by June Gray
* * *
Henry drove home in silence, lost in his own thoughts. I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes, exhausted from the day’s events. The next thing I knew, the car was coming to a stop in front of my parents’ driveway.
Henry got out, opened my door, and walked with me all the way to the front door.
“Are you coming inside?” I asked, grabbing a handful of his jacket. “My parents should be asleep by now.”
He shook his head with a rueful smile. “I think I should stay on the colonel’s good side for now.”
I looked up at his face, half hidden in shadows, and asked, “Is something wrong? You’ve been unusually quiet.”
“I just have a lot to think about.”
“About Nina?”
He frowned as he wrapped his arms around me. “No. Just about life in general. About where our lives are headed.”
“Where are we headed?”
He gave me a dubious look. “I think we both know where this is headed.”
“Enlighten me.”
“We’re headed toward a happily ever after,” he stated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
A bright little flower bloomed in the middle of my chest. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him, grasping the back of his head to deepen the kiss. He instantly responded, pulling me closer against him so that I could feel his arousal. His fingers lifted the hem of my dress and dug into my butt cheeks as his hips ground into mine.
“Don’t you mean a happy ending?” I whispered against his lips, reaching into the waistband of his jeans and massaging him through his boxer briefs.
He gave a little growl in the back of his throat. “I want that too,” he said and gave a little groan when I stroked the length of him.
I pulled away with a wicked smile. “Well, good night.”
His eyes widened as he tried to catch his breath. “What? But . . .”
I turned away and slid the key into the door when he pressed into me from behind, his arms boxing me in on either side of my head. “So that’s it then?” he asked huskily. He rocked his hips into my butt. “You’re going to leave me like this?”
I pushed the door open and stepped away from him. “Yes,” I said, feeling deliciously cruel. I licked my lips and gave him a slow, sexy look that slid down his body and ended on his bulging crotch. “You have a lot to think about, remember?”
He reached out with one finger and traced my lips, then pinched my nose. “You’re a brat.”
“And a tease,” I reminded him.
He bit his lower lip, giving me a disgruntled look. “You know, we won’t have that happy ending if you keep giving me blue balls.”
“That’s what he said,” I said with a carefree laugh, heedless of what tomorrow would bring, only happy to learn that Henry was thinking of our future together.
4
ALPHA MIKE FOXTROT
The next day, after Henry’s session with Doc Gal, we bought sandwiches and drinks and brought them to a beach in Pacific Grove. Parking was hard to find on a rare cloudless Saturday afternoon, and we ended up walking a long way to get to the beach, but it was worth it. I hadn’t been back to this beach since Jason’s death; I’d forgotten how beautiful the ocean could be, how the water reached up to meet the sky in the gauzy horizon.
We sat down and ate our lunch on a blanket, our bare toes digging into the sand as we gazed out over the blue ocean.
I leaned back on my elbows and angled my face up to the sun, enjoying its warm touch on my face. “This couldn’t be more perfect.” When I opened my eyes, I found Henry staring at me with an unreadable expression. “What are you thinking?” I asked.
He blinked a few times. “Have you ever wondered what life would have been like if you’d never moved here?”
The question took me off guard. “Not really.” I paused, giving it a little more thought. “Although, I’m guessing I’d now be dating someone else, whoever became my brother’s best friend.”
“I’m serious.”
I laughed. “So am I. I’m a sucker for older men.”
He gave a small grin and lay down beside me, folding his arms behind his head. “Do you think Jason would still be alive?”
I frowned, finally taking note of the serious nature of the conversation. “I don’t know. Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe he would have still deployed and that sniper would have still been on that rooftop.”
“If you could turn back time, would you change it? Would you ask your dad to move somewhere else?”
I focused on the cyan sky, wondering what its Pantone color number was, ignoring the pressure behind my eyes. “To save Jason? Yes.”
“Even if it means never having met me?”
A lump formed in my throat. I couldn’t even begin to answer his question, so I just asked, “Where is all of this coming from?”
He took a deep breath. “Just something Nina mentioned last night—”
“Nina,” I said under my breath. But of course.
He turned his head and gave me a look. “Not like that. We were just talking and she just said something that struck a chord with me.”
“Let me guess, she asked if you would still be with her if I had never moved to California.”
“No,” he said. “She just asked, in general, how we would have all turned out if things were different, if some people never entered our lives.”
I flipped over onto my stomach and lay on the wide expanse of his chest. I rested my chin on my folded arms. “We’d all be unrecognizable.”
He unfolded one arm and began to play with my hair, winding a lock around his finger. “I think I’d be in jail right now instead of a captain in the Air Force. I don’t think even Doc Gal could have saved me from that future. If it weren’t for your dad and your brother, I’d probably have dropped out of school, maybe become a drug dealer.”
Try as I might, I couldn’t imagine Henry in that scenario. I shook my head. “No. You’re too honorable. I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit.”
