Page 46 of Crashing Waves

Laura stood on her toes again, pressing her lips to mine. “Call me when you’re back,” she said against my mouth. “Just in case I haven’t moved on yet.”

I couldn’t help it; I smiled. “I will.”

She stepped back, smiling despite the tears working their way down her cheeks. Then she bit her lip, stared for another beat of my thunderous heart, and turned to run up the walkway to her door.

CHAPTER NINE

That was how things went for years.

Nineteen passed. Then twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two … all the way to twenty-three.

My career in the Army was a fruitful one, and I thrived on the thrill of working my way up through the ranks as quickly as I possibly could until I was made sergeant.

Sniper sergeant, to be exact.

Like I’d already said, I was a good shot. Skilled, precise, gifted—that was what my superiors had said. But really, I thought I just had a lot of pent-up anger to expel.

I was gone for long stretches of time—working, training, and excelling in ways I was prouder of than anything before. Much, much more than getting good grades in school. My time away from home spanned months mostly, but once, it was for a little over a year. And when I eventually returned to Massachusetts, I stayed with Ricky and his mom, saw my sisters, and occasionally,I’d exchange mildly heated—but mostly indifferent—words with my parents.

And, yes, I’d see Laura too.

Our relationship, if you could even call it one, was strung together by brief conversations and furious make-out sessions. She would occasionally send me letters to wherever I was stationed, and the guys I was surrounded by would tease me as I smiled and blushed. But I didn’t give a fuck. I had someone who wanted me, and that was more valuable than my reputation as Sergeant Tailor.

“Sergeant.”

I looked up from my book—J.R.R. Tolkien’sThe Silmarillion—to see Private Mitchell, a newer recruit from Indiana, walking toward my bunk in the barracks. I hopped down in time for him to hold out a letter to me.

“You’ve got mail.”

“Thank you, Private,” I said, accepting the envelope.

Private Mitchell walked away to continue delivering the mail, and I looked at the crisp white paper in my hand, taking in the curvature of Laura’s pretty handwriting. I sighed as my lips lifted in a smile at the same time that a teasing little noise came from the bunk below mine.

“Look at him, boys. Already blushing like a little girl.”

“Fuck off, Sprague,” I muttered, climbing back onto my bed to tear into the envelope.

I pulled out the folded piece of paper as Sid stood to rest his forearms against my bed. He leaned over, trying to catch sight of what Laura had written, and I shoved him back with a hand against his shoulder.

“Ah, come on,” he jabbed with a laugh. “Not all of us get sent material for the spank bank. Why can’t you share a little with the class?”

I rolled my eyes toward his, emerald green and sparkling. His grin was spread from ear to ear as he flopped forward again to lean against my mattress.

When I had met Sid years ago, I had thought he was an asshole … and he was. I hadn’t been wrong about that. But things between us had changed.

While Justin Ridley, Matt Tomlinson, and Greg Dumass had gone on to other bases around the country, Sid and I had managed to follow each other. Our relationship had begun strained and tumultuous at best, but over the years, I’d learned that Laura had been right.

The dude didn’t know how to make friends, even when he desperately wanted them.

I understood now that his teasing wasn’t meant in a necessarily malicious manner, even if there was no other way to take it. It was simply his way of reaching out, of socializing and getting a laugh out of others, and I tried not to hold it against him now.

But, man, the guy didn’t know when to stop before he pissed someone off.

“Back it up, Sid,” I said, lying back and crossing my ankles, one over the other.

“Give a guy a little something, man. She send any pictures?”

“No.” I snorted and shook my head.

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