“Trust me. I’ve got my ways.” Calder’s voice went from confident to hushed as voices sounded near the front row of bunks.
“Dude. Did you hear about Fernsby?” asked one of the youngest chiefs, a Nuke with a chipped front tooth and no filter. I couldn’t see him or his buddy but his surfer-boy drawl was unmistakable.
“Yep. Fox is gonna be so pissed.” The other person had to be Beauregard, who worked with me in Weapons. The Southern accent gave him away. “It’s a wonder they haven’t murdered each other this whole deployment. If a crew member stole my girl—or guy—I’m not sure I could stand the humiliation.”
“Shush.” A third voice sounded farther back, and then there was a lot of fumbling around before Beauregard slapped his bunk.
“Okay, okay, here’s my new deck,” he announced as the three of them exited the quarters.
“See?” I gestured up at Calder. “It would be justifiable homicide.”
“It would. But wouldn’t revenge be better?”
“I dunno. Fernsby’s head would look pretty great mounted on my wall back on base.” I groaned as I thought about returning to my little room in the barracks. I’d let Steve keep the apartment, because I was such a nice guy and all. Damn it, I was tired of being nice. Tired of being taken advantage of and pitied and gossiped about. Fuck it all. “Okay. Whatever. See what you can arrange.”
“Leave it all to me.” Calder straightened to his full height, which came just shy of the low ceiling. “You won’t regret this.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I will.” Dread churned in my too-empty gut, but it was a distraction from all the weeks of hurt and anger I’d been stamping down. At least we had a plan.
Chapter Two
Arthur
“This should be easy.” I hefted my large cardboard sign out of the trunk as Sabrina laughed.
“Uh-huh.” She flipped her cascading bluish-purple hair over her shoulder. She’d prepared for our day on the docks at base with the hair, a shimmery blue top, and a skirt with scales on it. Her whole look gave her the air of a mermaid prepared to lead some poor sailor to his doom. “If this scheme is so easy, why again did you need me?”
“You have a car.” We had the kind of ride-or-die friendship built on insults and inside jokes.
“True.” After checking her lipstick in a fancy silver mirror, she snapped her purse shut as I carefully removed the bunch of balloons next.
“And you have more social media followers than a minor Kardashian.”
“Also true. I’ll get you trending.” Somehow Sabrina had turned a secret obsession with fashion when we were teens into a successful sideline as an influencer as her alter ego The Makeup Witch with followers hanging on her every post.
“Counting on it.” I adjusted my load so that the balloons weren’t in imminent danger of escape.
“We’ll drown out this cheating loser dude who got first dibs on kissing.”
“Your strong opinions on cheaters are only one reason why I love you, Sabrina.”
“And my car.” She shut the trunk with a gold-tipped finger.
“Yup.” I headed in the direction of the community center where the families and friends waiting for the return of the sub were gathering to await buses to the docks. “Anyway, it’s a stupid tradition, but like everything else, the navy takes it super seriously. My mom and dad got the honor at least once, and there are a ton of pics of it. It was when he was stationed in Hawaii, and she got flowers and the boat was decorated with a huge lei. It made the Navy Times.”
“We can do better than some small-time publication.” Sabrina laughed as her heels clicked on the sidewalk.
“Everything is small compared to you.” It was true on multiple levels because she was big in notoriety and personality as well as stature. Even as we joined the throng of people entering the community center, Sabrina still towered over most of the crowd, commanding far more attention than I ever could, even with my giant sign and balloons.
But the sign that had looked so gaudy back at my place with all its colors and glitter was only one of dozens here. Tons of pretty young women in fancy sundresses toted catchy signs proclaiming how many days it had been since they’d seen their guys, and little kids had smaller signs announcing how much they’d grown. Proud Navy Mom T-shirts were everywhere, and more than one guy my dad’s age sported a Navy Veteran hat. The kids raced around the big common room while clumps of people greeted each other with hugs and excited squeals.