Jen Frederick's Blog, page 19

Unraveled Blog Tour Day 2

Thanks to Sassy Mum Book Blog, Loves All Things Books for posting about Unraveled’s release!

Like I said yesterday, I love dueling reviews and Michelle and Pepper’s review is just another example of why these are so entertaining. I mother hugging love you two back. Pepper, I promise I am not a guy! And Michelle, I love that you get a lady boner from my heroines! Check out this hilarious and gif filled review of Unspoken.

MICHELLE: I agree. She is funny, smart and totally likeable the entire time.

And Gray. Sweet Lord. Each one of these hot military guys that JenFred writes- just do me now.

PEPPER: Oh God. I can’t. The dirty talking? And the sweetness???

Becca the Bibliophile and I just must click because she’s given me some great reviews. Becca interviewed Sam and Gray and it was kind of short because Gray started thinking about Sam’s physical attributes and it went downhill from there! You need to check it out. And you’ll want to see a bigger version of this collage. I mean…even the red polka dotted dress. LOVE IT.

 

Sherry from Recommended Reads says that Gray won her over despite totally falling for Noah and Bo!

If I thought Noah and Bo were hot, there is no comparison with Gray. Holy Hell, he’s totally smoking! He’s a Marine on leave and trying to get his head together and make some decisions. So, where does he stay? With his former Marine buddies in the Woodlands, Noah and Bo (of course). See where this is going? You have no idea.

Don’t worry, guys, we still love all three of you.

Over at Ripe for Reader, Margreet writes that despite some of the book coming off predictable, she’d still recommend it.

The story in itself was not unfamiliar and a bit predictable and although well-written and most definitely moving, it lacked some originality. Despite that, I would not have any hesitation recommending this book!

At Triin’s Bookish Moments, she’s giving Unraveled 5 stars and we are glad that the bus was late because the book was too engrossing and she almost missed it!

Unraveled was humorous, sexy (holy smoky monkeys how hot!), emotional, and full of thought provoking moments! Maybe it has just been a while since I read the other two books in the series, but I can’t remember the first two being THAT HOT (Gray is DEFINITELY my kind of guy… ). It was a greatly enjoyed insight into military life.

Finally but not last in my heart is Sharon from Obsession with Books. Sharon was one of the first bloggers to read Undeclared. She took a chance on me and I really appreciate it. The best part is that she still loves my work, three books later. Sharon gave Unraveled five stars too and said

I have to admit, I’m not usually a fan of characters who have previously been married and their partner is now deceased – divorce I don’t mind so much but there is always the chance the hero or heroine aren’t completely ready to move on and a new relationship comes with much trepidation. I’m pleased to say though that Jen has written a real page turner and the relationship is one that is believable which I appreciated, the banter and conversations were enjoyable and their moments together entertaining…it was a book filled with heart and hope and I was glued to the pages.

I love that line because I did want it to be hopeful–that you can get another chance to love again no matter what your past is.

Thanks to everyone who participated in book 2 of the Unraveled blog tour. I’m really blown away by the love that the book is receiving.

Unraveled Blog Tour Day 1

Thanks to A Love Affair with Books, Chicks Controlled by Books, Dirty Girl Romance, and  The Book Blog for sharing the news that Unraveled has been released.

Jammie at 2Bookaholics wrote the best exclamation ever. I might have to steal it sometime. 

Oh sweet baby goldfish, this book was HAWT! I am a super fan of all things Jen Frederick (seriously sometimes I think I border on stalkerish) The Woodlands Men as I refer to them are ones that I love to visit over and over again! But who wouldn’t right? Well, let me tell you that Unraveled didn’t disappoint, nope I can’t think of one place that it did! HAWT, Adventurous and Sweet all wrapped up into one ball of yarn (ha ha ha) Unraveled begins with Gray Phillips having to make some serious life decisions.

I love that!

Carrie at books coffee and wine wrote:

Out of the all three Woodland Series- Grayson Phillips and Samantha Anderson’s story is my favorite. I love all the Woodland boys, but nothing can top the strong Grayson…This book is about loss, trust, and love- Its about Honor of the Corps, and its about honor of relationships.

It was a lot about loyalty and honor and I loved that Carrie wrote about how that stood out for her.

Amanda is an author herself but she does us a service by reviewing as well. At her blog, Byrne After Reading  she predicts a run on Land Rovers. Do they come with a dirty talking Marine? If so, I guess Amanda and I will be duking it out as to who is first in line at the dealership.

For all the growth that Sam goes through in Unraveled, I felt like this was really Gray’s story. He had the most to lose – and the most to gain. Taking Sam on adventure after adventure opens him in a way he hasn’t felt in years, and he doesn’t know how to handle it. He panics, more than once, and makes an ass of himself, more than once. And when he sets out to try and make things right, he does it in the most heartmeltingly way possible. Big, manly Marine + yarn = Oh, Gray. Gray, Gray, Gray.

Michel at Hesperia Loves Books shares. Hesperia’s site is almost mathlike in the way that they break down and grade books. So interesting.

Together Gray and Samantha make sense.  They are compatible, enjoy each other’s company, and the sexual chemistry is through the roof.  They know that this is a temporary relationship.  This temporary relationship is just what they need.  What they didn’t expect is to find the happiness and love that is rare and worth pursuing.  They will have to make choices, let go of the past, and find a way to merge their lives  in the same direction….It was thought provoking, sexy, saucy and very realistic.  Not only did it have a beautiful love story, it also showed the strength of friendships and the loyalty to these friendships.

Shelley & Courtney at Must Read Books or Die did a dueling review (and I love these because I feel like we’re all just sitting at a coffee house just shooting the shit. And now we have  a theme song which made me think of Adam’s heroine. 

Truly, I didn’t even know I needed a Gray until we had those moments with him. I was all kinds of ready for Mal, or Finn or Adam to grace my life…but this direction was perfect. We got to know those guys a little bit more, or more or less find out about some of their conflict…while having Gray talk dirty to us. #Winning

…These two have some smokin’ hot scenes together as well as some sweet and tender moments. They have confusion and grief and decisions to work through but it’s not angsty and over the top–I mean Gray definitely frustrated me but I could understand where he was coming from. I loved how strong Jen wrote Sam. She took brave and risky steps and tried things–I loved her courage and her willingness and her desire to keep living even after losing Will.

Natalee is celebrating a one year anniversary at Read This~Hear That! How awesome for her. Go and visit! Enter the giveaway!  In her review, she wrote:

At the end of the day, he learns from his mistakes and is just a good guy through and through. I did however obsess over Sam. Actually, I obsess over all the females in this series. Each one has a quiet strength about them. Sam is probably the most innocent, I thought, because she’s stuck in the past and still has a lot of growing up to do. BUT she was also the most mature and level-headed leading lady. She doesn’t play games, she wears her heart on her sleeve which I thought was super refreshing.

Kim from Reviews by Tammy and Kim shared that she’s looking forward to reading the rest of the roommates’ love stories.

Like the other books in this series, this one was sweet, humorous, moving, sexy and romantic. It was not quite as dark and angsty as Unspoken. It was a quieter, sweeter read with only mild angst, but still enjoyable.  I look forward to more in this Woodlands series…we still need Finn, Adam, and Mal for sure…

Sammie’s Book Club, for book lovers put everything together in this awesome collage:

Evette wrote the review at Sassy Girl Books. She loved the banter and you have to know I love writing that stuff. Gray and Bo had an inordinate interest in each other’s, um, equipment!

The banter- these guys- I want ALL of them in my real life!  Jen is a wiz at writing these tough but loving men and developing their friendships and relationships.  You want to know them.  You laugh out loud and have every feel under the sun with them.  Including a good bit of LUST.

Steaming Mug of Books is Cece’s blog. Cece reached out to me after Unspoken and offered to beta read for me. I took her up on the offer and really used her. I think she read Unraveled three times and as I said in the acknowledgments, she pushed me to make Unraveled a deeper and more emotional story. Cece did an interview of me so you can find out my favorite hot drink and what my day looks like.

Crusin Susan called Unraveled a “riveting story”:

The one aspect that I enjoyed about Gray is that he experienced loss in his own way.  How Sam explained his grief about being over loss of trust, and loss of HEA was perfect.  Gray has a choice to either allow his ex to determine how his future will be, or to release her control from his life forever.

Unraveled also gives us more into the lives of Bo and Noah.  It was fascinating to see how the loyalty comes into play with the three of them.

Typical Distractions is a group blog with Tina and Lynne. Tina wrote in her review that she loved Sam and I really appreciate that. Sam was such a great character to me–so brave and willing to put herself out there.

One of my favorite parts of this story was Sam herself. She is one incredible woman. She lost her husband of two months at 19 and learned to put the pieces back together, when no one would have questioned her choice to live a sad and isolated life. She was labeled a widow at a young age yet she decided she wanted more from life. Her choice to live life to the fullest like Will, her late husband, had done, to embrace whatever life hurled at her, solidifies her as a brilliant woman. She learned to laugh again and enjoy the little things. She had no shame in her past. She embraced her quirks and never shied away from talking about the hard things and opening her heart to Gray. And the icing on the cake, she was a kickass knitter. She was the perfect compliment and companion for Gray.

Zandalee at Valley of the Book Doll made this amazing grapic to go along with her awesome review. She’s got some other great graphic cards on her site. Thank you!

Unraveled was a an incredibly sweet story. I enjoyed seeing both characters go through their own self-discovery and find strength in each other. This book was SO freaking hot! I mean, I had to fan myself every time Gray and Sam were around each other. They really had great chemistry that went beyond sexual though.

It was also great to see characters from the previous books. That’s what I love about series. You get to know the characters more and more and you begin to feel a part of their world.

Thank you to all the bloggers that helped make Unraveled’s release day exciting and successful. It’s #1 on Amazon’s Mover and Shaker list. That’s a great way to end the night!

Unraveled is live!

What an amazing past eight months have been. Since the end of April, two Woodlands novels have been published along with a Christmas novella and a collaboration with my friend, Jessica Clare. Today marks the release of the third Woodlands story featuring Staff Sgt. Gray Phillips and knitter Samantha Anderson.

Sam married her high school sweetheart and then lost him to an IED two months after their vows.  Gray’s not into commitments. He has a select few friends with benefits but has no plans on settling down. But when the two meet, sparks fly and the temptation they present to each other is too powerful to resist. Unraveled is on sale now.

