by Claire Adams
I smiled. “We should definitely discuss it then,” I nodded.
Tristan kissed my cheek softly. “The only hotel I’m considering keeping is the one in LA,” he said. “I might actually send Ben over there to manage it for me.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Ben?” I said. “But then…he won’t be here.”
Tristan laughed. “We’ll miss him, but we’ll see him often. I’m sure of it. He’s risen on his own merits, and I think he deserves to have an operation to run on his own.”
“I agree,” I nodded. “Oh, by the way, my baby shower is going to be next week.”
Tristan shook his head. “Wasn’t that supposed to be a surprise?”
I laughed. “You know no one can keep secrets from me around here,” I said. “I was onto Alani for weeks. She’s so sweet do to all this for me.”
“She loves you,” he pointed out. “And, she’s already a little too obsessed with our baby.”
I laughed. “It’ll be good practice for her…once Joel and she decide they want kids, anyway.” I reached out and took Tristan’s hand. “You know, I was thinking the other day about names…”
“Yeah?”
“And since we’re having this baby in Hawaii… I thought it might be kind of nice to give him a Hawaiian name as well?” I suggested. “What do you think?”
“That’s a brilliant idea,” Tristan nodded. “Do you have any names in mind?”
“Actually yes,” I nodded. “What do you think about Kai?”
“Kai,” Tristan repeated like he was trying out the sound on his tongue.
“It has Latin origins but it means ‘from the sea,’ which I thought was…apt,” I smiled.
“Kai,” Tristan said again. “I love it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he nodded firmly.
“I was also playing around with a more traditional Hawaiian name,” I continued. “Makani, it means ‘wind.’ What do you think?”
“I think we have our boy’s name,” Tristan smiled. “Kai Makani Dubois.”
“It has a ring to it.”
“It certainly does,” Tristan nodded. “A few more weeks and we’ll finally meet our son.”
“Sometimes I can’t believe I’m going to have a baby,” I said. “And it’s more unbelievable that I’m having a baby with you.”
Tristan turned me towards him and kissed me passionately on the lips. “You saved me, Molly Sinclair,” he said. “You do realize that, don’t you?”
I smiled. “Sounds like you still love me…even after four years of marriage.”
“Are you kidding?” he replied. “I love you more now than I did back then.”
I smiled and leaned into the curve of Tristan’s body; it was the place I felt safest now. I didn’t have to tell him I loved him too. He knew.
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Our Second Chance
Our Second Chance
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Claire Adams
Chapter 1
Roman
I grabbed my phone, checking the time before sliding it into my pocket. It was only about twenty minutes past eight; class didn't start till nine and the walk there from my apartment would take me fifteen minutes, tops. I could drive; that would make the trip even shorter. It was early in the morning, too, which meant I wouldn't have a problem finding a parking spot. Why not?
I grabbed my keys, chugging down the last of my protein shake and filling the blender with water. Ronnie had been right about that making it easier to wash after. I had to hit the gym every morning, whether I had early classes or not. I liked it, but even if I didn't, I had to because of football, even though finals meant I hadn't really been playing as much.
Athletes got a bad rep. Yeah, a lot of guys were only in college because they wanted to get into the draft and be able to go pro without working up through the minors. And, I'd be a liar if I said that wasn't me, too. A lot of people didn't realize just how fucking hard that was, though. College ball was the peak for most of the guys playing. We only needed like a 2.0 GPA to stay on the team, so if the football thing didn't pan out, you could hardly do anything else anyway.
I didn't want to have to use my degree, I wanted to play football. But if I did need it, I wanted to have graduated with something higher than a fucking 2.0. I grabbed my backpack and walked out the door. Living in a college town, there were tons of affordable apartments close to school, so the drive only took about five minutes.
Ronnie was already in the classroom when I walked in, head down, reading a textbook. Nobody else was in there with her. That was the thing with early morning classes – you could be a little late and people wouldn't get on your ass for it, but she was still early as fuck. She took this stuff seriously. She sat all the way up at the front of the classroom and went for all the tutorials, too, the stuff you would tease kids for doing back in middle and high school. It was paying off, though, because she had kept up her 3.8 GPA since her first semester.
She was wrapping her sophomore year, too, and the only reason we were in this class together was we had both ended up picking Western Civilization II as an elective. She was a Psych major because she was smart. I was a business major because I needed a degree in something and when playing football, the less involved your course load was, the easier it was to keep your GPA high enough to stay on the team.
Her hair was tied up in a bun and she was in a hoodie and jeans. Two tall coffee cups were sitting on the desk next to her textbook. "One of those for me?" I asked, walking up to her. She jumped at my voice, but smiled when she saw me.
"Hi, baby," she said, holding a cup out. I leaned down to kiss her.
