Page 34 of All of You

“Yes. I’ll be around, just working, except when I head home Wednesday through Sunday this week. Are you doing anything with family?”

It was dark, so I could only see the shape of her next to me.

“I’ll probably drive up for dinner with Reese and Erin.”

The mild dread in her voice made me chuckle. “Hopefully, they won’t be too over the top. They’re nearly insufferable now, aren’t they?”

“I haven’t seen them since the concert, and even then, it was tough. I’m sure you’ve gathered I’m not huge on PDA…”

“Unless it benefits your image.” Then I realized how that sounded. “I don’t mean?—”

“No, you’re right. I’m a pretty private person, so it doesn’t come naturally to me. And I guess I should say thank you—I’m sure they got some good shots. It probably even looked like we were actually kissing if they shot from behind you.”

“That was the idea.” My pulse picked up at even the mention of the near-kiss. Well, it had been a kiss, but on the cheek.

“Thanks. You should brace yourself—that’ll likely hit tabloids, so your friends and family may hear about it. Since you’ve been at a few events, they’ll have your name and splash it around. Hopefully nothing too personal about the Army.”

Her voice thrummed low and smooth. It made me want to get closer to her.

“It’ll be fine. My sisters both tend to be in their own worlds, and my mom isn’t tuned into celebrity stuff.”

“Well, I hope you have a good Thanksgiving. I feel like we’re about to go into a real intense time in our arrangement in terms of the tour. We have some time booked out on that Saturday before to talk about what you can expect, right?”

She pulled her purse over her shoulder, and I could see the shadow of her hand reach for the handle on the door and rest there.

“Yep, we’re good. It’s low key for me until the new year, so if anything else comes up, let me know. And don’t be shy—if you need anything, let me know.”

Okay, okay, man. She gets it.

“Thanks, Ben. See you soon.”

She climbed out of the truck, and it was only then it occurred to me I should have gotten the door for her, escorted her in, but I was parked just feet from her front door. She had a cobblestone circular driveway, and even though my job was boyfriend, my reality was friend. Walking her to the door would create unnecessary awkwardness.

The days before Thanksgiving were busy. And frustrating. For some reason, there was a constant need to scramble and look busy. To “get after it,” as they often said. The new battalion commander who’d replaced LTC Wilson was LTC Baker. Because he was just starting out and the battalion wasn’t slated to deploy again until next summer, his restlessness was palpable.

Since LTC Wilson had been a great commander—yes, in my limited opinion, but also according to many people who’d been around to know the difference—so when Baker arrived, there wasn’t a huge need to change things. People knew their jobs, knew their roles, and the companies were functioning well. The battalion had been through a rough couple of years between the difficult deployment with multiple casualties, and then the loss of Specialist Smith last spring.

Through it all, LTC Wilson had kept it together, and even for me, who’d fallen apart, he’d been a stalwart supporter of my seeking help and recovering. One thing he did well was make people go home—make them stop working needlessly and take their long weekend when it was given.

As I drove away from Nashville heading South, I wondered just how much of LTC Wilson’s ability to do that was thanks to Major Flint’s overnights and weekends working on his behalf the last year before Flint decided to have a life. I couldn’t be sure. But it was good Flint had figured out how to create some boundaries before his new boss showed up. And lucky for him, he would be moving on after he promoted to LTC in the spring, most likely.

Me? I was stuck there in the musty old building I alternately hated and tried not to hate. I liked many of the people, but had grown tired of stressing out about filling in information on tracking spreadsheets, aka my life. I was tired, after only two weeks of Baker in charge, of being made to feel like leaving at five was ducking out early and shirking my duties.

The Army would take. It would take, take, take, and take some more. And the longer I stayed there, the more I felt like I didn’t have any more to give it. I wondered if I’d given it everything I had when I lost Jones. When I lost myself. Now that I’d effectively found myself again, I wasn’t ready to give any more.

But the thought of stepping away from this life—the one I’d planned for during high school, then college, and the only adult life I’d known—that was a tasking that felt too big. I kept pushing it out of my mind, knowing that the time for me to decide whether I was going to get out, or promote and move on to the next job, at which point I’d then owe the Army time, was coming.

By the time I pulled into my mom’s house in Alabama after the five hours it took to get there by car, I was exhausted. I should have known that expecting peace and quiet was a fool’s errand.

“You have some explaining to do, Benjamin Michael.”

This was Bridgette the minute the screen door swung shut and I walked into the living room. She loved talking to me like she was in charge of me. I suspected it was because her toddler was still too young to control.

“About?” I asked, wandering down the hallway, still carpeted with the same copper brown medium shag it had been all my life.

“About you dating Whit Grantham!” she shrieked.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, that.”

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