Chapter 18
James
When Marc said “we” while discussing his plans for the flower shop, I could have called my CO right then and there and told him I had zero plans of re-upping.
I wanted that dream more than I wanted my next breath.
It didn’t matter that I didn’t know shit about flowers.
I’d learn. I’d find other ways to be helpful.
But Marc was… Marc. He was passionate. Of course, he was excited about the future of the shop.
He’d never wanted to be in the army. This had always been his dream.
He didn’t mean “we” as in “him and me”. It was more of a royal we, the “we” of future staff.
A “we” of a future that didn’t include a summer dalliance, an experiment, a secret.
Because that’s all I ever was. Even with the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” most soldiers kept their sexuality quiet.
Not hiding per se, but not broadcasting either.
I certainly didn’t. Which meant secret hookups.
Often it also meant I was a safe person for someone to explore their sexuality.
Not for a relationship. Never for that. It had been fine in my twenties, or that’s what I told myself.
Now? Now I knew it for the lie it had always been.
I swallowed past the lump that had formed in my throat.
I needed to get the fuck over myself. What did I think this would be?
That I’d—what—kiss Marc, and he’d fall head over heels in love with me and ask me to stay, to give up the Army?
That for once I wouldn’t have to watch someone else get their happily ever after?
Yeah, that shit only happened in the books I read.
The truth was, when I fell for someone, I fell fast and I fell hard.
And Marc? He’d been walking around with my number for years.
It had been a lowkey crush at first. I was past pretending that now.
I was completely gone for the ridiculously adorable florist, with his pretty eyes, quick wit, and bright smile.
God help me, he might be the one who finally broke me for good.
“You know we don’t have to go shopping today?” Marc said, glancing at me with concern from the driver’s seat.
“What makes you think I don’t want to go?” I responded, working harder to get my pity party under control.
He frowned, clearly not buying it. “Because you look like you’re being subjected to dental surgery.”
I barked a laugh. “Why is that the first thing that comes to mind?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it, looking thoughtful. “You know, I don’t know. Is it the food? I know we haven’t made it to McSharry’s, but I swear we will.”
I reached across the console to squeeze his leg. “I know. It’s not the food. Was just thinking about the future,” I admitted cautiously, then removed my hand.
“Yeah? Anything in particular?”
“I got another email from my CO.” I looked down at my lap and picked at my cuticles. Admitting that was like walking into a minefield blindfolded to hit a pinata. My CO was understandably getting impatient. I'd never taken this long to turn in my reenlistment paperwork.
“Your CO? What for?” The light we’d stopped at changed from red to green, and we went a few car lengths before he did a double-take. “Holy shit! Are you due to re-up?”
I nodded, unable to bring myself to say it out loud, not trusting what might come out of my mouth.
At this point, it’d be a coin toss between begging him to let me stay and blurting that I’d already gone and fallen for him.
Wow, could I be any more pathetic? And now the crease between his eyebrows was back.
“Look, I know I’ve made my position on the Army pretty clear, but I hope you know you could still talk to me. If you wanted an unbiased sounding board, I wouldn’t try to sway you one way or the other.”
Except I did want a biased sounding board, and that was the problem. “Thanks, Marc. That… I appreciate the offer.”
He frowned as he turned into the impeccable Brennity Retirement Community.
Before I knew it, we’d pulled into a parking spot, he’d slammed on the brakes, and shifted the car into park.
He was staring out the front window and breathing heavily when he finally said, “You appreciate it, but you won’t take me up on it.
” He paused a beat and turned to look at me with anger burning in his eyes.
“Do I have that right?” He gripped the steering wheel so hard that for a second I thought he might try to rip it off.
“Is it because you don’t trust me not to be biased, or that you think I can’t handle it? ”
I gaped at him. What the hell was going on? “Neither.”
He scoffed and muttered, “Un-fucking-real.” Then he pushed open the door and grabbed the bags of food from the back. “I’m taking these to Aunt Petunia. I’m sure you can find your way.” He slammed the back door and was gone before I could even think to un-click my seatbelt.
In my haste to get out of the car, I got tangled in the belt when it wouldn’t retract fast enough, which caused me to trip over the curb while trying to regain my balance.
“Goddamn it.” I glanced up at a shocked gasp to see a young mom with her toddler and elderly father, and winced.
“Sorry, ma’am, sir.” They still didn’t look too happy, but at least they didn’t dress me down.
I nearly forgot to sign in with the concierge at the front and had to keep leaning back to monitor Marc through the glass doors. Damn, he wasn’t even running, and he’d covered some major ground. How on earth was I going to catch up with him?
“Sir.”
I looked back at the concierge, with his raised eyebrows, and down at where I’d signed in…
or tried to. With a groan, I stopped trying to watch Marc and focused on signing in properly.
By the time I finally got outside, he’d doubled the distance.
