Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Greyson
Five and a half years ago . . .
From: Juliet Satterfield
To: Greyson Satterfield
Subject: Don’t Make Me Drag You Home (You Know I Will Do It)
Greyson,
You know I love you, but what are you doing?
This isn’t a random bassoon concert for one of your many nieces and nephews (how are there so many?
?). This is Mama’s birthday. You didn’t come home for Christmas, which, I get your life is busy.
But I can count on one hand the times you’ve been home since you left.
You’re in South Carolina this time, not Japan.
If you kindly check your GPS, it’s 2,474 miles.
Or an 8 hour flight. I have a ticket on standby.
Please come. Cal is insufferable without you.
Don’t make me drag you here.
Jules
“You should go,” Liam offered, shamelessly reading Juliet’s email over my shoulder.
I clicked out of the browser and glared at my friend. “Didn’t your mother teach you manners?”
Liam smirked. “You know my mom’s a detective. Nosy is my middle name.”
I rolled my eyes. I had plenty of leave time, and yeah, I could head back to Idaho for the party next weekend.
But I wasn’t sure I was ready to face them.
In a family of talented siblings, I felt substantially less than, especially after the sting of losing the promotion I’d been gunning for.
Any slower and I’d be kissing the Marines goodbye for good.
“Dude, it’s your mom.” Liam, not knowing when to leave things alone, continued as he dropped onto our couch and started solving his six-by-six Rubik’s Cube. There wasn’t a puzzle the man couldn’t solve. “Delilah loves you. I mean, have you seen her care packages?”
“You mean the only reason you still room with me?”
“Hey, I’m doing the world a service by not letting those cookies go to waste.”
“We’ll see.” I headed for the door, itching to get to the barracks’ gym and sweat my irritation out.
“We all know that means no, Grey. Live a little. Go home,” Liam hollered after me.
Sometimes I almost regretted having the nosiest man alive for a best friend. Almost.
I really shouldn’t have been surprised when Gabe cornered me in the gym the next morning while I was deadlifting 300 pounds. I had nowhere to run and he knew it. Gunnery Sergeant Gabe Carson had a way of knowing everything about the guys under him.
“You going home for the party, sergeant?” he asked without preamble.
I grunted through another rep. “You know?”
“Stephanie told me about it.”
Right. Because his younger sister was best friends with mine. “How is Steph?”
“You can see her next week and ask her yourself.”
I eyed him cautiously. “Are you trying to set me up?”
“Heck no!” Gabe barked a laugh. At my raised eyebrow, he amended, “You’re a great guy, and I have nothing against you personally. But military guys aren’t her type.” He glanced out the window, jaw twitching with a frown. “She wants stability. And this? Well, it’s anything but that.”
I’d heard about Hiram Addams abandoning Stephanie after her mother left when she was a child. And Gabe was right—this lifestyle wasn’t for everyone. Which made finding the right woman that much harder.
Maybe Liam was right. I did need to live a little. Not that I’d ever admit it to him.
“All right, I’ll go.”
“Good.” Gabe nodded, spotting my weight bar. “I don’t want to see you on base for at least a week. I know you have the time for it.”
“But—”
“Nope. You’re gone.” He fixed me with a hard look when I sat up from the bench in protest. “You have good people at your back, Grey. Let them in.” With a punctuating nod, he added, “Come for dinner? Ivy has something for you to take to Delilah.”
“You already knew I’d cave?”
Gabe pounded me on the shoulder. “Nah. But I was prepared to order you off base if it came to that. Consider yourself lucky. Some of Liam’s ideas were . . . creative.”
I shuddered at the thought. Looked like I was Idaho bound at last.