Unraveled (Woodlands)

by Frederick, Jen

  “I’ll always miss him but…” Looking down at my ring, I started tugging and it slid off like my finger had been buttered. Palming it, I spoke more forcefully. “He’s not here anymore.”

  Carolyn started crying and usually that set me off, but not this time. “I’m sorry. You should talk to Tucker.” I’m not sure if she even noticed I hung up. I texted Tucker right after to call his mom and then I shut the phone off. I went upstairs and pulled out my jewelry case. I didn’t have much. There was a pearl necklace my parents had given me when I was sixteen and a watch that my grandmother had gifted me on my graduation from high school. There were a few pairs of earrings and a couple of bracelets. I wore none of it other than a pair of gold hoops I never took out. I slid the ring inside, shut the lid and then kissed the box. I loved Will. Some part of me always would.

  But it was time.

  Out on my deck, I soaked in the sun and finished up the cap, sweater, and tiny booties, all in ivory alpaca yarn. Making baby items was one of my favorite crafts—and not just because the projects were a lot quicker to complete. I loved the soft yarns, the tiny booties, and the idea that some of my items were the first thing that a new human being ever wore.

  I had started ticking off the days left in Gray’s visit. My chest would get tight when I thought about him leaving. July was fast approaching. Ever since the fishing trip, I'd had different fantasies, imagining attending class with him. Holding hands as we walked across campus. Eating together in the cafeteria. We’d both be older students, and so we’d talk about how no one around us makes any sense, only we make sense together.

  One night he appeared at the bar without Adam or any of the other guys. He just showed up.

  “When are you on break?”

  “Maybe ten minutes? The band has two more songs in the set list.”

  He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead and then spent the next ten minutes downing two waters. “Driving,” he explained when I asked him.

  Eve’s eyes were wide but she didn’t say a word. When the band finished its last song of the set, she pushed me out of the bar saying that she’d be fine. Gray took me by the hand and led me inside, down the hallway and into the storeroom.

  “It occurred to me,” he said as he knelt down between my legs, “that I’d made some promises I never delivered on.” I was so glad I was leaning against the door because otherwise I would have fallen over.

  His rough fingers and mine made swift work of my shorts. When I was nude from the waist down, he lifted one leg over his shoulder. “Lean against the door, baby. Your knees are going to get weak.” He was smug when he said this, but why wouldn’t he be? I was coming two minutes later.

  “One more time,” he said, kissing my inner thigh and rubbing the heel of his hand against me softly while I convulsed around his fingers.

  This time both my legs were over his shoulders and he held me up with just one palm. He used his other hand to spread my lips and spear me repeatedly with his tongue. I felt the abrasiveness of his evening stubble against my super-sensitive skin. The only thing I could do was hang on. I dug my hands into his hair and clenched him tightly with my thighs, but he never complained that I hurt him. If anything, my eager response turned him on because he half growled, half laughed against my skin.

  My heels thrummed against his back as my second orgasm swam through my bloodstream, setting fire to my nerves. It was sensory overload, and I sobbed out my release when I climaxed. Lowering me to the floor, he hugged me close, making sure that he didn’t release me until my shaking had stopped and I could stand on my own, although I felt as wobbly as an infant.

  “Shit hot in the bedroom, right?” He winked.

  “And the storage room,” I muttered weakly. Wickedly, he licked each of his fingers clean and I almost had another orgasm right there. When I reached for him, though, he danced away.

  “You can return the favor later.” Then he pressed me up against the door and kissed me so hard that I couldn’t remember my own name. Drunk on the taste of him and in a fog from my orgasms, I couldn’t come up with a decent counter argument so I just clung to his shoulders and kissed him back. I don’t remember much about the rest of the night. I was in a sex daze.

  I’m not sure where he went for the rest of the night but when the bar closed he was leaning against my Rover. I had a hard time not attacking him there but he made me drive to my condo and take him upstairs to the bedroom. Waiting could be foreplay according to Gray. Maybe he was right. I shot off like a rocket when he first entered me and came two more times before I went into my post sex coma.

