Page 49 of All The Way Under
The sweat slips down Brody’s face as he looks at me, one eyebrow jutting up when I don’t answer whatever question he asks.
“How am I supposed to do life without your mean, sarcastic mind and body, McCoy? Is that your real last name? He just called you that.”
A crease forms between his eyes.
“It is. Everything will work out how it’s supposed to work out,” he says. “Don’t worry yourself with that. Focus on the fact you’re leaving, and you’ll be reunited with your parents in Europe soon.”
“Where will you go?” I ask, hearing the hysteria in my voice. How far I’ve fallen to become this kind of girl. The clingy type.
He lifts one shoulder up and down quickly.
“Back home, I think. Sag Harbor to see my parents, my brother, and dog, and then back to work.”
“That’s it?” I ask, feeling my breaths come faster. “What about the details?”
Brody’s face changes, and he turns away to look out the door at the mob of SEALs swarming the beach. He looks back at me.
“I care about the details,” he replies. “I care. Maybe I haven’t for a long time, but I do now.” Brody’s jaw works as he thinks.“Tell you what. You go back to your life and settle back in. If you still feel the same way about me after some space and distance, here’s my number.”
Shaking his head, he grabs for a pen and rips a piece of paper off the corner of a paper map. He jots down his number and gives it to me, crunched up. His hand lingers inside mine.
“I want this to work, but this is my life.” He waves a hand next to him. “You are in shock, and this is far from your normal.”
“This isn’t your normal. Come on,” I argue.
He widens his eyes. “It is, though. This or something like it.”
He takes a bottle of water from a cooler between the cockpit seats and hands me it. I open it, marveling at it for a second before twisting off the cap and guzzling it down.
I notice he doesn’t drink one. He’s worried about me.
A SEAL pops his head in.
“Mark,” Brody chirps, grinning. “I didn’t die,” Brody proclaims. “Ta-da, motherfucker!”
Mark looks at me, then back at his friend, a half smirk playing on his lips.
“I don’t know about that. Commander said otherwise.” The grin widens. “A different kind of death?”
“Well, you going to get us out of here then?” Brody asks.
Mark introduces himself to me, slowly, like I’m a child just understanding language. It’s then that I realize I am indeed in shock, and they knew it before I did.
“I don’t want to leave her. Can you give me the radio, and I’ll send a quick debrief and give pertinent details?”
Mark detaches his radio from his chest and thrusts it into Brody’s waiting hand.
I watch him closely, as if I’m seeing him for the first time, and in a lot of ways, I am. He speaks into the radio, first introducing himself to whoever is on the other end and then usingabbreviations and acronyms for things that I don’t understand. Which is a feat.
Not to flatter myself, but I know a little about a lot of things, but watching him, with the dang backward hat, relay information I have no clue how or when he collected, forces me into a realization. He is so much more than I initially gave him credit for.
I’m enamored. I’ve fallen for this man in all ways.
Even through the shock of everything around me, his face and his voice ground me.
“I love you.”
I blurt it out like an absolute psychopath. In front of his teammate. In front of God and country. Not my country either.
