by Annie Stone
I waddle over to him, touch the fabric, and sigh, because it truly is the softest thing I’ve ever laid hands on. I want to rub my cheek against it… “Yes, please!” I enthuse.
Three women in our vicinity sigh as Carey bends down to examine another blanket, presenting his tight little ass to the store. Hey, I’m practically his sister, but I do have a pair of eyes in my head. And the guy has a tight little ass. Just the way it is, I’m afraid.
“You’re breaking hearts again,” I inform him.
He grins. “You two are the only women I’m interested in.”
And again, onlookers are sighing. If he’d meant it in a romantic sense, it would be worth a sigh, sure. But that’s not what he means. He’s actually not seriously interested in any other women—because he’s become a bit of a male whore. But that’s not my fault!
“Why don’t you take your favourite women out for ice cream then?” I suggest.
“I would love to.” He takes the stuff I want to buy out of my hands and walks over to the cashier. All female eyes are on him.
“You are so lucky,” one of them murmurs at me.
And they’re right. Carey is the best. I have no idea what I’d do without him. Seriously.
I trudge after him, and as I stand next to him at the checkout, he puts his arm around my shoulders. The woman checking him out—in more ways than one—goes green with envy. But that’s just Carey. We have a much more affectionate relationship than we used to. He’s my best friend, my little brother, my family. He’s the person I can always rely on. And my little girl, too. Every girl needs somebody like Carey Tilman…
I wake up because my bed is wet. Over the past few weeks, our baby girl has been lying on my bladder, so I’m not surprised that now—Oh, wait! That hurt! Bending as much as I can with a beach ball-sized lump for a belt, I smell the wet patch on my sheets. I think my water just broke!
I wake up Carey, who calls Sheila, picks up my bag, runs to the car, and starts driving, only to realize I’m not with him a mile down the road.
He comes back yelling out the window, “Fuck, Mac! I’m so sorry!” After slamming the car into park, he helps me into the passenger’s side while I laugh away.
“Classic, Carey,” I tease him. “Nothing can go wrong with you on the job—OH MY GOD!” The next contraction interrupts my laughing fit with painful intensity.
When we get to the hospital, they take me straight to a private room. Carey stays with me till Sheila arrives. She’s going to be with me when I give birth, because I can’t make Carey do that. Help his crazy quasi-sister-in-law through pregnancy? Sure. Attend the birth of his niece in all its bloody, gory glory? No way. He offered, of course. But I wouldn’t do that to him.
When Sheila arrives, Carey gives me a grumpy look. He’s not happy with my decision. Poor thing. He doesn’t even know he definitely does not want to be here for this. “Mac, I don’t want to leave.”
“Go, honey. It’s better if Sheila helps me through this,” I tell him.
He takes my face in his hands. “Tell me you don’t want me here.”
I look down. “Carey…”
“Tell me. If you don’t want me to stay, I’ll leave. But if you’re just sending me away to protect me, forget about it. So, tell me, which is it?”
“I want you to…”
But I can’t bring myself to say it. He nods and sits beside me, taking my hand. “That’s what I thought.”
Sheila gives a little shrug and leaves the room.
“Okay, time to rock this,” Carey says brightly. Thirty seconds later, I’m crushing his knuckles.
“Oh, that asshole!” I scream, breathing through a contraction like we practiced in the exercises in my pregnancy classes. “Call that motherfucker, Carey! Let him hear what he’s done to me!” But Carey doesn’t, obviously, because Hunter hasn’t spoken to us once in the past six months. Not on the phone, not on Skype, and not by email. We’ve heard no news from him, not even by snail mail.
I know Hunter talks to Shane sometimes, but Shane will only say that we need to deal with this on our own and he’s not getting involved. And I’m actually grateful for that, because it means Hunter doesn’t know I’m pregnant. Or that, right now, I’m delivering his—our—baby. No, strike that. My baby. Just my baby.
“I hate him!” I yell. “And I hate you, too, Carey! You bastards are such freaking giants, and that’s why I have a baby elephant inside me!”
