“Vagina. Vagina,” Bird squawked.
“Ugh! If you don’t shut it, I’m going to cover your cage!” Violet scolded Bird. “And as for you…” She pointed at JL. “I don’t want to meet Little John tonight. I don’t even want to meet Big John.” Violet scooped up all the clothes that JL had strewn across her bed and began to hang everything back up.
“What are you doing?” JL asked.
“I’m not wearing any of these things. They’re too revealing and too tight. You forget that I’m not a size zero like you.” Violet stopped in midstep, let go of the clothes, and fell back onto the bed with a groan.
“Trust me—a little revealing is fine, Vi. And so is a little tight. I assure you, men like your tits and ass better than my bony chest and tiny butt. No offense, chick, but you need a little lift in the wardrobe department. Scrubs with little yellow bunnies aren’t going to get you laid. And anyway, since when are you self-conscious?”
“I’m not. Not at all. I’m happy with my body; I just don’t want all the goods on display.” She motioned to her chest. “You know I don’t like to dress like that.” She grabbed a tiny pair of shorts JL had tossed on the bed and flung them onto the floor. “Leave something to the imagination and all that. And I’m not looking to get laid. I’m just looking for a nice guy.” She took a deep breath. “God, I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Just shake it off, girl. It’s nerves. It’s been way too long since you dated. You’re the one who’s been whining about not wanting to go dateless to our high school reunion. Prince Charming isn’t just going to knock on your door and beg to go on a date. You need to go out and meet people, especially if you’re going to find a date in two weeks.”
“Ugh! I can’t believe it’s been ten years since I’ve seen most of those people, and I can’t believe I agreed to go. I don’t know if I want to go see all those pretentious jerks.”
“We’re going. You, me, and Travis. Well, my dear twin brother doesn’t know I’m making him go yet, but he’s coming. We all have to go. You have absolutely nothing to worry about. Travis and I didn’t fit in when we started junior year, so imagine what they’ll think now,” JL said, indicating her tattooed arm. “You’re a nurse. Me, on the other hand, I’m a bartender and Travis is a broke MMA fighter. So suck it up, girlie, ’cause we’re all going. You have a couple of weeks to find a date.” JL placed her palms on Violet’s shoulders. “Take a deep breath.”
Violet followed JL’s instructions.
“Tonight’s just a date,” JL continued. “I was just kidding about Little John. Big John’s not expecting anything more than a nice meal at the Pier. I’ll be right there, and so will half the town. I made sure you were at a familiar place, okay?”
Violet closed her eyes and took a shaky breath. JL handed her some clothes; Violet didn’t miss that JL had given her the too-tight jeans and the too-revealing top. “And if it doesn’t work out tonight, that’s cool too. You just go stag. No biggie.”
“You don’t think it’s too soon to date?” Violet slumped down onto her bed and began to squeeze into the clothes.
“It’s been over three and a half months since your father died. Yeah, maybe that feels soon, but before he passed you hadn’t been on a date in months. Maybe years,” JL said. “And we can’t change the date of the reunion.”
“I have dated. Remember Joe?” She was inside her walk-in closet. “Oh, and Tim. I dated Tim too. And there was a Tom and a Rob.”
“Do you only date guys with three letters in their name?” her friend teased. Violet tossed a scarf at her. “Seriously, Vi, those weren’t real dates. I’m calling bullshit, honey. It has nothing to do with your dad passing away. Even before that you never committed to enjoying yourself. You have to close your eyes and say to yourself, ‘I’m going to try.’ That’s all I ask, that you at least try. And not for the sake of the stupid reunion but because you deserve happiness.”
“Hellooooo? John? Date? Tonight?” Violet waved her arms and then pointed at herself. “That’s me trying.”
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
“What?”
JL laughed and waved her hand. “Yoda. Star Wars. Never mind. The point is, you better commit to at least two hours, and I don’t want to hear anything dumb, like how he chews weird or has an uneven haircut.”
Violet put her hands up in surrender. “Tom really did chew strange!” She stopped and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Or was it Tim? Whatever. The point is that the way a guy chews is a legitimate flaw. I can’t marry a man who talks and chews at the same time, spitting little chunks of steak in my face. Ew! What if one of those little pieces lands in my eye? I could go blind.”