AMZN:  http://amzn.to/1f3iAND | UK: http://amzn.to/KuOBEo

BN:  http://bit.ly/1dKox3H

Kobo:  http://bit.ly/LhUSUB

Apple:  http://bit.ly/1dZBYsP

Smashwords:  http://bit.ly/1dF2Sv2

ARE:  http://bit.ly/19DblxU

Signed Print Paperbacks

The print versions of these books are beautifully designed and you can order one on Amazon and get the digital copy for free! But, if you want a signed copy, you can order one for $15.00 each. Shipping is included for US and Canada.  Simply click on the Buy Now button and it will take you to Paypal. I will contact you about which book and how you want it personalized.

If you are an international reader, email me and we will work out the shipping details.

Hitman Series

Last Hit

Woodlands Series

Undeclared
Unspoken
Unraveled

Chapter Two, Unraveled

Tomorrow I’ll be pressing publish at Kindle and Nook. I’m so excited that I’m almost puking! How about Chapter Two?

You can already pre-order Unraveled at the following retailers:

Kobo: http://bit.ly/LhUSUB
iTunes: http://bit.ly/1dZBYsP
Smashwords: http://bit.ly/1dF2Sv2
All Romance: http://bit.ly/19DblxU



CHAPTER TWO

Samantha

I FELT LIKE I WORE a scarlet letter. Not “A” for adulterer but “W” for widow. I thought the defining moment of my life was going to be when I married or maybe when I had kids. Instead, it came two months after the wedding, when the “casualty team” showed up at my door, expressing the sorrowful regrets of the Secretary of the Army. I doubted the Secretary of the Army knew who my nineteen-year-old husband was, and I seriously doubted the sorrowful regrets.

My reaction wasn’t very graceful. A real Army wife would’ve stood stoically by while the two Army men in their service class “A” uniforms somberly delivered the news at the door of my condo. My response was first screaming at them followed by an ungraceful collapse on the floor and finally spewing snot all over their wool jackets.

Bitsy, my sister, tried to cheer me up months later by reading Internet articles of all the other ways I could’ve embarrassed myself. “At least you didn’t stab anyone or try to burn yourself,” she pointed out. I didn’t question the veracity of those reports because it actually did make me feel better that there were a handful of people that took the news worse than I did.

At the funeral, the chaplain had held my hand, repeatedly murmuring, “You’re so young.” That was the refrain of my life now. Samantha Anderson, widowed so young. I heard it everywhere. At the grocery store, the library, and even at the stupid bar where I worked.

It seemed like people in my life placed themselves into two general camps. There was the camp, which included my family, that was ready for me to move on from the death of my best friend, only lover, and husband of two months. The other camp wanted to enshrine me as Will Anderson’s widow forevermore. I wasn’t at all sure what camp I fell into, but I knew I was lonely. I was tired of being a widow, and I was tired of bartending for a living, and I was tired of having to serve as Will’s avatar for the family he left behind. I guess I was in the tired and lonely camp.

But I set that sentiment aside today to endure my monthly luncheon with Will’s parents—David and Carolyn. Sometimes my brother-in-law Tucker showed up, but more often than not, it was just me. Last night, Tucker had called and explained earnestly that he just wasn’t up for it this month—again. His inability to have any kind of emotional investment in his family was irritating on most days, but it was enraging on days like today. As if I looked forward to the monthly lunch.

“I’m so glad you came today, Sam.” Will’s mom patted my hand. That made one of us. It was a strained meal, what with Carolyn drinking her lunch, David criticizing her for it, and both of them wondering what I was doing to uphold Will’s memory. The slight ache at my temples that had hummed in the back of my head when I woke up was spreading across the entire surface of my skull and face. I lifted a shaky hand to my temple in an effort to relieve the pain.

“Have you registered for your classes this fall, dear?” Carolyn handed me the butter dish.

“I did. I’m taking eighteen hours.”

Carolyn tsked. “That sounds overly ambitious. Will wouldn’t have wanted you to work that hard.”

I slid a dollop of butter in the shape of a flower onto my bread plate and swallowed a sigh.

“Smart to try to catch up for lost time,” interjected David. “Since your dad gets you free tuition, you might as well take as many credits as possible.” If Carolyn had said the sky was blue, I swear David would have told her it was green. Mom said that David was a great law partner, but a sucky life partner. Lucky for Mom she got David as a law partner. It was Carolyn who had to live with him every day. He continued. “If you do eighteen credit hours every semester and at least twelve in the summer, you’ll be on to law school in two years. You got a full year under your belt before you quit the first time.”

I gave David a tight smile. He couldn’t resist getting his jabs whenever he saw an opening. “Let’s just take one semester at a time.”

“You should start planning now what prerequisites you’ll need to get your major and when’s the best time for you to take those classes.” David buttered his own roll and then pointed his butter knife at me. “Otherwise you’ll be stuck waiting around an extra semester trying to finish out your degree. No need to waste more time. After all, wasn’t going to college the reason you stayed here instead of moving to Alaska?”

Yes, David, stick the knife in deeper. Twist it around. I don’t think you’ve caused enough pain yet.

“Will would be so proud,” Carolyn added.

I fought back a grimace. He would not be proud. He hated school. Why else had he escaped to the Army right out of high school? What other reason was there to spend more and more time in the ROTC during high school, playing at drill on weekends? It was because he couldn’t stand school. And he didn’t want to be a lawyer like his dad. Like my mom.

“It’ll be nice to finally have one of you kids join the firm.” Carolyn smiled at me.

“If I don’t,” I demurred, “then Bitsy for sure will.”

“Bitsy is whipsmart, but she’s only fifteen. It’ll be eight, nine years before she can join. You can be there in five, maybe even four if you apply yourself.” David waved his knife at me again. The likelihood of anyone finishing college and law school in four years was so low that I wasn’t even going to respond.

Not that it mattered to David. He could argue both sides of a topic for hours on end. I guess it made him a great lawyer, but he was a shitty dad. Reason two why Will had hightailed it out of here before the last high school bell had rung.

David must have recognized the ridiculousness of his statement because he set down his knife and leaned closer to me. “We’re just anxious to get some young attorneys in so your mom and I can take some time off.”

Carolyn leaned in on the other side, and I felt like they were squeezing me like a lemon. “Yes, dear. David keeps promising me that Austria river cruise and we can’t do that if Anderson and Miller have no associates.”

Will would’ve told you to hire some already and stop living out your fantasies through your kids.Mom has told me that I didn’t have to sit through these lunches or all the other landmark days of Will’s life with Carolyn, but if not me, then who? Tucker, who had abandoned family events long ago, showed up only at Christmas and then only for a few hours. He refused to play Carolyn’s games, as he put it. But grief wasn’t a game. My counselor had told me that everyone grieved in their own time and in their own way. Who was to say that Carolyn was somehow wrong just because it created more pain for others around her? Will had loved his mother and I just couldn’t abandon her.

“I’ll get there,” I said. That was suitably vague. I’d agreed to go back to college, but I hadn’t fully bought into becoming the legacy that David and my mom were looking for. Well, mostly David. Mom had Bitsy. And David? He had Tucker, who was supposed to have entered the firm a couple of years ago, but he’d bailed to become a tattoo artist.

“I’ll be fine, though,” I assured Carolyn. “After this summer, I won’t be working at the bar anymore. Only classes.”

The mention of the bar brought a disappointed moue to Carolyn’s face, her lips puckering and flattening. Carolyn thought tending bar was too low class but I wasn’t sure that folding shirts at the Gap was a more honorable occupation.

“What will you be studying then?” David asked. “I think literature would be a good basis for a law degree.”

Once more David didn’t need a response. He loved the sound of his own voice and it was just best to allow him to drone on about the different majors I could take to prepare me to be the best lawyer ever.

“Will would’ve loved this place,” Carolyn said in between cocktails. I nodded but inwardly disagreed again. It was like Carolyn’s vision of Will was remade into who she thought Will should have been instead of who he was. The food wasn’t even that good but Carolyn felt like Will deserved this nice restaurant. As if he was keeping a scorecard in his afterlife of how we marked his passing. Year two. Spent at a two-star Michelin restaurant. Five cocktails. Twenty Kleenexes. A deduction for lack of crying from the wife. C+.

And lunch lurched on. I looked at the clock and then the waiter. Please bring the main course, I pleaded silently but he looked away.

EXHAUSTED AFTER LUNCH WITH THE Andersons, I wasn’t prepared to face the same question that Mark, the manager, had taken to asking me every time I walked through the door. “You okay to work the bar?” He never looked at me as he asked. The floor, the bar top, the stage where the live band performed, all held more interest, but ordinarily I’d have my work face pasted on—the one with the fake smile and happy-to-be-here attitude.

Ever since I’d had the episode, Mark had been acting awkward around me. Apparently if you start sobbing just one time while salting a margarita glass, you’re marked as a difficult employee, even if you showed up on time, didn’t try to set up dates with the bar rats, and got along with the other staff.

Mark should have cut me some slack. The days around the anniversary of Will’s death were always the worst. A newspaper reporter had contacted me wanting to know if he could interview me for a two-year retrospective on the war that wasn’t a war anymore. Pass. I was still suffering the results of the nonstop coverage that had blanketed the city the first time Will died. Every year, they tried to kill him again. Or to at least make us suffer through his death again by reporting on me, his family, and the snuffing out of the promise of his young life.

It didn’t help that a photograph of his mother and me at Will’s funeral had gone viral. We’d clasped hands over the flag given to me by the Army Honor Guard during the service. Two generations of sad women captured in one picture.

Grief porn, Bitsy had called it. Just looking at the picture made hearts ache. I’d become the girl who was widowed before her twentieth birthday. So no, I didn’t want to rehash to the media about how my nineteen-year-old husband was killed by an IED or comment on the growing epidemic of young widows. I’d hung up on him before he’d finished asking his question. But ever since the phone call in February and my subsequent breakdown at the bar, Mark had been uneasy around me, giving me looks like I was too emotionally unstable to work around regular humans.

But my bar persona was pretty good, I thought. I pretended to be happy, made appropriate jokes, and flirted with my co-bartender Eve because I couldn’t bring myself to flirt with the men at the bar. I even slicked on mascara and painted my lips dark red so that I didn’t look like a sad girl who’d lost her husband before she’d turned twenty. I wasn’t the best-looking member of the staff, but I wasn’t going to embarrass any of the Gatsby’s ownership either.