  I WANTED TO DO SOMETHING special for him, so with a little help from Adam, I took Gray out to Finn O’Malley’s farm the next weekend.

  "I'm excited about our excursion." Gray said. "I want ice cream to be included at some point."

  Just the look of him made me feel good. "Not to worry. We'll get that on the way back.”

  “Sounds good.” He made a big show of licking his lips. “Make sure it has whipped cream. In my sex dream about you last night, you were wearing a whipped cream bikini.”

  “You had enough energy for sex dreams?”

  “Baby, every night after you wear me out, I’m dreaming about waking up and doing you again. And let me tell you, last night had me so horny this morning, I had a hard time getting out of bed. Good thing you’d gone down for breakfast because otherwise I’d have eaten you before the coffee and bagels.”

  I held up a hand to forestall any further description of his fantasies. "I only brought one pair of panties with me today, so you've gotta stop talking about sex right now."

  "Does my talking turn you on, Samantha?" Just the tone of his voice could get my engine working.

  "You know it does."

  Taking pity on me, Gray started telling me about his friend Hamilton and Hamilton's sister, who was a dead ringer for some girl who posed in Playboy. "So you harass poor Hamilton about this, knowing that it's not his sister."

  "Sure, we'd never do it if it was his sister."

  "Why not?"

  "Because we're assholes but not that big of assholes,” Gray explained. Marine logic, I guess.

  "So where we going?” he asked as we moved further west from the city center.

  "Finn's farm. His dad owns—or I guess Finn, since his dad died, now owns about a hundred acres of land out west. His mom has horses."

  "I don't know how to ride," Gray admitted.

  "Me neither,” I answered. "I want you to teach me to shoot a gun."

  "For real?" There was surprise and excitement in that question.

  "Yup."

  "That's some hot shit, Samantha. Now I'm the one with wet panties."

  Finn met us at the back lot of his property. There were wooden targets at various angles and then just a lot of empty space. A couple of collapsible tables holding cases, ammunition and protective ear gear were waiting for us.

  "So some of this stuff is Noah’s and Bo's and some is mine and Adam's. Mal doesn't believe in firearms so he sent this along for you to enjoy after you’re done shooting." Finn held up a bottle of red wine that read The Prisoner on the label.

  "Nice man, what do I owe you?" Gray stuck his hand in his back pocket to reach for his wallet.

  Shaking his head, Finn replied, "Nothing. It's for Sam." He slapped Gray on his back and kissed me on the cheek. There was grief in his eyes, still lingering from his father's death, and I followed my instincts by throwing my arms around his waist and squeezing him tight.

  "It gets easier. I swear,” I said.

  Finn hugged me back and then pushed away to hold me by my shoulders. "I can see that."

  Gray

  INSTRUCTING A HOT GIRL HOW TO shoot a gun was a lot different and more pleasurable than doing it with a recruit. I even found myself curling around her like some doofus in a chick flick, but I guess those doofuses knew what they were doing because it felt damn good. Holding Sam snug against my frame as we both held and shot guns was one
of the best things I'd ever done with a girl before outside of the bedroom.

  She shot the Ruger 357 revolver that had a barrel only a couple inches long. Her arm jerked up with every shot and not one of the bullets hit the mark that stood only fifteen feet away. I handed her the Magnum 45. It weighed over three pounds more than the little pistol but the longer barrel would have less of a kickback.

  "You can do a two-handed stance or try the one-handed side stance." I reluctantly let her go but realized that the sight of her holding the big gun all on her own was just as hot. She shot all six of the bullets in quick succession and then laid it on the table.

  Pulling her ear protection off, she said, "I kind of like that one. I'm surprised at the amount of recoil in the smaller guns.”

