Page 7 of The Soldier Next Door
“I’m not a kid, I’m eighteen! I told you!” I protest.
He laughs again. “Sixteen, eighteen, it’s all the same, little girl. Didn’t you say you were in high school?”
“Yes, but my parents held me back a year since I have a summer birthday. I’m one of the oldest and most mature women in my class!” I feel myself start to flush. I so desperately want him to know that I’m old enough for his attentions. We already get along so well, so why is he harping on my age?
Brady nods, showing off that charming smile.
“Okay kid, I hear you. Well, thank you again for the care package, but I’ve got a few more things to take care of since I’m leaving soon. Plus, I think I just heard your parents pull up inthe driveway,” he says glancing at the front and then looking my scantily clad body up and down.
I inhale sharply, nodding. Jackie and Jim are so traditional that they would be scandalized if they saw me talking to this grown man with barely any clothes on.
Brady grins and then chuckles to himself again.
“Yep, a full-blown adult, right? It was nice meeting you, Susie.”
I merely roll my eyes and make my way back towards my house.
“Bye Brady. Good luck on your deployment if I don’t see you before you leave.” I wave at him then dash into my house and up to my room to change. But when I rush upstairs, my cheeks are flushed and my bosom heaving. Brady Firestone does that to me, and I don’t want it to stop, deployment or not.
4
Brady
One week later.
“What’s up man?” my roommate, Tucker, asks as I walk into my room. “How was the patrol?”
I stretch and yawn, exhausted from patrolling all night. “Fucking uneventful,” I say shortly.
“Well, that’s the best kind of patrol. Pray that I get just as lucky. By the way you got a –”
“Hey man, I don’t mean to sound like a dick but I really don’t feel like talking right now. I’ve been listening to Carter blab all night about nothing, and then I gotta walk in here and hear yourunning your damn mouth too,” I say, getting more and more agitated.
He holds his hands up in peace.
“No problem man, just…” the rest of his words are muffled as he grumbles under his breath. He gathers all the stuff he needs and leaves the room, slamming the door behind him.
I sit on the edge of my bunk, excited to finally be getting some rest after being on patrol all night. I’m exhausted, and my head is pounding from the lack of sleep. I look around at the bare, cinderblock walls, and shake my head at the spartan furnishings. How is it that just a week ago, I had a beautiful, vivacious, and sexy young woman within my grasp? Then, the world changed. Now I’m in this shitty, dusty room, with a roommate that farts in his sleep and won’t ever shut the fuck up.
I know I’m being an asshole. Tucker is nice enough, but he’s not the problem. Being back just reminds me that I don’t have Tony with me this time. This tour is definitely my hardest just because I miss my best friend so much. Everyone here wants to swap stories and have a pissing contest about nothing. It’s so dumb that I don’t talk to anyone unless I absolutely have to, and I’m not interested in making friends. I do my job, like a good teammate and soldier, and I go to my bunk. After only a couple of days, I’ve started to get used to the repetitiveness of my daily routine. Make that my depressing, daily routine.
Maybe I’m too old for this shit.
I pull off my boots and flop back on my bed. My head lands on a hard object and I turn around to see what’s on my bed, rubbing the back of my neck where it made contact. It’s a small cardboard box, and I look at it, perplexed. This must be the package Tucker was telling me about.
I pick up the box and look at the shipping label:
Susie Monroe
39283 S. 4thSt.
Remford, IA 52591
Very interesting.
Before opening it, I remember out last moment together. It was that day we met, when Susie came flouncing out of her house in that slutty little outfit. Oh, how delicious she looked. I was tempted to bend her over that fence and take her right there because she knewexactlywhat she was doing. Eighteen, bullshit. Age is nothing but a number because that girl is sex on legs.
I almost came undone when she actuallydidtouch me. Her dainty hand rested lightly on my arm, and I had to get her hand off me before I yanked her over the fence and marched her into my bedroom for some long, hot loving, consequences be damned.
