Chapter Seven
Hunter
Istared at her text again. Ice cream sounds good. Sunday?
It had been a simple message, barely a handful of words. But to me, it felt like a green light I had not expected.
It was not that women never said yes to me. They did. I just had not let myself get emotionally invested in a long time. Not since my marriage ended. Not since I decided it was easier to keep people at arm’s length than to risk letting them in again.
The divorce was only a year behind me, although the marriage was over, and the separation happened long before the ink was finalized.
Regardless, it was still fresh enough to sting if I thought about it too long.
Ten years in the Marine Corps had been hell on both of us, but the last few deployments were the nail in the coffin.
She wanted stability, but I could not give it, and eventually, she walked away, finding warmth in another man’s bed.
I told myself I understood. I told myself it was for the best. But some nights, lying awake in an empty apartment, I still felt the weight of that failure.
Now, for the first time since then, I was dipping my toe into life outside the Corps.
Civilian clothes. Civilian schedules. Working as a contractor on base.
A foot still in the world I knew, but no longer part of the brotherhood that had defined me for a decade.
It was a strange and unsettling feeling.
So why was this woman, the one who laughed too easily, the one who admitted her chaos up front, the one who had three kids and a full plate, suddenly make me want to risk it again? That was the question I could not shake.
???
Sunday came faster than I expected. I pulled out a shirt I had not worn in months, scrubbed my beard down, and checked myself in the mirror twice, hoping that would erase the parts of me that still felt flawed.
I had not felt this nervous about a date in years.
Not the “first-date butterflies” kind of nervous.
I had already had that. This was different.
These were the types of nerves that came when you realized you were in way over your head and did not hate the feeling.
It had been a long time since I cared about how I looked for someone else, but tonight I needed to show up for her.
Camille. Even her name felt different in my mouth.
She was not what I expected when I downloaded that app.
Truthfully, I was not expecting much at all, just a distraction, a little flirting, maybe something casual to fill the silence.
But from the first message, she had been different.
Witty. Guarded, but not bitter. Soft in ways I did not think existed anymore.
And then she told me she was a mom of three kids.
You’d think that would make me hesitate.
The truth? Her being a mom did not scare me.
What scared me was how much it did not scare me.
The idea of sitting at her kitchen table, hearing little voices call her name, tucking kids into bed did not feel like baggage.
This was a chance at the kind of life I thought I had lost. That was dangerous because it was way too soon.
I splashed water on my face, trying to wash away the heaviness that always lingered when I thought about my past. The nights overseas when sleep would not come because every sound might mean danger.
The sandstorms. The firefights. The long flights home to an empty bed.
The way I woke up, even now, sweating from dreams I did not talk about.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, the doctors called it.
I just called it normal. How could I hand that to her? To her kids?
But then I remembered her laugh at mini golf.
I grabbed my keys. A simple ice cream date, nothing big.
Driving over, I caught myself running through things like a pre-mission check on what to say, what to ask, how not to let too much slip. This was not combat. It was ice cream. Yet for some reason, my pulse did not seem to know the difference.
The shop was one you noticed more by smell than sight.
Sweet cream, sugar cones, and the faint sizzle of waffle irons drifted into the parking lot before you even stepped inside.
The neon sign above the door flickered just a little, buzzing in protest, but the window displays were cheerful: painted cones, rainbow sprinkles, little chalkboard doodles announcing the “flavor of the week.”
Inside lay pastel walls, polished linoleum, tubs of ice cream behind foggy glass, flavors chalked out: Rocky Road, Cookie Dough, Pistachio, all of it buzzing with families and teenagers and background noise.
I picked a table in the back near the window, facing the door.
Habit. Always keep an eye on entrances. I told myself it was about safety, but if I was honest, it was more about nerves.
I watched the door until she walked in, curls bouncing, eyes scanning for me. That jolt in my chest is hitting me again. She wore jeans, a soft sweater, nothing flashy, just her, a little reserved but with warmth underneath. When she smiled, I knew I’d wait as long as it took to see all of her.
“Hi, Beautiful,” I said, standing.
She smiled, shy but genuine, eyes on the floor. Quiet, “Hi, Hunter.”