"Hey, were you waiting for me?" I asked. I took the cup and drank deeply from it; it had been standing there long enough to not be too hot anymore. It was just your standard coffee, no sugar, but made with almond milk instead of cow milk. Ron would just get us the same order when she bought coffee. I wasn't even sure I could tell the difference, but it was supposed to be better for you. I just took her word for it.
"I was just thinking about calling you."
"When did you get here?" I asked. The sun was out and the light that was filtering into the room was catching the gold in her blonde hair. It was long and curly when she wore it down. She wore makeup most days, but not today; it would cover the light freckles on the tops of her cheeks when she did. Her eyes were the kind of green that made me think of spring, everything coming up fresh and new after months of freezing temperatures.
"Only about ten minutes ago," she said.
"You drove?" I asked.
"Car refused to start this morning. I walked,” she said as she shook her head. She had gotten her car at seventeen; it had been a piece of shit then and still was now. It practically stopped working during winter and when it did work, it would break down on her constantly. She liked it because she had gotten it herself as her first car, but I wished she wouldn't drive it. Acuras was supposed to be safe, but when they were that beat up, the safety measure had to go down some.
"Why didn't you call me? I would have picked you up."
"It's out of your way," she said, shrugging. "It's not that far walking."
"I'll take you home after class," I said. "I need to use the library anyway."
"Are you gonna be there till late like last night?"
"No. This close to finals, it's going to be packed."
"Good thing finals only last a week."
"Is it me or was this one the longest week we've had yet?"
"It's just you," s
he said smiling. "We're almost at the finish line, so the wait feels longer."
"Just one more week," I said wistfully. I knew she was right. It didn't change anything, though. I was looking forward to the semester ending, but I wasn't really that hyped about summer this year.
"Excited to go home?" she asked, as if she knew what was on my mind.
I would be if that was where I was going. I shrugged non-commitally. Both our families lived in Aberdeen. Early this year, we had talked about going on vacation together, just me and Ron. I wanted to take her to Glacier National Park to spend our days alone together in the woods while I had time before summer training started.
That really wasn't in the cards anymore. I had told Ron it was because I wanted to spend that time at home, instead. It wasn’t that much of a lie, but it wasn’t really the truth. I didn't like lying to her, but I had been doing it a lot this past month.
Just because you had a good reason for doing something shitty didn't stop it from still being a dick move. It was all for nothing in the end, anyway. We weren't going on vacation together, and I wasn't even going to end up going home.
"Wanna head out?" I asked suddenly.
"What? Now?" she asked. I nodded. "Are you asking me to ditch class?" She sounded like she thought I was kidding, but she had a smile pulling the corners of her mouth.
"Yeah. Let's go."
"Where? We have class."
"It's the last one before finals, we've covered the entire outline already. Beckett isn't going to come in here with new material," I said. A few other people had filtered into the classroom, but it was still mostly empty.
"What do you want to do?" she asked.
"Go to my place?" I suggested. It didn't really matter what we did when we got there. I mostly just didn't want to be in class anymore. I wanted to spend some time with her. We had the class together, but that was her, me, fifteen other students, and Professor Beckett. School was letting out and in a perfect world it would be her and me in a cabin in the woods, but shit was a little different this year. Because of finals, times like this were the only ones we had when we weren't in class or studying. It was not enough. Nowhere near enough.
She shrugged her shoulders and closed her textbook.
"I'm never doing this with you again," she said with a glint in her eye. She packed up and grabbed her coffee. I took her hand, and we were back out the door before Professor Beckett and the rest of the class showed up.
Instead of my place, we went to hers. Her roommate ended up being home, but it didn't matter. We weren't staying long. I had an idea where we could go.
The park wasn't that big and was edged on one side by some woods. When it was winter and the trees were bare, the little clearing was easy to make out. There were stumps along the tree line that I had watched get covered in moss and lichen in the years that I'd been coming here. I hadn't known how Veronica would react the first time I brought her. It was back when we were still pretty casual, before I had asked her to be my girlfriend.
Her best friend and my sister happened to be the same person, so I had her to thank for letting me know that picnics were one of Ron's favorite things to do. She kept a blanket and basket in her car for that reason. We grabbed those before we left and after buying some sandwiches and pastries at her regular coffee shop, we were walking through the trees to our spot.
We had never been interrupted and since neither of us had ever brought anyone else there, it felt like it was ours. It was about as private as we could get while being outside in a public park. The only thing I sort of wished it had was a stream or something; we weren’t near the river. Water always made places look better. Ron and I had talked about it a lot. She wanted to swim in each one of the five oceans, and I wanted to do it with her.