“Do you think you’ll be okay?” Mark pressed, shifting from foot to foot. Didn’t he ever tire of that question? In the days and weeks following my breakdown, I understood why he asked. When I started crying, it had actually set off a chain reaction, and then the bar had cleared because it was too depressing. I got that it had been a bad night of receipts for Mark, but bringing it up every time I came into work seemed a tad excessive.

“I’m not on the rag if that’s what you’re asking.” I decided to pretend like I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Fine.” Mark threw up his hands and walked off in a huff. In a contest between which topic was least comfortable—talking about a girl’s period or a girl’s husband’s death—I guess period talk won out. I finished wiping down the bar top and putting the glasses away. Mark would return. He just wanted to shake off the horrible vision that I’d popped into his head. I smiled a little evilly to myself. Maybe he’d associate periods with death from now on and never bring up either subject again.

Mark wandered back when I’d put up the last glass. “I’m putting you at the outdoor bar. You and Eve.”

“Ten four.” I gave him a salute. Eve was a good bartender; she was able to flirt just enough to make the guys feel handsome and strong without going so far over the line that her boyfriend, a bouncer here, felt threatened. Working at the bar meant I could concentrate on a constant buzz of activity instead of how fricking alone I felt all the time.

“Let me know if you have any trouble.” Mark held the hinged part of the bar top up as I slid under.

“And then what?” I asked. When Mark just shrugged, I patted him on his biceps. He meant well, I suppose.

The band was good and it was a gorgeous evening, so the patio bar was hopping by eight that night. Our uniforms of short black shorts and tight white t-shirts that constantly got wet ensured that the bar crowd stood three to five deep at all times. Eve and I had taken to wearing tanks underneath our Gatsby’s tops to avoid giving a free show to the guys, but they still showed up. I guess hope springs eternal.

“Did you see the eye candy Adam brought in tonight?” Eve waggled her eyebrows at me as she poured two draws at once. Adam was the son of the owner of Gatsby’s. The table just to the left of the stage was always reserved for him and his crew. The patio bar was positioned on the right of the stage.

“Nope.” And I hadn’t. Despite my loneliness, actual guys didn’t interest me much. They sometimes looked at me with lust in their eyes, usually after last call they’d come up to the bar hoping that maybe Eve or I would take up the offer that had be declined throughout the night.

I turned to look over at Adam’s table, but per usual, I couldn’t see anyone. I was too short. At five ten, Eve stood a good five inches taller than me and could generally see into the crowd. I’d have to wait until the crowd moved or the band took a break.

“Mmm.” She’d spotted him again. “Tall, buff, buzz cut so short you can see his scalp?”

Eh. Eve and I had very different ideas of what was hot in a guy. Her boyfriend, Randy, was all neck, shoulders, and muscles, which was a good fit for her because she was taller. A guy like Randy felt overpowering to me. I liked them short and wiry, and none of the guys in Adam’s group were that type. His guys were all buff and muscled, as if they were some traveling men’s fitness troupe. And, worse, at least a couple of them were former military. I could just tell by the way they held their bodies and looked around constantly, as if they feared some mortar attack from the sky.

When I got back into the dating game, which I would someday when I stopped missing Will so much, I wouldn’t be with another military guy. My perfect man was someone who loved statistics more than guns and whose idea of a grand time was shopping for a new ruler or pen. Maybe he’d even be a fellow knitter and we’d sit side by side on the sofa watching Downton Abbey and knitting each other socks. Those guys weren’t coming to the bar, though. Some smart girls had already snapped them up and were hiding those treasures in their homes.

I’d shared this with Eve once and, after I’d finished my description, she’d shaken her head. “There are two rules for dating you should never forget. One, he should be strong enough so you can have sex standing up and two, never, ever date a guy who could wear your jeans. It’s terrible for the confidence when you see your skinny jeans looking better on his ass than yours. Learn from my sad dating history,” she admonished me. Randy sure fit both those rules and so did most of Adam’s crew. I was making up my own standards though and tall, buff, brawny guys didn’t meet them.

“You know him?” I asked Eve when I swung back her way after serving a couple of drinks.

“No, but I’d like to.” She bit her fist in mock appreciation of his fineness. “Since I’m taken, I guess I’ll have to leave him to you.”

“I thought I was going to be the threesome in your and Randy’s bed tonight,” I teased, trying to divert the discussion away from Eve’s supposed man candy.

“That’s a threesome I’d like to see.” One of the bar customers leaned against the bar, waving a twenty. The guys who came to Gatsby’s in their hundred-dollar bargain suits were trying far too hard, but their clothing attracted a certain type of girl, and I hardly ever saw a guy with a suit go home alone. I wondered what the girls thought when they were taken back to the guy’s apartment that he shared with three others. Probably the same thing a guy thought when a girl took off her miracle bra. Disappointment all around.

“It’s a hundred dollars,” Eve said to Mr. Suit, while tapping his twenty. “You’ll need four more of these.”

“A hundred for what?”

“If you give them a hundred, they’ll kiss.” One of our regulars who’d been sitting at the bar since five that afternoon explained the rules. When Eve and I worked, guys were always asking for sexual things. I never really understood why they hit on us. Did they think that their ten spot was going to buy our phone numbers? Or that their lame catchphrases like “”What time you getting off tonight?” were going to make us bend over and drop our shorts? My favorite was “When are you two going to kiss? I’ll pay twenty dollars for that!” just like this joker.

Eve and I once said that we’d kiss for a hundred, and since then, we’d get offered the money several times a night. I guess it fueled some fantasy. A hundred bucks to kiss a friend? Too easy to resist.

Suit Man rounded up his friends and slapped a hundred dollars on the table. “Now kiss.”

“Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.” The chant rose up from the bar. Eve finished delivering four mugs of beer and I slipped the lime wedges on a couple of tequila shots before we met in the middle. She dug her fingers into my hair and whispered against my mouth. “Someday you oughta try kissing a guy.” Then she gave me a wet kiss as I held on to her shoulders.

When we broke apart to the shouts of encouragement, I responded. “Only if I can make fifty bucks per kiss.” Scooping up the money, I stuck it in my back pocket to split later.

She swatted me on the ass and turned back to the customers. Watching us kiss made them thirsty. When Maisey, the waitress serving Adam’s table, swung by with an order, Eve grabbed her tray and started pumping her for information. I was a little ashamed to say I sidled down the bar so I could eavesdrop.

“Who’s the big guy Adam brought in?” Eve popped the caps of three bottles and set them on the tray and took to making the rest of Maisey’s orders.

“Aren’t they delicious? I’d like a go with all of them.”

“At one time?” Eve mocked.

“Like you haven’t thought about it,” Maisey retorted.

“You ain’t woman enough for all that man meat over yonder,” Eve said. “Don’t know a woman who is. But anyway, the new guy. What’s his deal?”

“Some Marine on leave for a couple of weeks.”

A Marine? Yup, totally not interested. I drifted back down to my side of the bar. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eve toss a sidelong glance my way while gabbing with Maisey. Eve filled the rest of the order and Maisey took off. Once Maisey was out of earshot, Eve came down to see me—a naughty look on her face. She was up to something. “Take a break. Maisey says that the band is finishing up the last song of this set.” When the band took a rest, the patio usually emptied out as people went indoors to dance and hunt a different crowd. “Go on.” She started shoving me out of the bar.

“No.” I resisted but she was stronger than I was and before I knew it, I was on the wrong side of the bar counter. “Fine, I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”

“Take your time,” she sang and turned back to help some patrons.

With the band still playing a cover of “Mr. Brightside” behind me, I easily made my way to the interior of the bar and headed for the rear exit. Maybe I’d sit in my Rover and read or work a little on the layette set I was making my mother’s very pregnant administrative assistant. I’d been kind of slacking off since the good weather hit, spending more time on my tiny balcony enjoying the breeze and drinking ice tea than inside knitting, surrounded by all the artifacts of my dead husband’s life.

“Samantha Anderson, I haven’t seen you in ages!”

Teresa Bush, she of the unfortunate last name, came barreling toward me. Teresa, Will and I had graduated together. In high school, we were probably known as friends but I hadn’t laid eyes on her since Will’s funeral.

“You look great.” Her skintight sparkly red dress was a little upscale for Gatsby’s, but it matched the suits we occasionally saw wander in after work and then stay until closing. She must be enjoying a night away from her kid. At the funeral, I’d asked if she was expecting her second, and the glare she’d pinned on me had me feeling my chest for an open wound. I thought the black look she’d cast me was because I didn’t remember her kid’s name but Mom had told me later that I should never ask a woman if she was pregnant.

“You are looking…” She paused, groping for the right word. My mascara was likely making smudges around my eyes and I could feel my hair slipping out of its ponytail so Teresa was looking for an honest word to describe “mess” without being offensive.

“Like a bartender?” I offered.

She gave me a slightly superior smile, “Ha! No, good, really good. Gosh, I don’t think I’ve seen you since the funeral. It’s so good that you’re getting out and being social again.”

“I work here,” I said blandly.

“Oh right.” She tittered and then placed her hand on my shoulder to stabilize herself. “I just don’t get out very often and I think I need to sit down. Come talk to me. It’s been so long. Did you know I got a tattoo done by Tucker? Do you want to see it?” She started pulling down the bodice of her red dress. Alarmed, I looked around for Mark, thinking that he could call her a cab. It was early though, barely nine thirty. Poor girl must not get out much what with the kid at home. “Um, should I call you a cab?”

“Why?” She smiled drunkenly at me. “Are we going to go to another party? I can’t believe you’re here. You are so brave. So so brave.” She hiccupped. “If my husband had died after just two months of marriage I think I would’ve died myself. You looked so fragile at the wedding. Or funeral. Which was it?”

My feelings of sympathy toward her were fast evaporating and I needed to escape. Like David, Teresa didn’t need a response. She rambled on, telling me about her kid and how it was nearly impossible to get a night to herself and how the Mai Tais we served were delicious. I tried to look rapt while searching for a way to escape. One of my stupid reasons not to move to Alaska with Will when he went there to learn how to jump out of airplanes was that I didn’t want to be away from my friends and family. But as Teresa described a life experience a thousand miles from what I knew, the pain of regret squeezed my heart tight.