  The revolvers had to be Noah’s because he was the more methodical and patient. He’d like spinning the cylinder and placing his bullets in the chamber one by one. Bo, on the other hand, would've wanted the ability to shove another magazine in as quickly as he’d emptied the one in the stock of the gun so the Glock and the Sig Sauer were probably his. I preferred my Colt 1911 Rail Gun. The .45 bullets it shot packed a big punch, and despite the fact that it took more maintenance, it had better accuracy. There was nothing quite like the toys that the Corps issued. Everything else may suck but the munitions were awesome.

  "Yeah, you can get a lower recoil with a larger gun than a small gun. The accuracy of a small gun sucks. It's why in the movies when someone shoots ten rounds and misses with a small gun, it's kinda believable,” I told her.

  "Plus, it’s hard to hit the ninja hero with his invisible hero force field around him."

  I laughed. "That too."

  We pulled our headgear back on and Sam tried out a few more of the handguns. Mentally I made a note that she gravitated toward the sub compact Beretta. If I was going to buy her a gun, that’d be a good one. After we’d torn through about sixty rounds and ten guns, Sam looked to be done in. Her hand was shaking from the unfamiliar exercise of holding five pound weights extended from her arm.

  “I can’t believe they feel so heavy. It’s only a few pounds,” she complained.

  “When you’re in boot, you have to hold a piece of paper in front of your face, both arms extended. After an hour, that’s the heaviest fucking thing you’ve ever held.” Sam giggled and we spent a few minutes of companionable silence picking up the brass casings around the target we’d set up fifteen feet away. Anything farther and Sam wouldn’t have been able to hit even the outer edge of the paper. "Not that I'm complaining, but why'd you bring me out here?"

  She didn't look up immediately but fingered one of the bullet holes that she’d made in the black area of the target, a hit but not a kill. "Do you know the seven stages of grief?"

  Not the topic of conversation I would've picked, but if she needed to work through some issues, it didn't hurt to listen. "No, but are they real and not just made up?"

  "Not everyone experiences them in steps. Sometimes they run together and sometimes they overlap but yeah, you do feel the seven stages at some point. Or at least I did."

  "Where are you now?"

  "I think I'm a mix of four and seven. Loneliness and wanting to move forward. What about you?"

  "Me?" Surprised, I fumbled with some of the casings I had picked up, the brass making clinking sounds as I recaptured them and walked swiftly back to our prep area. Packing things up, I told her, "I'm not suffering any grief."

  "Sure you are. Over the loss of your trust, your first love. Your belief in a happy ever after."

  I stopped my busy tasks all together and leaned my hip against the table. Folding my arms, I gave her a repressive look, signaling the end of the conversation but Sam was undeterred.

  "Didn't you at first refuse to believe that your girlfriend—what’s her name?"

  "Carrie." I said curtly.

  "Didn’t you try to convince yourself that Carrie wasn't doing anything wrong? That she was showing up around base to be part of the wives’ support group? And at first, when you sat outside your lieutenant's apartment, you believed that it might be a waste of your time?"

  "Yeah so?"

  "And then you got sick drunk?"

  I nodded cautiously. Feeling a little like I was being led down a dangerous path, I chose to just let Sam do the talking.

  "So you have shock and denial, followed by pain. You probably had some thoughts that maybe if you didn't go on that second tour you'd still be together. That she wouldn't have cheated?"

  Her spot-on analysis of my post-breakup thought process was unnerving. Quickly, I returned to packing up the firearm paraphernalia and took it all over to her SUV. She hadn't stopped talking, though, following me to the Rover and then back to the tables, which I swiftly dismantled.

  "Don't look so surprised. After hours of actual therapy, I feel that I could be an expert. Also, I feel a lot of guilt about not moving to Alaska, so maybe I'm still working through stages two through seven," she mused.

  Deciding she wasn't going to stop until she'd gotten everything out of her system, I shoved the two tables into the cargo space, shut the door, and leaned against the bumper. Crossed arms and a scowl on my face didn't faze her.

  "And now you've got a lot of anger. You don't want to have relationships. You just want to have people you have sex with."