Thank fuck for my long ass legs was all I had to say.
I ate up ground as fast as I could without breaking into a sprint, beaming a smile at anyone who looked at me.
Unfortunately, I still hadn’t caught up to Marc before he got to his Aunt Petunia’s cottage.
Nor did I catch what the older woman in the hot pink tracksuit outside her door said to him.
However, I did catch his response and her shocked expression before he let himself into his aunt’s place.
“Nobody gives a shit, Barbra Jean.”
By the time I made it to the door, Barbra Jean was stomping off in a huff, Aunt Petunia was waiting in the doorway, and Marc was heading out the back of the cottage. Either Aunt Petunia was a mind reader, or my distress was written plain as day on my face. Honestly, I wouldn’t rule out either.
“Hey there, honey. Why don’t you come on in and fix yourself a nice tall glass of iced tea?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied by rote, stepping up to kiss the side of her thin cheek before moving inside. I couldn’t say why I did it. I’d certainly never done anything like that with my family. Only that it felt right.
She followed my gaze to where I could see Marc pacing and talking on his phone through the sliding door.
“Try not to let it get to you, honey.” She patted my arm and led me to the modest table that already held the bags of food along with glasses filled with ice, a pitcher of tea, plates, and utensils.
“Sometimes he’s like a Mimosa pudica–a humble plant,” she elaborated.
“One touch and he curls up. It can take a while to get him to unfurl again, but he eventually does.”
Okay, yeah, I’d seen that, but this… wasn’t that. I poured myself some tea, but couldn’t bring myself to drink it. “I don’t know what I did.” That was maybe not the whole truth. I had an inkling.
“Oh, honey. JD,” she said, placing a wrinkled hand still filled with strength on my arm, “odds are you did nothing at all. Yes, sometimes he’s like a humble plant, then he has his moments where he gets a bee in his bonnet and there’s nothing for it but to let it work itself out.
When he gets like this, typically only his sister can talk him down.
At least he’s gotten better at recognizing when it’s happening and distancing himself instead of digging deeper and letting it consume him. ”
“Shit. That sounds… awful. I don’t know how to ask this without sounding crass or indelicate, but has he considered medication? That’s got to be better than dealing with that.”
She nodded sagely and began fixing all three plates.
“He has, and we’ve encouraged him. Not his father, mind you, but the rest of us.
But he’s convinced himself that if he takes medication, then it means he’s,” she paused and shrugged her shoulders as if she still couldn’t understand, “broken. Or worse, that it will change who he is.” I was trying to process that bomb when she shot me an all too familiar look.
I huffed a laugh, surprising myself. “And if I tell him you told me that, you’ll kill me in my sleep.”
“My, you are such a good young man,” she said with a shit-eating grin as she patted my cheek.
The click of the back door opening drew both our attention.
“Love you too, Orange Blossom. Yeah, I’ll tell her.
” Marc finished closing the door and slid his phone into his pocket before looking up.
I could pretend the red suffusing his cheeks was because he’d been outside, but we all knew what it really was.
He walked over to the table, and Aunt Petunia went on as if nothing had happened.
“How’s Alex? Her presentation go well?”
“She knocked it outta the park. No surprise there,” he replied with a genuine, albeit small, grin.
It didn’t take much to see how proud he was of his sister.
Suddenly I wondered what she would think of me and what Marc would think of my siblings.
Marc cleared his throat as he pulled out a chair and tentatively met my gaze.
“Any chance we can forget about me being a total asshole back there?”
“That depends,” I said with a small smile of my own. As expected, he tensed.
“On?”
“On if you’re going to fill me in on what that ‘orange blossom’ business is about.” His burst of laughter was everything I’d hoped for, and Aunt Petunia smiled knowingly into her tea as she took a sip. “I take it this is a question that comes up a lot?”
He shared a look with his aunt, his eyes sparkling with happiness once again, and the tension in my chest finally eased.
“You could say that. It all started because, as you already know, Aunt Petunia is named for a flower.” She held up her arms in a ta-da meets a what-can-you-do gesture, and I chuckled.
“Naturally, Alex and I insisted on having flower names too.”
“But it’s not that easy,” Aunt Petunia cut in.
Marc rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Nothing ever is.”
“See, you have to earn your flower name.”
Marc mouthed, “So unfair,” and I snickered.
“Hush, you,” Aunt Petunia chided, smacking him on the arm. “Anyway, that’s really the long and short of it. It took a whole season, but they eventually settled on their flower names, and they’ve been the same ever since.”
“Ah, I see. So if your sister’s is orange blossom, what’s yours?” I asked, officially dying of curiosity.
Aunt Petunia opened her mouth, presumably to answer, but Marc placed a hand on her arm, and an evil grin spread across his face. “Guess.”
I should have known better. After all, he’d already said it: nothing’s ever that easy.