Page 23 of Forged By Sacrifice

“It is too,” I chuckled. “Ava knew exactly what it was.”

“But you were doing it rather badly. It was only my keen ear that helped me figure it out,” she teased.

I threw an ice cube at her. “Okay, how about this one?”

I started “The Star Spangled Banner,” and they all groaned.

“And that is my cue to leave all you heathens and go shower.” I tried to sound upset, but I couldn’t. They were all too easy to be with.

I stood up and felt Mac’s gaze over my bikini-clad body. I met his gaze with one of my own, staring until he finally looked away.

When I came out of the shower, I pulled on my red, white, and blue dress that I’d bought specifically for this occasion. It looked like a flag and glitter had thrown up on the material, but I loved it. Just like I loved our country. The halter top showed off the tan that coated my arms and back from sitting on the beach the last week, and the flounced layers on the bottom ended mid-thigh and were reminiscent of a ballerina. It really was too much, but I still adored it.

I finished my makeup and hair in the bedroom, hearing the shower in the adjacent bathroom kick on a couple times as everyone came back from the beach and got ready to head downtown to the bar.

When I came out of the bedroom, Truck teased. “You look like one of those ads where the mother and the daughter have on matching dresses.”

“We don’t get to celebrate our country enough,” I said with a shrug.

“Not everyone believes we should celebrate these days. Most people feel like our country is slowly ripping itself apart,” Mac said.

“Yeah, I know. And we are pretty messed up, but what other country on this planet allows people the freedoms and opportunities that ours does?” I asked.

“You’ve been hanging out with Mac too much,” Truck retorted. “Maybe you should both run for office.”

My jaw went slack. “Wait. Mac’s a politician?”

“Not yet, but he’ll be one soon enough. Four-year plan, right?” Truck asked.

Mac shrugged.

“How did you not know this about him?” Ava asked with a smile. “Did you think he wore that pretty white Navy uniform for nothing? Now he just has to find the right wife to settle down with, pop out a few kids, and look like the true family man he wants to be. Isn’t that right?”

My eyes met Mac’s, and he looked away, coloring slightly. I suddenly realized why he thought kissing me was a bad idea: because I’d told him about my family. I’d had my fair share of people walk out of my life after learning about my dad or my stepdad or both, and I’d sort of built an immunity to it. I’d given the people judging me a one-fingered wave—even if it was an internal one—and moved on. But for some reason, Mac’s rejection stung more than I expected.

I shrugged my armor back on?the one that normally said, Go to hell, to the people who couldn’t take me and my family for who they were. By the time we got to the bar, I’d recovered enough of my good mood to be smiling. We all dove in to help with the ebb and flow of the crowd until close to nine thirty when Andy and Lacey shooed us out once more—this time to go watch the fireworks from the roof.

Ava protested leaving them, even for a few minutes, on such a busy night, but Lacey insisted. “Go. Andy can’t make it up that rickety ladder anymore. It’ll be calm down here while they’re going off.”

We made our way to the storeroom where a ladder swung down from the ceiling that led to the roof where a couple of battered wooden picnic benches and twisted metal lounge chairs sat near the brick edge of the building. The furniture wasn’t fancy, and the rooftop wasn’t an oasis. It was just a roof of a strip mall, but it was enough for us to huddle with our drinks. We were close enough to the marina that we could hear the music that was playing over the outdoor speakers. Ben, the leader of the house band, and his bandmates had taken a break and joined us as we waited like expectant children for the show to begin.

Somehow, I ended up next to Mac, as if our bodies had found a way to each other without us even knowing it. I sat down, the rough wood scraping along the back of my thighs where my short dress had stopped.

The air was still humid even though the sky had all but faded to black when the first loud pop split the air around us. It startled me, and Mac laid his big hand on my knee as if in reassurance. I couldn’t help smiling at him, the sting of earlier slipping away. I wasn’t one to carry a grudge. And I’d known all along that Mac and I were all sorts of wrong. He returned my smile, drinking me in with a gaze that reflected in his eyes as the first sparks lit up the sky. I tugged my eyes away from his and back toward the night, the colors sparkling like rainbows with an extra brilliance of white, dangling jewels making my heart bounce with joy.

In New York City, you had to fight for hours for a place near the water to watch the fireworks unless you knew somebody who knew somebody. I’d been near the water, on the water, and on rooftops in the city watching those displays, too. But I’d always been socializing, because no one in my group of city friends ever stopped to just stare at the lights. It was more about the party than the fireworks.

Here, everyone was quiet, watching in an awed respect. The men who sat with us had served our country, and I felt like they had a different perspective than those who had never put their lives on the line for us.

I risked another glance at Mac and realized he wasn’t watching the dazzling lights popping and dropping and dripping in the sky at all. He was watching me. His gaze on my smile and on my eyes.

I forced my gaze back to the lights as the finale set off a gazillion fireworks at the same time. The crowd at the marina cheered and clapped, and I joined them. There was something hopeful about fireworks to me. Like the ball dropping on New Year’s Eve, it always signaled the start of something new. Something filled with possibilities.

Eli was kissing Ava as the lights left the sky and turned it back to darkness. Truck jogged away, mumbling something about the bathroom. I turned to Mac, and he was still grinning at me.

“What?” I asked.

“You surprise me.”

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