I looked around for assistance, but no one appeared available. Heck, no one even seemed to be paying attention to us as she rattled on about how much food her five year old ate and how clever he was for using a fork. No one noticed my predicament besides a tall guy leaning against the interior bar with a smile dancing around the edges of his mouth. Below the short sleeves of his T-shirt, the muscles in his arms were well-defined, and they flexed lightly as he supported his weight on his elbows. He was probably too far away to hear what she was saying, but he found something amusing about my situation.

We stared at each while she talked on and on. She’d moved past my own personal courage and her child’s dexterity to speak about her own bravery in having children given her small birthing channel. I felt Teresa wiggle her hips to draw attention to them but I couldn’t look away from the guy at the bar.

As she talked on, I watched as he pushed slowly away from the wall while maintaining eye contact. There was something familiar about him, and for a second I wondered if we’d met before. He walked so confidently, his bearing erect. His arms were held just so at his sides, as if he was ready for anything. With purpose, he strode toward me. I would have remembered this guy if we’d met before. Even in my fog of grief, I would have been able to appreciate a guy who stood an inch or two over six feet tall and whose shoulders were so broad that I wondered if he had trouble fitting through an ordinary door.

Those shoulders tapered into a lovely V that would have made any other girl’s mouth water. Good thing I was immune to those feelings. I could look, appreciate the work of art in front of me, and go home unaffected. If I hadn’t been completely unsusceptible, I’d be in big trouble but, as I reminded myself, I liked slim, short guys, not men whose jeans could swallow me whole or who could hold me up while we had sex—which short guys could do anyway.

“Hey, sweetheart.” The stranger bent down and brushed his lips against the side of my face in what seemed to be a kiss. It’d been so long that maybe it was just a puff of air against my cheek, but I thought I felt his soft lips touch my skin. Whatever it was, it raised a flock of winged things inside my stomach. “I’ve been waiting for you. Gotta introduce you to my boys.”

My gaze flitted from Teresa’s wide-eyed gaze to the stranger’s, which I now saw was hazel. I ignored the flutter in my belly and the feeling, well, lower. It wasn’t my heart rate that had accelerated. The pounding in my ears had to be from some other source. Hot males didn’t affect me like they apparently affected Teresa, whose eyes had glazed over and who might actually be trying to sniff the guy. The man signaled to Steve, the indoor bartender, who came over and led Teresa to a chair. I watched the whole thing like I was in a trance.

The stranger cupped my elbow and directed me toward the patio, but I didn’t want to go back to the patio. Strangely, I directed him down the hallway, past the bathrooms, and then turned right before an emergency exit door that was just an ordinary door, which all the staff knew, and probably some of the patrons as well. I couldn’t extricate myself from his grasp if I’d wanted to. The touch of his calloused fingers against my elbow was as powerful as an alien tractor beam.

“I, ah, thank you,” I stammered out.

“You just looked like you needed a rescue,” he murmured, his mouth inches from my head. We were facing each other, his hand still holding my elbow. I swore I could feel his breath ruffling my hair and my whole body shivered from the sensation.

“Is that your gig? Rescuing folks?”

He stuck his tongue into the side of his mouth. “Yeah, you could say that.” His eyes wandered over me, taking in my unkempt hair, mascara-smudged eyes, and slightly damp T-shirt, made wet by the constant handling of mugs, bottles, and shots.

Teresa may have been tipsy or drunk but she’d still looked immaculate. Her blonde hair, lighter than mine and perfectly dyed, had been blown out into the perfect summer beach wave hairstyle. My own hair was drawn into a simple ponytail and I was acutely aware of all the strands that had snuck out during my hours of work and how my fingers were pruny from handling all the liquids behind the bar. I wore sneakers, low ankle socks, black cotton shorts and a simple white T-shirt. Even the worst-dressed bar patron was more put together than me.

I smoothed a few strands behind my ears, an action that loosened his firm grip on my elbow, before I caught myself. What was I doing? Why should I care what this guy thought of how I looked? I tucked my fingers in my shorts pocket. My elbow already felt cold, missing his touch. I frowned at myself. This was so unlike me.

“Do we know each other? You look really familiar to me.” I looked at him suspiciously.

He smiled broadly at me. “I don’t think so but let’s remedy that. Gray Phillips, from San Diego.”

“Sam Anderson.” I took his right hand in my right hand and shook it. “From here.”

“You’re working the patio bar, right?”

I nodded, still holding his hand, enjoying the feel of it. He had a nice grip, firm, calloused, but not too rough. And it was very large. Very, very large. Like I think it could span my whole waist. Before I knew it, I was pressing his large hand against my stomach. His eyes widened and his nostrils flared at my unthinking invitation, and before my good sense could catch up with my instincts, his head was lowering toward mine.

A faint scent of spice and ocean invaded my nose, the subtle smell drowning out the heavier smells of the bar. I should be smelling sweat from the dance floor and yeast from the spilled beer or maybe even ammonia from the cleaning supplies behind me but in this little corner my senses were filled with him.

“I’ve been watching you all night.” His mouth was right above the tip of my ear and I felt something crack inside me—a fissure was forming in the mask I’d donned earlier today or perhaps his breath, his touch, his words were simply hastening the demise of the barriers I’d held between myself and everyone else for two years. Inside my body, it felt like there was an awakening, and every fiber of my being reached toward him, upward and outward as if I were a flower on the first day of a spring rain. I lifted my head to gaze up, wide-eyed and anxious with anticipation.

Some part of my brain was telling me that the storage closet was just two steps to my right and that the exit door was just beyond that. I knew my Rover was outside, and all three were safer than standing here almost in his embrace, but I couldn’t hear the warning over the pounding of my heartbeat. He bent toward me, his face serious. Even in the low light of the corner, I could see the gold flecks feathering out from the center of his eyes.

“I’m going to kiss you now.” His voice was deep and rough, and it matched the rest of his thoroughly masculine body.

“I know,” I whispered back. And I wanted that kiss from Gray, even though he ordinarily wouldn’t be my type at all. I wanted it more than I wanted to breathe. When his mouth molded against mine, it felt like bliss—as if my whole cold body had been submerged into a warm bath. If I thought I had been engulfed before it was nothing like I felt at that moment. My entire world—my thoughts, my feelings, my senses—were full of him. I tasted the mint and hops on his tongue. I inhaled the scents of cinnamon and bergamot and ocean of his faint cologne into my airways. I felt the calloused palm on my waist and then lower against the exposed skin of my thigh. His dense muscles were drawn tight under his skin and the fabric of his t-shirt and he felt as strong as a citadel. The moan that had been building since he first backed me into the wall escaped. It had been so long since I’d had the touch of a man’s hand on any part of me, and I nearly wept at the pleasure of it.

Every square inch of my body felt sensitized, as if I’d been an unlit Christmas tree and I’d just been plugged in. I wanted to feel his hands all over, not just on that patch of thigh. I needed his touch in those secret places, those places I thought had calcified. I’d thought I’d been waiting for the smooth hands of an accountant but the longer, rougher fingers pushing the hem of my shorts up couldn’t belong to a man who worked in an office.

His tongue and mouth broke from mine to leave a hot, wet path from my mouth, across my jaw line, and down to my neck. My leg lifted of its own accord and he took it as a sign to hitch me up higher until both my legs either dangled off the floor or wrapped around him. I chose to wrap my legs around him and was rewarded with a thick hard column pressing into my sex. We both groaned at the contact and I could feel his sound against my neck. The reverberations sent minor shocks throughout my nervous system. Holding me up against the wall, he began thrusting against me rhythmically, every impact of his hips making me hotter and wetter than I thought I could get.

I gripped him tighter with my legs and dug my hands into his hair, using every bit of his body as leverage. He held me up with ease, as if I were a feather. One hand was under my right butt cheek and the other was exploring my left side, pulling out my T-shirt, only to find the tank underneath. Needing his mouth back, I tugged on his hair and he took the hint immediately. He fastened his lips over mine and we devoured each other, still rubbing our lower bodies against each other as the bass from the dance floor pounded the floor boards.

Whimpering, I begged in moans and small cries for more. A familiar but almost forgotten tension was winding its way from between my legs outward. All thoughts of storage rooms and hallways and strangers were lost in the swirl of bright lights bursting behind my eyelids.

“I got you, baby,” he growled against my mouth. “Just let go.” And so I did. I closed my eyes and let those long-dormant feelings wash over me, spreading from the inside of my legs to the nerve endings in my toes and fingertips and the very top of my head. And he kept grinding and grinding and grinding against me, whispering in my ear how I was the hottest thing he’d ever held, how he couldn’t wait to taste me, how he’d die if he couldn’t be inside me tonight.

Charlotte Chronicles XII

Don’t forget the release of Unraveled is just around the corner. We even have a pre order link if you are an iBooks reader. Pre Order link.

I posted the entire first chapter of Unraveled here.

***

Nathan



I spend most of the night with one eye open just waiting for Charlotte’s parents to burst through the door but even with that anxiety hovering around the edges of my consciousness I don’t leave. Charlotte’s hand is tucked into mine is more effective than a chain bolted to the floor. I can tell that she is confused by my response to her and I am as well. These feelings came on so fast and neither of us are prepared. I had some vague idea Charlotte and I would end up together but that was in the future. Her being sick, nearly dying had changed things. But we aren’t ready. I’m not ready.

The memory of the last time I had sex flicks through my mind and I get an instant erection. Nick is having more sex than me right now but I know I shouldn’t care. I know other guys would either be having sex with other girls or be taking Charlotte up on her offer. Although what she is offering I’m not sure. And it’s not like Charlotte and I are dating or even a couple. We’re connected though. For so long I’ve just taken for granted that she’ll be around when I’m ready for her. And right now she’s too young and I’m trying hard to push away those physical feelings. Emotional ones are okay but I feel two inches high whenever I get hard around her. But going off to another girl? That seems just as wrong now. Before, yeah, it was easy. The idea of not having sex for some interminable amount of time in the future is bleak. I wonder if I can die from a build up of sperm or if my dick really will fall off if I jerk it too much in the shower. Maybe it would be better if she left. If she was gone, wouldn’t it be easier for me to go without? No temptation around.

