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“What about juice?” Luca asks.
Giulia levels him with a look. It reminds me of how my mom would look at me whenever I’d get in trouble as a kid. I can’t quite hold back my smile. “No,” Giulia says. “If you don’t get soda, you definitely don’t get any kind of juice. No sugar. Just drink your water.”
Luca grumbles under his breath, sitting back in his seat with his arms crossed. If he’s this much trouble as a kid, I don’t even want to imagine what he’ll be like when he gets older.
Cecilia and Emilia come back, Cecilia now in a new shirt. The soft pink color goes well with her hair and skin tone. Shit. I shouldn’t be thinking like that. Cecilia should never be on my mind, but over this past year, she encroached on my thoughts more and more.
As she takes her seat, I force myself to look away from her. But I don’t hold out for very long, and when I glance back at her, I notice her looking at me. I turn my entire body to face the front of the room, so I can only see her out of my peripheral vision.
No more thinking about Cecilia. No more thinking about how pretty she looks in her pink top or how soft her hair looks or how plump her lips are. It’s inappropriate.Highlyinappropriate.
Fuck, I’ve known her since she was a kid. That’s not ok. It doesn’t matter she’s an adult now and I’ve only started thinking of her in a more romantic way since she turned twenty. None of it matters. I’m her bodyguard. My duty is to protect her.
Not seduce her.
I keep my focus on the twins as they start banging their forks into the table.
“Stop,” Giulia says.
Lucia does, but Luca doesn’t listen. He continues to bang his fork into the fine wood of the table.
“Stop!” Giulia shouts at him.
He jerks, and his elbow ends up hitting his plate, knocking it to the ground.
The loud crash makes me jerk back against the wall, and my vision suddenly becomes filled with images of guns and uniforms and my best friend’s face.
Without meaning to, I’m clinging to my chest, unable to breath.
“Theo?” someone asks, but I’m not sure who.
“We need to make sure he’s all right,” comes a feminine voice.
I’m gasping, my vision going dark.
All I can see is Benji.
“Come on, Theo,”Benji said, pushing my book out of my hands. “I want to enjoy the city tonight. Let’s go. All of us are going.”
I looked around the fort we were stationed in. Bunks took up most of the space, and there’s was a small kitchenette area and a tiny bathroom that was more like an outhouse.
“The lieutenant wanted us here for the night,” I told him. At eighteen, I was still fresh to the army in so many ways. After my training, I was sent to Afghanistan, where I met Benji. We were in the same battalion.
“The lieutenant is out at some brothel. You know he is. He’s not here, so why should the rest of us be?”
Benji made a good point. Lieutenant Johnson had a soft spot for the local girls. I thought it was disgusting how he took advantage of them, but there wasn’t really much I could do. I wasn’t the one with power.
We were on the outskirts of Kabul. Lieutenant Johnson loved being stationed there because it made it easy for him to find brothels. It also made it easy to go out and get drunk.
I followed Benji outside, and with the rest of our group, around twenty of us, we set off into the city to have a night of fun.
I took in the bazaars and people selling crafts and food. The cars zipping by. The smell of warm sand in the air, which couldn’t even be escaped in the middle of a crowded city.
The locals watched us warily. A group of Americans. Even though we weren’t in uniform, it was obvious we didn’t belong.
Benji found us a restaurant that sold alcohol on the black market. When I first got to Afghanistan and found out alcohol was illegal, I almost shit myself. I couldn’t believe it.
But thankfully, I befriended Benji, and he was good about finding people who would sell us alcohol.
