3
I shoved through the front door of the house with my shoulder, sweating as I pulled my luggage in one hand with the suit bag I’d borrowed from Mateo hanging from the other. It was a temperate enough night, but after spending a week in Colorado I quickly realized the humidity in this state couldn’t be described as anything less than the underside of a ballbag.
The air out West was so fresh. I stood outside the hotel waiting for a cab to drive me to base every day just so I could breathe it in. I’d never known what winter felt like. That was abundantly clear when all I had for a jacket was a thinly-lined windbreaker that I’d only bought for getting caught in those late afternoon Florida thunderstorms.
My entire life had been spent in some sort of undying heat. My childhood in Southern Florida, and then when I joined the military, it was Georgia, North Carolina, Afghanistan, Guam. With Delta, it was Central American jungle.
I’d taught my body to adapt like a fucking lizard. A lizard was supposed to freeze in temperatures below forty-five degrees, but after a few days in Colorado Springs, I just wanted to play in it.
I threw my bags down right inside the foyer, tossing my keys on the entry table and shrugging away the sore shoulder I’d tell myself to ice now and completely forget about later. My back was like an ironing board. I’d gotten better at sitting for extended periods of time, but the flight wasn’t particularly short, and coach seating was sure as hell not designed for comfort.
I hadn’t even noticed though.
Three-and-a-half hours went by so fast I was cursing the palm trees on the coast when they started dotting into view.
It was my luck that some higher power would put a little spitfire brunette on the same flight as me. I’d seen her sipping a mimosa with her nose stuck to her phone screen all the way across the terminal. Partly because she was so gorgeous—long limbs and soft angles, the cutest fucking pout to her lips. But also because I happened to be looking directly at her photo on my own phone, scrolling one of those dating apps Mateo had made me download before I flew out for my interview. It was sheer boredom; it wasn’t like I was going to find a girl to spend a night with at the airport, but fuck if it hadn’t been something like fate.
The resemblance was unmistakable. Wavy hair, eyes like cornflower, a distinct little dimple in her right cheek when she smirked. I flipped back and forth through her photos ten times. Hiking through the mountains in an outfit that hugged every goddamn curve on the woman. Another standing under the stream of a waterfall. One with a glass of wine and a perfect sundress. Then more laid back, in jeans and a graphic T-shirt, a lanyard dangling from her neck and a gaggle of kids at her side.
Cliché as it was, one of my very first thoughts was, Oh, Mom would love her. All the others, however, were unseemly and entirely self-indulgent.
As the plane started boarding I hung back until the last minute, watching her impressively chug a second drink, and when she flung her bag over her shoulder and headed directly onto my same departing flight, I said fuck it, and swiped right.
I couldn’t have even imagined the following chain of events. Catching her red-handed and blushing below me, a view I was already too eager to recreate. Then when she met me tit for tat, that sow-my-wild-oats mentality I’d brought with me to Colorado simmered to sow one oat—only, as soon as possible and sow it so good a garden bloomed beneath us.
At home, nothing had changed since I left. Mateo and I kept it neat and mostly barren. A few photographs from our unit above the mantel, a framed American flag on the wall. Call it male laziness or a blind eye for design, but he and I had become so used to structured routine and perfection in the military it only naturally carried over to civilian life.
When Delta cut us loose we were two guys that had been through Hell and back together for the better part of ten years, so we just kept the ball rolling. It felt ridiculous at the time not to go halves on the house. I wouldn’t admit it three years ago, but I needed a lot more help than I let on after everything that went down on that last deployment. My pride was buried so far in the dirt there wouldn’t be a shovel in the world strong enough to dig it back up.
The sliding glass door off the living room was cracked open, and I slipped outside onto the stone patio that opened into the backyard.
“Ay, look what the clouds dragged in.”
Mateo was lounging in the hot tub with a dollop of sunblock on his angular nose, massage jets bubbling around his chest. He was right about the clouds too. In the minutes since I’d last been outside, the clear sunset had grayed and heat lightning flashed across the sky.
“Having yourself a night out here, Cap?” I dug into the mini fridge for a beer and popped it open. We all had call signs in our unit—Mateo’s was Captain. And unfortunately it didn’t matter if you loved it or hated it, nicknames always stuck.
“Relaxing before the night ahead, brother.” He tipped his beer to me. “How was it? Got the job?”
I pulled a patio chair out and sank into it. “No, you know how this stuff works. It was preliminary shit. Touring the base, kissing ass, paperwork. Round one of a billion fucking interviews.”
“Echo said you were a shoe-in; he has connections over there.”
“I shot him a text on the first day. He said he was working some magic, but with Tyler that usually means he’s gonna be getting his dick wet. Probably fucking the command’s wife.”
“You think that he’d have it any other way?”
“No, but I don’t know if I can guiltlessly accept a job from a man I know is getting cucked on his days off.”
“To each their own.” Mateo shrugged. “But it went well though, you’re excited?”
“You know I’m still on the fence, man. I told you before I went, I’m just putting out the feelers on it. I haven’t flown in…” I trailed off, picking at the damp label on the sweating beer bottle. “Then there’s Addy and my mom. That’ll be a lot for them, not having me around. It’s a lot to think about.”
“Your sister and mom are fine,” Mateo assured me. “They’ll survive, you’ve done everything for them since you were fucking twelve years old, Pike. I don’t know if you know this, but Florida is like Heaven for the sixty-five-plus crowd. They can walk around the clubhouse pool with their tits down to their ankles in a bikini top and no one is batting an eye.”
I shuddered. “Don’t put that picture in my head.”
“Maria’s still got it. She’s gone on a couple dates.”
“My mother? Has gone on a couple dates?”
“I call your mom. I’m her favorite son.”
Mateo was the definition of momma’s boy. Those Italian sons grow up too spoiled for their own good. My mother was fawning over him from the moment she met him. Instead of a friendly wave, my best friend had pulled her into a bear hug like you’ve never seen before, letting her hold his face and kiss his cheeks, giving her that dazzling Mateo smile with his sharp canines sparkling like a fucking Crest commercial.
Every time I talked to my mother, she asked about him. How is my Mateo? He looks so handsome in his new pictures on The Facebook. You should really cut your hair more like his, Francesco, no one can see your eyes when you’re in that hat all the time. Has he found a girlfriend yet? Adriana is still single, you know, and your sister needs to have babies soon.