“The thought you’ve put into that exaggeration is really impressive, if not disturbing.” Her friend threw the scarf back at Violet. “Come on. Finish getting dressed already.”
Minutes later, Violet was sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed applying makeup when JL walked in again, fully dressed to bartend at the Pier. “I was thinking…”
“Oh, no. Are you okay?”
JL playfully smacked Violet’s shoulder before sitting down on her bed and fussing with Violet’s hair. “Maybe the issue is Cain. Have you heard from him?” That was not something Violet wanted to talk about, and her friend knew it, which was why she’d brought it up. “What the hell is going on with you and Cain? And before you say nothing, remember we’ve been friends for a long time. I know you. We live together. That man has you in knots, and since he left four months ago, you’ve been a Debbie Downer. It’s depressing. You’re depressing.”
“One hundred and ten days. Not that I’m counting. I have absolutely no idea where he’s at. He just vanished. But even when he was here, there was never anything going on with us. You saw how he treated me when he bothered to speak to me. I don’t know what I did to make him hate me. We were best friends, and then we weren’t. Plain and simple. My issues have got nothin’ to do with him.”
“He doesn’t say a word to anyone. I’ve been living in Tarpon Springs for years now, and since he moved here I think I’ve heard him say ten words. So the talking thing, it’s a nonissue. It’s got nothin’ to do with you. The jerk thing—yeah, all you, babe. Not sure what’s up with that. He’s not exactly Mr. Friendly, but he’s not flat-out rude to anyone except you.”
“Except me,” she agreed.
“Why’s that?”
“No clue.” Violet lay back, sucked in her gut, and closed the top button of her jeans. “He’s so surly nowadays,” she said breathlessly. “When we were growing up he was always the quiet and introspective one, but he wasn’t the Cain I’ve met here in town. This Cain’s a—”
“A dick,” JL interrupted.
“Dick! Dick!” Bird cawed.
JL barked out a loud laugh. “I love that bird.”
Violet rolled her eyes and ignored the parrot. “Yep. He’s not very friendly. Cain, not Bird. Actually, both. Or neither.” Violet shook her head. “Ugh! What I mean to say is both Cain and Bird are not friendly.” Violet let out her breath and put her arms out to JL, who grabbed them and pulled her up. “But I’m so freakin’ worried about him. Mad or not, I hope he’s okay.” Violet stretched her legs and walked over to the mirror behind her door to look at herself. Normal to large boobs, average waist, biggish butt, and short legs. She was on the voluptuous side of the spectrum. But she liked the way she looked, and so long as she was healthy, she never dieted and never looked at the scale. It had taken her a lot of years of self-loathing, but now, at twenty-eight, she loved her curvy body and wore it proudly—her father’s opinion, God rest his soul, be damned.
She turned halfway, looked at her backside, and smiled to herself. She had long ago come to terms with the fact that she would never be the same size as JL—but neither were most women. The mean girls in high school who had tormented her and mooed at her when she walked down the hall were now cordially invited to kiss her big behind, because she was happy with her t
ush just as it was and she seriously enjoyed her cookie dough ice cream addiction.
“Looking good, sister,” JL said. “I swear I’m going to burn your scrubs.”
“You think John will like it?”
JL walked up to Violet and playfully eyed her cleavage. “Only if he’s a guy.” Violet swatted her away and adjusted her top so that she wasn’t spilling out of it. “Come on. You’re going to be late for your date, and I’m going to be late for work.”
Violet took a deep breath, grabbed her purse, and followed JL out of the house. A glass of wine would loosen her up. That’s what she needed in order to get rid of the butterflies in her stomach. She wasn’t so good with dates, and blind dates were the worst.
—
The evening was hot and humid, as it always was in Florida, and it smelled of rain to come. JL chatted during the ten-minute car ride to the Pier, the local hangout where JL tended bar. The familiar sound of people talking over one another and cue sticks hitting pool balls nearly drowned out the music coming from the old jukebox.
