CHAPTER NINE
Mason
Fifteen months later …
The steady drone of our transport plane did everything but put me to sleep. Nearby, other Navy SEALs snoozed, arms crossed over their chests, able to doze anywhere. All of us were strapped in and done for the time being, flying back to Cali, minus one man.
We all felt like shit. Wrecked because of that fucking IED one of us should have seen. But we didn't see it and now our team was one guy less. It was like missing a limb. Missing a whole fucking life. The only thing that saved me from being a total pussy about it was that Lewis had been happy on the way out, living the life of his dreams, a dedicated patriot to the very end.
All of us knew that any mission—shit even any training exercise—could be our last. We left on deployments knowing things could go wrong, and any one of us could not make it back. Shit, things could go right, and you still might not make it back, Fallujah and Mogadishu are such fucked up places.
But I remembered how Lewis had done his usual thing, kissing his wedding ring before threading it onto the chain with his dog tags and sticking them down into his shirt. A few times during the mission, I'd even spied him rubbing the ring with a far off look in his eyes, as bullets flew over our head, the bursts jarring as fuck. But Lewis was always okay. In fact, if I had to label that look now, I’d say it was contentment.
I’d tried to get the secret from him. Because how the fuck could he stay calm during a firefight? Shit, we were inches from losing the tops of our heads, from being blown into pieces. How the fuck did he keep calm? Unable to resist, I asked during one of the few moments of peace.
“You can't wait to get back to your old lady, huh?” I'd grunted, assuming all kinds of shit.
But Lewis shrugged, massive shoulders moving under his body armor. “I'd love to see her again but if I don't, I got no regrets,” he said.
I didn't believe him.
“Seriously? Just like that? Kaboom, pow, see ya dollface?”
His white teeth flashed in his painted face. “Yeah. That woman’s got my heart. But if my ticket gets punched, then it's cool because I’ve done right by Mindy. I tell her I love her, I fuck her, I show her how I feel every time I'm with her so there’s no doubt, absolutely zero uncertainty. You know how it goes, man. I always come on these things practically covered in her pussy scent.”
And he smiled like he had the best secret in the entire world. But Lewis wasn’t done yet, going all poetic on me.
“I’m a selfish motherfucker, for sure. But I got no regrets man. I tell the woman I love that she’s my number one, that there ain’t nuthin’ gonna come between us except god, country, and death itself. So if kaboom, I’m blasted into smithereens, Mindy knows that I died loving her, breathing her name with my last breath.” And fuck me, but that loser rubbed his wedding band again.
But now he was gone. God help me, but Lewis was gone to heaven, thinking about his wife, and I was fucking jealous. It was the stupidest shit ever, envious over a dead man when I was still alive.
But that’s the thing. Unlike me, Lewis had been all the way happy until the end. Happy to give his life for his country. Happy to love his wife and kids. Shit, he'd even been happy in that sand trap, caught alive in one hundred and twenty degree weather, roasting in our camo. By contrast, I was alive and on my way back home, but what the fuck did I have? A whole lotta nothin’, and a whole lotta regrets.
With a muffled thud, my helmet thunked back against the wall of the plane, eyes dropping closed as the vibration of the engine rattled my bones and teeth. Consciously, I blanked my mind and thought of nothing. God, let me go unconscious, I didn’t want to contemplate who or what might be waiting for me when I got back to California. Or more accurately, who wouldn’t be waiting for me, her love gone dry, our relationship poisoned.
“You good, Mason?” came a grunt.
My eyes popped open when Harris heaved himself down next to me. He was getting into the bad habit of doing that, ever since training. Like he was forever trying to apologize to me for calling me out about my distracted frame of mind. But he hadn't said anything to me then that I didn’t deserve.
So I closed my eyes again.
“Yeah, I'm cool.”
“You sure, brother? You didn't seem so good this time.”
I looked at him, my eyes narrowing. “What's up with you, man? You my volunteer baby sitter or some shit?”
“Naw.” He looked around him and I did the same thing too. But the other guys were chillin' and minding their own business, some obviously jonesing for a smoke with their twitchy hands and the chewing tobacco bulging their cheeks. Aww shit, what I wouldn’t give for a smoke myself, the hit of nicotine badly needed.
“I know I was out of line last time,” he grunted.
Fuck, was he going to apologize? This was the last thing I wanted to deal with on our flight home. Shut the fuck up! I wanted to scream. Be a man and just let it go!
But I was actually civil.
“Don't worry about it,” came my voice, cool and even. “No shit.”
But this guy has no people radar because he opened his mouth again, about to jaw off, and I interrupted rudely.
“Seriously, Harris, just drop it.” I gave him the stare that said I was done.
At least this time, he got it.
“Cool, man. Cool.”
The big bear of a man leaned away from me with his hands up. “Just trying to help, you seem pretty riled up.”
