Away From You (Back To You Book 2) (2 page)

“Heck
yeah I will.” I gave her a cheesy high five. “In all seriousness, I’m just glad
that school is going to keep me busy so I won’t have time to miss Matt as much
on deployment. This summer is going to suck without any classes to keep my mind
off of things!”

Ellie
frowned. “Well, you have me!”

“Thanks,
girl.”

I
often wondered if I had the strength that my mother had to get through all of
these separations. My dad was in the Air Force and growing up they had always
made it look so easy to maintain a happy marriage through it all. The best I
could do was hope that my relationship with Matt was as strong as that of my
parents. In the end, they were great role models.

“Well,
hopefully this isn’t awkward but I think I’m going to go up and interrupt
Spencer’s shower,” Ellie said, nodding toward the stairs with a cheeky grin.

I
wagged a finger at her playfully, and hoped Matt would be back soon from his
run so we could have a little fun of our own.

*

The
next day, I busied myself while Matt was at work by organizing and unpacking
the rest of the boxes from our move. I spent a few hours putting pictures of
family, friends, and from our wedding into frames and hanging them around the
house. The spacious townhouse looked more and more like home every day.

My
mom had gotten us a slow cooker as a wedding present, so I put a roast in it
and prayed that it would turn out like her recipe said it would. By the time
Matt walked in the door, the house was filled with the aroma of a home-cooked
meal. I was pretty proud of my domesticity. Since I was currently working
towards getting my nursing degree, crockpot meals might be the best way to
balance having a full time job and still managing to cook dinner every night. I’d
never felt like such a grown-up and I savored the feeling of being out on my
own.

“Smells
great in here, babe,” Matt called as he hung his keys on the hook by the door.

I
reveled in the “Susie Homemaker” feeling and smiled at him. “I was going to greet
you at the door with an iced cold beer, but I thought that would be a little
too cheesy.”

He
chuckled. “That would’ve been awesome. In fact, you can do that tomorrow.
Wearing lingerie.”

I
rolled my eyes. “There is so much wrong with what you just said.”

Matt
kissed my forehead. “I know. How was your day?”

“It
was good, I got a lot done around the house. How was yours?”

He
walked to the fridge and got his own beer with a sardonic smile. “It was
eventful.”

“Oh?”

“Spencer
got transferred to my unit.” He took a long pull of his beer and awaited my
reaction.

“Seriously?
How did that happen?”

He
shrugged. “I don’t know. I was working on a jet, and I look up and there he is.
I guess they needed another body and since he had just checked in to the other
squadron they pulled him over. He was so stoked.”

I
didn’t doubt that Spencer was excited, but my first thoughts were with Ellie.
We had just talked about how glad she was that he wasn’t leaving, and now he
was literally in the same boat as my husband. Hopefully she wasn’t freaking out
too much. After all, at least we’d have each other to lean on.

“Well,
I’m glad the bromance lives on. I feel bad for Ellie though. It won’t be easy
with how much you guys are going to be gone.”

Matt
smiled sadly. “Babe, don’t worry, you’re used to this stuff. You’ll do great.”

I wasn’t so sure, but it helped to hear
how confident he was in my strength.

Matt

“What’s up, Mills?” Spencer nodded at
me as he entered the shop. He looked eager to start his first full day as a Red
Snake.

“Not much,
man. Just learning about the GBU-38. I can’t believe that bomb weighs five
hundred pounds. We’re gonna get so ripped doing this job.” I handed him the
manual I was reading and he glanced at it before shrugging.

“It says
here that four guys lift it, so really that’s not a lot to lift per person.”

“Doing it
all day can’t hurt, bro.” I eyed him warily. “What’s up with you?”

“I don’t
know. I just wasn’t expecting to get transferred right after fixing shit with
Ellie.”

“Wait,” I
held up a hand, “first you were bummed when you thought you weren’t going to
deploy. Now you’re bummed that you are?”

He shrugged
again.

“How’d she
take it when you told her last night?”

Spencer
frowned. “Fine. Just like I thought she would. She’s not the type to get
emotional. But still, I’m sure she’s not happy about it. I kind of feel guilty
about saying that I wished I could deploy.”

I watched
him shuffle his feet, not sure what to say. Olivia knew what she was getting
herself into when she married me. In fact, we talked about the military a lot
when we were still in high school, and since her dad was in the military she
was pretty encouraging about it. But I also wondered if maybe the whole
distance thing would be harder on Olivia than I’d thought. How bad could it be
though? At least there was always a light at the end of the tunnel. I wouldn’t
be gone forever.

“Listen,
man, I think you’re overthinking this.” I tried to sound reassuring but I
didn’t know if it was working. I was pretty conflicted about it myself, but I
figured everything would work itself out in time. “I’m sure Ellie knew that there
was always a chance you could leave. You’re an Active Duty Marine, for Christ’s
sake.”

Hawk seemed
to realize that he was being dramatic because he stood up a little straighter.
“Yeah, you’re right. When will we be gone, anyway?”

“We’ve got a
training exercise for the summer, then we’re home until we deploy in January. They
said the deployment should be like seven months. Not bad at all.”

“Guess not.”

I shook my
head at him, not sure how he had gotten so doom and gloom since the last time
we talked about his future in the Marines. Everyone knew that when you wanted
to make a career out of the military, it looked way better to deploy than to
not. He should be pumped about this. A combat deployment would look great on
his service record, not to mention the increased pay when you’re gone.

I clapped
him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Hawk. This is why you joined,
right?”

