What Comes Next

by Desni Dantone

  I pushed away from my desk with a sigh and hurried down the steps. I dreaded another lecture on what Ma thought was going on between Ben and me. I worried that she saw my face during the game, saw my fear when Ben went down. I knew she would make it out to be more—

  “Ana!” She waved me over to her the moment I stepped into the kitchen. She had the phone to her ear, listening to whoever was on the other end. After a moment, she said, “Hold on Katherine. Let me ask Ana.” Turning to me, Ma asked, “Do you know where Ben is, honey?”

  I stared blankly at Ma, not completely understanding her question. Ma frowned at my blank expression.

  “You’re not in trouble, Ana,” she continued. “Katherine’s only worried . . .” Ma pressed her ear to the phone when a soft voice drifted through the receiver. She listened for a moment, nodding a few times, before turning to me. “He didn’t leave in the truck. It’s still there, so he either got picked up by a friend, or walked somewhere.”

  Ma pinned me with an accusatory look. Granted, we were within walking distance for him, but what did she think? That I had him hidden in my room right now?

  “I haven’t seen him since the game,” I stated.

  I almost added that I probably knew where to find him, but I kept that knowledge to myself. He must have had a reason for wanting to escape, and I wasn’t going to take that away from him.

  I made a quick retreat when Ma finally dismissed me. Up in my room, I sat on the bed, staring out the window. If I looked hard enough, and if the moonlight shined just right, I might have been able to see his hideout.

  After a few moments, footsteps fell on the floor in the hallway. The door to Ma and Pop’s room closed softly, signaling their retreat for the night.

  I glanced at the clock. 10:11. I was tired. I knew what I should do.

  Instead, I slipped my shoes on, pushed the window up, and climbed out onto the gently sloped roof. The jump wasn’t far, and the grass softened my landing.

  With a glance over my shoulder to make sure Ma wasn’t watching me from her window, I darted across the yard, and slipped behind the barn. Though it was dark there, in the shadows, my steps didn’t falter once, and I easily made it to the path that connected our property to the Sawyers’ property.

  The growing foliage atop the trees blocked most of the moonlight. I was forced to walk a little slower, and take more cautious steps. I didn’t even realize I had walked up on the treehouse until I was standing beneath it. I peered up, but saw nothing. There was no indication that Ben was in there, but I knew that didn’t mean anything.

  I climbed the ladder swiftly, hoping he was there so I could ensure that he was okay. I pulled myself through the opening at the top, and came to a slow stand as my eyes adjusted to the darkness in the enclosure.

  High up in the tree, the moonlight had an unobstructed path through the single cut-out window. A soft band of light painted a line across the floor, and came to a stop on the opposite wall.

  Within the beam of light, his head propped against the wall and his legs sprawled out in front of him, sat Ben. His eyes narrowed on me, and I dropped my gaze to the cream-colored cast on his left arm.

  He was the first to break the silence. “What are you doing here?”

  “Your mom called.” I cowered under his wilting gaze. “I thought you might have come here, so . . .”

  “So you thought you’d check to see if you were right?”

  “I just . . .” What? Why had I come? Because part of me thought he might have wanted my company? “I was worried. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  He lifted his injured arm with a scowl. “Does this look okay to you?”

  “How bad?” I swallowed hard. “Ben, how bad is it?”

  He sighed heavily, and tapped the back of his head against the wall before lifting a tall, brown bottle to his lips. The stench of alcohol drifted toward me as Ben wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “It’s ‘I’m going to be drafted’ bad. Is that bad enough for you?”

  My pulse skipped at his mention of the dreaded d-word. Then I shook my head dismissively. “You don’t know that.”

  His eyes flashed, temporarily reflecting the moonlight with his anger. “I don’t?” He laughed harshly. “I already got my draft card, Ana. Baseball was my only way out. And now that’s gone . . .”

  “But maybe—”

  “The scout already said no. It’s done.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Just because of your arm? That’s not fair. It’ll heal and—”

  “Not until after the season is over,” he muttered.

