I decided to have a cigarette and walk around the complex.
I stopped behind the soldiers’ bunkhouse, leaned against the wall, and stared up into the sky. Iraq didn’t have much going for it, but it did have the stars.
The entire sky was an uninterrupted sea of stars, shining brighter than I’d ever seen before. You could see the incredible Milky Way band stretching from horizon to horizon, dozens of little satellites inching across the sky, and mysterious shooting stars that streaked bright in a short flash of glory before fizzling out into nothingness.
Someone grabbed my arm and spun me around. I nearly screamed out, but before my rigid paralysis was through, I’d realized it was Gage, and I felt suddenly calm. He pulled me close to his body and kissed me on the lips. He squeezed me tight and I could feel his muscles flowing, bulging, hugging my body. His hands explored my back and I melted into him.
I couldn’t decide whether my heart was racing from the scare or from the excitement, but I knew I wasn’t afraid. A voice was screaming inside of me, ‘Stop, Ashley. This will never work. Don’t hurt yourself,’ but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember why. And suddenly, I couldn’t care less.
He turned me around and pressed me against the wall, never breaking away from our kiss. My legs trembled and my heart fluttered. I ran my hands up and down his sides, looking for something to hold onto, but found nothing. He was too chiselled, too rigid. There was nothing soft on his body to grab, and nothing small enough wrap my hand around.
We both froze momentarily as the voices of a chattering group of men passed. As we waited, I realized my toes weren’t touching the ground, that G
age was holding me up with nothing by the strength of his arms. The voices receded into the bunkhouse and Gage looked into my eyes.
There was lust in his eyes but there was also something else, something more complex. It was a dark, mysterious look, inquisitive, as if he was trying to see through me, read my thoughts. If he could have read my thoughts, he would have known how badly I wanted him—needed him—inside of me. I couldn’t handle the anticipation. Each time one of his muscles flexed against my skin, I became lighter, weaker, wetter.
Maybe he could read my mind. He pushed me against the wall and our kiss continued. This time, his tongue penetrated my mouth. His teeth playfully grabbed onto my bottom lip.
I squeezed his arms tighter and he pushed me harder into that wall behind the bunkhouse. Another group of voices meandered past, but we didn’t bother stopping. I didn’t care who heard us, who saw us. The reporter, all of the Playmates, and all of the soldiers could have been standing ten feet away, and I wouldn’t have cared one bit.
GAGE: A Bad Boy Military Romance Page 11