“What about you? What do you think you’d be like?”
I chewed on my lip. “Hmm. That’s a hard one because we could have ended up anywhere. I could have been a cheerleader, or a goth, or maybe a basketball player.”
“You think living somewhere else would have made you taller?” he teased.
“Maybe. Growth hormones in the water. Stranger things have happened.” I smiled at him, feeling incredibly fortunate that my parents decided to live in Monterey just two houses down from the Logans. Henry, for better or worse, was integral to shaping the person I had become, and I was sure he felt the same way about me. Our pasts were tightly entwined and so too, I was sure, were our futures. “Regardless, I couldn’t imagine being anyone else.”
He lifted his head and touched his lips to mine but said nothing. There was so much he wasn’t saying.
“What’s really bothering you, Henry?”
His eyes bore into mine; I almost flinched from the intensity. “I guess what I really want to find out is if you love me because of who I am or because you’ve had a crush on me forever.”
“Both,” I said. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“If we just met each other right now—me being an ex-con with honor and you being a really tall goth cheerleader—would you still be attracted to me? Would you still fall in love with meth-addict Henry?”
“Now you’re a meth addict?” I asked. “Hmm, maybe not if you have busted teeth.”
“Answer the question.”
“Maybe. I don’t know,” I said. I pushed up off him and got to my feet. I looked up at the dark clouds that had crept in on the beautiful day. “What does it matter? We are who we are and we’re together. End of story.”
If only that were truly the case.
* * *
“Typical Monterey,” I said, watching the rain pelt the windshield.
“Elsie,” Henry began and I knew that he was finally going to tell me what had been bothering him. “I think we need to break up.”
His words took a moment to wrap themselves around my brain because they were so alien, so unexpected, that it was like he was speaking another language. I sputtered, I was so taken aback. “Out of all the things I was expecting you to say, that was not one of them.”
His eyebrows drew together as he looked at me. “I’m sorry it’s out of the blue. I just think we need to spend some time apart.”
Tear stung my eyes as his words began to sink in. “You said you love me.”
His nostrils flared and when he reached out to touch my cheek, his fingers were trembling. “I do.”
“Then . . .”
“I just need to figure out who the hell I am, Elsie,” he said. “I can’t remember a time that you weren’t in my life and that scares me a little. I feel like I have no identity without you.”
“So you’re breaking up with me to go find yourself?” I asked incredulously.
“Not just me. I want the same for you. I want you to figure out who you are without me.”
Tears were streaming down my face as I spoke. “I don’t need to know who I am without you because you’re a part of me. Taking you out of the equation is like pulling out one of my femurs and asking me to live a normal life. It’s not going to happen.”
“I need you to understand where I’m coming from—”
“But I can’t understand,” I shouted. “I don’t understand how you can tell me you’re in love with me and ask me to wait for six months, and now that you’ve come home and we can be together, you’re suddenly breaking up with me. And your reason—that you want to find your identity—is flimsy and stupid.
“I thought you were going to tell me you had some horrible illness. And you know, the sad thing is that I wish that was the case, because then that would mean you’re not leaving me voluntarily.”
He turned away, the muscles in his jaw and neck taut, but said nothing. He just looked out the window.
I waited for him to say something—anything—that would make sense. If he was going to break my heart, I needed a viable reason, something tangible like wanting to be with someone else.
“Oh my God, it’s because of Nina, isn’t it? Do you want to be with her?”
“No!” he cried, finally looking at me again. “I don’t care about Nina.”
“And you obviously don’t care about me,” I said in a broken voice.
“Of course I do—”
I didn’t want to hear any more, so I pushed open the car door and stepped out into the rain. I was instantly soaked, but I didn’t care. I slammed the door shut and stalked off to the house and went inside, locking the door behind me.
“Sweetheart?”
I spun around and found my mother in the hallway, with an anxious look on her face and a cup of tea in her hands.
“Elsie, are you okay?” she asked.
The gentle worry in her voice undid me so I wrapped my sopping arms around her and let loose a rainstorm of my own.
* * *
I sat in the bathtub for the longest time, sobbing into a bottle of merlot. I scoured through memories to find any hints of the breakup, but nothing came to mind. Wasn’t it only last night that he was telling me we were headed toward a happily ever after? What had changed since then?
I had so many questions but pride kept me from calling him. I would not break down and beg him to reconsider, no matter how much I wanted that very thing to happen.
Henry had blindsided me back in March when he told me he was in love with me, and he had blindsided me again by telling me he wanted to break up.
At the beginning of the year, I was confident that I knew everything about Henry—his favorite color, his favorite quote, down to which dress shoes he preferred—but something had changed and with each passing month, I realized that I barely knew him at all. Apart from superficial details, did I really know Henry as well as I thought?
And just then, when I was certain I had fallen in love with a complete stranger, was the moment that I finally began to understand him.