“You’re doing great, Mac. Keep breathing like you’ve been practicing,” the nurse says.
Like a champ, Carey holds my hand, wipes the sweat off my forehead, and brings me water and ice chips. He encourages me, tells me I’m great, that he’s proud of me, that I’m going to be a great mom. That he loves me and can’t wait to see his niece. That I can count on him.
And I thank him for it by screaming at him, cursing him, and crushing his knuckles. What a great deal he signed on for here.
“You’re doing great, Mac,” he whispers in my ear. “Not long now, doll.”
“Stop calling me that! I’ll call you a sex doll if you don’t fucking stop!” In the haze of it all, I don’t understand why the doctor and nurse have to smile.
“Okay, Mac, when the next contraction comes, push!” the doctor instructs me.
What, now I have to push, too?
“Carey, you can help her when I tell you to,” the doctor says, speaking quickly. “Do you want to catch the baby?”
“No!” I scream.
“Yes!” Carey shouts.
“I do not want you near my vagina, Carey!” I shout.
“But my niece—”
“You can hold her after I put on some clothes! Until then, focus on my upper body. That’s a command!”
He nods, resigned to his fate.
And then I push. Who’s idea was it to have this baby naturally? I’m going to kill that person! Why couldn’t I have a C-section? I beg for the epidural then, but allegedly, it’s too late. Sure, fucking sadists! You just enjoy watching me suffer! You’re servants of evil! I decide I hate them all. Especially Carey, because he looks so much like Hunter, the asshole! God, I hate him!
When is this going to be over? I want to go home and sit on the couch with some ice cream. I just want this to stop.
“Push again, Mac!” the doctor shouts.
And even though I don’t want to, because I don’t want to give this asshole the satisfaction of bossing me around, I do. I push with every new contraction until I’m so exhausted I can’t push anymore. With the next contraction, the nurse leans onto my belly, helping me push, while Carey and the doctor hold my legs.
“I can’t do this,” I moan again and again, but they’re not listening. We’ll have to talk about this later! How can you force somebody to give birth like this? What exactly is so wrong with the baby just staying inside my belly? Forever?
“We can see her, Mac! One more time, and it’s over.”
One more time. I can do that. I push until the doctor says I can stop. I’m confused, but I have to trust the guy knows what he’s doing.
“Okay,” he says, “with the next contraction, push as hard as you can.”
“You said one more time!” I wail.
Carey wipes my tears away. “Shhh, Mac. You’re doing great.”
“How do you know?” I hiss. “You’ve never seen a birth before!”
His face is white, and he looks just as exhausted as I feel. Poor thing, I think in a fit of compassion before I have to push again.
“The shoulders are clear,” the doctor announces.
Carey lets go of my hand and steps past the sheet at my waist into the forbidden zone. The doctor takes Carey’s hands and puts them in position just in time for Carey to catch his little niece. The expression of awe in his eyes keeps me from yelling at him for seeing my vagina. Judging by the look in his eyes, he doesn’t even realize I have one at the moment.
The look on his face is familiar to me. It’s the look you have when you fal
l in love. And Carey Tilman is falling in love with his niece this very second. My heart bursts with happiness. Carey cuts the umbilical cord, and the nurse puts my little baby on my chest. I stroke her gently, not wanting to break her.
Carey comes over, puts his head on my shoulder, and together, we look at our new family member.
“She’s perfect,” he says, stroking her little fingers.
They take her away from us one more time. While they clean me up, Carey watches the nurse like a hawk, making sure they treat our little girl well.
“What do you want to call her?” the nurse asks as she hands her back to me all clean and bundled up.
I look at Carey. “Hazel Claire Tilman.”
Carey swallows. He gets it. The H is for Hunter. The C for Carey.
Carey bends over me and kisses my forehead. “You’re the best, doll.”
He tenderly takes his niece into his arms, so, so gently—only real gigantic men can be this gentle. She’s tiny in his arms, and yet it is obvious she has nothing to fear. He’s going to protect her. Forever.
