She laughs, but it’s watery. I don’t know what to do other than squeeze her a little tighter. She takes a deep breath and then pushes me away. We both ignore the fact that her eyes are still rimmed with red. “Get out of here. Jack’s been calling all afternoon. I swear it’s like the two of you are sixteen again.”
I kiss her once more. “Save me some of the ribs and rice, woman.”
“I’ll fix you a plate before your father eats it all. Now go.”
The creaky front door slams behind her and I hear her yelling at my dad about anything that will distract her from the fact that I am deploying in just a few days.
Ah, home sweet home.
My shoulders slump and I wipe off the smile I’d slapped on when the plane touched down in Jacksonville. A shrink would have a field day with my mental state, but it’s nothing I haven’t been through before, so I drown out those thoughts with our homegrown country station. The sooner I get to Jack’s, the better. The last thing I need is to be alone in my head right now.
Driving around my hometown is a surreal experience. I clearly remember growing up here, going to school here, but the person I was then and the man I’ve become couldn’t be more different.
I pull up to the lake house and momentarily contemplate passing on his offer to hang out when my eyes fall on movement in the doorway. My breath catches in my throat when I realize it’s Jack’s younger sister, Olivia. Her eyes meet mine and I realize I’m not the only one who’s done some changing over the years I’ve been away. Was she always such a knockout?
My hands clench on the steering wheel until Jack appears in the doorway behind her as a much needed reminder that I should keep my distance. I hop out of the truck and make my way over to them. Olivia stays back with her arms wrapped around her waist as Jack walks over and gives me a one-armed hug.
“Good to see you, man,” he says. “It’s been way too long.”
“Yeah,” I say, my eyes still on Olivia. “It has.”
“Do you mind helping Olivia with the food? I’ll pull out the chairs and shit. Logan should be here soon.”
“Sure, man. Whatever you need.” I make it a point not to look at Olivia until Jack leaves the room.
She bites her lip and smiles. “C’mon, I’m making bacon wrapped shrimp. It’s pretty awesome, I’m not gonna lie.”
I chuckle. “I’m sure it is.” I follow her in and immediately feel at ease. “God, this place hasn’t changed at all.”
Constructed just about entirely of wood, the house is really more of an expanded cabin with floor to ceiling windows that look out over the pristine surface of McCormick Lake. Through them I can see Jack wrestling with the patio furniture. I squint my eyes at the dark figure beside him.
“Holy shit, is Sofie out there, too?”
Olivia turns from the fridge, a package of bacon in her hands. “Yeah, she didn’t want to miss your big homecoming and I managed to convince Jack to be on his best behavior.”
I glance back at them and note their hostile postures. “Yeah, I’m not sure how long that’s going to last.”
She places a bunch of ingredients on the counter and looks out the window only to shrug them off. “Who knows with those two? Here, will you rinse these off for me?”
I move across the kitchen to her side at the sink. The dress she’s wearing brushes my leg and my body warms. She smiles up at me and all I can think is, Oh, shit.
We’re interrupted by the sound of the back door to the patio slamming. “I’m going to strangle that girl, Liv,” Jack says, grabbing a beer from the fridge. He motions toward me and I nod.
“Relax. You can control yourself for a couple hours,” she tells him.
“I doubt it,” he replies cryptically. And fuck if I don’t have the same thought.
When Jack leaves again, I should put a careful distance between us, but I don’t. Instead I move to her side and lean against the counter. “So how have you been?” I ask, knocking my shoulder into hers playfully.
“Oh you know, busy as hell. How about you?”
“Same.”
“Well, I’m glad you were able to make it. I don’t think I’ve seen you since before you left for boot camp.” She flicks a glance up at me and the memory of our one and only kiss feels like a physical presence. She blushes and then looks back down.
“My mom was about to kill me for staying away for so long. War I can handle, but that woman is terrifying.”
