Looking For Love (Semper Fi, The Forever Faithful Series Book 2)

by Stella Starling

  “You know you can walk her anytime, Alicia,” Micah said, grinning. “But…?”

  “I know, I know, only if I put her in harness.” Alicia laughed as she patted Pippin’s head one more time and then stood up, heading confidently toward the closet where Micah kept it. “I was actually hoping you’d say that. It’s way easier to do the busy intersections with her help. She’s so smart, and sometimes it almost feels like she can read my mind, you know?”

  Micah grinned. He did know.

  Alicia knew the layout of his apartment as well as he did, and for her sake, he kept everything as tidy, predictable, and easy to navigate as he had before he’d gotten his sight back. It took her no time at all to get Pippin’s harness out and buckle her in.

  “I can have her back in an hour? I want to take her to the park today. Is that okay?”

  “Actually, me and Sam have to take off soon,” Micah said, squinting toward the clock. Nope. It was too much work to make sense of it with just a quick glance, but still, he was guessing that it was probably close to the time he and Sam needed to leave. “You can use the spare key over the door when you’re done, or just keep her at your place until I’m back, as long as your mom doesn’t mind.”

  Alicia nodded, dropping her hand to grab Pippin’s harness in a practiced move that instantly turned the two of them into a team.

  The minute she was in harness, Pippin switched from excited, fun-loving pet into a working guide dog. Her body still vibrated with suppressed energy, but it was 100% clear that she knew playtime was over. Her nose didn’t even twitch in the direction of the burger Sam was finishing up.

  Pipp was in heaven.

  “So where are you guys going?” Alicia asked, looking just as happy as the dog at her side.

  Sam groaned at the question, and Micah laughed, knowing it was mostly for show. Sam had been great about driving all over the city for the last few months to help out with Rachel-Lyn’s wedding prep.

  “We’ve got our last tux fittings today,” Micah told Alicia. “My sister changed her mind about her wedding colors again, and she decided to switch our jacket styles while she was at it.”

  Sam fished around in the fast food bag and pulled out a container of fries, mumbling something under his breath about sadistic tailors.

  “Weren’t you the one who told Rachel-Lyn she should check out that new spread on men’s trends in The Knot, Sam?” Micah asked, lips twitching.

  “Dude, don’t remind me,” Sam said, shoving a handful of fries into his mouth. “I never would have opened my mouth if I’d thought she was going to rope me into wearing a tux. And remind me again how that happened, please? I’m not even actual family.”

  “Shut up,” Micah said. “You’re family, and you know it.”

  “I better be, for all the mileage I’m racking up for your sister’s wedding,” Sam said, grinning around another oversized wad of fries in his mouth. “Seriously, dude, I’m not saying bridezilla… but I’m also not not saying it.”

  “Rachel-Lyn just wants things to be nice,” Micah said in his sister’s defense. “She’s not that bad.”

  “Nah, she’s not,” Sam admitted. “But for real, I’m going to be glad when this thing’s over. Let’s make a pact right now that if either of us ever get married, we just run off to Vegas or something. No place settings or engraved invitations or fussy bows on the church pews, mkay?”

  Micah laughed, but then he grimaced. Had Sam always talked with his mouth full? Gross. And definitely not one of the benefits of getting his sight back, in Micah’s opinion.

  At least Alicia was spared.

  Her face got a little dreamy. “I think her wedding sounds nice,” she said. “And it’s just a few more weeks until it happens, right?”

  “Yep,” Micah answered, scratching Pippin behind the ears when she gave a soft whine to remind them that she was ready to work. “You’d better get going, Alicia. Have fun, ’kay?”

  “Thanks, Micah,” Alicia gushed, her whole face glowing. “Pippin’s the greatest thing ever. Bye, Sam.”

  Pippin’s tail started wagging like mad as they headed for the door, and Micah’s happiness at his dog’s obvious pleasure outweighed his guilt for the moment.

