Page 34 of Finally Mine
He stripped off his shirt and pants and flopped face down on his spider-free bed.
He’d been up for thirty hours straight, starting with a stint in the southern guard tower, flowing into a briefing with the base’s Afghan interpreters, and ending with a briefing and firearms training with the Afghan National Security Forces.
That was their primary mission. Training and advising the local security forces to be able to handle whatever the insurgents threw at them. Glorified babysitting. But he was proud to see the strides made since his last tour.
Luke—Captain Garrison here—had different responsibilities. Personnel. Briefings out the ass. Dealing with the higher-ups.
Aldo preferred his own. He liked getting dirty, liked getting to know the locals. He was a buddy and a shoulder when needed and the man screaming in your face to push harder when the chips were down. More babysitting.
“Rough day?” Aldo asked Scotty.
“It’s fucking hot, sir.”
“Wait until August,” Aldo said cheerfully. Sympathy never accomplished what preparation and white-knuckled determination did. “Missing home?”
Deployment could be boiled down to this: mind-numbing tedium punctuated with a fear for your life that you could taste. It took homesickness and magnified it into an obsession that some never recovered from.
He could hear the hard swallow. “Little bit.”
“You’ll be back before you know it. Swimming in pools, kissing pretty girls, smokin’ ribs.”
“Weird to think that it doesn’t all stop just because we’re here,” Scotty said.
Aldo thought about his mother heading to bingo. About Jamilah kicking ass on job sites and in conference rooms. About the butts on the stools at the diner and the cold beers poured at Remo’s.
While he worked his ass off and wrestled with spiders and boredom here, his mother’s cholesterol went up another five points, and Gloria was smiling smiles that he’d never see.
“You got a girl at home?” Aldo asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yes, sir. Mandy. We’re engaged.”
Nineteen and engaged. Nineteen and spending six months avoiding indirect fire. Nineteen and responsible for keeping his unit alive.They just kept getting younger.
“Congratulations. What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get home?”
He listened to Scotty wax poetic on his mama’s potato salad and Mandy’s pretty smile.
The first deployment changed things. Not just in the man—or woman—but in every relationship they had back home. Seeing the slice of the world that most Americans were lucky enough to never know existed changed the DNA of a person.
Scotty would go home, God willing. But he’d be different from the kid who got on that bus. Aldo hoped Mandy was the accommodating type.
“She’ll be waiting for you when you get back. Probably already has a wedding dress picked out,” Aldo predicted. He didn’t know Mandy from Eve. But what Scotty needed right now was hope. And maybe Aldo could use a dose of it, too.
Aldo closed his eyes and thought of Gloria. She’d be at his house this week in his inner sanctum. He could picture her in his bedroom. Hell, he’d put two of his new plants on his dresser just so he knew she’d have to go inside. He wanted her there, more than he could say. It was purely selfish.
He could see her. That short, sassy hair, her bright smile, letting herself into his house with a key.
He purposely hadn’t given her a way to contact him. She had so much living that she was entitled to. He didn’t want to get in her way, roping her into some weird long-distance relationship. No, he wanted her. He wanted her strong and confident with six months of decisions she made herself between them. He’d fit himself into her life any way she’d let him. But after that kiss in the dark…well, he was feeling real hopeful that she’d be willing to make some serious room for him. Like dresser-drawer, key-to-the-house room.
He dropped off to sleep, thinking about Gloria sitting on the chair on his front porch, smiling and waiting.
18
The key was hot in her hand, its ridges digging into her palm. Gloria clung to it, running her thumb over the cuts, using the sensation to tear her focus away from the envelope in her bag.
Lord only knew why she’d brought it here, to this tidy bungalow with its welcoming front porch, its neat trim work. Its subtle hints of masculinity.
Aldo’s house. She’d be safe here, Gloria thought, mounting the steps one at a time as if approaching the altar of a church. With reverence, with hope, and the slightest taste of fear.