*

Being in the
same shop with Hawk for the past few weeks had been pretty awesome. It was like
old times when we were in training, only with the added bonus that we went home
every night to some pretty hot girls. Spencer and Ellie had been spending a lot
of time at our house lately, not always spending the night, but dinners and
such. I was glad that Olivia had Ellie to help her get through the deployment.
Hell, I was glad that I would have Spencer, too. We worked our
asses
off every day and it sure helped to joke around with
him about stupid stuff to pass the time.

The night
before we left for the summer training exercise, Olivia and I had decided to
spend a quiet evening home. Thankfully, Spencer and Ellie were at his dad’s
house to give us our space. We ordered burgers from our favorite joint down the
street and rented a movie. We were too busy kissing to watch the movie, which
was cool since after being together this long we didn’t really have marathon
make-out sessions on the couch very often. I made a silent note to do that more
often when I got home.

“Are you
going to miss me?” Olivia asked. There was a question in her eyes, as if I
would actually say ‘no.’

I nodded.
“Of course.”

“How much?”

I held my
thumb and pointer finger about a half inch apart and she swatted me on arm.
“Ow! Okay, maybe a little more than that.”

“Whatever.”
She pretended to pout but then broke into a smile. I loved her smile.

“Don’t worry
about anything, babe. It’ll be over before you know it. Think of it as practice
for the deployment.”

Olivia
shrugged one shoulder as if it were no big deal. I wondered if she really felt
that way, or if she was just putting on a brave face for me. If I was being
honest, I was probably putting on a show for her. I was confidant and
everything, but no man actually wanted to leave the comfort of his own home and
wife to share a giant room with a hundred smelly men.

I pulled her
close to me. My wife. I was still getting used to calling her that, but I
couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t mean the world to me. We just had a
casual way about being together and I knew that there was no one on the planet
who knew me as well as she did. I guess she could probably see through my brave
face just as much as I could see through hers, but we didn’t have to comment on
it. Just being together was enough, and since I wasn’t much for talking about
my feelings, I was glad for that. Some people might say we don’t communicate,
but not all communication had to be verbal, did it?

Olivia
pulled out her phone and opened the browser application. Since she was lying
against me, I could see her navigating to her school’s online portal. She had
just finished her second to last semester of nursing prerequisites and I’d
never seen anyone hit the books as hard as she had been. She kept telling me it
would only get worse once her actual nurses classes started next spring, but I
couldn’t imagine. School wasn’t my thing at all, but she seemed to thrive with
her head in the books.

“Are you
looking up your grades?” I asked.

“Yeah, I
keep obsessively checking them. We’re two weeks into summer. These people need
to get it together.”

I chuckled,
gently moving her off of me so I could get up to refill my drink. “I’m sure you
did great, babe.”

She
chuckled, still scrolling through the website with an intense expression.
“Thanks. But if my GPA isn’t close to perfect I have no shot at the Spring
Cohort. I’m competing with some insanely smart people.”

I came back
to the couch with my fresh soda and glanced at her cup, which was still full. I
settled back onto the couch and kissed her temple. “You’re insanely smart.”

“Aha!” She
gasped. “Yes, Matty, yes I am!”

Olivia
turned the phone around and waved it in my face excitedly. I took it from her
so I could actually read the words on the tiny screen. She’d gotten straight
A’s. I beamed at her and handed the phone back.

“See? I knew
you could do it! Congrats, Liv.” I hugged her tightly. The excitement vibrated
through her and I couldn’t be more proud. Given the hard work that it took for
me to successfully complete Recruit Training, I definitely knew how good it
felt when that hard work paid off in the end.

“Thank you.”
She kissed me on the lips and smiled brightly. “I’m ridiculously glad to have
the summer off, though. It’ll be nice to unwind before another full load of
science classes.”

I cringed at
the thought of the mundane lectures and mountains of homework she would face.
“I don’t know how you do it. Thankfully for me I want to make a career out of
the military so I don’t need to go to school.”

Olivia
rolled her eyes at me. “When you get back from deployment maybe we can talk
about you doing online school! It wouldn’t hurt to have the degree just in
case.”

I narrowed
my eyes at her. “We’ll talk about it, but I make no promises.”

“Good enough
for me!” She grinned and settled back into a more reclined position to watch
the movie.

“Hey, so,
since we’re not actually watching the movie maybe we can go upstairs and make
better use of my last night on land? I was planning to shower before bed anyway
if you want to join me.”

She narrowed
her eyes at me this time, but reached for the remote and turned off the TV
without a word. We headed upstairs and into the bathroom. I turned on the water
and adjusted the temperature while she got undressed, then took off my own
clothes. No matter how long we’d been together, I never got tired of seeing her
naked. She usually liked to have sex with the lights off when we were in bed, a
fact that disappointed me to no end. Shower sex, on the other hand, was
impossible to do in the dark so she had no way to be shy.

We took our
time, and as usual when trying to navigate the slippery terrain of a shower
floor while trying to balance, there were plenty of laughs before we were
through. We held each other tightly for a few moments when we were both
satisfied and simply enjoyed the feel of the warm water and each other’s skin.
Then, like always, we chatted about whatever came to mind while we washed. I
couldn’t believe that I was about to trade showering with this beauty for
showering with a bunch of other dudes. Life just wasn’t fair sometimes.

After our
shower, we got ready for bed and I fought the urge to go another round with
her. I was dead tired and knew that tomorrow would be a long day. “Goodnight,
Olivia.”

She leaned
over to kiss me, her lips warm and minty fresh. “Goodnight. I love you.”

“I love you,
too.” I fell asleep thinking about just how true those three little words were.