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Since when did I give a shit about what others thought of me? It wasn’t like I didn’t already know Captain Hughes would want anyone other than me to be in love with his son, but that was too damn bad.
Wait—in love with his son?
Yes, holy shit… I’m in love with Panther.
As that realization slammed into me, so did the fact that I was a total fucking idiot. Over the last couple of days, Panther had done everything in his power to get me to open up. He’d backed off, given me space, and still that hadn’t been enough for me to get out of my head.
No, I’d shoved him all the way out of my life.
Sure, why not end this now before things got too hard? Use his father’s doubts and disapproval to cover up the real reason I was trying to run. Graduation. I didn’t want to face what was coming. I didn’t want to listen to the man I was in love with—and yes, I was in love with him—tell me he was choosing to take a job a million miles away from me.
I wanted…what? Panther to give up his dreams? Fuck no. But I sure as hell wanted to be part of them, and that meant I needed to pull my head out of my ass and talk to him. I needed to tell him how I was feeling.
I dusted off my hands and reached into my pocket for my phone. Nothing like a little self-sabotage to make you reflect on the amazing thing you just fucked up. And I had royally fucked this up.
I shot off a text. I’m sorry about earlier. Can we talk?
The blood ringing in my ears was loud enough to block out the crashing waves as I stared at the screen, waiting for some kind of response. When nothing came, I cursed and tried a different angle. I was a total dick. I know. Maybe I could stop by in an hour and you could kick my ass? You don’t even have to be gentle.
When the response was yet another empty screen, my stomach began to twist around on itself, and I told myself to give it a minute. But after five had passed, I knew nothing was coming. Panther was clearly pissed, so instead of trying another text, I took a deep breath and hit his number. When his phone went straight to voicemail, I cursed.
Yeah, this wasn’t good. Panther had turned his phone off. If that didn’t scream, I don’t want to fucking talk to you, then I didn’t know what did. But that wasn’t going to stop me. I needed to see him. I needed to talk to him. I needed to explain why I’d been such a fucking douche these last couple of days, and if he wasn’t going to take my call, then I would go bang on his door until he answered.
I shoved to my feet, brushed the sand off my ass, and hightailed it back to my bike. My heart was hammering and my palms were sweaty, Panther’s silence more effective than words in letting me know just how upset he was.
I jammed my helmet on my head a little harder than necessary, trying to knock some fucking sense into myself. Then I started up the bike and pulled out onto the main road. As I gunned the engine and roared down the street, I thought over what I would say to Panther when I finally reached the barracks.
I mean, what could I say? A whole lot of I’m sorry to start with. I had a feeling I’d be apologizing for this for a long time to come. But I also needed to tell him about his father, about what had started all of this, and I wasn’t sure how that part would go over.
Would Panther agree with him? I was afraid to know the answer.
As I pulled onto base, I tried to shove aside the nerves that had grown progressively worse on the drive back, telling myself to man the hell up. Panther was a reasonable guy. Surely he’d had moments where he’d let things boil over and get the better of him. In fact, I remembered a time he’d almost knocked my teeth out after I’d taunted him about wanting me.
Granted, things had been wildly different back then, but the same principles applied…right? Yeah, no. Things were vastly different this time around.
I should’ve trusted him, talked to him about what his father had said, and then maybe I wouldn’t have panicked about everything else. But instead, I’d let everyone other than Panther get in my head, and I’d pushed away the one I trusted the most.
Pulling into my parking space, I looked over at his shut door and wondered how exactly this was going to end.