“Mrs. Hart?” she says. “She makes apple pie for goodness’ sake. She’s like five feet tall. How can she possibly terrify you, someone who is essentially an American Jedi?”
“Has she ever chased you around the kitchen with a barbecue fork because you broke her T.V.?”
Olivia gasps. “She did not do that.”
I hold up my hands. “Swear to God.”
“I’ll have to ask her the next time I see her because I just can’t picture that.”
“You’d be surprised.”
She narrows her eyes at me as if she’s still not fully convinced. “Can you grab some more paper towels for me? They’re just up there in the cabinet.” She indicates the one above her head and holds up her dirty hands.
I stretch over her and my chest brushes against her back. She turns to me and our eyes lock. I find myself leaning toward her when Jack bursts in through the back door again. We spring apart like a couple of guilty teenagers.
It’s going to be a long night.
Her laugh sounds, and even across the distance that separates us, I can feel it in my stomach like a sucker-punch. My gaze lifts from the bottle of beer I had grabbed from the cooler and I find her in the center of the group, her eyes shining and cheeks pink with laughter. I pop the top and chug—both to ease the heat building in my chest and to stop any inclinations I may have about finding out if she still tastes as good as she looks. Bad idea.
The first swallow is smooth, but does little to erase the imprint of her smile. I lean against the deck as I watch the crowd gathered by the gently lapping water. Their voices and the soft crackle of the bonfire creates a soundtrack I commit to memory. Friends, simplicity, home. The simple shit normal people take for granted.
Those are the things I miss the most.
When the constant attacks seem endless, when I haven’t showered or slept in days, it’s nights like these I remember. That I want to come back to, even though I never seem to be a part of them. I’m more of an outsider looking in. But unless there’s a gun in my hand or bullets flying by, I can never quite relax enough to enjoy them.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
I’ll admit, I’m not one to wax poetic about women—in the past, they’d been nothing more than a distraction between assignments—but there had always been something special about Olivia.
Special in an untouchable kind of way.
Her brother Jack nudges me with his shoulder and leans against the deck railing next to me. “Gonna nurse that beer all night, Monica?”
I tear my eyes away from my unabashed appraisal of his sister. “What’s Livvie doing here? Isn’t she supposed to be at school?”
“She finished, man. Starts teaching in August.”
Nodding, I turn my attention back to her. To the summer sundress that’s just a little too low-cut, a little too tight, and a whole helluva lotta tempting. From what I’ve heard from Jack, when his parents adopted her, she gave up the rebellious ways that bounced her from home to home, and tried to tame her wild side. But the little spitfire inside of her often makes an appearance when she’s either pissed off or three sheets to the wind. I have little will to resist the way her eyes snap or the sexy as hell way she cocks her hip when she’s throwing sass. She bites off a comment to her brother and I stifle a groan.
As I think about how much I’m gonna miss her, the firelight catches the red-gold of her hair and turns it into a halo of flames. I can’t help but wonder how it would look spread across my bed with her generous curves steeped in shadows. Her brother chatters o
n about my upcoming deployment, but I tune him out when Olivia shucks her cardigan and even more of her gorgeous milky skin comes into view.
Silence falls, and I see Jack watching me from the corner of my eye. “I’m sorry, man. What’d you say?”
Jack shakes his head, a knowing look in his eye. “I’m telling you from experience, dude. Love her to death, but you’re about to leave. Not a good idea to go there.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Good.” He stares at me intently for a moment before turning away. “She’s got a good thing going at that fancy art school. Got her life together. The both of you have shit timing, I swear.”
“I’m not the only one.” I nod toward Sofie. If Olivia and I had shit timing, Jack and Sofie have it ten times worse. Even now, they could barely stand to talk to each other. They only gave each other cow eyes when they were certain the other wasn’t looking. Otherwise they spent every interaction sparring.
“When do you leave, exactly?”
I clear my throat and shake my head a little to dispel the image. “Ah, next Monday.”