  Sam snorted a laugh as Alicia and Pippin left. “Ali is your number-one fangirl.”

  Micah grinned, but just shook his head instead of agreeing. There were some things Sam couldn’t ever fully understand. Alicia wasn’t fangirling on him; it was the difference a dog like Pippin made that was life-changing. It was liberating in ways that Sam couldn’t possibly get, even if Micah had tried to explain them. Alicia’s mother wasn’t nearly as overprotective as the three M’s were, but still, he knew that Alicia’s world had been smaller before she’d started venturing out with Pipp.

  And seeing the kind of confidence that working with Pippin inspired in Alicia? It was all kinds of awesome.

  Micah looked at the clock again, cocking his head to the side as he tried to force his brain to trace the shapes of the numbers and make sense of them. He could read both letters and numbers just fine in braille, but trying to do it with his eyes always took him a moment.

  His mother had once told him that the delay he experienced between seeing and comprehension sounded similar to what she’d gone through when she’d learned English as a second language. She’d said that at first, there’d been a comprehension lag time whenever she’d hear English spoken, as if her brain needed a moment to take in what she’d heard and translate it into what it actually meant. It was exactly how Micah felt whenever he tried to make sense of letters and numbers with his eyes alone.

  He knew their shapes, but his brain still took a bit to translate them into meaning.

  Micah blinked, lag time over. The clock said four. He was almost entirely sure of it.

  “We should probably get going, right, Sam?”

  Sam nodded, then he grinned. “You going to take your phone?” he asked, doing some weird wiggle thing with his eyebrows. “You know, in case your future sex toy finally calls?”

  “Oh my God,” Micah said, feeling his face heat up again. He slapped his hands over his cheeks in a useless attempt to cool them down. “I never should have told you about Zach.”

  Sam laughed. “Yeah, no chance. Hello, I saw you talking to him, for one thing. And that Dreamy McSwoon thing you had going on when I picked you up?” Sam laughed even harder, grabbing the trash off the coffee table and disappearing into the kitchen for a minute before coming back with two cans of soda. He handed one to Micah, jerking his head toward the door. “Dude, sorry, but you’re an open book.”

  Micah grabbed his phone and his keys and followed Sam out, both loving and hating how well his best friend knew him.

  Well, mostly loving it.

  “Micah, seriously, you should text the guy,” Sam said when they got in the car. “I know you think you’re blessed by the good-luck fairy or whatnot, but sometimes you’ve got to make your own luck, right?”

  Micah took a deep breath, his stomach going a little queasy with nerves. He wanted to see Zach again. Kind of desperately so. But…

  “I don’t even know if he’s really interested, Sam. I mean, I could barely get two words out around him, and he’s so… he’s just… I mean, he’s—”

  Sam laughed. “He’s what already?”

  “So hot,” Micah said, his cheeks flaming again. “And nice. I mean, really nice. And I…”

  Micah bit his lip, every single embarrassing moment from the day before flashing through his mind’s eye.

  Sam looked over at him, not saying anything for a moment as he pulled away from the curb. Then, in a very un-Sam-like voice—no trace of teasing—he finally said, “Look, Micah, I know I’m giving you a hard time, but I’m really happy you finally found someone you like. And you’re really nice, too, you know? So if this guy is smart, he’ll get that, even if you clammed up like you usually do, or ran into a pole right in front of him, or tripped over a seagull or whatnot.”

>   “Oh, God,” Micah said, closing his eyes. He hadn’t actually told Sam how he’d met Zach. Tripping over a seagull probably would have been an improvement.

  Sam laughed. “Worse than that, huh? What happened?”

  “Um, the minute he saw me, I did trip. I kind of fell at his feet?”

  Sam snickered. “Only you, Micah, could turn being a klutz into a pick-up line.”

  Micah blushed, but the memory of opening his eyes from that horrible moment of embarrassment to see Zach looking down at him? That was worth a little mortification. And really, if you thought about it, it was just further proof that everything bad that happened in his life only did so in order to bring about something better.

