Page 16 of The Best of Us

John smirked against the glass as he sipped his Captain Morgan. “Says the guy who started them all.”

“No.I only step in to help,” I corrected before returning my focus to the problem on the other side of the bar.

That problem was now mine because I’d read the brunette’sstopon her lips, and the guy wasn’t listening.

“Give me a second.” I set down my drink and followed them off the patio and over to the sand. “Let her go.”

The man-child, doubtfully a day over twenty-one, unhanded her.

She pulled her wrist to her chest, rubbing the red mark on her skin. I could feel her curious gaze on me, but I was too focused on the target in front of me.

Theidiotastepped forward, lifting his chin. He was three sheets to the wind.

“Go to your room and sleep it off. Never touch a woman like that again.” It was the evening, but the sun was still hovering over the water like a ball of fire, so I put on my sunglasses. “Do you understand me?”

I cocked my head, daring him to speak, to do anything that might result in cracked ribs and a broken nose.

He rolled his eyes for an answer.

“Apologize,” I ordered, and this guy in a Hawaiian shirt—wrong island—looked over at the girl and said something incoherent.Close enough.“Now, what are you supposed to be doing?” I lifted a brow, waiting for his obedience.

“Going to sleep,” he grunted, then backed away.

He was lucky he was so young. That was the only reason I was being so generous and not connecting my right hook with his chin.

I watched him pull another guy away with him, and they made a hasty retreat from the bar. At least he had some sense despite being drunk.

“Thank you,” the woman said.

I gestured for her to head to the bar so she could enjoy her time without some dude manhandling her.

“Would you like to join me? The least I can do is buy you a drink.” She ran a white-painted nail along her collarbone while eye-fucking me in her pink and black bikini.

“You owe me nothing.”

“You sure I can’t?—”

“I’m good, but thank you.” I waited for her to return to the bar, then faced the sea.

After a wild weekend with my friends, I was eager to return to Norfolk and get back to sea. Unlike my best friend, who was a SEAL and currently deployed, I enjoyed being in a submarine. Something was calming about being deep in the ocean, feeling like I was in another world—at least below this one, which was full of assholes.

“You turned her down? Really? Why not play the hero card and get laid?”

John wasn’t a fighter but didn’t mind the other kind of trouble. The kind involving rumpled sheets and sneaking out before dawn.

“I’m good,” I repeated what I’d told the girl.

He slapped my back while joining me to view the water rolling onto the sand as the sunlight spilled down over it. “I’ll never understand you. You’ve got the looks, the accent, and the money. Why not take advantage of it at every turn?”

I glanced at him, lowering my glasses down my nose. “What makes you think I don’t?” I smiled, shoving my Aviators back in place. “Just not in the mood tonight.” I wasn’t sure why exactly. Maybe it was because everyone I had met lately was starting to feel the same. Same look. Same stories. Same everything turning into nameless memories.

“Well, care if I shoot my shot, then?”

“Go for it. Just don’t forget our flight time.” I smiled, then waved John off. After a few more quiet moments of peace, I went to the bar, carefully avoiding John and the other two sailors I was there with.

I rested my forearms on the sticky bar top, rotating my neck from side to side. “Maker’s Mark. Neat.”

“You sure about that?” I slowly turned to the woman at my side, an angel in a sundress.

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