Page 44 of Forged By Sacrifice

Out of all my sisters, Dani had the best track record with men. My middle sister, Bee, had a husband who we all still rolled our eyes at. And Gabi once had a boyfriend who was a drug dealer, and even though we’d confronted her about him using, she’d still been surprised when he’d been arrested. Dani had never had any bad men in her life. She’d always dated the clean-cut, wholesome type. But now, with the way Guy had looked at her, I was wondering if Dani was as oblivious as Georgie had been with her professor, which just made me worried all over again about Georgie.

“Do you want me to text her?” Dani asked.

“What?”

“Georgie.”

“How did you? No.”

“It’s written all over your face. You really do have it bad for her.”

“I left Rockport early on purpose so I wouldn’t have it bad for her,” I said with a sigh and picked up the first report I was supposed to review.

“And now she’s living with you,” Dani teased.

“Don’t make it sound like that.”

She grabbed my phone off my desk, typing into it.

“What are you doing?”

“Adding Georgie’s number to your phone.”

“Godda?dang it, Dani. Butt out.”

“What are we, ten?” She smirked, handing the phone back to me. “Just tell her I wanted you to ask if she was okay.”

I stared down at the open message box. At the top was the contact name Dani had entered. It read: “The One.” My heart fell in on itself.

“She’s not the one,” I told her, putting the phone down. But I didn’t change the contact name, and Dani noticed, smirking at me again.

“Working with you is going to be more fun than I expected,” she said. I threw several paperclips at her. One hit her on the forehead, but she just laughed.

Coming back to D.C. had been what I wanted. Now, I was thinking I needed to be thousands of miles away again. I’d walked away from my naval career and my job at the DoD because I’d thought it was time, but maybe I needed to reconsider. Maybe I needed to get posted back on the USS George Washington until Georgie was done with law school. Then, I could come back, safely, to Washington. I was a chickenshit. She was just one woman. I’d resisted plenty of women before. I could do this, whether she was living with us or not.

Shit.

Georgie

WALK ME HOME

“Walk me home in the dead of night,

I can't be alone with all that's on my mind, mhm.

So, say you'll stay with me tonight,

'Cause there is so much wrong going on outside.”

Performed by P!nk

Written by Moore / Ruess / Harris

I was a little edgy by the time I got to Professor Collins’ office door. Dani?because I couldn’t think of her as Daniella now that I’d heard the nickname that suited her so much better?and Mac’s warnings were playing around in my head. I wished I could have just forgotten the whole damn conversation. But wishing away things hadn’t gone my way lately. If ever. I hadn’t been able to wish away my father’s arrest, my mother’s departure, or my grandmother’s death. I hadn’t been able to wish away my body’s reaction to Mac. Wishes and I were at an all-time low.

I knocked and opened the door when I heard, “Come in.”

What I noticed now—that I hadn’t the day before—was that Professor Collins was much younger than what had been stored in my memory. He couldn’t have been more than forty. Young enough to be attracted to women on campus, old enough for me to say no way. My dad had been way older than my mom, and look how that had worked out.

---