Always the medic, Harris was forever trying to fix everybody's brains as well as their bodies. But my problems went deeper than a fireside chat. My problems had everything to do with a sweet curvy brunette that raided my sleep, whose face danced before me as bullets flew. My problems were about a girl who wanted a relationship, when I had nothing to give.
So one chat with the team medic wasn’t gonna do it, and as Harris heaved himself to the other side of the plane, I turned away again, staring at nothing. My mind whirled but I forced myself to go blank, to unclench my teeth. Good thing because the ache in my jaw stopped. But the thoughts of Sara were still there, and I knew they’d never go away.
***
It felt good to be stateside again.
With the radio blasting the latest bullshit pop song, I rolled down the windows of my piece of shit car and switched off the A/C. You'd think that after months in Afghanistan that I'd had enough of the heat. But the California heat was special, a thing I’d actually missed being so far away. So with a touch of a button, I eased the sunroof open and, since I was stopped at a light, rested my head back in the seat and just enjoyed the feel of sunlight on my face.
Sara.
Her name floated through my head like a tune I could never forget. After more than a year of not seeing her, she should've been a distant memory. But the girl wasn't. Thoughts of her were as close as ever. Waiting for me when I closed my eyes at night. Chasing me while parachuting down into hostile enemy territory. Everywhere. Even in the middle of the harshest desert with bullets flying and men falling dead and wounded all around, I still couldn't forget her.
After Lewis died and we were trapped in that goddamn cave, my mind still spun like crazy. Thinking about Lewis and his family. About how happy he was, wondering if I’d ever have something like what he had. Shit, if I even deserved to have something like that.
And like a mirage out of the desert, Sara had appeared.
Obviously, she wasn’t real. Not in Afghanistan. Not wearing that white nightie I’d bought but never had the balls to give to her. Not with her pink lip gloss and those fat nipples pressing up dark and hard through the thin silk.
“Mason.” Her voice centered me somehow, pulled me back into the moment and sharpened my mind as I waited for our next move.
That wasn’t her last time coming to me while I was over there. Because somehow, a part of me always made room in my mind for her. Memories of the girl’s smile, her voice, even that fucked-up last night we saw each other.
And over a year later, here I was, still dreaming. Regret threatened to drop me on my ass. A one-two punch. Knock-out win by TKO for Sara McLain. Mason Jones collapsed on the mat, curled in a ball and unconscious.
The car zoomed across the bridge towards my apartment, the traffic easy and light. It would be good to be back in my own place again and chill in the solitude of my living room. Cook my own food. Jerk off to familiar porn. Wear something other than desert fatigues and body armor.
But I wanted something else too. Something softer. Something that smelled like flowers. Something, or more accurately someone, who would tell me to go fuck myself even after taking my cock like a champ.
Sara.
That last time we were together. Aw shit.
Sure, I fucked her the way we both wanted, reaming her pussy and ass until she was screaming with lust and pleasure. And after we were done, all I wanted to do was to suck my cum out of my pussy and make her cum for me one more time. Then I wanted to cuddle. Yeah, me Mason Jones, asshole extraordinaire, wanted to cuddle with the sweet brunette, pulling those juicy curves close.
In fact, my hands had been practically tingling to grab her round ass, to pet those curves before stroking her to sleep, my dick buried deep in that tight vise. Because yeah, I wanted to wake up to those soft tits, the feel of her pussy squeezing my shaft once more. More than anything, I wanted to hear Sara’s soft voice calling my name, panting and naked as I held her close, loving that beautiful form. And the wanting was so violent, so fucking insane, that it freaked me out.
Because nothing scares me. Not bullets flying all around, not exploding shells, not even the thought of being left behind enemy lines and becoming a prisoner of war. None of that even scratched the surface. But the thought of cuddling with my precious female and keeping her with me for another night, another day, rattled me to the bones.
More than that. It scared the ever-loving shit out of me. So I ignored it. Staring straight ahead, my fingers gripped the wheel, tapping like a drumbeat.
Sara. Sara. Sara.
Aw, shit. It was still her, one hundred percent, and I couldn’t control my thoughts or my body, the brunette invading my every waking moment.
But fortunately, the turnoff to my apartment was coming up and my foot pressed accelerate, pedal to the metal. Once I got in the shower, it’d be fine. I’d flick on some porn and rub one out, or at least distract myself with a night of drinking. Better to knock myself unconscious with some top shelf Jimmy Beam than suffer like this more.
But the turnoff came and went, my foot still pressed to the gas. My finger on the steering wheel tapped even faster, becoming a fucking metronome on overdrive, knuckles gripping the steering wheel like death itself. Aww, fuck fuck fuck. Because before I knew it, I was pulling the shitty ass Malibu up to Sara’s dorm.
