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After a long, lingering shower and the makeshift breakfast and a cup of fresh, hot coffee, I was feeling back to normal. At least physically. Mentally, I was still all kinds of fucked up, and pacing around the house wasn’t going to fix anything.
“Hey, girl,” I said, turning to Princess, who was lying on the floor in front of the TV. “You wanna go for a drive?”
Her ears perked.
If anything could get me back on track, it was a long drive in my Camaro. Sure, I didn’t have my favorite little blonde in the passenger seat, but I tried to ignore that fact as Princess and I cruised up the 101. The sunshine, cool ocean breeze, and palm trees were better than any kind of therapy I could think about.
We stopped at Sunset Beach—another spot ripe with memories—and went to my favorite little taco shack for a late lunch. After a taco platter and an ice cold Corona, I nodded off in one of the lounge chairs while Princess chased the seagulls.
The sun was still high in the sky when we piled back into the car and headed back to Holiday Cove. The little break was nice but I knew there wasn’t a lasting solution in the bottom of a bottle. I headed up the hill when I cruised into town and parked the Camaro in front of the Rosen Air Museum. Aaron and Gemma lived in the bungalow-style house on the property and his truck was in its usual spot beside the house. Gemma’s sporty Audi was beside it.
“Good, at least there will be witnesses,” I muttered to Princess.
Gemma answered the door and by the look on her face, Aaron had told her about our argument. “Jack?” she said, eyebrows lifted.
“Is he here?”
She glanced behind her and then turned back to face me. Instead of inviting me inside, she took a step forward, getting into my personal space and dropped her voice low, “Make this right, Jack. You two have gone through way too damn much to throw it all away over some shitty fight.”
Gemma had a lioness strength and fierceness that was impossible to ignore. Her voice wasn’t raised and her expression wasn’t even angry, but her words were in no way a suggestion.
Only once I’d nodded my agreement did she back up and pull open the front door. Princess barreled inside and Gemma smiled as the pooch made herself right at home. I gave her arm a light squeeze, a silent promise, and then crossed the threshold.
Aaron was in the kitchen, wearing sweats and a scowl. “What are you doing here?”
Gemma, who had silently stepped behind me, cleared her throat. “Baby…”
Aaron glanced at her and then sighed. Under any other circumstances, I would have smiled. It brought me unmatched joy to watch him act whipped. “You want a beer?”
Gemma brushed past me, grabbed her glass of iced tea from the kitchen table, and then walked out again. “Play nice, you two.”
Aaron got up from his place at the table, abandoning the tablet he’d been holding and went to the fridge. He pulled out a beer and set it in the place Gemma had just vacated. He jerked his chin at the chair and I sat down. I folded my hands and laid them on the table. “I should have told you about the interview. Actually, I should have told you the minute I started applying for other positions. It was never my intention to leave you in the lurch or make your life difficult. You know I’d never fuck you over like that.”
Aaron considered me as he took a long pull from the longneck bottle. When he set it down, the scowl faded. “Why do you want to leave? Is it really about the money?”
I heaved a sigh and dropped my hands to my lap as I leaned back against the wooden chair. “I miss flying. Like really flying. These little, short, tourist trips are nice, and sure, it pays the bills, but it doesn’t make me happy. I like working with you and Nick and all the other people over there. But it’s not enough. I’m missing something and I thought that if I could get into a real career track, I’d snap out of it.”
Aaron nodded, his gaze lingering on the table for a moment. “You know what I think?”
“Hmm?”
He looked up. “I think you’re a lifer.”
It was an inconvenient truth. But I’d reached the same conclusion at some point along the way. “I know."
“It’s okay, Boomer. Who says you can’t do both? Be the family man with the wife and kids and still be in the navy? Fuck, people do it all the time. Half our old unit was married or with someone and almost all of them our age had a pack of brats.”