  I shook my head rapidly. “But you could still play next year!”

  Ben sighed heavily. “They’re looking at four short stops right now, Ana. Four, to fill one spot on the roster. They’re not going to sign me without a full season under my belt. They’re going to focus on the other three, who still have the rest of the season to prove what they got.”

  I nodded glumly as the finality of what he was saying settled in. He wouldn’t get signed. He won’t get the scholarship that had been dangled in front of him. But his arm would heal.

  “You could still go to UNC,” I insisted. “You could walk onto the team next spring. You’re good enough. You’ll make the team, and they won’t draft you.”

  “It’s not about UNC, or baseball.” His voice lowered, and I had to take a few steps closer to hear him. “We can’t afford tuition. The only way I can go anywhere is if I get a scholarship.”

  “But what if you—”

  “Ana!” he snapped, causing me to flinch. He saw it, and softened some before lowering his eyes. “I’m not a coward. I’m not going to run. I’m not going to hide. I’ll jump when they say jump. I’ll go if they tell me to go, I just . . .” He trailed off, and rubbed his eyes tiredly. “I have no desire to go off to fight a war that has sent so many I know back home in a body bag, so excuse me if I’m not exactly happy about it.”

  I scoffed softly, but loud enough for him to hear.

  “What?” he demanded, then took another drink from the bottle while he waited for my response.

  “With that kind of attitude, you won’t come back,” I said decisively.

  He stared at me silently for several heavy seconds, and I wondered if my words impacted him at all. The rigidness of his jaw suggested that I’d riled him up in some way. I could only hope it was in a good way. I decided to keep going while I had his attention.

  “What about your brother? He didn’t come back in a body bag.”

  “He might as well have . . .” Ben stared at me, and I waited, suspecting that he had more to add. “Mitch isn’t the same. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but . . . he’s seen things he can’t unsee.”

  “But he’s alive,” I countered. “He did come back, and you will too.”

  “Aren’t you Little Miss Optimistic,” he sneered around the bottle approaching his mouth.

  I stomped across the floor until I towered over him, and pointed a finger at his stubborn, drunk head. “One of us has to be, and it certainly isn’t going to be you!”

  He swatted my hand out of his face, and pushed to a stand. I retreated a few steps as he stalked forward to tower over me now.

  “I’m trying,” he snapped. “I’ve been preparing myself for the inevitable for months. But it’s a little hard to wrap my head around the thought of dying . . . at the age of eighteen! Forgive me for not being strong enough.”

  “Ben, that’s not—”

  “Why do you care anyway?”

  I shook my head, confused by his question. Care about what? I didn’t know what he was talking about, because he couldn’t possibly be asking me why I cared about him? “Ben, I—”

  “This doesn’t affect you,” he snarled. “You’ll get to carry on, finish school, and do whatever you want. Me getting drafted has nothing to do with you.”

  “No?” I swallowed the emotion threatening to take control of my voice. I stood tall and strong, determined to not sho
w how much it hurt me to hear him say those words. I couldn’t allow myself to believe he actually meant them, because that would hurt so much worse. “So I won’t think about you at all? I won’t be left here with nothing but my memories, and the thoughts of where you are, what you’re doing, whether or not you’re okay?”

  “Not if I have any say in it,” he muttered before pacing to the corner opposite me. There, he stood with his back against the wall, casted arm dropped to his side, and eyes firmly on me.

  His meaning was clear, and I gaped at him from where I stood, frozen to the floor. “Just like that, huh?” He at least had the decency to look guilty before his eyes dropped. “What was this, then?”

  “Ana . . .” And he sounded guilty.

  “What if you hadn’t gotten hurt? What if you got that scholarship, and went to UNC? What then?”

  “For starters, I wouldn’t be getting shot at . . .” He sighed heavily.

  “What did you think was going to happen between us then?” I pressed. He refused to meet my eyes—wouldn’t even look at me—so I closed some of the distance between us. “Ben?”

