Page 11 of Indirect Attack
Home on the first leave I’d had all year, the first thing I’d done when my plane had landed was grab a rental car and head to the nearest jewelry store. That had been my first and only thought when my CO had told me to go home, that I needed abreak, that no amount of time spent beating myself up would bring Jacob back.
I’d thought about what I would do and say and Jasmine’s reaction the entire drive to her apartment. I imagined the way I would get down on one knee, her sobbing response, a bright smile on her face despite the tears as I told her I wasn’t reenlisting but coming home to be with her.
How could I have been so stupid? So impulsive? I was the least impulsive person I knew, except maybe Tri, and this was precisely why. Impulsivity and dreaming always backfired on you. It was the harsh lesson my father had learned in his formative years growing up on the streets in Russia, and he’d drilled it into us. Except I hadn’t learned it quite well enough.
A wave of pain washed over me, so overwhelming that I felt my nose begin to burn, my vision blurring as just as my phone lit up again. I knew it was another text or call from Jasmine, but I couldn’t bring myself to read or listen to any of them—it was too painful. And nothing she could say would change anything.
I did the only thing I could, shutting my phone off and shoving myself to my feet when I couldn’t control the agitation any longer. Yanking open the bottom drawer of my desk, I stuffed the ring box and the other sentimental keepsakes from our years of friendship on top of it. Then I tore open my drawing pad and started ripping pages out, one after the other, and stuffing them in the drawer—dozens of drawings of Jasmine and our imagined life together that I’d never shown her.
I shoved everything into the drawer and closet that reminded me of her and shut them away so I didn’t have to see them or think about them. Then I stalked downstairs.
My mother looked up as she pulled a loaf of bread from the oven, the smell of frying bacon, eggs, and potatoes wafting toward me as I stepped down from the last step and intothe kitchen. Her eyes widened, then crinkled in a smile, then narrowed in concern as she took in my expression.
“Ben? When did you get in?” Her words were hesitant like she wanted to ask more.
“Late last night.” I knew my reply was short, tight. I didn’t want her to know I’d spent the entire rest of the night after I’d gotten home sitting on my bed, staring at the empty floor in front of me.
My mother’s gaze didn’t leave my face, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth deepening in concern as she watched me. Discomfort ran as a tightness down my spine. None of us boys could ever get anything past my mother—she had a sixth sense. Whether it was because she was a mom or was sensitive to such things, I didn’t know, but she could tell now that something was up.
Half of me didn’t want to talk about the situation at all. All I wanted to do was let the past be the past and bury the pain that hurt nearly as bad as a physical wound. But the other half of me desperately wanted to tell her, to get the comfort she was always so ready and willing to give that could only come from a mother.
And I nearly did as she put the bread down and came to stand in front of me, looking up into my face as she pressed a soft hand to my cheek.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?”
The words jumped to my lips, and the heat returned to prickle at the back of my eyes and thicken my throat. I took a ragged breath, unable to hold it in.
The back door banged open with a rush of light and sound as the dog clambered into the house, nails scrabbling on the old linoleum as he made a beeline for me, tongue lolling and tail waving frantically. My father stumped in after him, slamming the door shut behind him—he never did anything softly.
I knelt as the dog barreled into me, stroking the soft head and ears to distract my thoughts and pull myself back under control. If there was anything my father hated more than indolence, it was a show of emotion. And after a moment, my mother’s feet moved away from me and back to the stove.
But her gaze was still on me, a prickling on my shoulders and neck as I sat down at the table, the same seat I’d always had.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, the quiver gone from my voice. “It’s nothing.”
“Good,” my father grunted. “Now pass the butter.”
I could tell from her expression as she settled into her seat that my mother neither believed me nor was satisfied, but she didn’t pry, either. My father dug into his food without looking up and without comment.
I left the next morning before even my father was awake, leaving a note for my parents that I’d been called back early. The last thing I’d wanted to see was my mother’s face when I told her I would see her on my next leave because I was reenlisting—she’d been overjoyed when I’d told her this was my last tour. She’d even brought up art school again, her long-ago dream for me she’d buried when I’d joined up.
But the Marines were what I knew, and it was the perfect place to run away.
Chapter 6
Jasmine
Current Day
“MISS? ARE YOU CHECKINGin?”
I jerked my head back from where I’d been craning my neck, trying to take in every inch of the frescoes painted on the arches of the ceiling. The young woman with dark hair pulled back into a chic ponytail was looking at me expectantly, her eyebrows raised and a polite smile on her face.
“Oh, sorry.” I felt myself flush at being caught gawking as I stepped up to the ornate check-in counter. “How old are those frescoes?”
I couldn’t help but ask—history was my thing, after all.
“About as old as the hotel, about 150 years old?” The young woman’s accent was softly rounded vowels and warm tones, musical in its flow.
