Chapter 34
Deacon
Marcus handed me a towel and looked back at his stopwatch. “Eighteen,” he said. “Damn, man.”
“Not good enough.” I dragged the towel across my forehead, feeling the burn in my arms and shoulders from the pull-ups.
“Isn’t the minimum like ten?”
“Eight.” I tipped the water bottle to my lips.
“But that’s the baseline. I could do twenty-six at my peak.
” I caught his expression before he fixed his face in a neutral nod, the same expression he’d been giving me since he started helping, the one that said, “I don’t think you’re at your peak anymore. ”
I shook off my arms. “Let’s go again.”
“You want to rest your arms for a few minutes?”
“Fine,” I said, nodding to the mat. “Sit-ups.” Two minutes was the only rest I could take. I’d been more on edge than normal. Having my back pain stop me from giving Willow what she needed really messed with my head and made me want to go even harder to get my body back to where it had been.
“I’ll have to warn your next workout buddy how intransigent you are,” Marcus said, following me to the mats.
“That’s right,” I said, settling myself back on the mat.
“You leave soon.” I hadn’t forgotten. The house was full of his boxes and Emi’s to-do lists, a constant reminder that they were both shipping out soon.
Emi had asked me to stay in the house, adding a few beats too late, “Until you head back to the military.” She didn’t think I should return at all, even if I was back at peak performance.
“I can’t wait,” he said, grinning. “It was hard when the restaurant failed.” He’d worked with Sybil to buy Kieran and Lila’s family donut shop and turn it into a lunch spot.
It was good, but ultimately couldn’t survive.
He’d closed after about a year. “But Lila was always there. Even on the worst days, she makes me feel like I’m the luckiest man on earth. She’s the best thing in my life.”
“That’s hella romantic, bruh,” a guy near us doing crunches said between grunts.
His buddy nodded. “Oscar Wilde said to keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” He held out a sweaty fist for Marcus, who knocked it with a nod.
“Your gym is very literary,” Marcus said, looking back at me.
“He’s right, though.” Marcus loved Lila like people love someone in a movie. “Hella romantic” was a good way to describe it, but feeling lucky around someone was familiar to me. It was how I felt around Willow even before she asked for my help on page two of her list with those big brown eyes.
I shook the thought away. “You’re a lucky guy,” I said. “Timer ready?”
Marcus nodded, and I pulled my body into sit-up after sit-up, trying to clear my head of how she’d rested against me and the pillowy softness of her lips.
I moved faster, needing to work myself further from that memory.
I’d agreed to help her, that no one would get hurt because it was a temporary arrangement.
So why was my stomach tightening at the thought of her moving on without me?
“Time,” Marcus said, interrupting my thoughts.
“Eighty-one. Damn, man.” I’d been counting myself, mentally preparing for being alone in the gym again when he moved to Chicago.
If I could get my reps up a little higher, the chances of them taking me back had to be better.
I kept telling myself that, but sometimes I wasn’t sure it was true.
I fell back to the mat and sucked in a breath, hoping to ignore the twinge of pain in my lower back.
“Eighty-five next time,” I said. “I can do more.” This was a good distraction, and I was barely thinking about Willow’s lips or the feel of her skin under my fingers or her damn plans to be taken up against a wall. Fuck.
“Pull-ups,” I said, lifting myself. “I need more pull-ups.” Across the room, a woman was mid-lift, her form for the pull-up perfect as she finished her last rep and stood on the mat, reaching for a towel.
I recognized her when she turned. “Someone you know?” Marcus raised an eyebrow, and I rolled my eyes.
“Not like that.” I approached Kelly after she waved in our direction. “Nice job,” I said.
“I know.” She wiped her brow with the towel and held out a hand to Marcus to shake. “You want to arm wrestle?” She laughed and took a sip from her water bottle. “You have a life outside of school or the gym? You’re here all the time.”
“Guess that says something about you,” I joked, leaning against the bar. Kelly had been annoying at first, but I liked her. She was as cocky as me, and it made me relax.
“Probably.” She glanced at her watch. “The workouts keep part of the old me, the active-duty me, front and center.”
I nodded—I felt that, too.
“But I’m at the center a lot, too. And you never are. Why are you avoiding us?”
Her direct question landed squarely. “I’m not,” I finally said. “Just busy.”
Kelly gave me a dubious look over her water bottle and shrugged one shoulder.
“We look out for one another at school and beyond,” she said.
“It can be tough getting out and reacclimating. I won’t force you,” she said, starting toward the machines across the room.
She looked over her shoulder and flexed her biceps.
“But I could!” she called out, and I chuckled.
“Where does she want you to go?” Marcus stood nearby, and I prepared to begin the reps.
“Veterans Center,” I said, gripping the bar and positioning my hands.
“Hmm,” he said, watching me do the first couple. “I’ve never seen you hang out with other veterans. Might be good to be around people who understand some of what you used to do.” He offered the casual observation and then returned to counting.
I was hung up on the phrase “used to” and all the things I’d never get to do tied up in the past tense for the rest of the workout.
“Hey,” I said, holding up a bag from Tasty Tacos, Willow’s favorite place in Des Moines. “I brought dinner.” She had dust across her forehead and looked like she’d been crying, but she squealed at the sight of the bag, taking my other hand to pull me inside.
