at your work to get your attention. Something’s not right about him so don’t go kicking yourself, all right? You didn’t handle the situation perfectly, but neither did he. See? You’re even.”
Sighing, I say, “I love you, Rach.”
“Love you too, Ritz.” Rach gives me a side hug before grabbing the OJ and heading out to table seven.
The rest of the morning is a blur, which turns out to be a good thing. We’re hit with our usual eight o’clock rush followed by a sightseeing tour bus full of retirees who traveled all the way from Reno to get their hands on our famous cinnamon pancakes.
By mid-afternoon, I’m back home with aching feet and a yawn that won’t stop. I’m halfway to becoming an actual vegetable on the sofa when Melrose texts me and asks me to walk Murphy.
Peeling my faux zebra-skin blanket off my legs, I climb up and call for the world’s most pampered pug before grabbing his leash by the door. The click-clack of his paws on the tile and the jingle of his collar follows and a second later he’s attempting to jump into my arms. I hook him up and head out, passing by the mailbox once I’m outside the driveway gate.
Stopping, I reach my hand inside and retrieve a small stack of junk, bills, and Melrose’s newest issue of Vogue.
Murphy relieves himself on a nearby palm tree.
Life goes on.
Twenty-Four
Isaiah
* * *
I almost died today. Granted, that risk is always a given when I’m out here in the land of air strikes, land mines, and suicide bombers, but this was different. Fourteen of my men were injured today. On my watch, no less.
But one of us, Private Nathaniel Jansson, paid the ultimate price.
War doesn’t care how old you are, how brave you are. War doesn’t care how hard you work or how much you love your country. War doesn’t care that you’ve got a woman back home waiting for you or that you’re months away from becoming a father for the first time.
It could have been any of us, but today it was Jansson.
While he was young and green, he was going to be one of the best. I knew it. I saw it in him. He may have been new but he had a fire in his eyes and a dedication like none I’ve ever seen before, and now he’s leaving behind a child that will only ever hear how brave and heroic their father was through secondhand stories.
My ears are still ringing and there’s no time to sit around and process what just happened. We hadn’t been back from our mission to the Syrian border but half a day when we found our base under siege. The flash of lights that preceded the deafening explosions and the sounds of men crying out in the dark will haunt my nightmares the rest of my life, but the strangest thing happened.
In the midst of all the chaos, when I wasn’t focused on sheer fucking survival, I found myself thinking about her.
Maritza.
Coming this close to death does something to a man, it forces him to reevaluate his priorities and the things in life that he truly wants, forces him to question if the kind of life he’s living has any sort of meaning at all or if he’s just drifting through life like a fool believing his own lies—that he’s happy alone, that he’s never going to want anyone else for longer than a drunken night in a hotel room.
But I’m done lying to myself.
I want meaning.
I want her.
I want to get to know her, really know her. And I want to make her smile. I want to feel her strawberry lips on mine and brush her hair from her face. I want to do dorky touristy things together, things I’d never be caught dead doing with anyone else. I want to show her more constellations. I want to take her to another Panoramic Sunrise concert because god damn it, she deserves a do-over.
I want her to wait for me, to push my limits and do annoyingly sweet things and tell me she misses me.
And I don’t want her sleeping with anyone else.
Shoving what’s left of my things into an Army-issued duffel bag, I find a crumpled scrap of paper—an old report of some kind, the edges burnt, and I grab a pen from my desk drawer. Scribbling a note, I fold the paper into fourths and tuck it in my pocket.
First chance I get, I’ll send