Page 1 of Major Love

Prologue

Sunday

Age 17

I’ve spent the past two hours getting ready in my bedroom, my heart pounding at a mile a minute as I think about everything that tonight signifies.

For me.

For us.

Prom night.

And he asked me.

I’ve only just turned seventeen, but I’m about to get picked up by a senior.

And not just any senior.

Jason Coleson.

Stunning tan skin from all of the summers working outside with his older brother, and bigger than any lineman the football team has ever seen, it’s no secret that I’ve been harbouring a crush for Jason Coleson since the very first day of my freshman year.

And even though I can get undeniably shy around him sometimes, from the way that he smiles at me in the hallways, I know that he’s always had a soft spot for me.

He’s been friends with my brother Casey since they were fourteen years old, and, once they graduate this fall, they’re both enlisting at the military academy on the other side of the States.

When Jason first told me that he was enlisting, I’d been dismayed. I mean, I still have a year left at high school, and I don’t even want to go to college.

How am I supposed to have a life with someone if they’re gone half the time?

But then I told my mom about it and she sat me down in my room, a kind smile in her eyes as she placed her hand over mine.

My biological dad had literally never been in the picture, and even though Casey had been around him as a baby, he didn’t remember any details.

So it was just my mom, Casey, and me – until five years ago.

Because the second that Cash Anders walked onto the scene, our lives changed forever.

Cash, a Tennessee native, had returned to the States after a particularly long deployment overseas, and by fate he’d somehow drifted into our small town of Phoenix Falls.

No family, no strings – the perfect recipe for a life of bachelorhood – but the moment that he saw my mom, that was it for them.

They fell fast and hard, but they didn’t pursue anything romantic until he’d completed two more missions, because not everyone can handle the potential complications that come with having a long-distance military partner.

But as soon as that second mission was over, Cash came back and moved straight in, immediately footing my mom’s bills and showing us the gentle love of an incredible father figure.

And it was beautiful.

Saturday nights watching movies, Sunday mornings in the lake… I swear, if it hadn’t been for Cash, Casey would never have developed his fascination with freshwater swimming. Like, he does it nowall the time. Even when Cash is away, Casey and his friends haul ass to the water, and Case can stay down there for hours, just lazing in the sun-trap between the pines.

So my mom laid it out for me, just like that.

That, even though Cash was away serving our country for a lot of the time, the time that we spentwithhim made up for all the time lost.

And, even though she had some regrets, falling for Cash would never be one of them.

Her words were so profound that I’d scribbled them over and over again in my journal, holding the baby blue book against my chest as I stared up at the ceiling from my pillows.

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