It was still early. But from one of our pillow talk sessions, I remembered that Sara didn't have any evening classes, not as an undergraduate. Plus, she preferred to take her classes in the morning, to get up early and get them out of the way so she could spend her evenings with me. Of course, that was before I'd been a motherfucking asshole and told her to take a hike. The guilt smacked me in the back of the head again.
I shouldn't have done that to her. No woman deserved that kind of shitty treatment, Sara least of all. And that was another reason why I couldn’t get her to stay out of my god damn mind. I had done her wrong. I had hurt my baby, and it fuckin’ hurt me, a stab to the gut.
Cranking down the music, I switched off the ignition, inhaling so that my chest literally hurt. Even though I'd never visited Sara at the dorm, I made damn sure I knew where she lived just in case. Maybe we’d have an unexpected booty call between classes. Maybe we’d go to the library together, and she could show me her favorite books. Favorite books? I snorted in disbelief. I haven’t read a book in four years, and that was skimming through the Code of Military Justice. Library, my ass. More like I was overprotective, and wanted to know where my girl was, all the time.
Shit, I was really fucked up in the head.
A blonde wearing a tight skirt and tiny tank top bounced by my car and peeked in. Whatever she saw made her twitch her ass even harder, purring like a cat.
“Hi big guy,” she cooed. “Funny to find you here.”
I wasn’t the least bit tempted.
Months ago, I would've been salivating at this hot snatch on display, practically begging for me to take it. But none of these chicks were Sara. Even the hottest sorority fuck been nothing compared to the explosive sessions I’d had with my girl. Her sweet bubble butt jiggling when I fucked her. Those huge tits swaying to the left and right as she rode me like a cowgirl. Her moans in my ear as I owned that butt, pushing my hard dick into that tiny anus. Yeah, this chick had nothing on my girl.
Fuck. Not one of these sorority hos could come close to making me explode the way she did. Or make me want to protect them from the bad things the way I wanted to do with Sara.
Double fuck.
Ignoring the blonde, I yanked my key out of the ignition and got out of the car, taking the stairs two at a time to get to her room. She’d told me number 301, and here it was, the gray door featureless except for a peephole. Nothing to do but do it.
I banged my fist on the solid wood. A few minutes later, a girl came to the door wearing a big college T-shirt and hipster, thick-framed glasses.
“Can I help you?” she asked, glaring hard.
Immediately, I was on guard. Oh shit, Sara must have told her roommate about me, and it couldn’t be good. But none of that was important now.
“Is Sara here?” I ground out.
“Why would she be here?” the blonde retorted.
Hipster chick put her hands on her hips, practically hissing now, eyes shooting daggers. This female would kick me in the nuts and push me down the stairs, laughing the entire time if she could get away with it.
“Look, I don’t know what beef you have with me, but I want to see Sara,” came my growl. “Just tell me where she is.”
Peering over her head, I could see the room was empty. “Just tell me where she is,” I ground out again.
“You can look around all you want but she's not here,” hipster chick spat. “Sara dropped out.”
“What?”
No fucking way. Sara wouldn’t do that. She had plans to get a job as a community organizer, lifting the poor from poverty. No way she’d drop out of school when this was her dream, the way that giving personality functioned. Everything she wanted was for other people, not for herself.
“You have to be wrong,” I said, my voice growing louder, uncaring who heard. “Why the hell would she drop out?”
“That's her business,” the chick bit out again, eyes going curiously shuttered. “You’ll have to ask her yourself,” she said, making to shut the door.
But hipster chick wasn’t getting off so easy and my booted foot shot out to stop her.
“Stop fucking around. I need to find her.”
“Not everything is about you, asshole,” the blonde hissed this time.
My hands curled into fists. A sound like a gunshot rang out and I realized I'd banged my fist against the doorway. But the girl didn't look impressed. Instead, she looked me up and down all over again, all girl-power solidarity and shit.
“Fine,” she spat. “You can find Sara at her mom's house. 345 Peony Lane. And I hope she shoots your ass on sight.”
With that, we were done. I moved my foot and the blonde slammed the door in my face so hard that it rattled in its frame.
I stared at the door blindly, fists opening and closing with rage. What the fuck? This woman wasn’t even a woman, she was so fucking rude. But whatever. I shook my head and turned away. She wasn't even worth considering right now. I had Sara to track down.
Racing down the stairs and back in the car, I hauled ass across town, ignoring the speed limit. My foot pressed on the accelerator so that the car hit eighty, then ninety miles per hour, going straight for the triple digits.
My subconscious piped up then. Are you sure you don't care about her? it mocked. Seems mighty speedy for a guy who supposedly doesn’t give a shit.
But what the fuck. Images of my best girl danced before my eyes and I was close, so close. I needed to see her … and I didn’t give a shit who knew.