Embrace The Suck (A Stepbrother Special Forces Novel)

by Kenzie, Sophia

  I had my answer. Now I was going home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hannah

  Well, that was… not what I expected. Of course I clammed up. I had spent our entire relationship fearing the love that I might be able to feel for him. Sure, I had said it out loud, but it was always to myself. And then I would berate myself for feeling that way. After a while, and especially after we were alerted to our parents’ relationship, I just decided to call a spade a spade and ward off any deeper feelings that could potentially form.

  I wanted this to be fun. From the very beginning, that was all I really wanted. I didn’t want his attentions to pull me from my goals, or from the path I had chosen for myself. He was just supposed to be there to satisfy some carnal cravings and ease a bit of tension.

  But now we’re fighting every time we see each other. We’re blowing up at each other in public places, because the situation we found ourselves in is terrifying us. And now we seem to secretly want something from the other person that we both know we can’t have.

  So why would I say it out loud? Why would he say it out loud? What did he really hope to gain by asking me if I loved him? If I said ‘yes’, where would that lead us?

  Ugh, my head heard again. I was tortured, torn. I didn’t know what to do next. I wanted to talk to him, to figure it out, but I was afraid of what I might say or do, and what I might imply in the process.

  Charlie’s twenty covered both of our drinks, so I sipped down the last few gulps of mine, spun off the barstool, and made my way toward the door. I kept telling myself to go one step at a time. I didn’t know where I was going to end up, but if I just kept taking steps, eventually I would get there. The first destination was the door.

  I made it there fairly easily and stepped into the falling sunlight. Then next destination was my car. It was just around the corner, parked up against the side of the building. Easy.

  Actually, not so easy.

  When I turned the corner to my car, he wasn’t there. He wasn’t waiting for me. I hadn’t realized until that moment that I expected him, even knew he was going to be there, asking me why I didn’t chase him out the door and admit that I loved him this entire time. I saw the whole thing so clearly:

  “What took you so long?” Charlie sat cross-legged on the hood of my car.

  I rubbed my palm across my forehead, willing my headache to go away. “I wasn’t about to chase you, Charlie.”

  “Why not?” It was a fair question, so I asked myself the same thing. Why wasn’t I going to chase him? Did he not deserve it?

  I took another step toward him and brought my voice down low and controlled, offering him the only answer I truly knew. “Because I’d have no idea what I was chasing.”

  Time would stop. It would only be for about three seconds, but I swear, it would stop. We wouldn’t breath, we wouldn’t blink, and we wouldn’t move. Time would just stop.

  And it would start right back up again when he slid off my car and wrapped his arms around me.

  But the fantasy that I had built into my mind didn’t end there.

  His lips whispered into my hair. “I want to be able to end this. I just can’t.”

  I felt my face scrunch and though I tried terribly to hold them back, the tears found their way to the surface. “What is wrong with us?”

  We would stay there for a few minutes, just like that. Every now and then, one of us would squeeze tighter, prompting the other to do the same. We didn’t want to let go. That one fact was the entire fault of our relationship.

  “Can I kiss you?”

  I should have said ‘no’. I do understand that. Even though it was only a daydream, I should have told him he was a jerk for what he did the night before and I hadn’t yet forgiven him, nor did I know if I ever would. And that was all true. I was still very angry, unsatisfied, and dumbfounded by his actions.

  But I wanted to kiss him. And in the moment, that mattered more. And even though I knew what should have been done, I also knew that in real life, I would have taken the kiss. So, I let my imagination continue.

  I blinked my tear soaked eyes and looked up, toward the sun, before turning back to him. With an accepting nod, I closed my eyes and parted my lips, ever so subtly. It didn’t take him long to jump on my approval, for no sooner had my lips parted that his helped them along their way. It was actually quite emotionally painful: that kiss. Was it really goodbye? Had we finally come to an understanding? Were we finally accepting our fate?

  Our tongues took their time tasting, and each time one of us anticipated pulling away, the other would hold on for dear life. When one knew it had to end, the other fought. And when the other knew it had to end, the first fought. We weren’t giving up without a fight, and we were painstakingly proving that to one another.

  And then he looked deep into my eyes. I had seen this look before, and while I always thought I knew what it meant, now it was confirmed. He loved me. There was no denying that. He was, at times, immature and selfish and didn’t always approach personal situations the way they should be approached, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to love. It didn’t mean he couldn’t fall under love’s all-consuming spell.

  It just sucked for him that I was the other person on the other end of that line.

  And it sucked for me that it was him.

  And what sucked even more was that it was all in my head. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t waiting for me. He wasn’t on top of my car, or behind my car, or even in my car.

  I know he wasn’t. I checked.

