"A sergeant major?"
She smiles. "He was."
"How old were you in that picture?"
"Seven."
"Shit, Abby."
"Like I said, I don't remember much about him."
She's being way too nonchalant about this but I can't push her right then without being an asshole. "You look like you were happy."
"We were." She pauses. "You're not going to comment on my parents?"
"What's to comment on?"
She lifts an eyebrow. "Really?"
"It's not 1968 anymore."
"You're not going to give me any of that ‘I don't see color’ bullshit, are you?" She's trying to make light of it but I can feel the tension radiating off her now. The teasing mood from earlier is gone, and I did that by asking stupid questions.
I do the only thing I can think of. I cup her cheek gently, sliding my thumb over her beautiful dark skin. "I see you, Abby. I see everything about you."
Her lips part. A quiet gasp. I've never been very good with words but at that moment, I feel like I hit a home fucking run. I can feel the shift in her. The strange transfer of energy from one tension to another.
One that draws me closer to her until her mouth is a breath from mine. I want so badly to brush my lips against hers. To taste her and see if she'll lean a little bit closer.
I hesitate because, with Abby, I feel like I'm always one step away from fucking up royally. I lean in, slowly, so slowly, never breaking my gaze away from hers. Her pulse scatters beneath my fingertips.
I brush my lips against hers. Give her time to pull away. Time to react if this is not something she wants.
She's fully in charge here. Fully able to rip my heart out of my chest and grind it into the ground.
But she doesn't. For a moment, only a moment, she leans into me. Her lips brush against mine, a ghost of a sensation, the barest caress. Her breath is warm on my mouth. I want to breathe her in. Taste her.
Take her somewhere where it's just her and just me, and I can spend all afternoon just kissing her.
Her touch is the faintest glimpse of heaven after a lifetime in hell.
Abby
I lean into him. It is all at once the stupidest thing I've done in a long time and the most compelling. I cannot move away. I'm not sure I want to. His hand is rough against my skin. Rough but infinitely gentle. And before I can think about what I'm doing, I open beneath his mouth and close that final distance between us.
His lips are full and smooth. I can almost feel him exhale. It's a physical change in him, where he relaxes into me. I can't say how I know it, but I feel it in everything that I am. I brace one hand on his thigh to keep from crashing into him and open a little more, inviting his touch, his taste.
Inviting disaster because that's what this is.
But he's far too tempting to walk away from. My tongue slides against his, and a tremble runs through him and into me. My breath hitches as he deepens the kiss, and I open until he is surrounding me, consuming me, and all I want to do is crawl into his lap and let the world stop around us.
He makes a warm noise in his throat, and his hand slides over my cheek and down my throat to cradle my neck. I feel cherished and such a keening sense of want that it physically burns inside me, reminding me of things I can't have.
I gently, so gently, ease back.
"Well," I say. "That was certainly unexpected."
He lowers his forehead to mine and laughs.
"Jesus, you're hell on the ego," he whispers against my mouth. I hear an echo of something harsh and cruel that Robert said to me once, but I don't stiffen. I refuse to let Robert into my head to ruin this.
I cup his cheek gently. "Unexpected in a good way."
"What about in a ‘I'd like to do that again sometime’ way?" His voice is low and heavy. I can imagine him in bed, his long body pressed against mine, his words as much of a caress as his fingers or his tongue.
I close my eyes. I have a thousand reasons to hesitate. Even more to run in the opposite direction.
There are no happily ever afters for girls like me. Girls who can’t keep their mouths shut and go along with society’s expectations of what a good girl is. And it hurts, it physically hurts, to think of how this ends.
Because it will end. It always does.
"Hey?"
I open my eyes, not realizing that I hadn't responded. "I've probably done irreparable damage to your ego at this point, haven't I?"
He smiles. "I'm a little bit tougher than that. Not much, though." He brushes his thumb over my bottom lip. "You don't have to answer."
I narrow my eyes then. "You're quite the mystery, aren't you?"
"I suppose?"
Because I can't help it, I lean in, brushing my lips across his. "You're like a good dream. And I don't want to wake up."
He grins but there is a shadow in his eyes. "There's something to be said for good dreams."
"That's an odd thing to say," I whisper against his mouth.
Josh Douglas is a craving. A want.
And he's turning into an unhealthy distraction from my purpose here at school. Oh, I want to do this. Him. I really do. Josh has a whole lot of good going for him. And that's before I mentally strip that shirt from his body and explore those glorious shoulders with my fingers.
He shrugs and shifts so that he's resting his elbows on his knees. The tattoos on his forearms are more than shadows now. I am drawn to the stark lines on his skin. “Why these words?”
I swallow and physically move closer. Apparently, I'm about as subtle as an elephant in the room because he notices my eyes drop to his arms.
"You have a thing for tattoos?" he asks.
I don't want to answer. I don't want to resurrect anything about those memories that are circling dangerously, waiting for the right moment to strike.
"Not really." The truth, from a certain point of view. From another point of view, though, it's terrifyingly simple. And it's a simplicity that I'm not ready to talk to him—or anyone—about. “I’m curious, that’s all.”