JL pranced over to the bar; Violet followed and sat on one of the empty stools. Her friend had described John as tall with dark hair and a sleeve of tattoos on both arms. She wasn’t really into the whole tattoo thing, but she also wasn’t really into the whole single thing. JL was right: it had been way too long since she’d seriously dated anyone.
Promptly at seven the door opened and a tall man matching JL’s description walked in. JL whistled him over to the bar. He had a nice walk, Violet thought. Self-assured and assertive. His smile and perfect white teeth were nice too.
“John, meet Violet. Violet, meet John,” JL said, gesturing as if she were a presenter on a game show.
John pulled the stool back and sat. “So, this is sort of awkward,” he said as soon as JL had walked away.
“You’re telling me!” Violet giggled nervously.
“Can I just say that I’m very pleasantly surprised? With these blind dates, you never know who’ll show up. Especially given the way JL described you.”
Feeling somewhat betrayed and a lot hurt, Violet asked, “Exactly how did Jamie Lynn describe me?”
“As nervous, serious, un-tattooed, but awesome.”
Violet let out a breath. “Oh, well. That’s pretty accurate.”
“I was sort of expecting someone out of that Amish reality show—you know, with a long skirt and high-necked shirt.”
Violet laughed. “No, no. I don’t have sleeves or piercings like you guys, but I’m not an uptight bore either. I mean, you’ve met my best friend—do you think she’d hang out with a judgmental drag?”
John laughed. “No, I guess not.” He gestured to JL. “Hey, JL, can you get me a beer? Anything on draft. And for Violet—”
“Red wine, coming right up,” JL interrupted, knowing exactly what Violet drank.
Two drinks and a lovely dinner of greasy bar food later, Violet was still laughing. Almost immediately John had made her feel at ease. For the first time in a long time, Violet felt happy being on a date.
—
Cain hadn’t left Tarpon Springs, Florida, for this long since he’d moved there four years ago. He’d grown up on an army base, then served in the military for eight years before retiring, and this was the first time in his adult life that he felt he had a home. After one too many fights in school, his father had forced him to enlist, to follow the path of his father and his father’s father. The Sorensons bred military men. Then his second tour ended and he didn’t want the army to be a career, so he’d gotten out, much to his father’s dismay. Right now, if someone asked him why he had signed up with IMC, International Military Coalition, as a contractor, he couldn’t answer. At the time he’d only seen the dollar bills. The pay was amazing compared to what the U.S. government had paid him for risking his life for years as an Army Ranger, and signing up to make four times the amount with a private company seemed like the obvious next step.
As soon as Cain walked out of the airport, he hailed a taxi to take him straight to the Pier. It was Friday night, and his friends would undoubtedly be there. Plus, he needed a beer…or seven. On the ride over, he received a text from Iggy Mitchell, another mercenary he’d met overseas. Iggy had lost a leg in a tour in Iraq a couple of years ago, and when he wasn’t on a mission for IMC, he worked as a consultant in Tampa specializing in testing firewalls and other online security threats. In other words, he was a professional hacker. The two men had quickly hit it off and sparred together during their free time. Iggy’s hard work and zest for life made the prosthetic leg a nonissue. One evening Iggy had mentioned how he loved to gamble on a series of underground fights put together by some Russians. The text Cain was currently reading was the address of a fight happening in a few days. But Cain wasn’t a gambling man, so he wasn’t interested. He slid the phone back into his pocket and settled in for the forty-five-minute cab ride to the Pier.
It was raining when the taxi arrived. He swung the big duffle bag over his shoulder and looked around the familiar town before he reached to open the front door. A hand on his shoulder stopped him. “Hey, man! You’re back.” It was Tony, his friend, sparring partner, and professional mixed martial arts fighter, whom he had helped train a few months ago.
“Cain, honey, so glad you’re home!” Tony’s wife, Francesca, threw her arms around him for a big hug. He wasn’t big on contact, and he awkwardly put his arm around her waist and patted her back.
“Come on, let’s go inside,” Tony said. “The rest of the guys are on their way. Do they know you’re back? Where were you, by the way?”
