Chapter 2
***** Johanna *****
My breath caught at the look on his face.
There was no surprise to me that he was a loner way up here. Or that he was a grump.
Which was sad given that he was so young. And damn good looking.
It was a shame to the female world to have this one tucked away, licking old wounds, and curling against battle scars. And it was evident he had his fair share. Not just from what he saw from Johnnie’s accident.
I knew he was with him the day his plane went down, and though I have tons of questions about it, especially given the little information I received, I knew Chance would not open up. Honestly, I’m not sure he ever would.
I was a horrible person not to check on him after everything, but like him, I was licking my own wounds.
Johnnie was all I had left in this world, growing up as an only child and losing my mother shortly after my son enlisted.
But I had friends that cared about me enough to push me to go out, to take one step after another when he died.
I don’t know if Chance had that, but I should have done more than checked in here and there.
“Why is your call sign Trouble?” I asked him, needing to redirect my thoughts. Otherwise, I’d become as sour as he is, and we didn’t need that.
His lips lifted again, and I was starting to think that he didn’t smile much. Which was another sad thought because from that first picture, he had a smile that could knock the wind right out of anyone. Alas, if I was about twenty years younger, I’d make a play for him.
But hell, I was an older woman with a dead kid and hadn’t dated in over fifteen years. No one was looking twice at me anymore.
“Because I like trouble.”
I lifted a brow at that, knowing there was far more to that story. He sighed and then limped over to the box on the counter. I had noticed it earlier when he walked up the stairs, and of course, as the day wore on, it became more pronounced.
“Give me something real, Chance.”
“Johnnie wasn’t the only one who liked pranks. My teachers didn’t know what to do with me. I aced all my tests, my flights, my logs, everything was always on the up and up. However, I loved to annoy the shit out of people, mostly by pranking them.
“It wasn’t even me who came up with the callsign.
Or my buddies. It was a commanding officer when I was graduating from the academy.
He gave me wings and called me, Trouble.
When I asked what he meant, he had a special patch in his hand that he had made up for me and told me that day forward, I was to be Trouble.
“It fit me so well, so I stuck with it. I’m a good guy, with a bad mind, and I like that juxtaposition a lot. Most people really don’t know what to make of me. Most either hate me or love me. Or depending on the time of day, both.”
“Now I can see how you and Johnnie fit so well together. I’m so glad neither of you were in school at the same time. I really can’t even begin to imagine the shit you two would have been up to you.”
I could only shake my head at him, but I could honestly picture how life on base would have been for them, or around them. There would have been nonstop laughs and jokes, annoying just about everyone else too.
“We would have been a double team, which would have sucked for you. But I have no doubt that you could have gone into the principal’s office and batted those long lashes to get us out of trouble.”
“Yeah, sorry, no. You make it seem like I have some kind of magic power.”
He snorted at that, and I lifted a brow, my arms crossing over my chest.
“What was that for?”
“Looking like you do, and you couldn’t flirt your way out of trouble? Please.”
I felt my cheeks heat up at that but didn’t want to dive too much into it. Again, twenty years ago, sure. But I’m sure he only viewed me as a mother, an older woman, not someone to ogle at. Not that I needed that and that is certainly not what I came here for.
“So, if I may ask, how did you come by this stuff from Johnnie?”
“It’s stuff I had. When….uh….it all happened, I was in a hospital and then discharged back home. So, they boxed up everything and shipped it back to me. My sister is coming for a visit, and I need to clean the guest room out.”
“It’s interesting.”
“What is?”
“You, Chance. You’re a hermit, a grump at that, and yet you have a guest room. You’re literally having someone come over, into your space, and you’re allowing it. Actually, two some ones because I’m here too.”
He just stared at me, as if he was shocked by that, but there should be no reason for it. He knew what he was, what he had become, but it was interesting to see that he also had gotten a cabin with a spare bedroom. Most people didn’t do that when they wanted to be alone.
There also wasn’t a reason he could give me that he had it. Which, to me, meant that deep down, he knew he wouldn’t always be alone. That he wanted someone else here, once in a while.
He grunted at that before slamming his hand on the box, obviously annoyed, to which I could only lift a brow and smirk, because there was no denying it.
“Do you want to see what’s inside the damn box or not?”