It doesn't matter anymore. It does not get a vote on who I am anymore.
“I got them before my last deployment,” he says after a moment.
I blink rapidly, the lines on his arms blurring as a memory hits me hard. “So are you?” I look up at him. “Your brother’s keeper?”
“I was.” He swallows hard and looks away. “I’m not anymore.” He looks back at me.
“Who are you?”
He says nothing. People say you can't change what you come from. They might be right but that doesn't mean you have to let it define you. You don't have to keep going back home again and taking shit from people about how much better you think you are than they are now that you've got an education.
And holy shit I am not doing this. I can’t wait for his response. I can’t let myself be drawn toward the darkness.
I have to focus. I have to keep moving forward before the past catches up to me and drags me back where I come from. To a place where tattoos are drunkenly etched into hard, damaged skin. Where life is nasty, brutish, and short.
I lift my laptop to my knees. "I really need to finish my assignment." The truth, cloaked in regret. “I'm on scholarship. I have to keep my grades up.”
I don't miss the flicker of disappointment a moment before he smiles.
It doesn't reach his eyes.
I lick my lips, wishing I couldn't taste him on me. I can smell him on my skin from that brief contact. And I want more, so much more.
But Robert destroyed a lot in those few months. He destroyed the façade that I'd built out of the wreckage of an out-of-place kid from southern Georgia who didn't belong at a wealthy college. He reminded me that this is not my world and that no matter how hard I try, I will never truly fit here.
I can feel my past pulling at me, trying to drag me back down to what I was. Angry. Withdrawn. Hating the world.
I will not be that person again.
Wh
en Josh gets up to leave, I don't stop him.
Proving that the insecure person I was is very much a part of who I am.
Chapter 10
Josh
I can’t go to class. I feel sick to my stomach. It's twisting and knotted and wrenching.
I’d been there. For a moment, I’d been in that space where I could flirt with a beautiful woman and pretend that there was nothing more to me than a few tattoos and a tendency toward moodiness.
And then it ended. Just like that, it was over and I couldn’t find my way back to the space we’d been in where we’d just been two normal people.
I'm at The Pint. I'm arguably trying to think about my homework, but the idea of trying to dissect the violence from a surgical distance—makes me physically ill.
"You look like hell."
Eli drops a stack of papers on the bar. "Pot meet kettle."
If I look like I had one too many last night—which I did—Eli looks like he hasn't slept in a week. Which he might not have.
"It’s been a rough week." The weight of those words hits me hard.
“What’s wrong?”
I pick the easiest problem. One that a bartender is probably used to hearing from fellow vets. "I can't sleep."
It sounds like such a simple thing. Such an elegant, simple thing, but sleep is the most important thing. More important than love. More important than sex.
He leans on the bar. "When did you sleep last?"
"About three hours last night. A couple the night before."
"Have you talked to your doc?"
I make a rude noise. "I'm over my allocation of visits, according to the VA."
"No sleep meds?"
I shrug and lean back. "They don't work anymore. One of the guys at the VA told me when they stop working, you're all kinds of fucked up." I look down at my phone. The screen is black and silent. "I had a sergeant major once who ate Ambien like Tic Tacs."
"Has anything worked since you came home?"
Shame flashes over my skin. He’s been there for a lot of it. But he’d never guess why I really fought. I could tell him. Let the words slip.
Instead, I back away. Finding the safest answer. "I guess I’m used to getting a couple of hours of sleep now." There is resignation in the pit of my belly, coupled with relief. Maybe I’ve been hiding things too long. Maybe…
I shake my head, unwilling to resurrect the secrets I've been trying to ignore since I came home. And I'm trying, really fucking trying, to avoid the seductive lure of the bottle.
It's hard not being a neurotic train wreck these days. I mean, it's not like I've got a hell of a lot of reassurances that I'm able to walk in this world and pretend I'm a normal fucking human being.
What can I tell him about Abby? How do I admit that I’ve found a girl I’m over the fucking moon about, but can’t do anything about it?
“I met a girl.”
“And this is complicated because…?”
“It’s complicated.”
Eli lifts one brow and folds his arms over his chest. I swear to God, I can’t see him as an officer. Maybe a first sergeant. But not as my commander. “It’s not complicated. Boy meets girl. Boy fucks girl. If boy is good in the sack, girl decides she wants to see boy again. If not, she doesn’t call. It’s really as simple as that.”
Heat crawls up my neck at his words.
Eli frowns. “You’re not a virgin, are you? Is that what the problem is? You don’t know how to use your dick?”
“That’s not exactly what the problem is.”
He leans back against the bar. “Now I’m confused.”
I can’t say it. I trust him—it’s not that I worry he’ll tell that dickbag Caleb or anyone else for that matter.
It’s that the words are stuck in my throat. That they represent a truth about my life that I’m in denial about. “I can’t, ah…” I can’t say it.
His mouth falls open after a moment. “Holy shit, you can’t…you haven’t…” He hesitates. “How long?”