  Micah grinned.

  “Did I tell you Zach’s a medic? I think that’s like a military thing, but I’m not sure. He was riding those jet packs down at Mission Bay yesterday, you know, the ones I want to try? Which is kind of a sign, right, since we like the same things? I mean, sort of. I think I’d like doing that. And honestly, I don’t even know if I would have had a chance to talk to him if I hadn’t fallen down? But when I did, he was suddenly right there. Which was totally embarrassing, but then turned out to be kind of great, too? And, oh my God, Sam, he’s… he’s… he’s just…”

  But Micah had run out of words, and his hands traced the shape of Zach’s face in the air as he searched for a better way to describe everything he’d felt around Zach. Nope. He couldn’t think of anything that would do it justice, but that was okay. Micah’s perpetual, awkward clumsiness was one thing he’d always failed to see the good in, but this time, it had turned out to be yet another instance of good fortune striking again, hadn’t it?

  Micah smiled, pretty sure it was what Sam had just called his Dreamy McSwoon face or whatever. But it was totally justified, because it was kind of amazing how consistently the world proved itself to be a place of total and complete wonderfulness like that. He really did have the very best luck in the whole world.

  Sam looked over at him, grinning. “Holy shit, Micah. You’re totally sprung, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe?” Micah said, even though he was pretty sure that the answer wasn’t maybe at all. “But I mean, I don’t know how these things work? How can you tell if a guy’s actually interested, Sam?”

  Sam laughed. “Can’t help on that one, Micah. I’ve never worried about a guy being interested before. Step one, though? Text the man already.”

  “Sam, you are a guy. How can you not know?”

  Sam smirked. “Well, you’re a guy, too. How can you not know?”

  Micah tilted his head to the side, trying to read Sam’s face. Trying to decide if Sam’s expression was really what he thought it was.

  Yes.

  Yes, it was.

  Sam was goading him on purpose.

  Micah narrowed his eyes, and Sam laughed.

  “I wouldn’t even know what to say if I texted him,” Micah blurted out, even though he was starting to feel excited about the idea. Because he did have the best luck ever… but maybe Sam was right, too, and Micah’s luck could use a helping hand once in a while.

  “It’s not rocket science,” Sam said, grinning. “Just tell him you want to get together. Tell him you need some gay sex pointers. Tell him he makes your panties wet. I don’t know, just… say hi. See where it goes from there.”

  Micah stared down at his phone. “But what if he doesn’t—”

  “But what if he does?” Sam interrupted. “Come on, dude, lucky or not, if you really want something, you’ve gotta get out there and do your part to make it happen, too, right?”

  Micah looked at Sam, wondering if they’d actually known each other so long that Sam could read his mind.

  Then he looked back at his phone.

  Then he thought about Zach, and the way he’d left his hand on Micah’s back as they’d walked out to the parking lot, and the way it had felt when Zach had asked to see him again. It had been a little bit like when Dr. Schuster had first taken the bandages off his eyes and the whole world had rushed in to greet him all at once, an overwhelming whoosh of color and light and wonderfulness that he’d instantly known he’d never get enough of, except the Zach-whoosh had all been on the inside.

  “I’m going to text him,” Micah said decisively, even though he still didn’t know what on earth he’d say. No matter. If he wasn’t afraid of bumping into a few things out in the real world, he could definitely handle stumbling over a few moments of awkwardness with Zach. He tapped the orange icon for his contacts, but before he could work out which one was Zach’s number, the phone vibrated in his hand with an incoming text.

  Hi, Micah. It’s Zach Hunter. Are you free Friday night?

  Micah blinked, his heart leaping into his throat. Before he could catch his breath, another text came in:

  I was hoping I could take you out. :-)

  “Sam, read these to me,” he said, shoving his phone in front of Sam’s face because he was too impatient to make sure his eyes were working right.

