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5
WILL
Killing time before I had to get back to work, I scrolled Instagram, liking a few pics my friends posted from their weekend adventures. I hadn’t done anything particularly interesting, but I wasn’t much of a social media poster even if I had. Which was why it had annoyed me so much when Julia had posted that selfie of us on Valentine’s Day. I hated that kind of thing. Besides, we’d only been on two dates and hadn’t even been together that night, so the whole thing felt insanely fake.
A photo Aria had posted using her business account stopped my scroll. It was a photo of the bride and groom standing in front of a horse and carriage, the property’s pond sparkling as the setting sun reflected on the surface. I swiped through the group of ten photos, each of them showcasing the work she’d done to make sure their day was perfect. It never ceased to amaze me how talented she was at bringing other people’s dream weddings to life. I knew it was her business, but she treated it like an art.
I liked Aria’s post—you know, just showing my support of her work—then continued to scroll. Paul had posted a selfie from his skydiving trip with his dad. They were probably ten thousand feet up when they’d come together to snap the pic with Paul’s GoPro, and I grinned when I saw the wide smile on his dad’s face. Not long ago, he was a skydiving newb. I’d been there for his first jump, and the old man had been shaking in his Kirkland tennies. But judging by the sheer joy on his face with his skin pulled back from the force of the fall, I could tell he’d moved way past those early fears.
Something dark churned in my gut, and I scrolled on. Paul had invited me on the father-son trip, and even though the three of us had jumped together before and probably would again, I hadn’t felt up to it. There was something about being back in Bluffton that brought up way too many long-buried feelings.
The Bristols may have treated me like one of their own whenever I came around, but at the end of the day, I wasn’t their son. As much as I wanted to fit into their ideal life, it was like a square peg in a round hole. I didn’t match. I didn’t belong. And after seeing Aria in my hoodie on Friday night and wrestling with feelings I had no right to feel, I wasn’t in the mood to be the third wheel on their father-son trip the next day.
My eyes flicked to the small clock at the top of my screen, and I sighed. Time to get back to work. I heaved off the break room couch and put my phone in my locker, grabbing my red ordnance cranial off the table on my way out the door.
The hangar that held our squadron’s F-18s bustled with activity as I stepped inside. The smell of jet fuel hung in the air, June’s humidity making it more pungent than usual. My eyes scanned the faces of the Marines in coveralls moving throughout the massive space, searching for Lance Corporal Mitchell.
Chase was the newest member of our shop. He was fresh out of job school and had only been a Marine for less than a year. We were his first squadron, and as such, his first taste of life in the fleet. Every NCO became a mentor to a junior Marine at one point or another, and I was Chase’s. I took that responsibility seriously, knowing that whatever he experienced in his first shop would stay with him for the rest of his time in the Corps.
“Mitchell,” I heard someone yell. “Go crank rounds.”
I rolled my eyes when I spotted the source. Derek Roberts was a sergeant like me, and even though the whole mentor thing was an unofficial designation, I hated the way he seemed to bark orders at Chase more than anyone else.
I made my way over, nodding at Chase when he jogged up. The lance corporal came to a stop right before Roberts. “Yes, Sergeant. Which jet?”
“Jets, plural. Oh-two, oh-three, and oh-seven. Then eleven when it’s ready,” Roberts replied, crossing his arms over his chest like he knew exactly how messed up his orders were. “The other guys are already out there working on them, so tell them when it’s time to crank, you’re doing all of them. Alone.”
Chase’s eyes widened slightly, but he nodded once. “Yes, Sergeant.”
I bit back a curse as Chase loped past us toward the flight line, waiting until he was out of earshot before turning on Roberts. I had no intention of letting Chase crank all those rounds by himself, but he didn’t need to hear me contradict a fellow NCO.
“What are you doing?” I asked Roberts.
“What?”
“Why are you having him crank all those rounds by himself?”
Normally, all the guys in our ordnance shop took turns. The giant metal crank arm that ran the twenty-millimeter rounds into the F-18’s guns wasn’t easy to move. That job was a workout, and even Marines who spend more time at the gym than they do breathing wouldn’t be out there cranking rounds into four jets in a row. The young lance corporal would need to take enough breaks that he’d probably be out there for the rest of the day.
“It’s good for him,” Roberts replied with a sneer.
“No, it’s not.”
Roberts shook his head and let out a dark chuckle. “Bro, you need to chill out.”
“I don’t need to chill out. I need you to tell the other guys who are out there to help Chase.”
The smile fell from his lips, and he squared up with me, the rise of his shoulders threatening to loosen my hold on my temper. But I wouldn’t let him goad me into a fight. We were at work. And unlike my father, I didn’t need to use my fists to solve every problem.
“If you’re so worried about the kid, why don’t you go out there and help him?”
“I would if we didn’t have enough hands. Because I’m a good NCO, and I’m not going to risk one of my guys getting hurt because you didn’t get the memo about hazing being for the old-timers.”
Roberts stepped forward and started to say something when movement caught my eye. I looked over his shoulder and saw two of our corporals coming in from the flight line with their tool pouches in hand.
“Hey,” I said to them, “go make sure Mitchell doesn’t crank rounds by himself. Tell him I said everyone is taking turns like normal.”
One of the corporals nodded and took off, but the other one lingered. “We’ve got a guy on leave, so I’ll do two.”