I hold myself immobile so I don’t disturb her sleep but she finally lets go right before dawn, about the time I usually get up and lift weights so I tell myself it’s okay to leave her. She mumbles something but I don’t catch it. Leaning over, I tuck the blankets around her and kiss her forehead.

“Naaaate.” She sighs out my name, the a sounding like one long breathy syllable and it sends shivers down my spine and I’m hard. Just like that. Adjusting myself, I creep out, glad that the hallway is quiet. All doors are shut and I can escape into my own home unnoticed. The kitchen is dark except for the range light over the hood.

“You can spend as much time as you like with her before she leaves, but she is leaving.”

My hand is on the doorknob but my heart is somewhere around my knees. If I had poor bladder control, I would have pissed myself. At least my boner died.

“Jesus Christ, Aunt AM.” I swear forgetting myself. In the shadows, across the room, sits Charlotte’s mother, a mug in her hand and her tablet in front of her on the breakfast table. I hope she didn’t see me tenting my pants earlier. I won’t die from sperm build up. One of Charlotte’s parents will kill me instead. “I d-didn’t see you,” I stammer out.

“No kidding.” I can hear the smirk in her voice. “The fog comes on little cat feet.”

“Huh?”

“Carl Sandberg.” When I show no understanding, she shakes her head. “School’s these days. It’s about the Chicago Harbor! The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. You’ve never heard that?”

It rings a faint bell so I nod but she isn’t buying it. “Come.” She orders. “Sit down.”

I trudge over, my feet slapping heavily against the tiles. She kicks out a chair and I drop into it.

“Why?” I ask sullenly feeling like I’m a toddler again and Aunt AM is taking away my favorite toy.

I can feel her looking at me, but the light from the range hood doesn’t extend over here. The only light is from her tablet which has flickered off. Gone to sleep I guess.

“If Charlotte wanted to go to the Navy Pier, would you take her?”

I know that there is a trap here. I hesitate and it’s my first mistake. “No,” I say.

“How do you stop her? Physically restrain her? And if she tells you that it is fine and that her doctor has okayed it, do you call her a liar?” The questions come rapid fire and I can’t process them all at once. “You eventually give in because you love her and you think she must know, after this most recent episode put her in the hospital, that she can’t keep hiding her weakness.”

I nod slowly at this assessment, but I’m uncertain. Would I keep Charlotte from doing something she said she was safe to do? Charlotte can talk me into anything and if she said that it was safe I’d believe her. My tongue is still frozen by doubt. Aunt AM continues on, using my silence against me.

“And if she had an episode, a seizure or passed out would you blame yourself?” I nod again because anything else would be an obvious lie. “We want to prevent that from happening. Where you’re blaming yourself and Charlotte avoids placing all of you in a bad situation.”

“How long?” I ask.

“Six maybe nine months. We hope to be back before your senior year and her sophomore year.”

I’m glad now that we can’t see each other because what I’m feeling right now is something like relief. I shouldn’t feel that way but it’s like Charlotte’s absence will give me time to sort out everything.

“Before may 21st?”

I sense her shrug. “Maybe before her 16th birthday. It depends on how hard Charlotte works at getting better. Does she do everything her doctors ask or does she try to hide her symptoms and pretend she isn’t as sick as she is.”

“Okay,” I say. I mean, it’s not like I have a choice in the matter. Aunt AM gets to her feet and gives me a hug. Standing up, I return her embrace already feeling a hundred times better.

“It’s the right thing for all of us,” she murmurs to me.

“Thanks Aunt AM.” I’m nearly at the connecting door when she calls out.

“Don’t let Bo know you are marking when Charlotte turns 16 or you might not live to see your next birthday.”

Because I am a stupid and reckless shit I give Aunt AM a salute and a grin. She mock tosses her tablet at me and I disappear down the hall.M y cocky belief that all will work itself out reasserts itself. Six months? Nothing can happen that would affect us in six months. By then Charlotte won’t be so young. Sixteen is perfect. Six months is perfect.

***

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Chapter One, Unraveled, Release date January 20, 2014

CHAPTER ONE

Gray

“You sure I can’t give you a ride, Sgt. Phillips?” the sixty-year-old woman I’d sat next to on the airplane asked for the fifth time.

“No ma’am,” I replied promptly. “Where can I put these for you?”

“Right here is just fine.” She pointed to a luggage cart.

“I’d be happy to carry them to the car for you.” The cart might be easy for her to maneuver but lifting the heavy luggage into her trunk by herself? Not happening.

“My son is picking me up and I promise I won’t lift a thing.”

I looked around skeptically but didn’t see anyone but my own ride. I gave Bo Randolph a chin nod of acknowledgment but held on to the carry-on bag that looked like someone had puked flowers all over it.

“What’s up, man?” Bo bumped my fist in greeting and then pulled me in for a hug.

“Just making sure Mrs. Kremer gets to her car in one piece.”

“We’re waiting for my son,” she chirped. “And there he is now.” Mrs. Kremer’s son looked to be balding and forty. One glance from Bo and we silently agreed that despite her son showing up, we’d still be helping them out. Over both their protests, Bo and I picked up the luggage and placed it in the back of the four-door sedan. Mrs. Kremer gave us both a kiss, leaving behind the smell of lilacs and baby powder.

“Always the good Samaritan,” Bo joked as we walked to his crackerjack box of a car.

“You helped.”

He just shook his head. “Only because I’d have looked like a fool standing there while you hauled her luggage around.”

“She looked frail,” I protested. “Besides, you and I’ve both carried far more weight over much longer distances. Enough about the woman, let’s talk about your damn car. Will my pack even fit in there?”

“Yes, princess, it will. How come you didn’t ask Noah to pick you up if you hate my baby so much?” He hit a button and a sorry excuse for trunk space appeared at the rear of the vehicle.

“I didn’t want to make you cry. You’re an ugly crier,” I said. I threw my seabag and pack into the trunk and wedged myself inside the even tinier interior.

“True that. Seriously, forty-five days? How’d you manage that?”

“How do you think? I’m a lucky fuck.”

“So The Honorable Dennis Phillips came through?”

“Guess so.” My old man was on the House Armed Services Committee and had pulled some strings to get special dispensation for me to take forty-five consecutive days of leave at the beginning of summer. The fact that it went through was helped by the fact I’d taken almost zero leave for the past six years and that I possessed a spotless record, but it was still a big deal. Other Marines would have killed to have even half that many days off in the summer. Literally knifed me in the gut. I shifted in the seat, which was too narrow for my six-foot-one, two-hundred-and-five-pound frame. “This car is too fucking small for you.”

“I like ‘em tight.” Bo stroked the leather dash of his sports car.

“Given your dick is so tiny, it’s no wonder you need ‘em small. AnnMarie’s still a virgin then?”

“What?” He jerked his hand back and glared at me. “No talking about AnnMarie and sex. Besides, I saw you staring at my junk plenty while we were in A-stan.”

“Because you whipped it out every five seconds.”

“Can’t help that my dick’s so big my regulation pants couldn’t keep it in.”

I shook my head but knew I was grinning like a loon. “Missed you, man.”

“You too,” Bo said, smiling back. “Forty-five days is going to be gone in a blink of an eye.”

“I know.” My grin dimmed a little. This wasn’t entirely a vacation. My exact orders from Congressman Phillips were to pull my fucking head out of my ass and sign my re-enlistment papers or start applying for college. He wanted me out and my grandfather wanted me to stay in. I felt a little like a sorry bone between two angry pit bulls.

I had eight years under my belt, a new meritorious promotion to staff sergeant that I wasn’t sure I deserved, and some serious doubt about whether being a career Marine was the right choice for my future. During our family Christmas, I had made the mistake of mentioning that evaluating everyone’s “knife hands” while running during physical training didn’t hold a lot of meaning—and Dad had pounced.

“There’s plenty of room for you outside the Corps,” he’d said.

Then Pops had bristled. “Corps was good enough for me and good enough for you. No sense in planting doubt in the boy’s head where there was none before.”

Match to kindling, the two had gotten into one of their heated arguments. Having two career Marines scream at each other like they were trying to make the other break first had resulted in Mom leaving the table in tears and my two older brothers glaring at me. I’d wanted to sink under the tablecloth but since I’d started it, I sat there and took it like the man I was supposed to be.

Since then I’d told Pops that my commitment was as sound as ever and Dad that I’d think about college. When Bo and Noah, two former Marines in my platoon, invited me to spend my leave at their posh pad with a bevy of college coeds at the ready, I fled before the yelling could start again.

“You really in a tizzy about whether to re-enlist?” Bo asked, surprise evident in his voice.

“Marines don’t get into tizzies,” I scoffed. “We get angry. Also drunk. Shitfaced. Tired. No tizzies, though.”

“Which one are you?”

“Tired. I’m supposed to shit or get off the pot.”

“Is shitting staying in or getting out?”

“We all know that re-enlisting is for the motards who can’t stop wearing all their USMC gear off the base, have more than one Marine tattoo, and can recite the Marine Hymn by heart.”

“So you, essentially.”

I slunk down in the seat and pressed a thumb to my temple. “Which is why I should get out before I become one of those Marines that we all made fun of when we were lance corporals.”

“What’s the real problem?”

I pressed harder. “The real problem? Let’s see. I didn’t sign my re-enlistment papers yet, causing Captain Billings to call my dad, who then decided to gleefully tell Pops he had lost. They yelled. Mom cried. Oh, and my ex is sniffing around again.” And it sucked being responsible for people instead of just equipment, but I didn’t admit that last one out loud.

“Do whatever you can to make your mom stop crying,” Bo advised. “If mama isn’t happy, ain’t no one gonna be happy.”

“Maybe.” The sad truth of it was that someone was going to be unhappy. Because I cared about all of them, that sucked. Hoping to change the subject, I said, “You fuckers better have something good planned for me every day.”

“We said you could come stay with us and hang out, not that we’d be your cruise directors.”

“All I want to know is whether AnnMarie and Grace are bringing some single friends over. I’m a Marine on leave. I need some special attention.”

“AnnMarie’s neighbor’s got a thing for guys, I’m pretty sure.”

“Yeah.” My interest was piqued. Both Noah and Bo had been single in the Corps and for two years after they separated. The minute they’d moved up here to go to Central College, they’d each hooked so tightly to a girl that neither could move without the other feeling it. I hoped it wasn’t something in the water. I didn’t need or want that kind of complication. But hot girlfriends meant hot single female friends and that was all good in my book. “Hot? Good personality? What?”

