Some Bright Someday (Maple Valley #2) - Melissa Tagg Page 0,64
everyone else had fallen asleep. And Mariana this morning. And Doug just before they’d parted ways at the airport.
Basically, any time he’d had the opportunity when Noah was out of earshot, he’d asked his teammates what he should be doing other than, well, keeping Noah busy.
They’d all had the same advice: talk to him.
Not exactly his strong suit.
They reached his truck, and the minute Lucas started the engine, Noah reached out to flick the heat to high. Lucas steered the vehicle toward town.
Talk to him. If only he had the finesse to ease into a conversation about . . . what? Noah’s past? His experiences in the Army? Noah had a point last week when he’d said Lucas wasn’t his counselor. What did Flagg think Lucas had to offer that a therapist wouldn’t?
“So, you’ve been here a week and a day now. Not as bad as you thought it’d be?”
“Well, sure, until you forced me into ice water.” Noah shrugged. “I like the team. What’s up with you and Courtney?”
“Nothing.”
“I’d already heard a lot about you, but they left out the part about your love life. Courtney, Jen.”
There was that phrase again—his love life. When Noah said it, it was just ridiculous. When Jen said it, it was . . .
Interesting. Because it’d come on the heels of her asking why he never went on dates. He should’ve answered the question honestly just to see how she’d react.
You, Jenessa Belville. You’re the reason I haven’t looked at a single girl twice in three blasted years.
“Man, you are bad at this.”
He yanked his gaze to Noah then back to the road. “At what, having a love life?”
Noah laughed. “No, at getting me to talk. I steered that ship away from me in two or three sentences and boom, you’re off in la-la land.”
He’d argue but the guy was right. “You’re kind of annoying, Noah.”
“I don’t think mentors are supposed to say that to mentees.”
The heater rasped into the quiet between them, welcome warmth flooding over him. Yep, the swim had been a good move. And a hot shower would feel like heaven when they got back.
“Listen, I’m not going to pretend like you owe me your entire life story. Or even parts of it. I don’t know if I’d know the right things to say even if you did.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “But the door’s open. If or when you walk through it—up to you.”
Jamar and Mariana and Doug and all the rest of them might not agree with the approach. Flagg might not either. But then, Flagg had never pushed Lucas to share the details of his time in Afghanistan, explain his desertion, justify his decisions.
A good thing since he couldn’t.
Except . . . except sometimes it was worth remembering that, in the beginning, he had thought he’d had noble reasons when he’d first made the foggy choice not to go back to his unit. That there’d been a piece of him convinced he was doing the right thing in staying in that little hut. Letting Tashfeen’s mother take care of his burns while he tried his best to take care of her.
He’d actually prayed about it. As hours turned into days. When the MPs came looking the first time. The second time. When the burns stopped screaming and the nightmares took their place.
Somewhere in his tortured mind, he’d believed God wanted him to stay in that village. Maybe he’d heard Him incorrectly, but at least he’d heard something. How long had it been since he could say that?
How long has it been since you tried?
“My best friend enlisted because of me.”
His self-focused thoughts vanished as he glanced toward Noah. The younger man’s eyes were fixed on the distant lights of Maple Valley. “Oh?”
“He’d gotten expelled right along with me senior year. We were always getting into trouble. When Dad marched me off to the recruiter’s, I convinced Abed to come with.”
For once, Lucas felt a measure of certainty. He knew to stay silent. To wait.
“It was already seven or eight years after 9/11 by then, but sometimes people still treated Abed like . . . well, you know.”
Unfortunately, he did. Even within his own unit, there’d been subtle—and some not-so-subtle—remarks about anyone of certain backgrounds. It was ugly and eye-opening, blatant racism.
“I was such an idiot. So desperate not to go alone that I fed Abed stupid thoughts like, ‘Join the Army and people will know you’re just as patriotic as the next guy.’