AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Oh fuck, I hit a nerve.
I prepared for an evening-ending argument.
“Soldier? For fucks sake. You think I was a soldier?”
Not now, no.
He wasn’t just acting like he was insulted, he was insulted. I didn’t know what else to do, so I shrugged.
“United States Navy. SEAL Team One. I wasn’t a fucking ground pounder,” he barked.
My throat constricted, my mouth went dry, and my pussy started tingling. All at the same time.
I swallowed hard. “You were a SEAL?”
He inhaled a deep breath and glared. After a forced sigh, he shook his head. “Some fucking reporter you are.”
He hopped over the wall. “Come on, shit-for-brains, let’s go watch the sunset.”
We walked down to within a few feet of where the ocean met the land and sat down. The sound of the waves washing ashore was calming, and exactly what I needed. One benefit of having an outlaw biker accompany me to the beach was that most people – upon seeing his kutte and tattoos – decided to move further away, leaving us with our own little private spot.
“Thank you.”
He shot me a look. “For what?”
“This.”
He shrugged. “Used to do this when I was a kid. We didn’t live very far from the beach. It’s nice thinking back to when I was a kid. Before things went to shit.”
I wondered just what he meant by before things went to shit. Eventually, curiosity won the battle, and I proceeded to offer him an even trade. My when things went to shit in trade for his.
“When I was eight, my mother went to get some things from the store. My two brothers and I were at school. There was a pileup on the freeway, and she was sitting there waiting on traffic. They said the guy was going seventy or so when he hit the car behind her.”
He touched my hand. I looked right at him, and he looked back. We shared a moment with our eyes locked, and then I continued.
“She didn’t make it home. They said she wasn’t in pain though. I guess it broke her neck. At least that’s what they told us. That was when things went to shit for me.”
He decided to sit down, and pulled against my wrist as he lowered himself to the sand. We sat side by side with his hand touching my wrist lightly. Just enough that I knew it was there, but I didn’t look.
He stared out at the ocean for some time. All the while, he seemed to be doing breathing exercises. In through the nose and out through the mouth, which I never really noticed before. The sound of it became comforting, so instead of disturbing him, I just decided to watch the clouds change color.
“She looked about your age.” His eyes were fixed on the beach. “That’s what I told myself when I saw her. Twenty-five. I remember thinking that.”
If it took him fifteen minutes to develop the courage to speak, I knew better than to look at him. I simply nodded and continued to watch the clouds transform into a rainbow of colors.
“We’d just cleared a building that was filled with insurgents. They were assembling the IED’s that were blowing up our troops. A bomb making facility. I stepped around the corner, and there she was. Our eyes locked. She looked worried there for a second, and I figured she was just scared. Hell, everyone was scared. She must have seen it in my eyes. The relaxation, or the tension leaving. I don’t know. But she saw something.”
He turned his head away from me and I heard him spit. He looked back at the horizon, but I didn’t turn toward him, I could see him out of my peripheral.
“Whatever she saw let her know I was no longer a threat. She relaxed. I relaxed. We pressed on. Maybe ten meters. And then I saw it. She started to raise a Kalashnikov. It wasn’t a choice. It was a combination of training and experience.”
He didn’t have to say it. My heart sank for him. I lifted my hand and placed it on top of his.
Our hands touched, and he looked at me. The skin under his eyes was swollen, but he wasn’t crying. More than anything else, he seemed exhausted. “She was twelve.”
He must have seen it in my eyes.
The shock.
