Into the Blue (A Wild Aces Romance) (5 page)

Well, fuck.

Of all the ways I’d imagined that going down, I hadn’t quite captured the essence of how much she loathed me. Hell, maybe “loathed” was too tame of a word. I was less concerned with whether I’d nod or smile at her if I saw her
on the street, and more concerned with the possibility that she’d be driving when I saw her and run me over with her car.

Katy came up behind me, the baby growing fussy. She gave me a sympathetic smile and squeezed my arm.

“Give her time. It has to be a shock seeing you again.”

I nodded, not sure I could speak past the lump in my throat. It wasn’t undeserved, not by a long shot, but I couldn’t help hating the fact that Becca hated me.

“Will you come over for dinner sometime? I know John would love to see you.”

I nodded and forced a smile even though I felt like shit inside. “That would be great. Thank you.”

We said our good-byes, and I watched as she walked toward the checkout lanes, the baby on her hip, the lump in my throat growing as I imagined another woman in her place, as I envisioned Becca running to the grocery store with
our
baby, coming home after kicking ass in court. I imagined sitting with them at the dinner table, laughing, talking to Becca about our days and then climbing into bed with her at night, the memory of her body curled into mine hitting me like a punch to the chest.

What was so bad about that? What the hell had I thought I’d find away from her? And why had the idea of settling down, starting a family, just being together—day after day—been so terrible?

“Hey, Eric?”

Katy turned back to face me, a smile playing at her lips.

“She goes to Casey’s every morning for coffee and breakfast before work. If you want to try to talk to her, if you want to fix things, that’s a good place to start.”

*   *   *

I dreamed of her that night. Of crashing cans of soup, green fire, brown eyes, of Joker’s voice, over and over again, making that last radio call. Of dancing under a starry sky a decade ago, feeling like the world was ours for the taking. Of looking up at the same sky that had taken my friend, that had the power to keep me or throw me back down to the ground on any given day.

I awoke to the numbers on the alarm clock next to the bed flashing a green 5 a.m., my naked body covered in a thin film of sweat, my chest feeling like someone had dropped a fucking anvil on it.

Most nights I slept well, but every once in a while I had dreams of the accident, and I woke up like this—feeling like death clung to me and refused to let me loose. It wasn’t as much that I was afraid of dying as it was the sensation that I’d come so close, that we’d all been assessed, our lives weighed and measured, and somehow the ax had fallen on Joker. I didn’t know if I felt guilty for having survived, or like I’d dodged a bullet, or guilty for feeling like I’d dodged a bullet.

Either way I felt like I was falling, reaching out with nothing to hold on to, the girl whose hand I wanted to grab, just out of my
reach.

I took a sip of my coffee, the hot liquid going down my throat at the exact moment that Eric slid into the booth, taking up the seat across from me.

“What are you doing here?” I sputtered.

He looked like he’d been out for a run—his skin flushed, hair mussed. He’d dressed casually in a T-shirt and athletic shorts and a pair of sneakers. It was a nothing-special outfit, and yet he wore it well. I kind of wanted to lick him, even as I wished he’d get back in his car, drive his ass to the airport, and hop a plane back to Oklahoma.

I’d been angry last night. This morning I felt like I’d gone through a spin cycle, and I wasn’t sure I’d made it out whole.

Eric grinned, looking a little unsure of himself. “I wanted to catch you for breakfast. I heard you had a morning ritual.” His dimple popped out. “I didn’t know what time you came, though, so I’ve been sitting in the corner for a while.” He shifted in his seat, his legs jostling mine under the table.
“Excuse the energy; I couldn’t sit here without ordering something, so I’ve had a lot of coffee.”

I bit back a smile. He did look like he was bouncing out of his skin a bit. He’d always been like that—sugar, caffeine, too much and he turned into a hyper boy in a man’s body.

I struggled not to laugh.

This was what he did. He was cute and charming and he hooked you with little to no effort, and it always started with a smile. Then a laugh. Next thing you knew, he’d ripped your heart out and left you for dead on the side of the road.

Or something like that.

“Did you miss everything I said yesterday? I’m not interested in rekindling anything. I’m not even ready to be friends. I don’t know why you came back, and it’s not my business—”

“There was an accident. I was flying in the formation. My friend died.”

Oh my God.

He didn’t say it like he wanted sympathy, just matter-of-factly, as though that kind of danger was a daily part of his life.

There had been many times over the past few years when I’d found myself wondering if he was okay, times when I’d turn on the news and see stories about combat operations in the Middle East, see pictures of F-16s flying over war zones, and my heart would jump into my throat as I’d wonder if he was there, if he was safe.

“I’m so sorry.”

I knew better than anyone how loss could turn you inside out.

He shook his head, running his hand along his jaw. “I didn’t tell you for you to feel sorry for me, or anything other
than to explain to you where I am right now. I needed a break from everything. Needed to get away.”