  “I told you, Ana,” he mumbled.

  “You told me what?”

  “That I didn’t know what came next,” he reminded me sternly.

  I inhaled sharply at the barely audible hope I heard behind those words. “But you wanted to find out,” I reminded him as I eliminated the remaining few steps that still separated us.

  His eyes drooped with sorrow when they met mine. I understood. Really, I got it. This was not the way he had wanted it—whatever had started between us—to go. I shared his frustration, but I wasn’t going to throw in the towel just because fate took an unpaved detour. It might take us longer to get from point A to point B, but there was still a chance the destination would be the same.

  “I’m still willing to find out what comes next if you are,” I told him decidedly.

  I didn’t wait for him to respond. I didn’t wait to read his reaction to my statement. I did the only thing I wanted to do at that moment.

  I kissed him. I pushed onto my tiptoes, threw my arms around his neck, and pulled his mouth to mine. His lips froze against mine . . . but only briefly before he started to kiss me back. The room spun, and my back slammed into something hard. Wedged between the wall and Ben’s solid frame, I found what I had wanted since I showed up here tonight.

  I hadn’t realized it until now. How much Ben’s presence soothed me, how much I sought him out, how much I had come to care about him. So many revelations hit me at once. I tried to convey them through the deliberateness with which I kissed him.

  Despite the raw start to our kiss, it now progressed with slow diligence. I savored each caress as our lips moved together, perfectly in synch, perfectly in tune with each other. As if we had been made for each other.

  “Ana . . .” Ben breathed against my lips.

  “Just kiss me,” I ordered softly.

  My fingers buried into his hair as I held him to me. Not that he really needed the extra encouragement. While his casted arm hung loosely at his side, he traced a path from my shoulder to my fingertips with his good hand, eliciting a trail of goosebumps in his wake. His fingers intertwined with mine as his lips slid to my cheek, breaking the kiss without breaking contact.

  “I’ll take whatever the future holds if it includes you.”

  I shivered from his breath against my ear, and the promise audible in his words. I returned my own promise with no hesitation.

  “I’ll be here.”

  I meant everything I said. There was a reason for everything I did. I cared about Ana. I was falling for Ana. And she was falling for me. I knew that, and that was when things got a little mixed up in my head.

  Me? I could handle me. The next two years of my life were going to be hard. I knew it, and slowly, day by day, I prepared for it. But could I put Ana through it? Could I bare to let her suffer as the one left behind?

  In an effort to not dwell on the things I couldn’t control, I strolled through each day like nothing was wrong. I tried not to relive the worst conversation I’d ever been a part of, and hear the scout’s final words echoing in my head with everything I did.

  “It’s a clean break,” the doctor had said. “Will take about four weeks to heal. I don’t expect any long-term impairment.”

  All eyes—mine, my brother’s, my mama’s, Coach’s—had turned to the scout for what he had to say. I played a “hell of a game.” I showed “tremendous promise.” Given the opportunity, I could have been a frontrunner for the position, but . . .

  “Without seeing you play out the rest of the season, I can’t offer a contract.”

  He had turned my world upside down, then took off with nothing more than an apology.

  Overnight, I was reduced to the role of small-town farm boy on a collision course with the military. Over the following weeks, I supported the baseball team from the bench during games, and let them doodle on my cast in the dugout. I picked up on the repairs around the Maxwell farm—what I could do with one arm. I went to class, and counted down the days left until graduation along with the rest of the senior class. I asked Ana to prom.

  To an outsider peering in, everything appeared fine. Only those closest to me saw through my mask on occasion. Mama wanted to protect me, to shield me from what was to come; Mitch encouraged bad habits to help me momentarily forget; Ana was the one who made me face the reality. She was the one that wouldn’t let me bury it like a land mine ready to explode.

  While I appreciated her for that most of the time, there were times I really just wanted to hide. Like today. Like every other day I got a letter from the government with instructions on what I needed to do next on my quest to become a weapon of war for them.