“Well, I’m glad you could make it out here before you had to ship out.”
“Thanks for inviting me.”
Jack slaps me on the shoulder as he heads toward the group. “Keep eyeing my sister like that and I’m going to start regretting it.”
“Fuck you,” I reply.
After dumping my now empty beer in the trash, I grab another and reluctantly follow Jack down to the beach. Night has fallen completely, and the only light comes from the small flickering bonfire and the few rooms still lit up. Memories of hundreds of similar nights gone by wash over me.
Our history is made up of a series of nights like this, and there is a gnawing feeling in my gut that this is going to be the last one. She isn’t a starry-eyed teen anymore, and I’m not some pissant private. Soon, a man would see what I am seeing and take it. And I would have to resist the urge to break his fucking jaw as I could only watch the distance between us become greater.
I chug the beer to soothe the sudden burn in my throat. Pre-deployment leave always makes me nostalgic.
A few more days and I can put Olivia behind me. For another year, at least.
I just have to get through tonight.
Sand shifts beneath my feet as I sit on one of the creaky old lawn chairs we’d drug to form a circle around the fire pit. I nod to Jack and our mutual friend Logan Blackwell. The three of us had gone to boot camp together. Jack and I joined because we couldn’t imagine doing anything else, Logan because of the extended family he had to support. Though we had different jobs, we always seemed to find our way back to hang out on our time off. And it was always nice to touch base with my guys when we had the chance.
Logan had recently separated from the Marines. In addition to serving as my going-away party, we’d also gathered to take his mind off his troubled marriage. On the positive side, he had only just started working as a cop. At least he had that to look forward to.
Yet another reason why it wouldn’t be smart for me to get involved with Olivia. Not that I expected her to cheat or give up on me, but who was I kidding? Most women could barely handle normal separation, let alone that of the military life. Our dangerous lifestyle had a notorious burnout rate—both for the men and their families.
I drown that sorrow with a healthy tug on my rapidly emptying bottle. If I kept up this pace, it would be one of those times where I wound up on the beach the next morning without my clothes…or my dignity, if the guys had anything to do with it.
My mind begins to wander to the possibility of Livvie joining me, and it doesn’t take long for that fantasy to spiral abso-fucking-lutely out of control. Images form of her slick skin against mine, her eyes dark with need. I clear my throat, shifting in my suddenly uncomfortable seat, and refocus my attention to the conversation between the others, steadfastly ignoring the intense look Jack is shooting my way.
Livvie sips delicately from her cup, likewise ignoring her best friend Sofie.
“C’mon, Liv. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! If there were any reason to give it a rest and live a little, this is it. It’s not every day the stars align and our favorite band, since we were tweens, is playing a reunion show an hour away.”
Livvie shrugs, smiling guiltily. “I don’t know. You know school starts in a few weeks, and I have so much to do with the classroom and lesson plans. I just don’t want to screw it up my first day and be caught unprepared.”
“If I can handle my crazy-ass roommates 24/7, you can manage one day off from your group of artsy types. Besides, we haven’t gone out in forever. Where did my crazy sidekick go?”
Jack scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Give it a rest, Sofie.”
Sofie cuts a glare toward Jack. “No one asked you.”
“What are you even doing here, anyway? I thought you were living it up at UNF with all the other brainiacs.” He takes a heavy swig from his drink. “You wanted to go so bad, maybe you just should have stayed there.”
Sofie stands and swaggers to Jack’s side as he watches with hooded eyes. Olivia gasps beside me as Sofie upends her drink over Jack’s head.
“Thought you could use something to cool off your hot head,” Sofie quips.
Jack lunges to follow as Sofie prances away, but changes his mind, slumping back into his seat instead. “You gotta stop inviting that fucking girl,” he says.
“She’s my best friend, you asshole. The least you could do is keep from insulting her. This is the first time she’s been able to visit since she started grad school. You keep this shit up and I’ll never get to see her at all.”
