Page 43 of Stay with Me

His voice was freaking magic.

“I enlisted when I was eighteen, as soon as I graduated,” he explained. “It was either that or work in a coal mine like my dad and my older brother.”

Coal mines? Holy crap. “Where are you from?”

The bed dipped again, and I imagined that he’d rolled onto his side, facing me. “Oceana, West Virginia.”

“Oceana ...” I whispered, staring at the bare wall across from the bed. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

Jax chuckled. “Probably because it’s been nicknamed Oxyana and there was a documentary about the town. It has a little problem with the painkiller OxyContin, as in, half the damn town is on that shit.”

Yeah, now that did sound familiar.

“Working in the mines, it’s hard work, and some think it pays well, but I didn’t want that. There isn’t much else around, and I wanted out of that damn town.” A sudden hardness to his voice caused a shiver to roll down my spine. “Enlisting seemed like the only other option.”

“What ... what branch did you enlist in?”

“Marines.”

Wow, marines were badass. They were like the ass kickers of the military. My dad’s brother had been a marine, and I remember the stories he used to tell about training and how hard-core it was. Not everyone was cut out to be a marine, but apparently Jax was, and seeing how he vaulted over the bar earlier and got right up in Mack’s face, I could see the marine in him.

Kind of hot.

An image of Jax in a dress uniform, the kind I’d seen in my uncle’s closet when I was little, formed in my head.

Okay. Lots of hot.

“I enlisted for five years, hit active war duty two years in, spent almost three over in the desert,” he explained, and I swallowed hard. Active war duty was no joke. “When my term was up, I wasn’t sure I wanted to reenlist. And when I got back home, I couldn’t sleep. Didn’t know what I was going to do with myself. There wasn’t shit back home and being over there wasn’t actually the best thing in the world, you know? It’s a different life over there, and it changes you. The things you have to do. The things you end up seeing. Some nights I could only sleep for a few hours. Some nights I didn’t sleep at all. My head wouldn’t shut down, so I had a lot of restless nights.”

I wanted to roll over and look at him, but I couldn’t move. “Do you ... regret enlisting?”

“Hell no.” His reply was quick and firm. “Felt good doing something for the country and all that shit.”

Something warm invaded my chest, and I really wanted to see him, but that required effort and courage. So, I went with words because that was all I had to offer, and I wanted to give him something. “I think that’s amazing.”

“What?”

Heat crept across my face. “Enlisting in the marines and fighting. It’s brave and honorable and amazing.” Three things I wasn’t, and three things I honestly couldn’t say about a lot of people I knew, including the Hot Guy Brigade. Well, with the exception of Brandon. He’d been overseas, too.

Jax didn’t respond to that, and silence stretched out between us, and I squeezed my fingers together. “How long ... have you been out?” I asked.

“Hmm, it’ll be two years next spring.” His voice sounded closer.

I quickly did a bang-up math job in my head, finally finding an answer to one of my questions. “So you’re ... twenty-four?”

“Yep, and you’re really twenty-one, even though you look like seventeen.”

My lips twitched. “I don’t look seventeen.”

“Whatever,” he murmured. “When’s your birthday?”

“It’s in April—the fifteenth.”

“No shit?” A deep laugh came from him, causing the twitch in my lips to spread. “My birthday is April the seventeenth.”

I grinned. “April’s a cool month.”

“That it is.”

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