***** Chance *****
I didn’t mean to get feisty with her, but hell, she was pushing buttons that she had no right to be pushing. She also had insight that she didn’t need to have. And lastly, she was hitting far too close to home.
And I didn’t like it.
Not one single bit.
So, yes, the grump came back out. He had every right. She was invading my space and even though I had asked her to come, my intention was just going to be to hand her the box and let her leave.
I had no plan to look at it with her.
But even though she was pushing me, I didn’t want her to leave. At least, not without looking.
Because for the first time, I didn’t feel like breaking down over the fact that one of the best men I ever knew had passed away.
I didn’t feel like clawing my heart out so that I could join him.
Even worse, I didn’t feel like picking up the bottle just to drown out all the pain, screams, and cries I could hear.
I wanted to look at this with someone here who understood him just as much as I did, if not better.
I wanted to be with someone I could share a memory with and have insight about.
I knew this would be painful, but oddly enough, the fact that this was his mom settled something within me, and I have no doubt that Johnnie would want me to do this with her, and only with her.
What a thought.
With that, I finally opened the box, peeking at the items for the first time.
“We shared a room,” I told her, having to clear my throat twice before I could finish, “I looked at this stuff all the time, but I haven’t glanced at this since I got it. I can’t even remember what was there.”
“I know it’s hard to hear, Chance, but Johnnie wouldn’t want this for you. He’d want you to live for him. That’s how he viewed the world.”
“I know, Johanna. But I don’t look like I’m ready for the world.”
“You have wounds, anyone can see that, but you’re still a good-looking kid who is in the prime of his life. Anyone would be lucky to have you, sir.”
Why those words made me feel like preening like a peacock, I don’t know. But they felt good to hear. Even more so that it was said by a beautiful woman.
She gave me a smile before reaching into the box, pulling out a couple of picture frames, her fingers tracing over the smiling faces. And instead of crying like I thought she might do, she laughed.
“What did I miss?”
“This was Johnnie and my mom when he was about ten. It was the last Christmas he had when he believed in Santa. And he didn’t get what he wanted from Ol St. Nick and wrote a rather mean letter.
A few days later, he found it in my drawer and asked why I didn’t send it.
I couldn’t put the act up anymore and had to share.
“He was so relieved, actually, to not have to yell at a made-up person and understood why I couldn’t get what he wanted. It was just a funny moment with him. In his typical way, of course.”
She sat the pictures aside and then dug in some more, holding up a high school t-shirt that had a black stain on it, one I could never get the story about.
“What was up with that?”
She took a deep breath, holding it up her nose, but after so long, his scent had faded. Her lips lifted in a smile, the tears briefly appearing before stopping altogether.
“His senior year and he had to go out with a bang. I told you he had that teacher that didn’t like him.
Well, his science classroom was right next to yours.
He was mixing something up that smelled awful as he was going to leave it right by the vent so the smell would travel.
However, he mixed something wrong, and it exploded all over him, hence this shirt.
“They wanted to expel him, but they couldn’t. Cause it was the last day and his last prank. They so badly wanted him to get in trouble, but he hadn’t done anything other than to himself. He kept the shirt as a memory.”
“His ass would have been kicked out if he had pulled anything like that while on the base,” I muttered, knowing I had to talk him out of a few ideas.
“That was with the thing with Johnnie. He didn’t go overboard, nothing that would ever really get him into too much trouble. Just enough to bother us, annoy them even, but that was it.”
I watched as she ran her hands over the shirt before setting it aside along with the frames. She pulled out a few other items and each one had me holding back my pain a little more. She looked over them carefully, a smile on her lips, but she never once cried.
While I was on the verge of being a mess.
Her hand ran over my back as to sooth me, and the fact that it was a motherly action when I sure didn’t see her like that wasn’t lost on me. No matter if I knew I was going to hell for the thoughts that had first entered my mind.
Finally, she pulled out the last item; his dog tags, and her breath caught.
I could have sworn those were lost in the flames, but here they were, in her hand. Blackened, of course, and finally, the dam broke.
I crumbled to the floor, the tears falling hard and fast and within the next instant, her hand clutched tightly around the pieces of metal, her arms were around me.
Amongst the cries of my own, I could hear hers.
And right there, right then, I felt a connection with her that I hadn’t felt before.
One I think we both needed.
And though there was pain, there was healing.
And it felt so right.