“He’s bi-curious, according to AM.”

I groaned. “Sorry. Gray don’t play that way. What about AnnMarie’s roommate? Seem to remember that she had a tight ass and body.”

“Taken.”

“Do you know any single women?”

“I’m not a pimp either.”

“You suck.”

“That was your fantasy, wasn’t it?”

“How did you end up with such a classy piece like AnnMarie?”

“Dunno but if you fuck it up for me, I’d have to kill you.” He was dead serious. That was another thing that just didn’t make sense in my world anymore. Bo had once been the biggest skirt chaser in our platoon. It didn’t matter if the girl was big, small, or Martian, he’d do them. Now all he could talk about was one chick. And if that didn’t set a lad’s mind spinning, I didn’t know what would. It confused me because all I knew of women was that they’d cheat on you the second your back was turned. I learned that lesson early on and that cheating girlfriend had been my last.

“You’ve discovered my evil plan. I’m here to lure your girl back to San Diego with me.” I rolled my eyes. He knew, like all the guys in my platoon, that I didn’t believe a relationship with a woman could ever survive repeated deployments or a twenty-four-month unaccompanied tour to Okinawa or some other overseas duty station.

“You still believe in the no-relationships-while-serving thing?” This time, it was Bo rolling his eyes.

“It’s not a thing. It’s a truism. Semper Fidelis only matters within the Corps. Feel free to fuck your brother’s girlfriend, sister, mother, so long as you’re true to the Corps.” The bitter taste of infidelity always sat on the back of my tongue no matter how many times I tried to swallow it away.

“That’s healthy.”

“Thanks, Oprah. I’ll let you know when I need more relationship advice.”

“Just pointing out that the odds aren’t much better outside the Corps, if that’s one of the reasons you’re thinking of not re-enlisting.”

“Does Noah have to suffer your Dear Abby musings?” Noah Jackson and Bo were my kind of Marines. They fought hard and didn’t complain, but they knew how to have a good time when we weren’t busy picking sand out of our asses.

Noah was the more serious of the two and I’d thought he would have made a career of the military, but his ambitions were different. He wanted to build an empire and you couldn’t do that on a military salary—no matter how much combat pay you received. We’d both signed up for every possible tour we could in all the most dangerous places. My burning ambition was to have as much adventure as possible. Unlike Noah, I didn’t need to own the world to be happy. These days, though…I wasn’t exactly sure what I needed.

When I was ten, Pops had given me a knife engraved with Semper Fidelis on the blade. He’d retired after thirty years in the Corps, and my father had made it to twenty. But neither of my two older brothers were interested, and so it had fallen to me to carry out the tradition. After years of hearing whispered stories of bravery and honor and brotherhood, I couldn’t wait to wear the dress blues and the white gloves and carry that damn sword. Because I enlisted during war time, I got to do things that had meaning.

Since the troop drawdown, though, I’d felt…unmoored, to borrow a Navy term, as if I was standing on ever-shifting sand. People I’d known for a long time were changing. All around me, guys were settling down, picking out furniture, and going to flea markets on the weekends. They did couples things, like couples’ showers and shit like that, and while I didn’t want to go to those damn things, I felt like everyone else was moving on and that I was just stuck, spinning my wheels like I was some stupid groundhog that should be put out of my misery.

I don’t know what it was, but every time I had gone to sign those re-enlistment papers, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. On one side, I had my pops and my commanding officer, Captain Billings, warning me about how boat space was shrinking and that even for an exemplary Marine like myself I could be squeezed out if I didn’t hurry my ass up. On the other side sat my dad, who sang an entirely tune—that I should get out now while I still had time to go to college, find a job, settle down.

Then there were the men in my platoon. Good men who would place their lives in my hands. I wasn’t just making sure that my weapon was ready now but that theirs were too, and that was a responsibility you didn’t take lightly.

“Nah, you know Noah doesn’t speak unless it is absolutely necessary,” Bo said, answering my earlier question. “His frozen yogurt palace is always stuffed full of estrogen. We could swing by and scope out the women there.”

“I thought you’d said that the only females in Noah’s shop were a mess of teenage girls and soccer moms.”

“So? They’re still females.”

“My choices are to be a pedo bear or cougar bait?”

“Better go cougar. They’re in their sexual prime. They could teach you something.”

“Let’s just head to your place.” Upon arriving, I pulled my gear out of the trunk and followed Bo into the home he shared with Noah and three other guys – one complete with full floor to ceiling plate glass windows at the rear that overlooked a pool. The weather was great here. I’d missed the beach back in San Diego, but I needed to get away. The more distance I put between the base and me, the better I felt. Right then, I wanted to pound some beer, ogle some women, and relax.

A loud noise like a gunshot echoed, and I immediately ducked down to my knees, throwing my bag in front of me. I looked for Bo, but he was propped against the counter, crying with laughter.

“I’m so sorry.” AnnMarie leaned over me—her long dark hair nearly touching my face. “We just popped the champagne.”

I looked around and saw a group of people with shocked faces and a few girls in front holding a sign that said “Welcome, Grunt.” One of Bo’s roommates (whose name I didn’t remember) stood frozen with the bottle in question, champagne dribbling from the open neck like he was pissing all over the floor. Noah broke from the group and pulled me to my feet because Bo—the asshole—was still laughing.

“Sorry, we weren’t thinking.” Noah tried to look repentant, but I could see he was fighting a big-ass grin too. The crowd had recovered, and he started introducing me around.

“You fuckers.” I laughed, because it was funny. You could take the Marine grunt off the base, but you couldn’t eliminate his reaction to close-quarters fire. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you planned that.”

“Bo would’ve had to frisk you to make sure you didn’t draw on us.” Noah shook his head. “We both know he’d have liked that far too much.”

One little blonde who’d been part of the sign committee murmured a few words I didn’t catch. I thought her name was Alice or Amy or something like that. I’d met her before when I’d come up for a weekend to see Bo and Noah’s set up.

“What’s that, sweetheart?” I had to double over to talk to her. Some guys loved a good height disparity. I preferred a taller women. Easier to have sex standing up.

“You guys are all so mean to each other. Noah made us write grunt on your sign.” She stuck her lower lip out, which might have been an invitation to do something, although I wasn’t sure for what.

“Grunt is a good thing for a Marine. You have to pass infantry school, otherwise you’re in the rear with the gear,” I explained. After eight years of being enlisted, I spent most of my time with other Marines or Marine wives and Marine girlfriends. I didn’t love explaining things to civilians but part of why I’d come here to see Bo and Noah in the Midwest was to get away from the military folks, clear my head, and come up with a life plan. God, I sounded like Dr. Phil.

“What’s infantry school?”

I reined in my impatience and started to explain when Grace came over and rescued me.

“Amy,” Grace said. “Leave the pretty Marine alone. His glass is empty and you know how guys get when their glass is empty.”

“They get thirsty?” Amy asked.

I kind of wanted to hear Grace’s reply, but her eyes were silently telling me to get while the getting was good. I fled to the group out at the pool, which included Bo’s girlfriend.

“AnnMarie, you got any cute, single girlfriends available for me?” Truthfully, I planned to keep my pants zipped the entire time I was here, but I figured people expected me to be a horndog—and I didn’t like to let anyone down.

“There’s a whole bunch of single women here.” She waved a hand at the ever growing crowd. “We held this party just for you.”

“I appreciate that, but I’m only here for a short time. Pick one for me. I want to use my time wisely.”

“Oh no, not the ‘why one night hook ups don’t make good sex’ lecture.” Bo groaned.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Ignore him. Bo doesn’t like anything that requires thinking,” I said.

“He’s actually very smart.” She looked adorably peeved that I was saying anything bad about her boy. While I enjoyed giving both my boys shit, I was happy that Bo was with someone who defended him so fiercely. I kind of wanted that. Someday. Like in ten years, I told myself.

“I can see you’re still in the early stages of a strong infatuation,” I teased, wondering how long it would be before Bo would carry AnnMarie off to have some dirty hot sex that we’d all hear because this house, as nice as it was, did not have enough sound proofing. I’d learned that the last time I’d come to visit. The guys in this house enjoyed the ladies, often and loudly.

“I want to hear this theory,” AnnMarie said.

Bo flopped back and heaved a huge theatrical sigh. “Now we’re in for it.”

She put her hand over his mouth. “Start talking.”

He must have licked her hand because she pulled it away with a yelp and wiped her palm on her shirt, giving Bo a dirty look. Yup, it was official. I was jealous of one of my oldest friends because of the easy relationship he had with his girl. Maybe coming here had been a mistake.

I forced my gaze away from the happy couple and onto the growing crowd. There were a lot of gorgeous women here, and many of them were eyeing me like I was top grade prime rib at an all-you-can-eat buffet. I’d be a fool not to take advantage of an offer.

I turned to AnnMarie to explain my theory. “It’s not that hook ups aren’t good but it’s like the difference between a nice song and an awesome concert. One is a three-minute interlude. The other is an event. The better you know your partner, the better the sex is.” My eyes surveyed the eclectic mix of students, construction workers, musicians, and gym rats that made up the new friends of my old friends. If I did hook up, I wouldn’t want anyone who would form an attachment. My time here was temporary, after all.

“Maybe for you it’s three minutes.” Bo smirked.

“Whatever. You can’t tell me it’s not better with AnnMarie than anyone else.”

“I was a virgin when I met AnnMarie,” Bo said loftily. AnnMarie just rolled her eyes. “Besides, just because AnnMarie knows a girl, doesn’t mean she knows her medical history.”

“Why do you need that?” She quirked an eyebrow at me.

“I’m just careful,” I replied. I didn’t want to go into the long, sordid story about my past brush with a serious STI due to a cheating girlfriend. I’d come away clean, thankfully, but it had been a close call.

“Plus she has to be in the medical profession,” Bo added.

“Jesus, she does not.” I was going to have to take him to the ground because he’d forgot the kind of beating I could deliver.

“Your last three ‘companions’ were in the health field.” Bo held up his fingers. I grabbed a couple and twisted them back as he tried to hit me with his other fist. AnnMarie grabbed at him and he subsided. Still, her scowl was directed at me.

“I’m not going to hook you up with any of my friends if you’re dating someone!” she said disgustedly.

“I’m not seeing anyone,” I assured her. “I’m just not into the bar hook up.”