Olivia tails after Sofie, leaving me, Jack and Logan staring sullenly at the fire. We’re a sad sight, that’s for sure. Women.
I smirk. “Don’t go there, Jack. Not a good idea.”
He scowls at hearing his own advice to me from a few moments ago, using the tail of his shirt to mop the beer dripping from his hair. “Fucking women. Not worth the fucking trouble.”
“That’s the damn truth,” Logan slurs. “Fucking women. You think you can trust them. Think they’re good, honest people. So you marry them. Put them up in a nice house, let them leech off of your benefits and fucking awesome medical insurance. Then, the next thing you know, you go overseas to defend your country and come home to find that they’ve maxed out your credit cards and have been letting a fucking Jodi sleep in your goddamn bed since the day you shipped out.” He gestures with his drink, beer sloshing over the lip.
Jack raises his bottle. “Here, here.”
“So glad you’re done with her,” I tell him. “You feel like shit now, but it’s a good thing.”
“Now you just need to get in the gym with me, let my dad’s guys shape you up,” Jack says. “They’ll have you so black and blue and exhausted that you’ll be like, Denise who?”
“Hell, yes,” Logan hollers.
“Maybe you should slow down a little, man.”
Logan answers with a burp and chugs the rest of his drink. I shake my head at him.
Jack turns his attention to me as Logan lumbers off to get another drink or take a piss off the dock. “Next time you’re home, you better come see us at the gym. Bust out some of your spec ops moves.”
I shrug. “I would hate to put all your boys to shame there, Jack.”
Jack arches an eyebrow in my direction. “You’re on. You and me, to the mat. Next time you have leave, if you don’t show up, we’ll know who the real badass is.”
“It’ll still be me, bitch, but I’ll take your cute little challenge.” I sip my beer. “How’s the small business life treating you, by the way?”
“Not bad, man, not bad. We’ve hit a rough patch since dad turned it over to me, but we’ll bounce back. Is your ole’ man still busting your ass about taking over the auto shop?”
“He brings it up at least twice every time we talk. I had to leave earlier because I didn’t want to get the third degree.”
“Are you gonna take him up on the offer?”
When I joined the Marines, I fully intended that it would be for life. But after eight years, a lot of things have changed. I’ve changed. I thought the degree in business was a smart move just in case. I never expected that I would actually be in the situation to use it.
“Don’t know. I’m due to reup after the next assignment, but I don’t know if that’s gonna happen. Don’t you dare say a word to him.”
Jack lifts his beer. “Sure, man. I hear you. When Dad had his stroke last year I knew it was time. I wasn’t ever going to be a lifer, though. Running the gym was always my endgame. You just have to figure out what your endgame is gonna be.” He glances at Sofie who is holding onto a laughing Olivia. “Then again, sometimes that endgame changes, so who the hell knows?”
Logan starts ambling up the dock, swaying considerably, so Jack abandons his beer and the seat to make sure our friend doesn’t drown his sorrows—and himself—in the lake.
“You’re being quiet.” Olivia snags Jack’s empty chair next to me. Her sweet vanilla scent carries on the soft breeze as she leans toward me, her dress dipping scandalously low in the front. I force myself to look her in the face when I respond.
“Got a lot on my mind,” I say, glancing back toward Jack to make sure he isn’t lurking nearby.
She nods, licking her lips. “Well, we’re gonna miss you around here.”
My gaze travels over her again. “I’m not here enough for you to miss me.”
“Then maybe we should remedy that.”
We share a heated look. “Not so sure that would be a good idea, Liv. Your boyfriend might not like you spending time with someone else.”
Olivia quirks an eyebrow. “What boyfriend?”
“Hey, Ben,” Jack calls. “Need you to take the big guy home. I think he’s had enough.”
“I swear to God, I’d like to beat his ex-wife. Poor guy,” Sofie mutters as she joins us.
Survivor (First to Fight Book 2) Page 19