“So you came here?”

Our gazes locked and he nodded. “Yeah.”

I wanted to ask him
why
, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. There were too many feelings pinging inside of me right now, too much between us for me to know where we could go from here. I didn’t know how to start over and I didn’t know how to just be friends, and I was terrified to let him past the electrified manned-by-vicious-man-eating-dogs fence I’d built around my heart.

But—

We’d started out as friends, had been each other’s family, really, for such a long time. So even as I couldn’t entirely let go of how angry I was with him, I also couldn’t push him away. Not like this.

“I had a flight on Monday.” He looked down at his hands. “Something about it fucked with me. I freaked out in the cockpit.” His voice grew strained. “It’s dangerous and irresponsible to be up there if I’m not in the game. I owe it to the guys I fly with to be better. To get my shit under control.” He looked up, leaning back in his seat, his hands back at his jaw again, his body full of restless energy that came from either the caffeine or the topic of conversation. “We have a deployment coming up in the next several months.”

“Where?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady when the word “deployment” brought a sinking feeling to my stomach.

“Afghanistan.”

“I thought combat operations had wound down.”

“Not for us. We’re deploying regularly, doing close air support. There’s still a job to do there, a duty to the guys on
the ground.” He shrugged. “You just don’t necessarily hear about it on the news all the time. It doesn’t fit the narrative, but yeah, we’re still there.”

Even as he felt so familiar, I registered all of the differences now, unable to shake the sensation that the man in front of me wasn’t quite what I remembered. There was a weight to him now, an invisible bulk he carried on his shoulders, the burden of fighting for everyone else.

I was hurt and angry, but it was impossible to deny that he was dedicating his life to serving others. A hero in the truest sense of the word, ready to give his life for the freedoms we all enjoyed.

“What’s it like?” I asked, surprising myself with how much I wanted to hear about his life, driven by the desire to understand what it was that he found in the plane that he hadn’t found anywhere else, that he hadn’t been able to find with me.

Smile. Laugh. Hooked. Fucked.

He didn’t answer me for a moment, and I wondered if I’d asked something that I shouldn’t have, if I’d picked at a scab that wasn’t healed.

I took a sip of my coffee, not sure how my morning had ended up here, how I’d gone from determined to stay away from him, to sitting across from him, hanging on his every word, getting sucked deeper and deeper into his world.

It had always been like this between us. When my parents died, my world had narrowed to a small group of real friends and a lot of acquaintances, to school, and to books. Boys hadn’t even been on my radar. And then he’d smiled at me junior year and that had changed.

Eric gave me a wry smile, a wave of nostalgia hitting me. How could someone feel like an old friend and a stranger at the same time? Was it my own wishful thinking imagining
a connection that no longer existed, or was it possible that even with the time apart, there was still a piece of me that he held in the palm of his hand?

“I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“What do they call you?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, your pilot name?”

His smile deepened. “My call sign?”

I nodded.

“Thor.”

And then I remembered Bandit saying something like that before I saw Eric and everything else just stopped mattering. It fit him perfectly. Maybe it was the red hair. Or the way he carried himself. He had the whole warrior-god thing down pat.

“Is it weird that I don’t call you Thor?” My lips twitched. It somehow seemed wrong to call a thirty-two-year-old man by such a moniker, but at the same time I remembered how all of the guys had introduced themselves by their call signs.

“Not weird at all. I like that you call me Eric. No one else does anymore.”

I didn’t know what to say to that one, but I guessed if anyone could claim an intimacy with him, it made sense that it would be me.

“Is it everything you thought it would be?”

I tried—and probably, failed—to keep the bite out of my voice.

“No.”

I took another sip of my coffee, gripping the ceramic cup, needing something to hold on to.

“It’s all-consuming,” he answered after a beat. “It’s not just your job; it’s everything. It controls every aspect of your life, and you never leave it at home. You’re always on call
essentially, always waiting to see where you’ll be needed. It makes it hard to remember to live at times, to just enjoy the moment, because you’re always looking forward, always preparing for the next deployment, the next TDY. Always leaving, always going, never just standing still.”

He’d just described a good chunk of my fears ten years ago.

“It sounds exhausting.”

“It can be. In the beginning, the first few years, it was so fucking cool. I mean, I fly F-16s for a living. You can’t get much better than that. But then, little by little, it starts to chip away at everything. It’s hard always being ‘on.’ Easy to forget why I do it in the first place when I get so caught up in the minutiae of it all.” He steepled his fingers together, his elbows resting on the table. “I think I lose sight of the big picture, of my role, because I’m just trying to get through the day to day. Because I’m so fucking tired.” He grimaced. “Sorry. I don’t mean to sit here and unleash my shit on you. I know I’m lucky to have a job that, for the most part, I love. Lucky that I make a good living at it. I don’t mean to complain.”