“Libya. Just arrived. No one knows,” Cain replied.
Francesca hissed. “Libya. Fuck. That’s not safe.”
“No.”
“Still quite the conversationalist, I see.” Tony patted Cain roughly on the back.
“Leave the man alone. He just came back from hell, he doesn’t need that attitude tonight. By the way…” She poked Cain in the shoulder. “Don’t you ever fuckin’ leave again without letting us know you’re leaving or where you’re going. We were worried.” She reached in and hugged him again.
“Violet?” Cain asked when she released him.
“What about her?” Francesca asked.
“She okay?”
“Ask her yourself—she’s here.”
Cain tried not to smile, but his lips seemed to curl upward all on their own. He hadn’t seen Violet for years until a few months ago, when she’d moved to town. He was happy he’d get to see her tonight. As had always been the case, her warm smile was the perfect salve for his shitty mood.
Cain put a hand on Francesca’s upper arm. “Wait—before we go in, are there any fights coming up? Sign me up for something. Soon.” Francesca was co-owner of Worth the Fight Academy, a mixed martial arts gym that trained professional cage fighters, which was what Cain had been doing before heading off a few months earlier.
“You just got into town. You need to take a breather. We can talk about it when you’re settled back.”
“I’m settled. I’m back. Sign me up.”
“Fine. But tonight, relax, at least for a few hours. Come have a drink and say hello to everyone. We’ll find you something tomorrow,” Francesca said.
As soon as he opened the door to the familiar laughter and smell he started to feel better.
—
“Gotta go to the restroom. Be right back. Don’t go anywhere,” John said with a wink.
“Okay,” she giggled—she couldn’t help it. Violet was still enthralled. No flaws yet—perfect teeth, no lopsided haircut, and no weird chewing habit. She secretly prayed he’d ask her for a second date.
Violet was about to signal to JL for another round of drinks when she felt the hairs on the back of her neck tingle. She turned around toward the front door of the bar and stilled, her heart exploding in a mix of emotions. She had to blink a few times to make sure she wasn’t seeing a mirage.
The last 110 days of repressed emotion
s were suddenly sucked up in a vacuum, and it was like she had tunnel vision and hearing. In walked Cain in black cargo pants and a tight-fitting black T-shirt. His blond hair—which looked longer than it had been when he’d left—was pulled back, and his usually pale skin was tanner. He looked like a Viking. Even though he was covered in muscles, he wasn’t as beefy as the rest of the fighters; however, what he lacked in width he more than made up in height. The man commanded a room with his presence and with his mesmerizing clear blue eyes outlined by blond eyebrows. The contrast between his skin and his all-black clothing made him looked dangerous—like his long-ago Nordic counterpart, he looked ready to rape and pillage. Truth be told, most women would go to him fully ready to submit, no pillaging necessary.
Cain treated her like crap during the months before he left. Therefore, her next reaction shocked her, Cain, and probably the rest of the bar—luckily, John was still in the restroom.
Violet pushed back her chair, which fell over, and ran full speed to Cain, who wasn’t looking and wasn’t prepared for the full frontal attack he was about to receive. He was still holding the heavy duffle bag when he turned around and Violet threw herself against him. She never doubted he would catch her. He dropped his bag and wrapped his arms around her waist. Growing up, she’d hugged him all the time. Her father had been an emotionless droid, sort of like Cain’s own father, but somehow Violet had turned out completely opposite. She wore her heart on her sleeve and never held back any emotion.
Over the last few years, Cain and Violet had grown distant, but being in his arms didn’t feel strange. In fact, all the worry she’d carried during the last four months melted away. She buried her face in his neck. “I missed your face. Where have you been? I thought you weren’t coming back,” she cried.
He pulled back and cupped her cheeks. “I missed your face too.” He brought her back into his arms, and she squeezed him tighter and sobbed louder. She couldn’t let go. She needed to feel his hard muscular body against hers, the beat of his heart against her fingers, the warmth of his breath against her face. She needed to know he was alive. He was here. He had returned. “I’m here now, Vi. It’s okay.” He caressed the back of her head. “It’s okay, Vi. I’m okay.”
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