“I never ate lunch. You’re my hero.” She pulled plates from the cupboard and began unpacking the bag.
“These flour tacos have no business being this good.” She inhaled the scent of the seasoned beef and let out a little groan that sent a jolt through me.
She seemed really happy, and not faking it to look fine, but genuinely happy.
“How did it go today?” I glanced around the open-concept main floor. There were stacks of papers and opened boxes strewn around the house like a tornado had touched down, the damage localized to this ten-by-fourteen-foot space. “I can help you…clean up?”
She smiled again, brightly, betraying her swollen eyes. “I found so many things,” she said. “It was like I was learning about someone totally new through these clues.”
I accepted the plate she handed me, and we sat at the kitchen bar, side by side. “She was making plans to travel and go on adventures. I think she might have been dating someone. Lots of notes and references to a ‘T.’ ”
“Wow,” I said, taking a bite as she walked me through some of the other things she’d found, the new things she was realizing about her mom’s life. “And you guys never knew any of this?”
“I didn’t.” She took a swig from her water bottle.
“She was always scared of flying, even when she and my dad were together, and here she was making reservations to go skydiving and fly halfway around the world.” She picked up a tortilla chip, studying it for a second.
“She was being pretty brave. I think she was moving forward.”
Her dimple popped when she chewed, and there was a crumb from the fried tortilla of the taco on her chin. “You take after her, then,” I said, brushing the crumb away with my thumb and stealing a stroke along her cheek. “You’re pretty brave yourself.”
Willow lifted her eyes to mine, and the depth of the brown of her irises always took me by surprise. “I think I’m getting there.”
Braver than me, I thought. I didn’t want to think about what Marcus and Kelly said at the gym.
It opened too many doors, and I didn’t like the sense of imbalance and guilt that still washed over me every time I thought about how I’d let down the unit, how I’d failed, and the increasing uncertainty about getting back in.
Willow bit the corner of her lip, and I pushed those thoughts down.
She was in front of me, and I knew that wouldn’t last. I didn’t want to squander any of these moments while I had them, while I had her.
I slid off my stool. It felt so natural to nudge her legs apart and stand between them.
“You look like you’re going to kiss me,” she said, the corner of her lip tipping up.
“Thinking about it.” I tucked a curl behind her ear and let my hand slide to her neck, my thumb brushing along her throat down to the hollow at her collarbone. “I like kissing brave women.”
“I’m covered in dust, and a spider crawled out of the box and I don’t know where it went.” She paused, taking in a slow breath when I pressed my lips to her neck. “It might be on me,” she added in that sexy, breathy way she talked when she was turned on. “And I taste like tacos,” she added.
“And yet,” I said, sliding my other hand under her T-shirt, stroking the skin along her back as I dipped my lips to her, “I still want to kiss you.”
Willow wasn’t tentative at all around me, and when our lips met, her kisses were equally soft and assertive, letting me control the speed and pace and then gripping the back of my neck when she wanted more. I was breathless when she pushed on my chest, her cheeks flushed.
“Something wrong?” My fingers were in her hair and her legs around my waist. It had been a long time since I’d made out with someone like this, just kissing and touching, and I already wanted more of it. “Do you want to stop?”
She shook her head. “No, but can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” I said, dropping my lips to her neck again, needing the way she sucked in a breath when I hit the right spot. “Ask me anything.”
“You might say no,” she said. “To the thing I want to ask you, which you totally can. I mean, obviously, you should. Not should, just that…” She groaned, the sound low in her throat, and I kissed that spot again.
“Willow.” I spoke near her ear. “Have I ever told you no?”
She shook her head, and I pulled back to meet her gaze.
“I’m with you one hundred percent. If you asked me to consider a career with you in black market trout dealing, I’d ask how many boats we’d need.
If you wanted me to wear hoochie shorts to the bank, I’d ask if you had a color preference, and if you needed two kidneys, I’d get my affairs in order. Whatever you need, just ask.”
She nodded and took in a slow, deep breath. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I said, bracing myself for what might come next. I tried to recall what else was on her list, but all the blood in my brain had moved south, and I had a hard time focusing on anything other than her. “Spit it out. Whatever it is, my answer is yes.”
“Okay,” she repeated. “Can I blow you?”
I blinked. I’d never been aware of a blink before, but I was aware of this one as her words sank in. “What?”
She spoke quickly, and my legs threatened to give out at her question. “I mean, I’d go first and then maybe you could go down on me. I mean, if you still wanted to. If I did a really good job on you first, maybe you’d want to. Or I could give you a few and then…”
My mouth finally caught up to my brain. “Low, slow down.” I moved my thumbs in circles over her upper arms. “You kind of short-circuited my brain there for a moment.”
“You said to spit it out. And I wouldn’t. I’d totally swallow if that…I don’t know, sweetens the deal. I don’t want you to think it’s all about me.”
I kissed her again, taking her lower lip between mine, and pressed against the heat at the apex of her thighs.
“I’m all about you.” I wanted everything from this woman, wanted to give her everything.
“You seem to think I need convincing to bury my face between your legs, Low.” Her eyes were slow to meet mine but widened when our gazes connected.
“I thought I’d made this clear.” I slid a thumb over her plump lower lip. “I don’t.”