  My physical readiness exam was in a few days, on Saturday. The cast had just come off my arm, so I suspected I would pass. They would want me. My trigger finger worked just fine.

  I hadn’t told Ana yet. It wasn’t exactly an easy subject to approach. What could I say?

  So guess what? Saturday I get to find out for sure if I’ll be sent to Vietnam. Then we get to dress up, go to prom, and pretend that it doesn’t really matter for a few hours.

  I should have told her earlier, when I saw her milling around the barn, but I lost my nerve. Now I was about to head home, and I didn’t see her anywhere.

  “You about done over there?” I called to Mitch where he stood a few posts down, repairing a section of the fence.

  “Just two more boards.”

  “I’m going to start packing up then.”

  He nodded, and I gathered up an armload of tools and supplies to take to the barn where they were kept. I had most of it put away when Ana flew through the door behind me.

  I froze with a wrench in my hand, because she looked like she was on a mission. I had no idea what for, but it was entertaining to see that fire in her eyes.

  “You couldn’t have come in here sooner?”

  I glanced at the wrench. “Wh—”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to come in here all afternoon.” She stalked toward me. Not like an angry girlfriend. I didn’t think so, but I didn’t have a lot of experience with the whole girlfriend thing. No, the heat in her gaze appeared to be from something else.

  I figured it out about two seconds before her mouth crashed into mine, and I was waiting for her. Without hesitation, I wrapped her up in my cast-free arms, spun her around, and lifted her onto the tool bench. Tools clanged and banged together in a metallic chorus as our tongues collided. Her legs circled my waist, tugging me flush against her.

  The groan that started deep in my chest was instinctive. As was my body’s reaction—like any warm-blooded eighteen-year-old with a beautiful girl’s tongue in his mouth. Yeah, I wanted her. I’d wanted her for a long time. But I reminded myself, for the umpteenth time, to tread carefully.

  She wasn’t like the others.

  That didn’t stop me from wanting. Or from testing my boun
daries.

  My hands drifted up, across the smooth skin of her thighs, up her narrow hips, before slipping under the hem of her loosely hung shirt. My fingers brushed against the soft skin I found there, delicately teasing her while I steadily inched higher.

  I slowed only when my fingertips grazed the silky edge of her bra, and only long enough to gauge her reaction to my advance on previously unexplored territory. From the tiny whimper against my lips, the slight quake of her body under my hands, and the firmness of her fingers digging into my back, I concluded that access was granted.

  My thumbs skimmed over the smooth material, and Ana’s legs squeezed around my waist. My lips curved into a grin against hers, because . . . damn. I’d barely touched her, and she was already about to jump off the table.

  Slow . . . slow . . . slow . . .

  One word echoed in my head. It barely drowned out the need I had to feel her, to taste her, to . . .

  “Shit.” My mouth ripped away from hers to grit out one word. I buried my face in her neck as I struggled to regain control of my hands, one of which had partially slipped beneath the barrier, and was dangerously close to finding out what else I could make her do. “Ana, I need—”

  “It’s okay,” she told me.

  “We need to slow down. I need . . .” My head snapped back when I felt her fingers graze the sensitive spot beneath my belly button. My abdomen clenched in response, and my eyes darted to hers as she gripped the hem of my shirt in her hands. She peered up at me, and I knew what she wanted, but was too afraid to ask.

  I threw all reasoning and common sense out the window, and withdrew my hands from under her shirt to lift mine over my head. As I dropped it to the floor, Ana’s eyes lowered with unadulterated curiosity, and just a hint of fear.

  I knew I was built well—better than most my age. I’d been told how nice my toned chest and flat stomach looked. I’d been told a lot of things, but none of it came close to the look of awe on Ana’s face. Never before had I had the urge to pound my chest and bellow from the treetops my status as a man.

  Ana’s hand flinched in her lap, and she glanced up to find me watching her. Her tongue flicked nervously across her lips. “Can I touch you?”