  “Dude, I’m driving,” Sam said, batting it away. He grinned. “Is it him?”

  Micah nodded, staring down at his screen and pretty much sure that he was reading it right. He smiled, that same lovely whoosh feeling rising up inside him all over again. Then he remembered that he should probably answer.

  OK :-)

  Not the most eloquent reply, but it got the job done.

  Zach pinged back almost immediately, and Micah grinned, feeling like his face might actually split in two when it just kept stretching wider and wider.

  Great! Can I pick you up at 6:00?

  “Don’t keep me hanging,” Sam said, glancing over when he stopped at a stoplight. “What’s your new man saying?”

  “He wants to see me on Friday.”

  Sam laughed. “Well, say yes already.”

  “I did,” Micah said, pretty sure that he was, in fact, the very luckiest person alive. But Sam was right. He needed to say yes to the last message, too. Thank God for voice recognition. It made sending longer texts so much easier.

  Yes. :-) 6:00 is perfect. Do you want my address, Zach?

  He groaned after hitting send, immediately following that up with:

  Of course you do. Sorry.

  And then, after he’d finally actually sent his address—and because he really didn’t want to spend the rest of the week with his stomach in a knot from wondering if he was somehow, someway misinterpreting what Friday night was going to be—he went ahead and asked what he really wanted to know:

  This is a date, right?

  “You look like you’re going to puke, bro,” Sam said, glancing over at him. “Relax. He’s obviously into you.”

  Easy for Sam to say, but then Sam was good at this sort of thing, and Micah wasn’t. In fact, it was entirely possible that Zach could tell Micah wasn’t, and would change his mind sometime before Friday. Or maybe even now. Maybe he’d send a text back to cancel, or he’d say he wanted to see Micah for some other, entirely non-romantic reason, or maybe he just wouldn’t reply at all, or else—

  “Shit, Micah, you’re turning blue. Seriously, take a breath.”

  “Oh,” Micah said, glad for the reminder. “Okay.”

  And then his phone finally pinged again.

  Yes, it’s a date. One I’m really looking forward to.

  Micah smiled so hard it hurt, his imperfect vision blurring with the effort as he traced the letters on his screen, re-reading the text approximately one zillion times.

  Finally, he replied:

  Me, too.

  Then he closed his eyes and let his happiness fill him up in ways that didn’t require seeing at all. And he didn’t mind one single bit that Sam spent the rest of the drive teasing him mercilessly, because Friday night? Micah had no idea what he and Zach were actually going to do, and was pretty sure he’d manage to embarrass himself along the way, but it didn’t matter.

  He already knew it was going to be the best night ever.

&
nbsp; 5

  Zach

  Zach’s phone buzzed as he pulled into his parking space at Cielo del Mar, and despite being pleasantly tired, he felt a little frisson of excitement with the hope that it might be Micah. They’d traded a few texts over the last few days, but not many, and none that Zach hadn’t initiated. Micah had answered every one of Zach’s messages quickly enough, though, and earlier in the day, Zach had confirmed that they were still on for their date tomorrow, so ….

  Maybe Micah’s shyness had been holding him back from reaching out.

  Or it could be that he just wasn’t big on texting.

  Or, maybe, he had a day job that kept him really busy.

  Zach laughed at himself as he unbuckled and reached for his phone, knowing for sure that he was overthinking things. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked forward to a first date this much, but the truth was that since his weekday schedule while he was in-country was a lot like a really sucky office job that had him rolling out of bed before dawn five days a week, it was probably for the best that Micah had seemed more than okay with limited contact all week. Still, even though he kept reminding himself not to get overeager—spark or not, Zach didn’t want to get ahead of himself—his restless anticipation to see Micah again had left him sorely tempted to suggest getting together earlier than Friday.

  If he didn’t have to report on base by 0500 every morning, he probably would have.

  He turned off the truck and grabbed his phone, his hope that it might be Micah crashing hard when he saw who the text was actually from.

  Janis, his least favorite ex.