“Why’s that?” This was a question from Adam, the one who’d popped the champagne cork. He had more tattoos than some of the guys I served with. I guess it went with his rock band lifestyle.

“Safety,” I said.

“Too many chances of putting the stick in crazy?” another roommate asked. It was Finn this time, the guy who actually owned this house.

“No way. Crazy is awesome. Crazy in the head; crazy in the bed,” Adam said.

I shook my head. “No. Disease. Pregnancy scares.”

“Suit up, man.” Adam tipped his head back and drained his beer. I waited until he was done to impart some much-needed sense. It was the same tip I gave to the new recruits.

“You can still get herpes on your ball sack.”

Adam looked down at his lap and so did nearly every guy within listening distance. One by one, they all got up and left. Presumably to go look at their nuts. Bo gave me a nudge and high-fived me. Civilians, Marines—they were all the same in some ways.

Grace came wandering out and sat down next to us. “Where is everyone?”

“Checking out their balls,” AnnMarie said. Her dry delivery made Bo and me crack up again while Noah looked on with a smirk.

###

After Adam had convinced himself his gonads were in good health, he showed me where I’d be staying for the few weeks I’d be here.

“You sure I’m not putting you out or anything?” I threw my seabag and backpack down near the door in case Adam had changed his mind about letting me use his room. The place was pretty clean for being the bedroom of a twenty-five-year-old musician who lived with four other guys. Not military clean. There was shit everywhere, like two guitars in the corner and a mess of woven bracelets, heavy silver rings, guitar picks, and what looked like four or five different pairs of headphones on a dresser. But there weren’t any empty pizza boxes on the floor or half-filled beers on the nightstand. Instead, it looked like the room of a guy who lived in his music.

“Nah, I’m going to bunk in the garage. It’s where most my instruments are anyway.” Adam went over to the dresser and shoved everything off the top and into the drawer beneath it—presumably clearing space for my shit. “This is the bathroom.” Adam opened the door to what I’d thought was a closet. Inside was a decent-sized bathroom with a shower, a toilet and a sink and another door. “Closet’s through there. I tried to clear a little space for you.” The closet looked like a denim factory. There were dozens of jeans piled on custom shelves and another full set of shelves with an unholy amount of boots and shoes.

“Not to be offensive, man, but you’ve more clothes and shoes than any guy I’ve ever met.”

Adam gave a negligent shrug. “I like clothes. So sue me.”

“I’ll just leave my stuff in my bag.” I didn’t feel comfortable setting my gear up beside Adam’s. I was only here for a short while and I’d had plenty of practice living out of my pack.

“Your call,” Adam said. “Use what you want. The cleaning crew comes on Wednesdays at three. We all try to get out of here and leave them alone.” He paused, looked around the room again, and then gave me another shrug.

The cleaning crew explained the decent state of the room. The shrug, however, was weird but I let it pass without comment because it wasn’t any of my business. If Adam had been in my platoon, I would have probably had to ask nosy questions to make sure he wasn’t fucking up his personal life so bad that it would affect his performance in the Corps. But he wasn’t, so I shut my mouth, showered off the travel grime, and shrugged on a fresh T-shirt, cargo shorts, and sandals. Downstairs, the party seemed to be in full swing, with people littering the patio outside and some poorly playing a first-person action game on the big screen in the living area.

“You allow these atrocities to occur without retribution?” I asked Bo, who was leaning against the wall grimacing as the video game players missed kill shot after kill shot.

“I don’t know them but we can dunk them out in the pool later.”

“This is just a normal everyday occurrence here?” I waved at the mass of people moving in and out of the house toward the back patio and into the pool. Bo’s gaze traveled around the room, stopping at AnnMarie talking animatedly to some girl I hadn’t met. I had to nudge Bo out of whatever fantasy he was concocting. He jerked a little and then punched me in the arm. “The fuck?” I said, punching him back.

“I was having a moment.” He scowled. Like he hadn’t had a moment earlier when he’d dragged AnnMarie away from the pool for some private time.

“Let her be for a minute and maybe she’ll miss you,” I retorted. This riled Bo up and soon we were grappling on the hard wooden floor. He struck me twice in the ear. Bo had big fists but his larger body also made it easier to maneuver around him.

I’d gotten a choke hold around his neck and was pulling his head away from his shoulders when a huge stream of cold water hit my face. “Motherfucking what?” I yelled, dropping Bo. AnnMarie stood there with an empty pot, looking both exasperated and amused.

“You guys are acting like you’re five.” She tapped her foot by my head.

“Nah, I was still fighting like this when I was fifteen.” I smiled, getting up and pulling her in for a hug. I pressed my wet body against hers for all of one second before Bo pulled me off. He and Noah picked me up and proceeded to throw me into the pool.

I kicked off my shoes and stripped off my T-shirt and shorts, throwing the whole lot up on the pool deck.

“Keep your panties on,” Bo shouted as my clothing hit the concrete.

“No worries, man, I won’t embarrass you by showing my package to all the girls here.”

“No one wants to see your pasty white ass.”

“I think you’re more afraid that AnnMarie will see my giant dick and leave you.” Predictably, Bo jumped into the pool. We started trying to drown each other, but I’d had too much training for that.

Bo’s entry into the pool prompted the rest of the crowd to jump in and soon I was too interested in all the honeys around me to want to wrestle with Bo anymore. Noah tossed me a pair of swim trunks, and I changed under the water. We played pool games until I was too hungry to be distracted by all the bikini-clad coeds in the water with me.

“You really know how to press Bo’s buttons,” AnnMarie commented as I threw together a sandwich and wolfed it down in three bites.

“When you spend a few years stuck next to a guy 24/7, you get to know him pretty well,” I explained. She handed me a soda and I drained that too.

“Did you hate it? Is that why you want to get out?” she asked, sipping at her drink.

I made up another sandwich before answering her. Part of me resented the question, but that’s why I was here, and I guess everyone knew it. Answering their questions might help sort out the confusion in my own mind. “Everyone says you don’t miss the service, you miss the men you served with. So no, I don’t want to get out because I saw your man far too much in the desert.

“When you’re deployed, you are always busy doing something, and you feel like you’re doing something worthwhile. Whether it’s going to look for insurgents or handing out aid. At home, some guys get to do embassy duty or presidential assignments, but a lot of us stay on base. When you’re on base, you train, but it doesn’t feel as…”

I paused, unsure of the word I was looking for. “Important?” I still wasn’t sure what was making me feel out of sorts. “My pops—grandfather—says that the reasons for getting out will always outweigh the reasons for staying in.” I laid my sandwich down, my appetite kind of gone.

“Sounds tough.” AnnMarie made a clucking sound of sympathy, and I gave her a wry smile in return.

“Kind of a downer of a discussion for such a nice day.”

She patted me on the arm. “Nope, not a downer at all.”

She was lying, but we both left it at that. If I’d known the answers to AnnMarie’s questions, then I wouldn’t be here; I’d be in sunny Southern California with my boys at the beach. I picked up my sandwich again because I couldn’t let it go to waste. I ate the whole damn thing methodically, without enjoying it. I was afraid that no matter what decision I made—getting out or staying in—it’d be the wrong one.

“How come you refer to Bo and Noah as Marines even though they’ve been out of the military for a couple of years now?” AnnMarie asked.

“Once a Marine, always a Marine,” I explained. “It’s the oldest, best fraternity in existence. I could be anywhere and if I yelled Marine in trouble, I’d have every Marine in the room lending me a hand. It’s a brotherhood like no other.”

“Sounds like you love it.” Her eyebrows were raised in challenge.

Yeah, I guess I do.” I sighed. I did love my brothers. They would be the thing I missed the most about the Corps, but I also would miss the sense of purpose and the idea that I was involved in something bigger than myself.

Thankfully, I wasn’t allowed more time for my dilemma to mess with my head because Bo sidled up to me with the fat grin that he wore when he was about to get us all in trouble.

“Want to go to a bar?”

“What about all this?” I nodded toward the crowd.

“Mal’s going to stay here.” Mal was another roommate.

I shrugged. Party here, bar there. Made no difference. “I’m going to trust that you have good things planned for me.”

“Don’t doubt it,” he said, giving me a hard slap on my back.

Charlotte Chronicles XII

Charlotte

When my palm hits Nathan’s back, his muscles bunch tighter under his T-shirt as if he is anticipating a blow. Remorseful, I lean into him, resting my cheek in the middle of his spine and slip my arms around his waist. I’m not sure why I’m pushing him tonight. I think it’s because I’m scared of what is going to happen to us when I go away but my claim on Nathan has never been one of girlfriend/boyfriend.  We’re family and no matter what he gives to the other girls in his life, I’ll always mean something to him. I should be satisfied with that.

I should be but I’m not.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper against the worn cotton. I rub my face tenderly against his back as if I am his old dog Hobo, seeking forgiveness from my owner.

I feel him exhale and then he grabs each of my hands in his to pull me tighter and we sit like that for some time, his head bowed and mine nestled in the curve of his back.

“You’re going no matter what, right?” he finally says.

“Yes.”

I’m not able to explain to Nate why I feel compelled to go and how I really believe that this is the right thing for all of us, but especially me. I’ll never get better here because it will be too easy to rely on Nate and Nick to do things for me. Nick will cover for me in classes and Nate will glare all my detractors away and I’ll be smothered in sympathy and pity. It would be easy to stay and that tells me more than anything I should go.

If I tell this to Nathan, he won’t get it. His response will be that he can take care of me but that’s not what I want. If I’m ever to mean something more to Nathan than little Charlotte, the girl he remembers crying because her cupcake was smashed, then I’ve got to learn to stand on my own two feet.

My illness has only accelerated this problem. I suspect that if I let Nathan he’d still be cutting my food ten years from now. But while his hands would be feeding me from his fork, his attention would be wandering. I’d be a needy invalid and he’d want someone who could walk beside him.

“You’re breaking up the three Amigos.” He says lightly but I can hear a faint accusation there. I dread facing Nick tomorrow. He is never as careful with my feelings as Nate.

“You’re just mad because you don’t get to leave first. And because you like to tell Nick and I what to do.”