  He wasn’t waiting for me when I got home. He didn’t leave me a note telling me that he needed me to speak with him. He didn’t come pounding on my door in the middle of the night. He didn’t wake me up in the morning. He didn’t make a single attempt at contacting me the next day. And when I got to the base Monday morning, he wasn’t waiting out from with a sad smile on his face.

  No matter all the different fantasies I pictured of him begging for forgiveness, none of them came true. No matter all the other times he had chased me down, this time, something had changed.

  It really was over.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Charlie

  “No. Not today, Sir. Please don’t make me do this.” I paced in front of my father’s desk, willing him to not ask any more questions, but for once to simply grant my wish.

  He didn’t look up from his paperwork, just casually stated his piece. “I need you, Charlie. Tommy had to go to South Carolina, to Fort Jackson, for the rest of the week. The job is now yours.”

  He was asking me to take over the final week of parachute training for the girls. I had given the training a hundred times, it seemed. It was easy- a walk in the park- but this time, she would be there, and right now, I couldn’t see her.

  “Listen, I’ll do anything…” I frantically begged, trying to think of something no one would ever want to do that I could offer up in exchange.

  “I’m assuming you talked to Hannah after our little conversation Saturday afternoon, huh?” He peeked up above the rim of his glasses.

  I took a breath, desperately not wanting to go down this path, but thinking it might be my only way out.

  I hated that he just knew. What was the use in telling him anything if he had already figured it all out? Was my personal life nothing more than a predicable route to him?

  “No, I didn’t get to talk to Hannah.” I shrugged. “She wouldn’t talk to me. Just shot me down before I barely said anything.”

  He snickered ever so briefly; I’m sure he was trying not to seem heartless regarding my situation. “So that whole thing we talked about regarding her being able to hurt you…” He didn’t need to finish his sentence. He meant for his trailing off to prove a point.

  I fell into the chair, no longer feeling capable of carrying my own weight. I was irritated, but mostly with myself. I made a single decision to hurt her. I made it. No one forced me to do so, and yet, here I was, not three days later, wishing I could
go back in time and do the whole thing over. Did I not realize three days ago that I was already too deep to pull myself out?

  Or did I think I was just a stronger person, and here I was very well proving to myself that I was no such thing.

  “Just don’t make me teach the course.” I sternly said, knowing full well that my order could backfire right in my face.

  He sighed, took off his glasses, and rubbed his tongue across his top teeth. “Who gives the orders here, Charlie?” I wasn’t at all surprised by his response. And I wasn’t about to be surprised at where it was going.

  “You do, sir.” I cowered.

  “And if I weren’t your father, would you seriously be asking me if you could get out of doing your job because you were too afraid of a girl in your class?”

  I sunk deeper into my chair. “No, Sir.” I responded accordingly.

  He stood, cracking his knuckles on the top of his desk. “So why the fuck do you think I would let you out of this? I gave you an order, and dammit, you will follow it. Do I make myself clear?”

  I cleared my throat before answering. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good.” He was satisfied with himself, and sat right back down. “You’re excused.”

  I slowly stood, refusing to take my eyes off him, although he had already moved on. In three long steps, I was at the door.

  “Oh, and Charlie…” He called me back.

  “Yes, Sir?”

  He gave me a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry you’re going through this, Son. It will get better. Just give it time.”

  I nodded accordingly. “Thank you, Sir.”

  I snuck out of the door before I felt compelled to bring out any more anger or confusion while in his presence.

  Give it time? He tells me to give it time? How am I supposed to give it time when I have to spend all week with the girl? She’ll be right in front of me. I have to look at her, to talk to her, and yet I won’t be able to touch her. And I’ll never be able to touch her. It’s not like this is going away. I fucked it up and I have to live with the consequences. It’s not a phase, and it’s not a trial. This is my life. I don’t have the ability to hide. I have to pretend, right out in the open.

  “Fuck.” I exhaled as I looked down at my watch.

  And I didn’t even have time to gather my thoughts, because I was already late for class.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hannah

  Our instructor was late, which was extremely rare. Amanda and I exchanged a few worried glances, but I’m sure we both assumed that a meeting had just ran long and he would be in shortly.

  After fifteen minutes though, we all started speculating.

  We did have class today, right?

  Shit, we weren’t supposed to meet out in the field this morning, were we?

  All of us are here, yes?

  Should we tell someone?

  “I apologize for the delay, all. Tommy was sent to Fort Jackson to handle a last minute training, so I’ll be filling in this week.”

  Seriously? Seriously?

  Was the universe just trying to fuck with us? Was this base, this town, really so small that the man was just constantly forced upon me? Would I ever get a few moments without him so I could find a way to forget about him?

