AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Pike groaned, hanging his head down between his shoulder blades. When he looked up again, I couldn’t read his expression.
How was he going to answer me?
1
Pike
I finished up my reading for the night right before lights out. I didn’t even have to look at the clock to know it was coming—after being in basic training for this whole time, I had started to get an internal block about things like lights out, and meal times, and wake up call.
Basic training for the military probably wasn’t what anyone had pictured for me in Canyon, given that I spent my entire life breaking rules, causing trouble and raising hell. But I needed to know what the fuck I was going to do with the rest of my life and I hoped that maybe, possibly, the rigid structure of the military would give me that. Being told what to do 24/7 would be a relief after all the months of thinking I’d had to do the last year.
First there’d been Amber. Fucking Amber. She had her good qualities, and I wasn’t talking just about her looks. We’d had a lot of fun together. But the older we’d gotten the more she had pushed me to find a career, something that would make more money. I hadn’t understood that. I liked my work in the auto shop, I enjoyed handling cars, fixing them up. I didn’t care about finances. But Amber was raised by one of the richest families in town and grew up going to all the college parties, showing off her daddy’s wealth. She wanted to maintain that lifestyle and she wanted a man who would give that to her.
Clearly, I wasn’t that man. I’d broken it off with her and the sense of relief had been amazing—but then I’d genuinely started to wonder, hey, what would I do with my life? I knew what I wouldn’t do—push myself into whatever career would make me the most cash—but what would I do instead? Something with cars, maybe, but…
Then I’d made a mistake. Biggest mistake of my life, which was ironic considering it hadn’t felt like a mistake at all.
I’d gone to the damn annual Christmas kegger and gotten drunk. Not so drunk that I forgot what I was doing. Not so drunk that I could even pretend to excuse my actions. I’d known what was going on, I’d known who I was making out with. And I’d wanted her like I’d never wanted anyone.
Billie.
Morgan’s little sister. The little sister of my best friend, my closest friend in the world, my brother in every way that mattered. Morgan would kill me if he knew I had a drunk one night stand with his sister. “You couldn’t even take her out on a proper date first?” he’d yell at me. Right before he tried to kick my ass.
I hadn’t even thought about Billie that way before that night. I hadn’t thought about Billie much at all, honestly, and I felt kind of bad for it looking back because the girl who’d come onto me at the kegger had more personality than a pack of dynamite. Even through my guilt, making everything worse was that I wanted to sleep with her again. I wanted to do everything to her. She’d been refreshingly forthright about being a virgin and having no experience, and I wanted to teach her everything. The idea that she might go out and find other men now that she’d had the experience made me see red. I didn’t want her to go to anyone else, I wanted her to keep being with me. She’d been sassy, and known what she wanted, and confident, and I couldn’t fucking get enough.
I wanted to get to know this woman that I’d had right under my nose the whole time and had been stupid enough not to notice.
But of course I couldn’t do that. At least, not with Morgan around. My head had been all—fucked up, and I hadn’t known what to do about my life, so I enlisted and shipped off without telling anyone.
No one except Billie, that is.
I’d felt bad about leaving her behind. Giving a girl her first, well, anything and then dropping off the face of the earth didn’t feel right. I was known as a hellraiser, but I wasn’t an outright jerk and if you asked me there was a real difference.
So I wrote her a letter, letting her know what my plan was. I wouldn’t say it was… I wasn’t fucking Shakespeare or anything and I hadn’t tried to be, but I hoped that she would read it and appreciate it anyway.
I’d written and rewritten that damn thing until now I knew it by heart, even two months later.
Dear Billie,
I want to start by apologizing for not seeing you again before I leave. I know it’s sudden and everyone’s going to be shocked. I know Morgan will be upset. I’m sorry that I’m leaving you behind to deal with his anger. You always put up with a lot of shit from the two of us, being all crazy around the house. Sometimes it’s still crazy to me that I didn’t notice you before the kegger. I feel like we wasted time.
