Page 33 of Never Yours

The dresser. His jeans and tees are still neatly folded.

The closet… His dress blues and whites are missing.

A cold chill cascades down my limbs, and I remain rooted in place. He’s gone; it wasn’t a dream. I was upset about how everything was moving too fast, but now it feels as if maybe we moved too slowly. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

I know nothing about what he did in the years he served in Navy, only what he told me about repairing submarines. Some of it was classified. My mind is cluttered with questions, and I don’t know where to start.

His dad is a retired naval officer…

I put on underwear and leggings, grab my phone, and rush out of the bedroom into the kitchen to retrieve my purse. A piece of paper next to the coffee maker catches my attention.

This isn’t goodbye. I’ll always be yours. You’re my everything.

I love you.

Caleb

My heart squeezes. He might be my forever, too, but we didn’t even have a chance to find out. Like idiots, we jumped in with two feet, and one week with him felt like a whole year.

I fold up the note and put it in my purse. As I make my way to the front door, I check my phone, and about to text Cass, I find a missed call and voicemail from an unknown number. I click play and put it to my ear, sucking in a breath when I hear Caleb’s voice.

“Hey, princess. I’m about to get on the plane and don’t know when or if I’ll be able to call you again. No matter what happens, I need you to know that I’m going to do everything I can to come back to you. When I’m back, I promise we won’t move too fast. We’ll date for fifteen years before I ask you to move in if you want. But, we both know it’s supposed to be you and me in the end. I love you, Ingrid. I always will.”

It hurts to hear, but he’s wrong. It wouldn’t take fifteen years, I fell in love with him in a single week. And now he’s gone. It wouldn’t matter if we hadn’t fought, or whatever the hell that was last night; he would’ve left this morning. I take solace in the fact that he didn’t leave me, he left because he had to.

In one stupid week, my entire life has been turned upside down, and I feel emptier than I have in my life. I send a quick text to Cassidy that I’m going to go see her father, and come by for her and Smitten afterward. If anyone can help me through this, it's them.

caleb

. . .

We absolutely moved too fast. Ingrid didn’t come home to Sapphire Lake for me, she was running from everything. Instead of letting her heal from whatever happened in New York, I ended up pushing her away.

We’ll have to start over when I’m back. It’s the only way I’ll be able to keep her—if she'll still have me.

Though the commercial flight is short, I pull out Ingrid’s ereader, hoping to read a chapter or two before I’m told to stow electronics. Picking up where I left off with the hockey romance I started this week, my seatmate, Daniels, pulls my attention from it when he laughs, “Didn’t take you for a romance reader?” I shift in my seat and continue reading, ignoring him. Unfortunately, he doesn’t take the hint. “You’ll need to switch over to your NeRD when we get on the ship, you know. Doubt they have that one loaded on there, though.”

The ereaders they give us have mostly mysteries and fantasy books pre-loaded, so we can read at sea without the internet or disrupting any signals. It definitely won’t have Ingrid’s books downloaded. But to imply I’ll need my NeRD isn’t lost on me—it means they’re putting me on a boat. “Have they briefed you?”

“No, but there’s only one reason they’d call us, right?”

I can only hope wherever they are sending me will be quick so I can finish out my time and get back to Ingrid. I was supposed to be stationed in California with occasional travel. I negotiated for two years to assist with training teams for emergency repairs. With several countries across the Pacific putting boats in the water, there’s the concern that we need more engineers on board to troubleshoot if they get hit.

I pull out my NeRD to see if there are any titles that match Ingrid’s. I’m not surprised, there are none. As I let out a defeated sigh, Daniels chimes in, “Want me to add them?”

My eyes snap to him. “You can do that?”

A devilish smile appears, and he offers his hand expectantly. I hand him the devices and he plugs in a wire into both. He swipes and clicks until it hits me that he’s essentially pirating the titles.

“Stop.” I cover my hand on one of the screens. “They aren’t my books.” He frowns. “They’re my… wife’s.” Though it’s a lie, it’s easier than explaining she’s the woman I’m planning on spending the rest of my life with. His expression doesn’t change. “This is basically book piracy.”

Daniels laughs, “I mean, technically. Tell you what, we can order all the same books in paperback and send them to the Mrs. That way you can read it without a guilty conscience.”

It’s one of the better ideas I’ve heard in the past twenty-four hours. I pull out my phone that’s in airplane mode and access the in-flight Wi-Fi. Daniels works quickly to download as many of the books onto my NeRD as space will allow, while I order the books to be mailed to my house. After talking with Pop last night, I practically begged him to convince Ingrid to move into my place while I’m gone, at least until she gets hired somewhere.

“There, all set.” He hands me the devices back and, sure enough, all of the titles I flagged are transferred over. While my NeRD doesn’t have space for all of them, hopefully, it will hold me over until I get back from wherever they are sending us.

“Thanks,” I sigh. At least now I’ll have one small connection to Ingrid while I’m gone.

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