Page 47 of Kiss Marry Kill
Maybe he’d dozed off, she thought.
“You okay, baby?” His voice was raspy and growly, and he wasn’t even looking at her as he said it, yet she felt it everywhere.
Baby? Oh God, her heart.
“Y-yeah, why?”
“You’re quiet and you’re staring.”
“I am not staring.”
“You were.”
She huffed, a smile on her face and pretended to twiddle with the reel. He yawned loudly and sat up a little straighter. After a while, his leg began to bob up and down, his hands fiddling with the rod, his drink, the extra line. “You don’t know how to just do nothing, do you?” she wondered, fighting back a smile.
“I did, until you woke me up with all your staring.”
“Har har har. I thought you liked fishing.” She pointed to his leg.
“I do like fishing and I am relaxed. The leg thing is a bad habit. I’ll try to stop.”
“Are you thinking of all the things you have to do back at my house?”
“Maybe?”
“Well, there’s nowhere to go.” She looked around the eeriness and quiet of the vast ocean. “So you might as well follow your own advice and wait for the fish. You’re rocking the boat with all that bobbing and I’m bound to get seasick.”
“Aren’t you hilarious today?” He smiled and reached over to grab two beers, snapping off the top of one and handing her the bottle before sitting back. “Tell me about all the places you’ve travelled.”
She took a pull of the beer. “I feel like I’ve been everywhere. France, Italy, China twice, Japan, Turkey, pretty much everywhere in the United States. Just too many to name.”
“Which was your favorite?”
“Just ’cause I’ve been everywhere doesn’t mean I’ve actually seen anything. I’m usually there for a few hours and then I’m off to another place.”
“Then let me rephrase the question, any place you’d like to see for more than a few hours?”
“We performed in a little town on the outskirts of London. It was so green and the air felt so clean. I’d like to go back there. See England, explore the northern part of the UK. But, I also love it here in the islands. If I had the time, I think I’d stay here for a few weeks. Not in the resorts, maybe rent a house by the beach and never leave.”
“Sounds nice.”
“And you? I’m sure you did quite a bit of traveling yourself.”
He shifted around, reeling a bit and then releasing more of the line. “Less than you’d think. I was mostly stationed in Baghdad.”
“Can I ask you something? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” When he didn’t respond she continued. “Your leg. What happened? That wasn’t there before you left.”
He looked down at the horribly jagged scar that ran from the top of his thigh straight to his calf. It was a raised mess of scar tissue. She’d tried not to look at it but she couldn’t help it. Not because it was ugly, but because it hurt her heart to think of how it had gotten there. “Ambush. We were attacked at our base by someone delivering a package. I had just been with all of them talking and laughing when I was called out of the room by my captain. The next thing I heard was explosions and I ran back to the guys. That’s when a second bomb struck and its shrapnel hit me.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes. Most of the leg is plastic and steel now.” He tapped on his thigh, at the angriest part of the scar. “Had two knee reconstruction surgeries and five plastic surgeries to fix the deformity, and I have a steel plate here,” He pointed to a dip from where flesh had been ripped off. “My femur snapped in half.”
“Oh my god, Jax. You could’ve died,” she gasped, and he looked away uncomfortably.
“Don’t look at me like that. I don’t want pity or sadness. I don’t deserve that. My platoon, my brothers who didn’t make it, they’re the ones who deserve tears. Not me.”
“Jax, I—”
