Page 24 of The Homecoming

The muscles in his jaw clenched. He shook his head. “No, but fine.” He stalked off, and she followed.

“Alright, fine.”

“Wait, are you mad at me?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m mad at you. I thought you knew that.”

He stopped, tugging a map out of his back pocket to read something off before pulling out a compass. With a nod, off he went again, with Autumn trailing close behind. He stopped and whirled around to face her. “What the hell do you have to be mad at me about? I’m the one that was left hanging. I’m the one that gets ignored when you’re upset.”

“You had Weasel follow me,” she replied before walking past him.

“You’re mad because I sent someone to make sure you were safe?”

“I don’t need your protection. I’m a grown woman, not a child.” She stood on the banks of a creek they’d come to and watched the water drift downstream. She felt his angry stare glowering at the back of her head, but didn’t turn around.What did he mean by “leaving him hanging”?

“Okay, so you’re not a child, but you certainly act like one when you get upset. You tried to ignore me the day after we slept together,” he accused.

She huffed, but couldn’t argue with him. His next words came from directly behind her. “And now you’re angry because why, I proposed? If you don’t want me, all you gotta do is say so. But you didn’t say no, and you didn’t say yes.”

“Of course I want you. But what you did, it wasn’t a real proposal,” Autumn replied. “It was like, ‘Hey, let’s get married in case I die.’Realromantic.”

She felt his body behind her as he wrapped his muscular arms around her waist, his hot breath and beard stubble tickling her ear. “I’m sorry if you thought I was treating you like a child. I’d left you upset and just wanted to be sure you’d get home safely.” He kissed her neck. “And I’m sorry that my proposal was clumsy.”

“How’d you know I left after you dropped me off?”

She felt him smile. “I came back to talk to you, your car was gone.”

“And you called Weasel.”

He kissed her neck again and she knew if she let him continue, he’d lower her defenses. His solid chest pressed against her back, bringing visions of his naked body back to her mind. She pushed the thought away, wanting to remain mad at him.

“Yes,” he said softly. “I called Weasel and asked if he could find you to make sure you got back home okay, that’s all.”

“It wasn’t clumsy,” she said. “It felt impulsive, like having a money-back guarantee on your life was what I wanted.”

He sighed and buried his face in her neck, tightening his arms around her middle before kissing her skin again. “Well, I’ll do it better next time, then.”

14.

Autumn turned her light off before curling up in bed for the evening until her phone sounded. A text from Dan informed her to look out her window. She pulled up the blinds and almost screamed, clamping her hand over her mouth as she saw Dan sitting on the roof outside her window. She unlocked the window pane and slid it up. “What are you doing?” she whispered. “How did you climb up here?”

“I needed to see you.” He popped the window screen off, pulled his shoes from his feet, and stepped inside.

Autumn looked at him and knew instantly why he was here. He’d been called back. “No.” She sat on the bed, sinking into the mattress as she put her face in her hands.

He knelt on the ground in front of her. “I have to report to Fort Bragg at 0800 for orders.”

Tears came, despite her best effort to hold them back. He wrapped his arms around her waist and lay his head in her lap as they sat in the silence of her darkened bedroom. Autumn wiped her eyes and tried to regain some composure.

“I don’t wanna be with anyone else,” he whispered. “I love you and want you all to myself. Please wait for me to come back.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered through her tears. “Just come back to me as soon as you can.”

He reached up, running his hand through her hair as he kissed her wet cheeks. Then his tongue soon found hers, and she only broke the kiss to reach for his shirt, pulling it up and over his head.

Dan grabbed the bottom of her shirt before stopping to notice what she was wearing. “So that’s where this went.” He nodded to his gray Go Army t-shirt, earning him a smile from Autumn as he pulled it from her body.

“Iwillbe keeping that,” she said. He tossed the shirt to the side and gently pushed her back onto the bed with his body as he crawled in with her. He easily freed her of her underwear and despite her struggle with the button of his jeans, she eventually got them partly off before he slid them the rest of the way. He shifted between her legs as he maneuvered her to the middle of the bed and she wrapped herself around him. His lips met hers in a deep kiss before he stopped, looking into her eyes he whispered, “I’m all yours. Body, heart, mind, and soul. Everything.”

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