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The number is longer than the ten digits the States use. “It’s foreign,” I observe as it rings a second time and a possibility lights up and explodes in my chest, making me gasp as I frantically swipe to answer.
“Hello?” My voice wavers with the hope of who it could be.
“Lu? Baby?” I hear Kaleb’s gorgeous voice like comforting velvet, and I feel the concrete barrier inside me crack and give way, a damn of emotions flooding out.
“Kaleb…” my voice is barely there as I choke on a sob and tears prick at the backs of my eyes.
“Oh, baby, thank God.” His voice comes through the line on a heavy breath, and I smile through my tears as I look up at my dad. He’s taking me in, his brown eyes looking like they’re taking several pieces of a puzzle and putting them together. Finally, he gives me a somber smile that’s hard to decode until he strolls a few steps forward and leans down to place a kiss to the top of my head. I look up at him gratefully as he straightens up before turning towards the door, looking down at his own phone before he moseys out the door, no doubt to return my mother’s persistent messages.
“Are you okay?” Kaleb’s voice sounds mildly distressed in my ear, and I feel the rest of my resolve breaking apart. I had no idea that I’d even been trying to hold myself together all this time until Kaleb’s voice signaled that it was okay for me to let go. I start sobbing uncontrollably into the phone.
“Oh, Kaleb…” I barely manage to get out between sniffs and hiccups.
“Hey, hey…” he coos soothingly like he’s trying to urgently make me better as quickly as possible. “Shhh… babe, it’s okay. What’s going on?”
I sniffle as my voice quakes. “I just miss you so much…”
27
KALEB
I’ve never seen or heard Luna cry. Ever.
Even when we fell out years ago, she didn’t cry because she was too busy tearing me a new asshole. She’s always been my happy, silly girl that’s always kept me up whenever the universe tries to drag me down. Even all these miles away, in this grim underworld of darkness and gunfire, her messages and seeing her smiling face on video chat are what have kept me from getting buried.
“I miss you too, my girl…” I tell her quietly into the phone.
Phone calls home are hard to make here, hence the use of the internet, and even that isn’t secure. I had to plead my case to my commanding officer that I had reason to believe something was wrong at home, and without her saying anything, I know that I was right. The way she’s crying like this proves it.
“Luna, what happened?” I ask, my voice letting out a trace of the desperation that I’m trying to keep in. “Are you alright, baby?”
“I just miss you,” she tells me between gasps. “I’ve been fine for the last few months, but yesterday, I just… had the day from hell,” she stammers. “And it all just boiled over I guess, and it just made me wish you were here.”
“I wish I was there too,” the words rush out of me without hesitating. Thrusting a hand in my hair, I turn and slump against the wall, dipping my chin to my chest. She’s made me feel a myriad of things all the years I’ve known her; amazingly beautiful things. Never has she made me feel like this. Needed. Wanted so badly it hurts my heart in both the best and worst of ways. “What happened, baby? I knew something was up when I didn’t hear from you when I usually do. I even had to sit out last night’s patrol. /my captain said I was too unfocused, which is too much of a risk.”
That had pissed me off too. Of all the times I needed something to do, to be useful, I got pulled to basically sit on my ass and worry about both Luna and my brothers. Drove me half insane.
I hear a sniffle, then a pause, followed by a deep breath on her end. “Really?”
“Yeah, it puts you and your brothers in danger, they preach it to us all the time.” Drilled into us is more like it. We have to be mentally checked out from our home lives, otherwise our guard is down and our reflexes go to shit. “All vigilance goes out the window if we’re too preoccupied,” I add.
“That makes sense.” Her words come out on a shuddery breath that makes me close my eyes with the pain I feel of not being there. “I’m so sorry.”
“Shhh…no,” I say with a gentle firmness. “It’s not your fault, baby. Not at all. I just want to help. Can you tell me what happened?”
“Well… it started with a run-in with your lovely ex and went downhill from there,” she sniffs, and my head snaps up.
“What did she say to you?” My voice is weighted with the threat of anger. Even after three years Cheyenne’s been petty as fuck, as she proved when she met Luna. Makes me wonder if I’m going to have to make wild love to my woman right on her bar for her to get the picture.
“Just some feeble shit, and I gave it right back to her,” she responds.
“Good girl,” I murmur my firm approval into the phone.
“It just got my day off to a shitty start and it was one thing after another. I even lost my phone for a while and… and that was the worst part because I just wanted to read any messages from you and talk to you.”
Hearing her like this is ripping me apart while humbling me at the same time. I hate that she’s hurting, and I feel like I would burn down the world to make it stop. But it makes my heart soar to know that she’s also yearning for me too. “If I were there right now, I would take you to bed and hold you tightly against me all night long.”
“I need that so bad right now,” her voice still wobbles on a ragged sigh.
