23. Hayden
23
HAYDEN
I stepped out onto the weather deck. I loved the way the sun and moon glinted off the water. It was gorgeous during the day, but my favorite time was the dead of night. When it was still, like it was now, it looked like a painting worthy of the world’s best museums.
Sucking in a deep breath, I held it, letting it escape slowly. I loved the smell of the salty sea air. It was one of the best parts of living on the West Coast, but it was difficult to find thanks to the smells of the naval vessel I called home.
You wouldn’t think a navy warship would have a smell, but it did. And it was rarely pleasant. It was a slurry of smells. The steel and electronics, cooking food, and the smells of the men and women who lived aboard were all there. Then, there were all the chemicals used to keep the shop afloat and do the job it was built to do. Rocket fuel, jet fuel, diesel, cleaners, grease, oil, you name it, and we breathed it.
But underneath the smell of all that was the smell of the ocean. It, too, was a melting pot of smells. Not all of them are pleasant on their own, but when combined… Yeah, it was one of my favorite things, but I had trouble finding it lately.
I’d run out of cigarettes days ago, and while I could get more, I’d been trying to quit for years. I didn’t start smoking until my first cruise, and even then, I only smoked when at sea or working on the boat. It helped drown out the smell of all the chemicals. Judging by the assault on my nose now that I’d been nicotine free for a while, all the reports that smoking screwed up your sense of smell were right on the nose.
I chuckled at myself.
I only hoped I could leave them behind for good. I tried every deployment. Sometimes, I didn’t bring them with me but broke down and bought them. Other times, I brought them with me and either tried not to smoke them or would refuse to buy them when I ran out, like this time. The only difference between this time and all the others was Declan.
I still couldn’t wrap my head around… well, him . He was like a typhoon. The moment I laid eyes on him, he was all I thought of. Even when something else took precedence, he was there, lurking in the background.
Ten days.
That’s how many days passed between meeting him and getting on the plan for the recon op. As predicted, the brass moved us from the recon mission straight to the training cruise they supposedly canceled. I knew that was too good to be true. In all the years I’d been in the Marines, the only thing they’d canceled and not rescheduled was leave time.
We’d been at it for weeks now, with the grueling schedule not letting up. It was a double-edged sword. On one hand, we didn’t have a lot of downtime. When we stopped, we all usually dropped from exhaustion, but on the other hand, when I did have a moment to think, he stormed through my mind, and I was helpless against the attack.
And that’s what it felt like. An attack. On my emotions, my mind, my sleep, my heart, and my guts. He walked in, took over, and left me reeling.
We’d not had service on our phones since the plane took off, and my stupid ass didn’t think to give the man my email, or even an address, and he didn’t give me his. So, who the fuck knew when we’d get to speak to one another again. Which meant I got to sit here and worry if he was out screwing around with some fucking Jody while I was stuck on this fucking boat.
“I figured I’d find you here. It’s where you always retreat to when you need space.”
I turned. Lucia stood in the hatch leading onto the weather deck. If you didn’t know her, you wouldn’t know the calm facade was just that—a facade. Underneath the shroud of forced calmness was a hesitance she’d never had in my presence before.
“Hey. Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
“That’s eluded me on this trip.”
“You normally sleep like a baby.”
She sighed and moved closer, stopping before she came as close as she would’ve in the past. Even before we started fucking around, she ignored personal space. This conversation has been a long time coming. I would have had it as soon as things settled down and the recon unit hooked up with the support unit Lucia was in, but she’d gone out of her way to avoid me.
Intent on apologizing, I began, “Lucia…”
“Why him?”
‘I don’t know’ wasn’t the answer she was looking for, but it also wasn’t the question she wanted to ask. “Don’t you mean why not you?”
Her face hardened at the assholish question. “Okay, then. Why not me?”
“If I’m being honest… fuck, if I know. Maybe it’s because he’s a man. Maybe it’s because you’re a woman. Hell, maybe it’s because you knew me before the bitch fucked me over and were there when it happened. I seriously don’t know.”
“What did he do to get you to marry him?”
“Nothing. It was literally a drunken mistake.”
Her face perked up at my words, and I realized how she took them. “At least getting married was, but there’s something between us that neither of us can explain. I won’t say I was drawn to him by some invisible force because that’s so far from the fucking truth. He’s hot as fuck, and I was looking to get laid.”
Reaching for the water bottle I carried out here with me, I guzzled some of it down while I considered what else I could say to let her down as easily as possible. She was a magnificent woman, a damn fine Marine, and sexy as fuck. There wasn’t anything she did or didn’t do. We weren’t meant to be together long-term. I set the bottle down and scrubbed my hands over my face. I needed to get to bed, but settling things with Lucia had to come first.