We ordered. She didn’t hesitate, “Vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles,” like she’d been craving it all week. I went for mint chocolate chip, my usual, and caught the wrinkle of her nose when she heard it.
“That’s toothpaste with chocolate chips,” she teased.
“Wild,” I said, deadpan. “This is top-tier ice cream.” She laughed, and it hit me square in the chest.
Ice cream in hand, we returned to the table, except that she didn’t take a bite of the vanilla.
She went straight for the sprinkles, licking them off with deliberate focus, ignoring the melting scoop beneath.
She had mentioned enjoying vanilla ice cream mainly for the sprinkles, but it was even funnier in person.
I stared, then shook my head with a laugh. “You weren’t joking. You’re seriously just eating the sprinkles?”
“Obviously,” she said, eyes twinkling. “That’s the best part. Everything else is just… there.”
I leaned back, grinning. “Full disclosure? That’s the quirkiest thing I’ve ever seen on a date.”
“And?” she asked, daring me.
“And I kind of love it.”
Her cheeks flushed, but her grin widened, and for a moment the noise of the shop faded out.
We talked, easy and light. She told me more about her kids: Zeke and his mismatched socks, the twins trying to outdo each other for attention.
She described their little habits with so much affection, I caught myself imagining them sitting at this table, sprinkles smeared on their faces, chattering at her side.
When she asked about me, I kept it simple. “Contracting on base. Same base as my last duty station, different role. Fewer sandstorms, steadier hours.”
So I smirked, shifting the spotlight back to her cone. “You’ve got about three sprinkles left. What’s your strategy when they’re gone?”
She laughed, caught mid-bite. “Panic, obviously.”
“Good to know. I’ll keep the refills coming,” I said.
She rolled her eyes, but her laugh stuck with me. Her gaze lingered, like she knew I was holding back. She didn’t push. That restraint, that grace, meant more than she knew.
I leaned forward, deciding to nudge the banter back. “Alright, your turn. Tell me something I don’t know. No pressure.”
Her brow arched. “That’s how you start a second date? With an interrogation?”
“Not interrogation. Curiosity. Big difference.”
She pretended to think, then smirked. “When I was ten, I broke my mom’s favorite vase, blamed it on the dog, and never confessed. Fifteen years later, she still doesn’t know.”
I barked out a laugh. “Fifteen years? You know you just confessed on record.”
“Good thing you’re not a cop,” she shot back.
Her eyes sparkled as the banter flowed easily. I sipped my cone. “Most people try to impress on a date. You came out swinging with childhood crimes.”
“Better you know now,” she said with a shrug. “Full disclosure.”
That word, disclosure, hit me harder than it should have. Because she’d already given me more honesty than most people ever had. She told me about her kids up front. She didn’t pretend her life was simple. And sitting across from her now, I realized how much I respected that.
The more honest she was, the harder it got to hide every fracture I’d learned to disguise. The nightmares, the triggers, the war that never fully left my head.
So instead, I forced a grin. “Well, in the spirit of disclosure, I should tell you something too.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Oh?”
“I’m terrible at mini golf rematches,” I said solemnly.
She groaned, hiding her smile behind her cone. “That’s the best you’ve got?”
Seeing her smile like that didn’t leave me feeling like a broken man pretending to be whole. I just felt… alive.
“Okay, I’ll go again,” she said, half a laugh in her voice. “Full disclosure? My life’s… complicated.”
I leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Complicated how?”
“Work. School. Kids,” she said, ticking each off on her fingers.
“I work at a doctor’s office, go to classes in the evenings, and then, you know, raising three tiny humans in between.
” She gave me a look, a little daring, as if I hadn’t already been aware from the little glimpses she shared.
“Still think ice cream with me was a good idea?”
I didn’t flinch. “I think it’s the best idea I’ve had in a while.”
That earned me a surprised smile, small but genuine. She tilted her head. “You say that now. Wait until you see me trying to do homework while one kid’s crying for snacks and another was asking me to explain why Johnny only has 5 apples. It’s chaos.”
“That doesn’t scare me,” I said without thinking. Her eyebrows shot up.
I smirked, softening it. “Different kind of battlefield, but hey…I’ve seen people survive worse. You’re still here, aren’t you?”