“I resemble that remark,” he quips. Gently he unwinds himself from my embrace and rises. My heart catches as I fear he’s going to leave. I’m not ready for him to go. I push up on my knees and reach out for him. He towers over me on the side of the bed, a fierce look on his face. Cupping my cheek and chin in one hand, Nathan pinches my chin with the other. “I can’t figure this one out but I’m not going to argue tonight.”

He pulls me to my feet and then reaches over to pull down the covers. “I’m going to hold you tonight, even though your Dad or Mom may kill me in the morning but that’s all we’re going to do.” Was this a warning for me or him?

We lie down together, our sides barely touching in the large bed. He reaches over and links his fingers through mine.

“How long,” he whispers.

“Three weeks.”

His fingers tighten almost painfully on mine for a moment but I don’t move at all.

“We’ll figure this out,” he says.

I’m not sure what we have left to figure out but I’m too tired to ask. He’s beside me and we’re lying together, our hands entwined. It’s enough for now.

Note: I know. This was really short but the next one is about 50% longer so that’s a positive, right? You can get the next installment tomorrow by signing up for the newsletter in the sidebar. Don’t forget, Unraveled comes on in 11 days!

Unraveled – Snippet Three & Thank you

At the end of the year, a number of bloggers and reviewers list the “best of” and a few included one of my books on their list. It’s such a tremendous honor.

Angela from Lives & Breathes Book Blog selected Unspoken
Margreet from Ripe for Reader included Last Hit
Mistress M from SM Book Obsessions loved Last Hit
Lorie from To Be Read List included Unspoken
Becca from Becca the Bibliophile loved both Last Hit and Unspoken
Holly and Rowena from Book Binge honored Bo Randolph with inclusion to their Best Hero lists. Bo would say “That list looks right to me.” and then AnnMarie would slap him on the arm.
Sharon from Obsession with Books selected Undeclared as one of the best debuts of the year. Yep, Undeclared was my first book!  Sharon gave me one of my first reviews ever. Sniff.
Lisa from The Rock Stars of Romance. Lisa has helped me from the beginning of my publishing journey.  More sniffs.
Books Coffee and Wine included Last Hit. I love interacting with those ladies on Twitter!

The following is a continuation of Chapter One from Unraveled.  T-13 days.

Every time I had gone to sign those re-enlistment papers, though, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. On one side, I had  Pops and my commanding officer, Captain Billings, warning me about how boat space was shrinking and that even for an exemplary Marine like myself I could be squeezed out if I didn’t hurry my ass up. On the other sat my dad, who sang an entirely tune—that I should get out now while I still had time to go to college, find a job, settle down.

Then there were the men in my platoon. Good men who would place their lives in my hands. I wasn’t just making sure that my weapon was ready but that theirs were too, and that was a responsibility you didn’t take lightly.

“Nah, you know Noah doesn’t speak unless it is absolutely necessary,” Bo said. “His frozen yogurt palace is always stuffed full of estrogen. We could swing by and scope out the women there.”

“I thought you said that the only females in Noah’s shop were a mess of teenage girls and soccer moms.”

“So? They’re still females.”

“My choices are to be a pedo bear or cougar bait?”

“Better go cougar. They’re in their sexual prime and could teach you something.”

“Let’s just head to your place.” There, I pulled my gear out of the trunk and followed Bo into the home he shared with Noah and three other guys – one complete with full floor to ceiling plate glass windows at the rear that overlooked a pool. The weather was great here. I’d missed the beach back in San Diego but I needed to get away. The more distance I put between the base and me, the better I felt. Right then, I wanted to pound some beer, ogle some women, and relax.

A loud noise like a gunshot echoed and I immediately ducked down to my knees, throwing my bag in front of me. I looked for Bo but he was propped against the counter, crying with laughter.

“I’m so sorry.” AnnMarie leaned over me—her long dark hair nearly touching my face. “We just popped the champagne.”

I looked around and saw a group of people with shocked faces and a few girls in front holding a sign that said “Welcome, Grunt.” One of Bo’s roommates (whose name I didn’t remember) stood frozen with the bottle in question, champagne dribbling from the open neck like he was pissing all over the floor. Noah broke from the group and pulled me to my feet because Bo, the asshole, was still laughing.

“Sorry, we weren’t thinking.” Noah tried to look repentant but I could see he was fighting a big ass grin too. The crowd had recovered and he started introducing me around.

“You fuckers.” I laughed, because it was funny. You could take the Marine grunt off the base but not eliminate his reaction to close quarter fire. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you planned that.”

“Bo would’ve had to frisk you to make sure you didn’t draw on us.” Noah shook his head. “We both know he’d have liked that far too much.”

One little blonde who’d been part of the sign committee murmured a few words I didn’t catch. I thought her name was Alice or Amy or something like that. I’d met her before when I’d come up for a weekend to see Bo and Noah’s set up.

“What’s that, sweetheart?” I had to double over to talk to her. Some guys loved a good height disparity. I preferred a taller women. Easier to have sex standing up.

“You guys are all so mean to each other. Noah made us write grunt on your sign.” She stuck her lower lip out, which might have been an invitation to do something, although I wasn’t sure what.

“Grunt is a good thing for a Marine. You have to pass infantry school,otherwise you’re in the rear with the gear,” I explained. After eight years of being enlisted, I spent most of my time with other Marines or Marine wives and Marine girlfriends. I didn’t love explaining things to civilians but part of why I’d come here to see Bo and Noah in the Midwest was to get away from the military folks, clear my head, and come up with a life plan. God, I sounded like Dr. Phil.

“What’s infantry school?”

I reined in my impatience and started to explain when Grace came over and rescued me.

“Amy,” Grace said. “Leave the pretty Marine alone. His glass is empty and you know how guys get when their glass is empty.”

“They get thirsty?” Amy asked.

I kind of wanted to hear Grace’s reply, but her eyes were silently telling me to get while the getting was good. I fled to the group out at the pool.

Unraveled – Snippet Two

This is a continuation of Chapter One posted yesterday. T-14 days.

***

“Do whatever it is to make your mom stop crying,” Bo advised. “If mama isn’t happy, ain’t no one gonna be happy.”

“Maybe.” The sad truth of it was that someone was going to be unhappy and because I cared about both of them, that sucked. Hoping to change the subject, I said, “You fuckers better have something good planned for me every day.”

“We said you could come stay with us and hang out, not that we’d be your cruise directors.”

“All I want to know is whether AnnMarie and Grace are bringing some single friends over. I’m a Marine on leave. I need some special attention.”

“AnnMarie’s neighbor’s got a thing for guys, I’m pretty sure.”

“Yeah.” My interest was piqued.  Both Noah and Bo had been single in the Corps and for two years after they separated. The minute they’d moved up here to go to Central College, they’d each hooked so tightly to a girl neither could move without the other feeling it. I hoped it wasn’t something in the water. I didn’t need or want that kind of complication. But hot girlfriends usually meant hot single female friends and that was all good in my book. “Hot? Good personality? What?”

“He’s bi-curious, according to AM.”

I groaned. “Sorry, Gray don’t play that way. What about AnnMarie’s roommate? Seem to remember that she had a tight ass and body.”

“Taken.”

“Do you know any single women?”

“I’m not a pimp either.”

“You suck.”

“That was your fantasy, wasn’t it?”

“How did you end up with such a classy piece like AnnMarie?”

“Dunno but if you fuck it up for me, I’d have to kill you.” His words could’ve been taken as a joke, but he was dead serious. That was another thing that just didn’t make sense in my world anymore. Bo had once been the biggest skirt chaser in our platoon. It didn’t matter if the girl was big, small, or Martian, he’d do them. Now all he could talk about was one chick. And if that didn’t set a lad’s mind spinning, I did’t know what would. It confused me because all I knew of women was that they’d cheat on you the second your back was turned. I learned that lesson early on and that cheating girlfriend had been my last.

“You’ve discovered my evil plan. I’m here to lure your girl back to San Diego with me.” I rolled my eyes. He knew, like all the guys in my platoon, that I didn’t believe a relationship with a woman could ever survive repeated deployments or a twenty-four-month unaccompanied tour to Okinawa or some other overseas duty station.

“You still believe in the no-relationships-while-serving thing?” This time, it was Bo rolling his eyes.

“It’s not a thing. It’s a truism. Semper Fidelis only matters within the Corps. Feel free to fuck your brother’s girlfriend, sister, mother, so long as you’re true to the Corps.” The bitter taste of infidelity always sat on the back of my tongue no matter how many times I tried to swallow it away.

“That’s healthy.”

“Thanks, Oprah. I’ll let you know when I need more relationship advice.”

“Just pointing out that the odds aren’t much better outside the Corps, if that’s one of the reasons you’re thinking of not re-enlisting.”

“Does Noah have to suffer your Dear Abby musings?” Noah Jackson and Bo were my kind of Marines. They fought hard and didn’t complain but knew how to have a good time when we weren’t busy picking sand out of our asses.

Noah was the more serious of the two and I’d thought he would have made a career of it, but his ambitions were different. He wanted to build an empire and you couldn’t do that on a military salary, no matter how much combat pay you received. We’d both signed up for every possible tour we could in all the most dangerous places. My burning ambition was to have as much adventure as possible. Unlike Noah, I didn’t need to own the world to be happy; though these days, I wasn’t exactly sure what I needed.

When I was ten, Pops had given me a knife engraved with Semper Fidelis on the blade. He’d retired after thirty years in the Corps and my father had made it to twenty. But neither of my two older brothers were interested, and so it fell to me to carry out the tradition. After years of hearing whispered stories of bravery and honor and brotherhood, I couldn’t wait to wear the dress blues, white gloves and carry that damn sword.

Because I enlisted during a war time, I got to do things that had meaning. Since the troop draw down, I was felt…unmoored, to borrow a Navy term. As if I was standing on ever-shifting sand. People I knew for a long time were changing.  All around me, guys were settling down, picking out furniture, and going to flea markets on the weekends. They did couples things like showers and shit like that, and while I didn’t want to go to those damn things, I felt like everyone else was moving on and I was just stuck, spinning my wheels like  some stupid ground hog that should be put of my misery.

Every time I had gone to sign those re-enlistment papers, though, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. On one side, I had  Pops and my commanding officer, Captain Billings, warning me about how boat space was shrinking and that even for an exemplary Marine like myself I could be squeezed out if I didn’t hurry my ass up. On the other sat my dad, who sang an entirely tune—that I should get out now while I still had time to go to college, find a job, settle down.