“Once Declan and I spent some time together, something, what I don’t know, snapped into place. I found myself thinking about him all the fucking time. The week between the night we met and Vegas, we texted every day, back and forth. It wasn’t always something profound. Sometimes it was me bitching about food on the ship, others, it was him bitching about the pampered princess he was protecting. But it wasn’t what we talked about; it was that when something happened, he was the first person I wanted to share it with.”
Her eyes had grown wider and wider as I spoke, filling with tears until they couldn’t hold any more. When the first finally fell, the rest followed, raining down her face. I wasn’t sure if she was even aware, but I was, and it gutted me. I loved her. She was the best friend a person could have, and I fucked it all up getting in bed with her.
“I’m so happy for you, Hayden. You deserve to have that in your life.”
“Luce…”
She dashed the tears from her face, waving me off. “No. You don’t have to explain or apologize. You’ve done that enough. I should’ve put a stop to it ages ago, but I hoped it meant you’d realized I was your person. But I’m not, and I know that.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she rushed to continue, stopping whatever I was going to say.
“I do know it. I just didn’t want to accept it. But I will. I value our friendship too much to let you finding the happiness you deserve with someone else keep us apart.”
“I love you, Luce. You helped me through a dark time, and I can’t thank you enough. I’d offer a hug…”
A small, wistful smile tilted her lips up a smidgen. It had to be the saddest excuse for a smile that ever was.
“Gimme some time.”
“I’ll be here.”
She nodded and turned to head inside. At the hatch, she looked over her shoulder and said, “I heard you had a huge ass box come in.”
My face scrunched up as my head cocked. “What the hell are you talking about? What box?”
She shrugged and headed through the hatch. Curiosity overrode the need for peace and quiet. I stepped through the hatch, and she was waiting there as if she knew I wouldn’t wait to see what the hell she was talking about. I moved through the P-ways down to our department. Instead of breaking off to her berthing compartment, she stayed on my six, and I looked back at her.
“I wanna know what’s in that box. From what I’ve heard, it’s enormous.”
“How did you hear about it before me? And how did it get here?”
“I dunno, and you won’t either if you don’t go check it out.”
Stepping into the department’s admin office, there were several people crowded around a rather large box. I wouldn’t call it enormous. Not knowing who could’ve sent it or what was in it, I approached it slowly, flipping the knife open on my multi-tool.
“Who’s it from?” Priest asked.
I ignored him. The return address didn’t look familiar, in the sense I didn’t know anyone who lived there, but I knew the area. The beach there was incredible, and the houses were beautiful. Expensive as fuck, but beautiful.
“Who do you think it’s from? It’s gotta be from the hubby.”
I glared at Priest when a gunnery sergeant, who I hadn’t seen when I came into the room, asked, “Hubby? Which one of you fuckers tricked someone into marrying them?”
“That’d be me, Gunny,” I said hesitantly, although with the heat I felt climbing my face, I was sure it came out much different.
“Hmm. And who is this poor soul?”
Scott deadpanned, “A man he met in a bar.”
“Ten days before we deployed,” Priest cackled.
My head swiveled to my two former friends before turning to look at Gunny. “Well, I guess there are worse ways to meet your spouse. What’s their name?”
When you looked at the man, you’d think there was no fucking way he was as much an ally of the minority communities as he actually was. But I’d seen him tear into sailors and Marines alike for racist, sexist, and homophobic comments. I was fucking proud to serve under the man.
“Declan Holt, Gunny.”
“Holt. I knew a Holt. He was a captain when I served under him. He was a motherfucking asshole if you fucked up, rightly so, but he went to bat for us, and he protected his men. Never once knew him to ask someone to do something he hadn’t done himself. And he did it all. When push came to shove, he was in the trenches with us, whether it was fighting to stay alive or stirring shit.”
“Sounds like a damn fine Marine,” I muttered just loud enough for Gunny to not yell at me to speak up.
“He was. Walker was his first name, I believe? Walker Holt.”
“Holy shit!” Priest crowed, slapping me on the back with an open palm.
Now, I knew I was blushing, and I hadn’t even opened my damn box.
“I believe you’re talking about Declan’s cousin,” I said, pride filling my voice, not that I could explain why. I’d only met the man once, for fuck’s sake.
“Well, if that don’t beat all,” Gunny said as he stood. He patted me on the back before walking out of the office, muttering either to himself or maybe to us about finding the head.
“Marin, open the fucking box,” Lucia growled.