Turning to face her, I grab her wrist to halt the nervous twitch. A few years ago I wouldn’t have noticed something this small and seemingly insignificant. I’m bothered terribly by the stupid gesture now. It’s Carina’s discomfort present with me. My stomach hurts. “You can blame her. When she broke up with me, she said she wanted a clean break. This isn’t that. This is meddling with the one thing I care about. I won’t lose you because of her, Carina. I can’t.” I lift my shoulders, then lower them again. Carina stops her hand and runs it through herpretty hair. “Also, it hurts my arms when you vise-grip me,” I say.
Her mouth pops open, and she covers it with her delicate hand. “I’m so sorry. I should have known better. How will that affect you when you deploy and you’re wearing mountains of heavy gear?”
I explain that all over pressure is different from tiny fingers digging into my skin pressure. I try to comfort her by telling her a joke because she feels bad, but I’m the one who ends up feeling uneasy at the prospect of leaving her. Soon. The time we have together is precious. The countdown is on.
Fiona is waiting for us when we make our way to the living room. “No one lost any teeth or hair,” she says. “I tried telling Mom it was a bad idea to send her out there without warning, but she wanted to let the chips fall where they may.”
I pull Carina into the seat next to me on the white, linen sofa. “Were you taking bets?” I ask. “I’m joking.” I turn to make sure Carina is aware. “She’s been a part of the family for as long as I can remember. Which, uh, isn’t much, kind of, but I understand. So does Carina. There’s no bad blood between us.”
“Just memories you don’t remember,” Fiona says.
I shrug. “Inconsequential at this point, don’t you think?”
She shrugs back. Typical sister move. “I guess so. I’m sorry you had to endure that, for what it’s worth, Carina,”Fiona replies. “Once Megan has her mind made up, that’s that.”
Carina shrugs. “Can’t say I blame her.” With that, the conversation blessedly ends, and worry pangs my heart.
We talk for several more minutes when my parents join us. Mostly everyone ignores the Megan interruption in favor of my looming deployment and what exactly I’ll be doing: which I can’t say. Where I’ll be: I’m not sure of an exact location yet. It has been changing daily. What I’ll be doing: I make something up, because moms and sisters don’t want the truth. They want a thinly veiled concept of safety and my comfort. I give them that. Everyone’s concern is the attacks that have been increasing in frequency on American soil.
And with damn good reason.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Carina
When the messyouget yourself into is no fault but your own, you can’t complain about it. You roll with it with as much dignity and tact as you can. Growing up with my stepfather, I learned that lesson quickly. I made a mistake, I was punished for it. Now that I’m out of his rule and living my own life, the concept is still similar, albeit a little less painful. I fell for a taken man. The problem was he was only taken in a one-sided fashion. I can’t stop putting myself in Megan’s shoes. If I were the one to lose Smith, how awful the feeling must be. I shake the bad feelings away and try to concentrate.
My Bose headphones cancel out all noise. I don’t have the music on, just complete silence. I’m at my small glass desk in my bedroom with the door closed. I’m pounding the keys, desperately trying to make headway on my manuscript.
As soon as we returned from his parents’ house, Smith got a call and had to head in to work. He was not pleased. I’ve never heard him curse somuch and so strongly as he did after he hung up the call. Part of me is happy to have a little space from him and what he makes me feel. Never in all of my years have I been so attracted to a person. His looks aside, the personality that shines through in every single moment of his life is enough to knock me flat on the floor, delirious with lust and…love.
Currently, I’m deleting more than I’m writing. It’s a fight to get words on screen tonight—so distracted by his kiss and then by his ex. The thought gives me an idea. I pull up the chapter in which my characters have their first kiss, and I revise it. I close my eyes and remember his lips against mine. I write every detail, every feeling, every touch. Our first kiss becomes theirs, and even on paper the moment jumps off the pages as truth.
“This is how it needs to happen,” I whisper to myself. Reading over the scene makes my heart pound. It’s so real. I need an outside perspective to know if it’s as strong as I feel it is. Dialing Jasmine is easy. She’s speed dial number one on my cell phone. Like any best friend, she picks up right before it goes to voicemail in no-man’s-land. No one listens to voicemails these days.
“I have to read you something, and I need an honest opinion,” I say. I forgo a hello in favor of getting down to business.
I hear talking and laughing and then complete silence. “I’m ready,” Jasmine says simply. There are no questions, no shit, because it’s the weekend and I’mworking. I remember she’s out with our friends. An invitation I didn’t accept because I thought Smith and I would be preoccupied with each other for at least twenty-four hours.
“I rewrote part of chapter ten,” I say.
“The kiss,” she replies automatically. Her agent hat has replaced her best friend cap.
I nod, glazing over the words in front of me with wide eyes. “Yes. I changed it…fixed it. I think. Here, listen,” I order.
With a quick click I make my font larger and begin reading. I made the scene resemble our first kiss so fully that I moved it outdoors by a tree and changed the dialogue to gel with the moment that is seared into my mind. Reading it back to Jasmine, I can look at it as a fly on the wall instead of breathing and loving in the moment, and it impacts me the same way: a sledgehammer cracking my ribs apart. “A flower stands at its most beautiful just before it wilts away and dies. A black-and-white photo is timeless—it lingers in shoe boxes for generations. Words in black and white are eternal. This kiss, the one I feel in my soul, transcends any visual dimension the eye can see. It’s more than forever,” I read aloud the last part. My breathing is more jagged, and my throat is clogged. Tears sneak out of the corner of my eyes.
“Fuck, Carina,” Jasmine says. Her voice is raspy with emotion. “That is beautiful. You’ve never written anything more…real. You know I’m going to ask, though.”
“He kissed me, Jaz,” I say, grabbing my throat with one hand. “And the world stopped cold. I fell so hard, and it only took seconds. It sounds real because it is real, and my life is strangely more appealing than fiction. How did this happen?” I’m doing this. It’s down. My feelings and words are strewn about my laptop screen. My truths. Our secrets. There’s no hiding them.
Jasmine swallows loudly. “This is unbelievable. If you can insert, no pun intended, more of your real life with Smith into this novel, the sky is the limit. I’m crying, and I don’t cry, Carina. As far as first kisses go in books, you just devoured first through third place,” she says. I can tell she’s breathing heavily, just as affected by my words as I am. “Like maybe took over Jaime and Claire’s spot, for Christ’s sake.”
I hit the save button and lay my forehead down on my desk. “This is what it feels like,” I whisper.
“Yes. You lucky bitch. I can’t even pretend to know what you feel, but your words? Those I can take and run with. Give it to us, honey. Give it all to us,” Jasmine breathes. She laughs. “The first time you fuck him? Give me a few hours’ heads-up. I want to grab a glass of wine and my vibe.”
“You’re atrocious. You think I’d give gory details about that?”
