Page 2 of Leave

I stole a few seconds to ogle him. Always did. There were times when it frustrated me that we never got fully naked when we fooled around—what I would’ve given to see every inch of that glorious body—but I couldn’t really complain.

There were, after all, worse things than a Marine in his utilities kneeling between my thighs and sucking my ability to speak right out of my dick.

Oblivious to me checking him out and fantasizing about him, Nolan petted and scratched each cat in turn. They fell all over themselves for his attention; as much as they liked me, they worshipped him, and I didn’t think it was entirely because he’d been the one to rescue them as kittens. No one doted on or spoiled their animals quite like he did, which was seriously endearing. I’d always loved animals, but fuck me, there was justsomething about a man who loved them as much as Nolan did. Especially a man like him. Here was this tough Marine, who a lot of people (including me in the beginning) found kind of intimidating, tatted up and built like he could snap someone in half, and he absolutelymeltedfor these demanding, spoiled fuzzballs.

I managed to tear my gaze away before he caught me staring at him. I didn’t need to make things awkward or jeopardize my place in this apartment by making him think I was getting stupid for him or something.

I cleared my throat. “I, um—I grabbed the mail. Yours is on the shelf.”

He glanced at me, blue eyes as happy as they always were when his cats greeted him, and then he turned to the place above the shoes where we always left each other’s mail. Since the post office was on Kadena Airbase, which wasn’t exactly on the way home for either of us, we had keys to each other’s boxes and routinely picked up both sets of mail if we stopped by.

“Oh.” He rose and collected the small stack. “Thanks. Sorry I haven’t picked it up in a while.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it. I had to be at Camp Shields today, so I was right there. No biggie.”

He grunted in acknowledgment. Thumbing through his mail, he said, “I was going to order sushi from the place down the street tonight. Do you want—” He stopped abruptly, mouth still open with the unfinished thought, and stared at something in his hand.

I sat up. “Um. Sushi?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Sounds great.” He sounded completely disinterested now. “We’ll…” He kept staring at a piece of mail. Before I could ask if everything was okay, he shook himself and looked at me, all the happiness gone from his eyes. And when hespoke, he sounded like he’d lost all interest in food. “We’ll order something. Uh. A bit later.”

Then he headed down the hall, that envelope still in his hand, and he didn’t even seem to notice his feline entourage.

Alarm swelled in my chest. That was weird. The only thing in the mail that ever got any kind of reaction out of him was the odd piece of junk mail or political mailers. And even those just warranted an eyeroll before they were tossed.

Nolan was a closed book like no one I’d ever met. I knew how to get him off and how not to annoy him, and I knew he’d step in front of a train to help a stranger, not to mention one of his cats.

Beyond that, I knew precious little about him.

Tonight, something in that pile of mail had him off-balance.

But hell if I knew what it could possibly be.

Chapter 2

Nolan

The envelope—sealed with a monogrammed sticker and addressed in neat cursive—sat on my nightstand beside my phone. From the edge of my bed, I regarded the damn thing like a Habu that was coiled and ready to strike.

That was irrational and I knew it. It was an inanimate object, unmoving and non-threatening.

Oh, but it wasn’t as innocent as it looked, and nobody in the goddamned world would understand why but me.

Not just you. There’s one other person.

I closed my eyes as my stomach knotted and twisted around itself while a sickening shudder went up my spine.

“Fuck,” I whispered into the stillness.

A gentle bump at my elbow reminded me I wasn’t alone, and I looked down to see Velcro gazing up at me. I managed a smile as I scratched behind his ears, and he climbed into my lap, then started up my chest. I winced as his claws pricked through my shirt, but I didn’t mind too much. I had tattoos that’d hurt more than that, and anyway, in that moment, I was grateful for my endlessly affectionate cat.

I petted him as he pressed his head under my chin, and he purred so loud my downstairs neighbors could probably hear him.

I needed to open the envelope. I couldn’t avoid it. There was undoubtedly a request for an RSVP, even though I technically didn’t need to give one.

“I want you to be my best man,”my younger brother Matt had told me over FaceTime a while back.“I know you won’t be able to do a lot of the usual stuff, not from that far away, and that’s fine. But it would still really mean a lot.”

“Fuck yeah,”I’d said.“I’ll be there!”

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