* * *
I was drunk and nearly numb when I finally got out of the tub and made my way to my bedroom. I had not told my parents about the break up, but my mom, with her uncanny intuition, had guessed and had told my father to give me some space. They had gone out to dinner without me, to a restaurant nearby just in case I decided the loneliness was too much to bear.
I stumbled into bed wearing only a bathrobe, not entirely sure if I wanted company or seclusion.
Seclusion won out. I couldn’t tell them what happened, largely in part because I just didn’t have the mental faculties at the moment to explain away Henry’s actions.
I wondered if this was some phase he was going through, some therapy exercise. The thought offered me a little comfort and I was able to close my puffy eyes and go to sleep.
I awoke some time later when I heard a knock at my window. I rolled off my bed, the room still spinning from the alcohol, and opened the window for Henry.
“Hey,” he said with his hands in his pockets. His eyes, I noticed with some satisfaction, were red-ringed. “Can I come in?”
“For what reason?”
“I just . . . I had to see you.” He looked at me with his eyebrows drawn together, his eyes pleading.
I gave a nod and stepped aside, holding on to my old desk to steady me. The moment his feet touched the carpet, he strode to me and wrapped me in his arms, clutching at my hair, pressing my face into his chest. I could feel his rapid heartbeat against my cheek, and I realized, even through my drunken haze, that I could never love anyone more. If this was really over, if Henry really wanted out, I would be a ruined mess for anyone else who came after.
He closed his eyes and pressed his lips against my forehead, but what was supposed to be a comforting gesture instead broke my heart into a million pieces.
Henry was here to say good-bye.
I blotted my tears with his gray shirt, memorizing everything: the largeness and solidity of his body, the cool, fresh scent of his deodorant, the thud-thud of his heart in his chest. I wanted to flood my every sense with Henry, to lose myself to sensation so that I wouldn’t have to think about the fact that he was saying good-bye. So I slid my hands up his muscled back to his head and pulled him down to meet my lips.
I kissed him hard, my tongue slipping against his with hunger and need. He responded with a groan and pushed me against the wall, pinning my body against his. He shoved a knee between my legs and pressed his thigh into my crotch, rocking his erection into my stomach, causing a delicious friction. He stopped kissing me long enough to pull on the back of his shirt, slipping it over his head in one motion.
His hands came between us and grabbed the lapels of my bathrobe, peeling it away from my naked body. He pulled away for a brief moment, his eyes raking over me with that dark look on his face. “God, I’ll miss you,” he rasped.
I saw red at that moment, balking at his audacity. “You asshole,” I said and slapped him across the cheek.
He grunted, his eyes turning feral. “Do it again,” he ordered.
So I did, my palm landing flat on his cheek. He grunted again and ground his teeth. When I raised my hand to strike again, he grabbed my wrist and punished me with his mouth, kissing me with an anger and desperation I’d never felt before. His other hand grabbed me by the jaw and forced my head up, then he proceeded to rain kisses on my neck, along my collarbone, nippin
g with his teeth at every juncture.
The pleasure and fury roiled around inside me like a tempest. I wanted to hurt him back, to give him a taste of what he’d put me through, so I dug my fingers into his back and raked my nails across his skin.
He made a low guttural sound at the back of his throat, then grabbed me by the waist, ripped me away from the wall, and threw me onto the bed. I gaped up at him, trying to catch my breath, as he unzipped his pants, his muscles straining to do battle.
I sat up, ready to resist, when he placed his palm flat over my heart and pushed me back down into the mattress. He grabbed my wrists and pulled them above my head, holding them in place with one hand while the other pushed my legs apart and guided the head of his penis to my entrance.
His eyes bore into mine. “Do you want me inside you, Elsie?” he asked, pushing in just the slightest and retreating.
My breath came out in rapid gusts and my insides squeezed, trying to suck him inside me by sheer will.
“Tell me, yes or no?” he demanded in that gravelly voice.
“Hell yes,” I breathed and then he surged inside me, filling and stretching me to my limits.
He groaned long and low as he thrust into me. He grabbed my hips and jerked me closer to the end of the bed to grant him better leverage, then he crouched over and rolled his hips into mine.
I fisted the sheets by my head, on sensation overload. My head was still swimming from the alcohol, magnifying every nerve ending in my body. He was possessing me, every grind of his hips hitting me in twin spots of pleasure inside and out. He looked down at me with intensity, a smirk playing on the edges of his lips as he took charge of my body. He owned me.
He dipped his head and captured my mouth once again, his tongue and cock moving in unison as they plunged into me. Then he pulled out and flipped me onto my stomach. “Get on your knees,” he ordered, but before I could even think to refuse, my traitorous body complied. Henry was completely in control now and it was driving me wild with want and defiance. If this was the last time we would have sex, it sure as hell was going to be a memorable one.