  "Wanting to be safe and sensible isn't a product of anger. It's a product of good decision making."

  Sam stepped in between my legs and placed her soft hands on my chest and her sweet scent mixed with gunpowder drained away any anger I'd felt toward the subject matter. Maybe Sam was feeling guilty about having sex with someone other than her husband. I’d noticed she’d taken her ring off, but I hadn’t said anything. Sliding my hands up her arms, I wrapped my fingers around her shoulders and tugged her a little until she fell against me.

  “I don’t know if you really want to stay in or get out, but I suspect you want to stay in,” she said. Everything about her was surprising me. “You’d make such a great officer, because you truly care about what happens to those you lead. You aren’t in it for the power or the status.”

  I opened my mouth to protest but a single finger against my cheek shut me up. “I also think you’d be surprised at how the right girl would not only be true to you while you were gone but would make your time with her so amazing that it would last you both through those long, lonely nights.”

  When she opened her mouth to start talking again, I crushed her to me. Sliding my tongue between her surprised lips, I closed my eyes and savored the taste of her. I couldn't wait until I could fill myself at the buffet of Sam. Her fingers wrapped around my shoulders and when she kissed me back, I knew our conversation was over. I knew grief. I'd felt it when I'd lost friends outside the wire. What had happened between Carrie and I hadn't left me with grief but an education. Women and men couldn't stand long separations and the military was full of them. Temporary connections conducted in a safe manner was what I had going for me until I retired. If I felt a pang in the region where my heart sat, it wasn't because I longed for something deeper.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Samantha

  WE DIDN’T TALK ABOUT WHAT happened at Finn’s farm, but Gray came home with me that night. In the morning he was gone with a note that he was going to run with his boys. Noah liked to run at what Gray referred to as the ass crack of dawn. I thought it made more sense that it would be the crown of dawn, like the crown of a head, but he’d said no. It was definitely the ass crack. Later he texted me that he was filling in for Bo at a city league softball game and did I want to come? Was knitting the best hobby ever? Of course I did. Packing some dark blue yarn into a sling and my 16-inch circular needles, I headed out for the park.

  AnnMarie waved me over, and I climbed up to join them on the bleachers. Out in the field, Gray was jumping from side to side. My heart flipped over. Oh no. I was falling so hard for him, and he was leaving. In less than two weeks, he’d be returning to San Diego.
I cupped my hands in front of my face and tried to cover up my sudden distress.

  “You look blue,” Bo commented. One arm was slung around AnnMarie’s shoulder and the other he held gingerly to his side. Maybe Bo could give me some insight. Perhaps Gray had talked to him about separating. Maybe they’d even talked about Gray staying here, going to Central with his friends.

  "I'm just not sure—” Before I could get my whole sentence out, Bo held up his hands in a T formation.

  "Hold on. I was just making conversation." He turned and let out a piercing whistle. Everyone to the left of us—and some to the right—stared in our direction. He waved to the beautiful blonde and yelled out, "Lana, you're needed."

  She shook her head but he whistled again. I ducked my head and covered my ears. She came huffing up.

  "What the hell?”

  "She needs advice." Bo pointed to me. I kept my head between my hands so that I didn't wrap them around his neck and choke his brains out for embarrassing me like this.

  "How many times do I have to tell you I'm just a fucking student?”

  "No need to curse," he tutted. "But think of all the practice you’re getting." He nudged me. "She's better at this than all of us but her bedside manner needs work."

  She sighed and sat down next to me. AnnMarie mouthed "I'm sorry" as she was dragged away by Bo.

  "What's up?"

  "Psychology student?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, I guess you're better than nothing since he’s run off."

  "I don't think he does feelings unless they involve AnnMarie." We looked down at them. He was now delicately probing AnnMarie's mouth with his tongue as they leaned against the back of Gray’s team’s dugout. Bo had claimed a gimpy arm, which is why Gray was filling in, but I think he just wanted to feel AnnMarie up.

  "He's certainly exploring those feelings now,” I remarked dryly.