AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Try me,” I say with a snort, leaning toward her intently.
“It’s just an old habit. I had a really rough time when Mom and Dad got divorced, especially when Mom decided she was just done with us. I asked Dad to sign me up for all the art classes I could handle. This teacher, Miss Lemay, she had us learning all the less common shades of different colors and she’d always compare them to something. Then I’d think about those colors and their combinations and what they could make every time I got stressed. At some point, I guess I started saying it out loud...”
“You were coping,” I say with a nod.
“Um, I guess. Sorry if that makes me a weirdo.”
“You’re human, Delia,” I bite off. “We all have ways of making life bearable. And you had the sense to choose a harmless one that helps you make pretty pictures. Smart.”
Her brows knit together. “Doesn’t feel like it. You’re the only one who’s asked, the only guy I’ve told.”
“It doesn’t have to be some awful secret,” I say sharply. “For every person who’s coping well, I guarantee you’ve got ten more feeding their demons instead. Booze. Drugs. Hookups. It’s okay to hurt, just as long as you manage that pain.”
“...really?” Her lips tremble as I take her hand again and squeeze.
“Yeah. Fuck knows I haven’t always been on the best path, but once you get writing, I hope you know there’s more than just death and regrets with what I do.”
She stares for a heady second and then smiles.
“Oh, right. You guys have to boast about your women all the time...”
I chuckle. “You’d be surprised how wrong you are. One time, this new recruit snuck contraband rum in on the last day of our exercises in the Aleutians. He was so trashed the next morning he tried to put the moves on a walrus.”
She breaks, laughing until her face scrunches.
Goddamn, she needs that, and so do I.
Her happiness is sexy, the secret medicine we need to bleach the death and stalking terror from our brains.
“No joke?” she sputters.
“Seriously. Dude almost got a tusk through the eye for his trouble before we frog-marched him back to base,” I say with a shit-eating grin.
Somewhere in all the laughter, she starts on her Beef Wellington and mashed potatoes.
Good.
The girl needs the calories.
I try to keep her off the wine after a second glass, draining the rest of the bottle myself.
Emotions are volatile, and right now they’re riding high.
Too much booze in her veins could set her off all over again. That would be tragic when it’s starting to feel like a halfway normal evening.
I work her over with bawdy jokes and old stories, trying like hell tolook at her faceinstead of the cleavage spilling out her top.
“Oh my God—stop! You’re going to make me choke.” She kicks under the table, brushing her bare foot against my leg.
Lust seethes in my hot veins.
I tell her about a soccer game we played with these kids in Iraq during my first tour. How we let them beat us, rewarding them with their weight in chocolate rations from Uncle Sam.
It’s the least we could do when half of them were missing their fathers. Years of war and strife took their toll, and it’s always hit me the most with kids for some reason.
I try not to think about those girls with Warzach for the ten thousandth time.
Try and fail.
