Page 17 of Avenged

“It would, superhero, if you married her,” he said.

“What the fuck?” I couldn’t help the words that flew out of my mouth.

“I’m not saying marry her as in a till-death-do-us-part kind of way. I’m just saying, marry her to get her the healthcare she needs until this all blows over or she gets her own insurance. I’m sure there are plenty of people who do it.”

I just stared at him as if he’d lost the last shred of smarts he’d ever had. I wasn’t the steadfastly single man Mac once had been, but I hadn’t ever really thought about marriage or kids. My experience with marriage and kids hadn’t really ended with many good examples—my friends, and that was about it. Even my grandparents had screwed up with their one kid bad enough that she didn’t know how to raise her own two.

But getting married so someone had access to healthcare… It seemed like all kinds of wrong. It seemed almost fraudulent.

“Not gonna happen,” I responded.

“Why? It’s not like you have to move in and sleep together. Although, I?”

“Stop right there,” I growled.

He smiled his wicked Dawson smile at me. “This is the real problem.”

“What is?”

“You like Jersey.”

I ran a hand over my face. Did I like Jersey? Yes. Did I have fantasies of her pale skin wrapped around mine? Fuck, yeah. But was I going to put a ring on her finger, say I do, and then move across the country when the Coast Guard transferred me after my two-year stint at the academy was over? Hell, no.

“If you didn’t like her, you wouldn’t care about offering her a limited-time partnership to help her out. It wouldn’t cost you anything, right?”

I picked up my coffee cup and moved away from him. “Not gonna happen,” I repeated. “It’s a ridiculous thought. I’m gonna go see if I can get a couple hours of shut-eye.”

I could feel him watching me as I made my way down the short hallway and shut my bedroom door. I pulled off all my clothes, staring at the “Make way for the good guys” Lego Movie T-shirt Daw had bought me as a joke and that I’d obviously been wearing all night. I didn’t feel like a good guy. I felt like a piece of shit who couldn’t help someone when they needed it most.

Once I lay down, between the coffee and Dawson’s words, I couldn’t sleep. Normally, I could sleep anywhere. Crazy shifts at sea and on land had built into me an ability to sleep whenever there was a moment to do so. It was a necessity. But today, Jersey’s pale face and body convulsing with pain was still burning itself into my eye sockets. What the fuck kind of way was that to live? Didn’t people have a right to basic medical care?

I gave up and found myself on the military’s benefits website. I could get coverage for a wife at no cost for some plans and a very low cost for others. She could see the fucking specialist with pretty much no money down. But wasn’t it considered insurance fraud?

I searched insurance fraud on my phone and went down a rabbit hole of a side of the American lifestyle I had no idea existed. Pages on pages of people posting how they’d gotten married for the tax benefit, for medical care, for advantages when buying a house and getting a loan, etc. Some of them had partnerships written down on paper, sort of like a prenuptial agreement. Some just took the risk and went all-in with a friend or a business associate.

I stumbled upon a whole app for people in this exact situation. People marrying for benefits. It felt cold. It felt impersonal. It felt wrong. And yet, it also felt right. How could it be wrong for two people to not make the best life for themselves they possibly could? As long as both parties went into it knowing exactly what it was, there really wasn’t a downside—unless you found someone else you wanted to marry.

I wasn’t looking for a wife. I wasn’t even looking for a girlfriend. Liesl and I had been good, but I’d never once wanted to put a ring on her finger and make her mine for a lifetime. The fact that I hadn’t wanted to had upset me more than the fact that she broke up with me when I said I’d been reassigned to Connecticut.

I gave up any thought of sleep, put on my running gear, and hit the street. I ran down to the academy grounds, waved my ID, and then hit the obstacle course which was, technically, for the academy recruits. I just threw myself into it, knowing the kink in my neck would either work itself out or go into a full-fledged spasm. I didn’t really care. Either way, the physical activity was a good way to put my brain at rest for a few minutes. I just concentrated on the course and getting through it at a pace that would break records if I was being timed. I might be eight to ten years older than some of the shitheads joining the academy, but I hadn’t let my body give way to a beer gut and sausage arms like some of my peers. Some of them did just enough to pass the physical, and some of them didn’t bother at all because they were resigning their commission after their latest contract. Me. I was a lifer. I didn’t need money. I didn’t need fame. I liked being useful. I liked what the Coast Guard stood for.

In many ways, Ava’s dad failing me my last year at A&M’s Maritime Academy had done me a favor. I hadn’t had any intention of going into the Coast Guard when I was at school. I’d been all about the Navy and the S.E.A.L.s, but after meeting Mac’s S.E.A.L. buddies, I thought the Coast Guard had been the better choice for me. I didn’t have a bunch of downtime between missions. I was actively involved in daily operations every time I had a shift.

After I burned myself up, I headed back toward town and the cottage. It put me past the bookstore once more, and I saw Violet behind the counter again. She didn’t look up from whatever book she had her nose stuffed in, and I didn’t go in. Violet Banner was way too smart and too mature for someone only sixteen years old.

But seeing Violet at the bookstore reminded me that Jersey was still feeling like shit.

Everything I’d tried to escape on the course came pounding back into my brain. I headed home, took a shower, put on clean clothes, and got in the pickup before I could think too hard about what I was doing. Before I could talk myself out of it.

I parked in the driveway behind Jersey’s Civic and let myself into the house. It was quiet, and I wondered if I’d find her in her bed again. I wasn’t sure if I could do this if she was in bed. I wasn’t sure I could do this even if she wasn’t.

I stood in the hallway, flicking my nails.

The door to the library opened, and Jersey came out. She was in another pair of leggings and a long sweater the color of lilacs. A color which brought out the shade of her eyes. Her pale hair was up in a ponytail, emphasizing her slender neck and heart-shaped face. She had more color in her cheeks than she’d had a few hours before, but not much.

She yelped, startled when she saw me. Hand to her heart.

“Holy Avengers, you scared me,” she said.

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