“More than a year.”
“You try Viagra or anything like it?”
“No, I’ve been suffering in silence when a little blue pill will fix everything. Of course I fucking tried it.” I need a goddamned drink.
“Docs?”
“Have no explanation for it other than it’s anxiety.”
“Then maybe you need to relax a little bit.”
I press my lips together. This conversation isn’t really going how I planned it. Not that I planned it. How the hell did my psychoses end up as the topic of conversation?
“You tell her?”
“Yeah, sure. Hi¸ my name is Josh and I think you’re really fucking hot, but hey, my dick doesn’t work so you know, we can maybe cuddle and I’ll draw you a picture of a kitten or something.” I narrow my eyes when he laughs. “It’s not fucking funny.”
“It is when you put it that way.”
“Thanks.”
He slides a beer across the bar. At least he’s a fucking mind reader. “You like this girl. Just be honest with her.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yeah, actually it is. Ninety-nine percent of all relationship problems are caused by lack of communication.” He pauses, his expression sobering. “Look, I know I’m jerking your chain. But maybe figuring out how to talk to this chick about this might not be a bad idea. Take some of the performance anxiety out of the equation.” He drags one hand over his head. “I’m assuming this hasn’t been brought up, either? With docs? About the war or anything?”
“Nah. I gave up after the first time when they gave me the Viagra. Just you guys here. That’s all I need.” I look away from my phone, toward the door of the bar, hoping that Abby would by some miracle walk through the door and chase away the uncertainty that's making me crazy. "Why did you start this place up here? I mean, it's a college town. There aren't that many of us around here."
He dumps ice into an orange glass pitcher. Because plastic wouldn't be eclectic enough. Not for this town. "That's exactly why. There are plenty of places for guys like us to hang our hats down at Bragg or back at Hood. But here? There are more of us here than people realize. And we need each other. We always will." He looks toward the door. "No one else gets it when you talk about not being able to feel close to the person you love. Or why your temper just snaps for no fucking reason." He hesitates. “Or understands when your dick doesn’t work, that it’s not actually as simple as a little Viagra mixed with porn to fix what ails you.” He looks back at me. "And I didn't want to be around all the shitbag wannabes running their mouths down at Bragg about what they did. I wanted to be somewhere where what I did matters."
He sounds like my old platoon sergeant. "Man, you sure you weren't an NCO in another life?"
Eli shakes his head. "Nah. That was my dad." He places two shot glasses on the counter. "Why are you all freaked out about this girl?"
Pale golden liquid splashes on the bar as he fills the glasses.
"She's…special."
"Clearly. Otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here moping because you can’t get it up and you’re letting it ruin your relationship before it even gets started." He pours a shot for both of us. At this rate, I'll be asleep in an hour. Which is good. Because when I pass out, I don't have any dreams that twist into nightmares.
You don't really appreciate sleep until you don't have a choice to have it on a regular basis.
"I'm a little bit fucked up," I admit after I choke down the second shot.
"Aren't we all?"
I shake my head. "Not like that." I can't say the words. I can't put the psychological bullshit into words.
The docs said it was temporary. That it wouldn't last.
But it's been a year.
A fucking year since I felt anything but a shadow of my former self.
I hold out the shot glass and Eli refills it. Because that's the kind of friend Eli has become. It's a slow burn this time, sliding through my veins with liq
uid heat.
"I'm not going to judge. We all have to confront our shit when we're ready," he says.
I look up at him again. "What if we're never ready?"
"Then do what you can. And hope that you can lighten the load enough that the stuff you can't offload doesn't get too heavy."
"Have you?"
"Have I what?" he asks, pouring a fourth shot for each of us. Man but he can fucking drink. I’m going to start slurring soon.
"Unpacked everything."
He shakes his head slowly. "Not even close."
I look down into the empty shot glass. There's a tiny amount of liquid gold at the bottom and it makes me think of Abby's dark golden eyes.
I wish she was here. Close enough to feel her heart beating beneath my palm, her hair soft against my cheek. I want to wake up with her in my arms and hold her as I fall asleep.
And I can't. I'll never be able to love her right.
And she deserves better than that.
Abby
Class has been cancelled for the last two days—oddly enough, due to unknown reasons. The running theory is that Quinn ate some bad cilantro at one of the local chain restaurants. Cue smugness that he should have been eating locally, from several of my classmates.
Either way, it bought me time to figure out what to do with the twisted mess inside me where Josh is concerned.
Because make no mistake—there is a mess.
I close my eyes, regret bolting through me that I ran him off.
“You look like hell.”
I open my eyes to see Graham standing in the doorway of the break room. He’s normally perky and upbeat on the worst of days but right now, he’s got a look around him that I’ve come to know all too well. “And you look like you just hooked up.”
He grins wickedly. “Maybe I’ve met a vegan body builder.”
“And Mr. Wonderful rocked your world?”
“Very much so.” And Graham does something a little unexpected. He blushes—and Graham is about the most confident, non-blushing person I know.
Break My Fall (Falling #2) Page 7