  No, it just didn’t seem like that was in the cards for us.

  “So… this sucks…” Amanda cringed as she leaned over to me.

  “Yup, just a tad…” I agreed.

  I didn’t even get to tell her about our weekend: about seeing him at my mom’s place, and then running into him at the bar, and then, or course, the whole ‘do you love me’ thing. There was just so much to catch her up on, and she was going to love every second of it.

  I actually wanted to tell her too. It was nice to get everything off my chest on Friday. It helped me see everything a little clearer- to figure out what I really felt about the whole situation.

  His voice boomed from the front of the class. “I just got thrown into this. Literally, just a few minutes ago. Can anyone catch me up on where you left off last week?”

  Amanda’s hand flew into the air. While the rest of us looked to be teetering on sleep deprivation, she seemed all too eager to answer.

  “Amanda?” Charlie pointed to her.

  Amanda winked at me. Oh no. What was she going to do?

  “This week we’re working on jumping out of aircraft that has been compromised, so it’s unstable.” And then she gave a little cough before continuing. “Kind of like if you were dating this guy who seems like he has his shit together, but one day just goes and blows up. You have to know how to get away from that mess before he takes you down with him.”

  She flashed a toothy grin up at Charlie, but still made sure that I saw it.

  I buried my face in my hands, afraid that my blushing cheeks would give me away.

  This would be my week.

  This would be my life.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Charlie

  “Why didn’t you let me jump today?” Hannah snuck up behind me as I climbed into my truck.

  “You got to jump. Everyone got to jump.” I acted aloof and unfazed by her accusation. Or, at least I tried to.

  “No. No, not at all. Everyone else got to jump. You purposely skipped over me.” Her face was turning red with anger.

  It was turning me on.

  Stop it, Charlie. You can’t fuck her right now. You can’t fuck her ever again. You gave up those privileges.

  Of course I knew that she didn’t jump. It wasn’t intentional; it really wasn’t. But when we got to her turn, I just kept imagining that something would go wrong. I don’t know why, but I envisioned the worst possible things- things I’ve never actually seen happen- and then I imagined her having to find her own way out of the catastrophe. And I just kept thinking:

  What if she can’t?

  What if I can’t save her?

  What if something happened to her and I never got to really tell her how I felt?

  I know she knew. She’s a smart girl, and I had all but told her I loved her, so it wasn’t much of a secret, but I still never got to say the words out loud. They didn’t pass through my lips, and because of that, she might never be certain.

  And this stuff was fucking dangerous. I didn’t want her doing it in the first place, but now this? Jumping out of helicopters that are twisting and turning and out of control?

  No, just no. If something happened to her… well, I would die. That’s just it.

  “Well?” She brought me back to the conversation at hand. “Care to answer me, Charlie?”

  “Why are you doing this?” I blurted out, though I wasn’t quite sure why, or if I was prepared to continue on with the conversation.

  “Why am I confronting you about not properly offering me the training I’m expected to have?” Her eyebrows rose in a very sarcastic manner.

  “No.” I argued, though she knew the question I was really asking. “Why are you doing this training program?”

  She started to laugh and then threw her hands into the air, as if it was absolutely preposterous that I would ask her such a question.

  “We’ve had this conversation, Charlie. Don’t bring it back to this.”

  I searched her emotions, trying to find some sort of vulnerability to grab onto. “There are other ways to pay for medical school.” I tested, knowing full well that I was about to be bitten.

  And she sure did bite me.

  “You are not allowed to do this to me. We are nothing. This relationship, the relationship that is now in the past, is over. You cannot be worried about me, or want to have deep conversations with me, or even try to question my life choices. You are not that person in my life and I don’t want you to be that person in my life. So instead of trying to protect me and baby me, why don’t you let me fucking do my job?”

  She waited for a moment to see if I had a response, but when I offered up nothing, she added in one final bite.

  “Do your job and tr
ain me or else I’ll have to speak to the Command Sergeant Major directly, and I’m sure you don’t want me telling on you to Daddy.”

  With an all too casual smile, she turned around and walked off.

  But I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let myself turn into such a baby around her. She needed to remember that I was still her superior and there were certain ways she could not speak to me. The way she had just spoken to me was definitely off limits.

  I caught up to her in half as many steps as she had taken, grabbed her by the arm and swung her around. Instinctually, I slung her up against the closest SUV, pushing my body up against hers to seem more domineering. Her breath moved deeply into her chest, causing her almost hidden cleavage to catch my attention as her tits rose and fell in a way that made it difficult for me to not get hard against her. I almost pulled away, but decided against it, thinking it might make her take me more seriously if she knew I could have my way with her in a split second.