Megan came over and set my cinnamon roll on the table in front of me and a bowl of oatmeal in front of Eric. She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at me, and I fought the flush spreading over my cheeks. I figured she’d recognized him by now.

We both dug into our food, silence settling over the table. I tried to tell myself that it was an uncomfortable silence, but we knew each other way too well for that. We’d always been able to talk to each other about anything, and even though I didn’t know much about the military, it was hard to resist the urge to want to be there for him. Did he have anyone in his life he could talk to? The other guys? A counselor?

This was not good. He wasn’t back a day, and I was already worrying about him, letting him into my life.

Eric set his spoon down.

“So how about your job?” He gave me another one of those stomach-tightening smiles. “Is it everything you thought it would be?” he asked, echoing my earlier question.

“Yeah. It kind of is. I work too much, probably. And there are some cases that are heartbreakers—losses that are tough to get over. But I do love it, and I feel like I’m helping people.”

“You work at the Solicitor’s Office, right?”

I nodded, surprised he’d managed to keep tabs on me all these years.

“That’s great. I’m not surprised at all that you’re kicking ass. You were always the smartest person I’ve ever known. Hell, I never would have passed English without you.”

God, that took me back.

We’d officially met our junior year of high school when I’d been assigned as his tutor for English lit. Eric had made no secret of how much he hated reading dense British texts, but our after-school study dates had sparked the start of our relationship. So really, I had
Middlemarch
to blame for my current predicament.

Don’t ask me about my personal life. Don’t ask me about my personal life.

He picked up his spoon again, shoveling the oatmeal into his mouth with a speed that caught me off guard.

He grinned. “What?”

“Nothing.”

His grin deepened. “Sorry, habit. You learn how to eat quickly in the military.” He slowed down and I found my gaze drawn to his mouth, his lips, his tanned throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.

Attraction was a funny thing. It pitted unlikely people together, reared its ugly head at the most unexpected moments. Like in a diner at seven thirty in the morning, between
two people who’d already played all their cards and lost at love the first go-around.

I definitely didn’t want to talk about my personal life, and I’d probably regret asking, but I couldn’t help wondering:

Had he met someone after me? Had there been other women, other relationships? I mean, sex, yes, obviously. But the rest of it? Had he laughed with someone the way he’d laughed with me, those little lines popping out around his eyes? Had he slept with someone else’s head over his heart? Was there someone now? And if there was, why wasn’t he sitting across from her now telling her about his fears, his doubts?

“You haven’t accepted my friend request, by the way,” he said.

I’d been too angry last night, too confused by this new development to think about it. Now it sort of felt like closing the barn door
after
the horses had escaped.

“I know.”

“Are you going to?”

I hesitated, feeling more than a little silly. “I don’t know. I haven’t decided.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“You mentioned that you had a date in the message you sent me. Are you seeing anyone?” he asked, his voice deceptively casual.

Fuck.

I forced myself to shrug, keeping my expression bland. “No one serious.”

“But you’re dating,” he pressed.

I took another bite of my cinnamon roll, buying myself time. “You know how it is.”

“It sounds like you’ve been pretty busy with work. Has there been anyone special?”

Seriously?
You
.
You, you fucking idiot, you
.
You were my someone special.
And after that . . . if I’d had abandonment issues after my parents died, having my fiancé dump me in a letter hadn’t exactly helped. Trust was a luxury I rarely afforded myself.

“I’ve had a few relationships throughout the years,” I answered, keeping my response deliberately vague.

His voice lowered, his tone going gravelly. “You never married?”

“Nope.” There was no need for him to even ask me that. We both knew the Bradbury gossip would have found its way to him if I had married. So what was he poking at? My gaze narrowed, ready to shift the focus onto him. “How about you? Do you have a girlfriend? A legion of angry ex-wives?”

“Now why do you naturally assume that my ex-wives would be angry?” His tone turned silky. “Maybe I have legions of satisfied ex-wives.”

I leveled him with my most no-nonsense expression, the one I reserved for dickwad defendants in court.

“Call it a hunch.”

His smile wavered, his expression changing again, his moods mercurial like the weather. I couldn’t keep up with what he wanted, couldn’t figure out what purpose this breakfast served. Were we supposed to be friends? Was he looking for more? Was it guilt that kept him here?

“I owe you an apology.”

And just like that, the storm rolled in.

He sighed. “Maybe an ‘apology’ isn’t the right word. I don’t even know what is anymore.”

I didn’t want to do this. Not at seven thirty in the morning, when I had a full day in court ahead of me.

“It’s fine.”

Liar.

“Becca.”

God, it did things to me when he said my name. I didn’t know if it was the familiarity of it, or the way he nearly groaned it, as though he ached the same way I did.