Just like her dad, once he pulls his head out of his ass.
20
Hunter
The damn sand is starting to annoy me. I’ve been here nine months. Most of the others are out for seven months at a time. But I guess I’m out of luck. One more month, and I get to go back to the States. They’re not making me go to Germany but to Virginia, Marine Base Quantico.
Virginia is far enough away from San Diego, but that actually isn’t on my mind. I’m over Mac. Yes, truly. Once and for all. I’ve deleted her from my brain. Yeah, that’s it.
I call Shane, but he doesn’t pick up. Automatically, my fingers dial Carey’s number.
“Hunter?” he asks as soon as the call goes through.
“Yeah. How’s it going?”
“Fuck, Hunter! How could you go that long ignoring us? Mac had her baby yesterday!”
I hang up, as if my fingers are acting of their own accord.
What did he just say?
Mac had a baby? Mac was pregnant?
The crushing feeling is enormous. Deep inside me, there must have been a glimmer of hope that we would make it one day, Mac and me. But now she has a fucking baby with my dad. Fantastic. Technically speaking, the kid’s my half brother or sister. I should be happy about that, right?
Instead, I feel a profound terror inside me. Dad got my girl pregnant.
Not my girl, I have to remind myself. She never will be now. I’ve lost her forever.
I put my head in my hands and wonder how I managed to ruin my life like this. I gave up FORECON to get far, far away from Mac. And I don’t have Mac because she’s my dad’s girlfriend. I’m not talking to my brother—my best friend—because he’s on Mac’s, not mine. I haven’t spoken to Killian in ages, either, not since Joey died. That life seems so far away I can’t even remember what it’s like.
Over here, everything is surreal. The moon dust covers everything, making everything look the same. There must have been beauty here before, but now things look bleak. We know what we’re fighting for. We’re fighting to make the world a little safer, to make sure our women and children at home are a little safer, and for our brothers who have died in battle, so they didn’t die in vain.
But after nine months, you start to wonder how naive you were to come here. Did I actually think this was a great big round of paintball? An adventure, even? I shake my head at my own stupidity. This is far from a safe, fun game. This is deadly serious. Especially for the Marines taking over the army’s task over here. We’re trained to work in water, not on land. But there’s no water here, as far as the eye can see.
Mac has a baby.
The thought haunts me. I wonder whether she and Dad got married. Is she my step mom now? Even if we’re not blood relatives, our relationship would be taboo now. I mean, it was already impossible before, so…
I don’t know how I could ever have pretended to myself that I was over Mac. After just three seconds of talking to Carey, all the numbness I’d worked so hard to grow over the past months was gone. I’m back inside our last phone conversation—her sobs, her tears, her begging voice saying no. Why didn’t I let her talk?
And then I realize—she would have already been pregnant six months ago. And it makes sense. That was the reason she sobbed on the phone. She didn’t want to tell me she was pregnant. Good thing I didn’t let her talk after all. At least, that way, I was able to feel some inkling of hope over the past six months. But now? Now I know for sure that it’s over. Forever. What am I going to do? What the hell am I going to do?
Each day here is like every other. Like Groundhog Day. And that’s what we call it. The groundhog days. We go on missions for days at a time in full battle rattle—meaning our full gear—which weighs about fifty pounds. If we get involved in fighting action somewhere, they send us support from the air, or throw down speedballs—bags containing ammunition and drinking water to replenish our reserves.
“Fuck, man, nine months! My hand’s sore,” grumbles Pitbull, the new guy sent here to replace T-Rex. Nobody’s been wounded since that day, which makes things easier for all of us, as we’re not constantly reminded of our own mortality.
There are actually other military branches on this base that rarely have to leave it, but the Marine Infantry—that’s us—is out doing the hard work. Still, none of us would want to change that. We’re all just happy the constant missions don’t allow us time to think. For example, Spider just heard that his girlfriend slept with his brother. After that, he wanted to blow something up. Luckily for him we’re in the middle of a war here, and his wish might actually be granted.