She gave me half her sandwich since she wasn't that hungry. As we ate, she started asking me about summer classes and football training, but I changed the subject. I wasn't going this year and I didn't want to tell her why...not just yet. She tried to pull her textbook out again, but I took it from her, stashing it in my backpack till it was time to go. I was feeling selfish. I didn't want to share her.
Doing so reminded me that I had something for her. I told her to close her eyes.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Don't look," I said. The small rectangular box had been in my bag since last weekend when I had bought it.
"What is it?" she repeated, eyes shut like I had asked her. I popped the box open and looked inside. A light pink stone on a gold chain. I had wanted something that would remind her of me, but got something that made me think of her instead. It was pretty and feminine, like her. The lady at the store I had gotten it at said the stone stood for love, and that was enough reason to get it.
"Give me your hand," I instructed. Her fingers closed around the box as she opened her eyes.
"What's this for?" she asked.
Something that reminds you of me whenever you look at it, I thought. That would sound better than having to tell her what it really was: a going away present. I didn't want her to think she was getting it because I wanted to butter her up before I made her upset. I don't know, maybe the more I told myself that, the more it would sound like the truth.
"I just thought you'd like it," I said instead. She opened the box and I watched her face break into a smile when she saw the necklace. "Oh my God, Roman, are we celebrating something?"
"No celebration, I thought it would look good on you. Put it on." She took it out and undid the little clasp at the back. I helped her fasten it around her neck.
"Thank you; it's so pretty," she said, touching the stone.
"I'm glad you like it."
"Now I wish I had something for you," she said. Time – that was what I needed from her. I didn't need a present. Or maybe she could tell me how the fuck to say what I needed to say without completely wrecking what we had together.
"Think of it as an early birthday present," I said lightly. She was going to be twenty-one early next month and honestly, I wasn't going to be there then to give it to her on her real birthday... But right now, when she was happy and we were spending what had to be one of the last times we were going to get to be together like this, it wasn't the right time for that announcement.
"I love it," she said happily.
"I should have gotten it engraved or something," I said, gently touching the stone.
"And a matching one for yourself."
"I don't think pink's my color," I joked.
"Your initials on the back of this and mine on the back of yours, so you're always thinking of me when you have it on you," she said softly. "At school...work...in battle."
"In battle?" I scoffed. She shrugged slightly.
"You know, if you ever got deployed."
"Not everyone gets sent to a combat zone when they're deployed," I told her.
"But do you think you will?" she asked.
"I don't know. Nobody knows. You just go where they send you."
"That's crazy," she said, shaking her head. I shrugged.
"That's the price of freedom," I said flatly.
"That doesn't change how fucked up it is," she insisted. "I don't know what I'd do if you ended up going over there."
"Going over there is kind of the whole point," I tried to say light-heartedly. She sounded like she was getting upset.
"I know, but I mean, what if something happened to you?" She didn't go into detail, but she didn't have to. I got it. Something happening was anything happening. Losing a leg, or an arm, or my life... The first two were probably a little worse than the last one. I mean, if you die, then you're dead, you don't have to remember what happened to you every day from your wheelchair because you can't walk anymore.
"A lot of guys come back just fine," I said. "Not every vet gets blown up."
"You can't go to a war zone and be just fine. That has to change a person," she said, sighing.
Well, shit. I shut up. I couldn't tell her. What the hell was I a
bout to say? Well, lucky you, Ronnie, guess who got their warning order and has to leave in ten days? I had known for a couple weeks now, and it still wasn't the right time to tell her.
It wasn't like it would blindside her or anything, she knew I was in the army. Right at the end of the semester with finals coming up, I didn't want her to have to worry about this shit, too – because she would worry. And, not a normal kind of worry, either. That was who she was.
She could obsess about things sometimes. She was already worried about something happening to me, and we hadn't even discussed me going anywhere yet. I would have to tell her eventually – there was no way I could just ghost her – but right before finals was the wrong time to do it. She had to concentrate on getting through the semester. We both did. After that, I'd figure it out.
"I knew that when I enlisted," I said soberly.
"Are you scared?"
"No," I said shaking my head. "Right now? I'm more afraid of finals than that."
"There's a chance you'll never have to go over there, though, right?" she asked.
"Yeah, there is."
"I hope you never do," she said, looking down at the blanket.
"Damn, Ronnie. Shooting down my military career before it even begins?"
"I support you. I just hope you never have to put your life in danger."
"I could die walking out of my apartment tomorrow morning."
"That's not the same thing. You do that every day, and you're not getting shot at while you do it."
"Wow, Ronnie. Tell me how you really feel," I said jokingly, leaning back on my elbows.
"No, it's not like that."
"I'm hurt," I said, putting a hand over my chest dramatically.
"I'm just worried. I don't want those assholes to take you away from me." She came closer, lying on her side to look at me.