And Jumbo, his grandma died, and it’s eating him up that he can’t be with his family. Fire’s son was born just before our mission started, and he’s mad with longing for him. As for Pitbull? I have no idea. The guy gives me the creeps. He’s got a really disturbing psychotic look to him.
But the rest of us, we don’t want to be inside our heads all day long. We’re happy to be doing something. Otherwise, we’d go crazy.
“We’re all the same,” Fire says.
“I bet Florida’s never fucked a woman in his life,” chimes in Pitbull.
Florida is the youngest on our team. He has such a baby face we all wonder whether he’s even old enough to be here.
“Leave him alone,” Spider says. It’s normal for us to mess with each other through crude jokes, but Pitbull’s jokes tend to end badly. Florida’s kind of an introverted guy, so it’s definitely better to stop things early.
“Just sayin’.” Pitbull grins. “When I get home, I’ll fuck for an entire week, let me tell you. My balls are blue and ready to burst.”
“Thanks for sharing,” Jumbo mutters.
“He doesn’t have any balls,” Spider throws in.
We laugh before beginning to make our way through the village. A group of children comes toward us, laughing and playing, wanting to touch us. My natural reaction would be to start joking around with them. But over here, you learn not to trust anybody. As soon as you get distracted, you’re giving people room for attack. Especially here, where there’s tons of enemy fighters with IEDs—bombs that show up out of the blue in any shape and size and tend to hurt us pretty badly. Over the last nine months, we’ve found IEDs in Coke cans, old boots—we even found one inside a toy ball. You gotta give it to them—they’re creative motherfuckers when it comes to killing people.
“Hey, my balls are bigger than yours,” Pitbull protests. “They’re so fat your mom had to bring her neighbor so she could suck the other one.” I guess mom jokes will never grow old to guys.
“Fuck, man, your mom is so fat she can’t even kneel down for a blowjob anymore.” That’s Jumbo proving me right.
Suddenly, I realize everybody but us has disappeared from the road. That can’t be good.
“Spider,” I warn him.
“I know, man,” he says, giving us a signal to be vigilant.
<
br /> Jumbo contacts HQ to get backup from the air. With every step, we scan the ground, the surrounding houses, every grain of dust. Normally, we’d go get cover in one of the houses, but here, any house could be a deadly trap. We need to get out of the village.
I hear a slight buzzing sound. “Spider!” I shout at the same moment Pitbull yells, “Oh, shit!”
My eyes fly in the direction he’s looking, and I spot three men firing a rocket launcher.
“Get down!” I scream, and everybody tries to get cover. But it’s like things are moving in slow motion. With that much gear, you just can’t move fast.
When the rocket goes off, I get hit by the pressure wave and thrown several feet. I hit the ground hard, jump up, and open fire on the T-men. From the other side of the junction, more shots are fired, so at least one of our team is still alive. Before they can launch a second rocket, we’ve killed them.
“Spider!” I call while I turn, keeping an eye on my surroundings. Eyes peeled, I slowly move toward my comrades. I reach Pitbull first. Half of his face is missing. He’s not moving. I don’t want to kneel down and feel his pulse because we don’t know whether the three men were the only ones here. Who fired the shots?
Florida! He comes over to me, gesturing that he’ll give me covering fire. I kneel down beside Pitbull and reach for his pulse. Nothing. Moving on, Florida and I reach Spider, who’s moaning, blood coming from his mouth. Fuck! His stomach’s bleeding, too. It looks bad. Jumbo is unresponsive but breathing. Fire is missing both legs.
And the rest of our teammates are dead.
We hear the helis, and I contact them with Jumbo’s radio. They have to land to take the injured men on board. I’m highly alert, but at the same time, I feel like I’m in a trance. I can’t believe this happened. Who wasn’t careful enough? Who made the fatal mistake? This fucking village should’ve been clear—otherwise we wouldn’t have come here with such a small team.
The Birds come, and more Marines jump out to help us recover the injured and the dead. On board, we start giving people first aid. But for Pitbull and two others, help comes too late.