I wouldn’t say that my memory of our first kiss was nothing—far from it—but this new one made it seem so insignificant. As I cradled her chin with my fingers, I wanted time to stand still.

Alluring Dani, with light hair wild like a free-form cloud on a blue summer’s day, held on to me. I pressed my lips against hers again.

The Alhambra was my new favorite thing.

Honey-mint lip gloss was now my new favorite thing.

Letting her kiss me was my new favorite thing.

Our first kiss didn’t have a pulse anymore since it was just a memory. No taste. It didn’t move. I couldn’t make it go on and on. After reliving the memory of our only other kiss so many times over the past four years that I could’ve recited every single detail in my sleep, a new one filled my heart with bliss. I’d happily kiss her every chance I got, this real taste of her so much more sensuous, filling, and satisfying than what I’d carried with me for so long.

Time to replace the old memory with new experiences.

As our tongues touched again, hidden away in the secluded Alhambra gardens, I found myself focusing on nothing but the here and now. Her body seated on the wall, tangled around mine. Frantic breaths from both of us. A little bead of sweat on her collarbone. The way my dick pressed against my zipper reminding me of the blue balls of the last four years.

Even though I turned her down last night, should I let her do more?

I wanted to.

But would I be selling out if I let myself be her fuck boy? If that was the only way she’d let me have her?

Yes. I would. It mattered to me that we had something real, something that mattered. After all these years of lusting after her, I wasn’t gonna settle for being just a convenient fuck. That’d make me hate myself even more than I already did.

The loud voices of a group of tourists walking up a nearby path carried over to us.

“It’s way too dangerous to be doing this in public,” I murmured into her ear.

She nodded. “Yeah.” Her chest was moving up and down. I kissed the top of her hair and held her to me, wrapping my arms around her narrow shoulders.

We didn’t move.

Another group came by.

We stayed put.

“Dani,” I said. “I think we need to go.”

She kept her ear to my chest. “You’re so comfortable. Is it weird that I miss you in the hours that I don’t see you?”

My heart leapt up and cheered. I didn’t want to read too much into it, so I just shook my head with a grin. “No.”

“What is happening to me?” she asked. “I shouldn’t be doing this with you—doing anything with you—and yet, I can’t help myself.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I know the feeling.” Then I held both of her shoulders. “You feel it too, though, don’t you?”

She snuggled her nose into me. “I almost called you last night.”

“You should have.”

“I don’t have your number.”

I rolled my eyes. “Here.” She opened up her phone, and I entered my number. Then I called myself from her phone and entered her name next to the number.

Finally.

“Want to come over for dinner tonight at eight?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’d just like to talk. That’s all.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “We have a lot to talk about.”

We both looked around. “I think the coast is clear,” she said.

“Why don’t I let you go first? I’ll follow. That way we won’t be seen together.” That way I could watch her cute ass.

“Okay,” she whispered. Reaching up a finger, she ran the tip of it down my cheek. “See you tonight.”

Still, as I watched her dance down the hill, it was tempting to say, just this once, my God, couldn’t I get what I want? A naked night with her?

No.

My discipline clicked in place. I’d keep my vows. All of them: I swore to find her, I swore to keep her safe, and now I swore I wouldn’t be with her until it was real.

She was testing me, though. More than any test a teacher would give was the one she gave me outside of class. The one asking me to find all the places that would make her writhe in pleasure.

* * *

When I rang the bell of her apartment at eight o’clock that night, showered, shaved, and clean, holding a bouquet of white Gerbera daisies and a bottle of Rioja, she buzzed me in immediately. I was still getting used to these late hours in Spain. Restaurants didn’t even open for dinner until nine.

I climbed the four flights of stairs to her attic apartment, and knocked on her heavy wooden door decorated with black iron fittings. She wrenched it open and stood before me wearing a sundress with a neckline cut down so I could see her belly button.

Oh jeez, keeping my vow would be really, really hard, when temptation was right here.

She lifted up her face, and I kissed her. I wasn’t gonna take any kiss with her for granted. This one was sweet and slow, eyes dialed into each other. As I awkwardly wrapped my arms around her, arms laden, I learned that the navy blue dress was backless.

Double fuck me.

This woman would be my toughest challenge. “Hi,” I said.

“Hi.” Then she gave me the full-on Dani smile, wide and open-hearted, and said, “Come on in.”

I handed her the flowers and stepped inside. “These are so pretty!” she said, and went to find a vase. Quiet, old jazz played behind her. I liked it. I liked the way her long skirt swished around her ankles, draping to the floor, like it had a mind of its own.

“I brought you a red wine,” I called, as I peered out every window, checking for danger. Damn habits. “I didn’t know which one to pick, so I stood in the store until I saw someone else buy one, and then bought the same one.”

She emerged with the flowers in a hand-painted pitcher and two wine glasses. “That’s actually a great way of choosing a wine.”

So. Much. Skin showing. All the way down her front. Her little tits were covered, but everything else? Not so much.

Damn.

I set the bottle on the counter. “Are men allowed to pour wine?”

“Yep.” She handed me a corkscrew. “I hope you like a tortilla.”

I cocked my head to the side, as I cut off the foil on the wine, latching onto the distraction so I didn’t embarrass myself with a hard-on. “Sure.” Was that what we were having for dinner?

She giggled. “Not a flour tortilla. A Spanish tortilla. It’s an omelet with potatoes.”

“Oh, okay. Sounds good.”

With a pop, I managed to get the cork out and poured us two glasses of wine. We sat at the tiny table in her kitchen, set for two, with the omelet and a salad and some fresh bread.

She and I gathered at the table to enjoy a simple meal together. We hadn’t done this since we were kids. We’d never done it just the two of us. I could do this the rest of my life.

Not like I could tell her that. So all I said was, “Thanks for having me over.”

“My pleasure. Salud,” she said, and clinked her glass with mine.

“Salud.”

I took a bite of her cooking, and tasted the way the simple dish was perfectly cooked and flavored. “This is good.”

Dani took a bite. “Oh, yay! It worked. It was a new recipe to me, but it sounded good.” As usual, her enthusiasm for life won me over. Again and again, she always made me want to live. To explore new places. Try new things.

“Thank you for making it.”

She put her fork down. “Trent. Don’t be so formal. It’s me. Dani. I know we got off to the worst start here that we possibly could. But I’ve done some soul-searching. And I’d rather have you in my life than not—and I’ve always liked you. We have some things to talk about, but relax. Here, you aren’t my student, and I’m not the teacher. We’re just old friends.”

Friends. I hated that word. I’d take it, because it was better than enemies. But I thought I heard her whisper, “Maybe more.”

“So tell me where we should go while I’m here.”

“The Med, definitely,” she advised. “Get to the water.”

“Will you come with?”

“Sure.”

Was she agreeing because she loved to travel? Or was she agreeing because she wanted to spend time with me?

I didn’t care.

For now, I enjoyed her cooking. She ate food like it was the last thing on her mind, instead peppering me with questions about the trip over, about what I did in the army. And I asked her about her past few years.

She pushed her hair back. “I always travel a lot. It’s like I need to see everywhere. It’s all on my list. Seeing every part of the world. I just love taking off and discovering a new place.”

And that was my fear. That she’d just take off from here and I’d never see her again. I wondered how many places she’d actually been.

“Where all have you been? Can I see your passport?”

She set down her fork and got up, rummaged through a purse, and came back and handed it to me. Pages and pages of stamps in the back. Her picture, a few years old, looked just like her—messy hair, black-rimmed eyes, and seductive lips.

I handed it back to her, wishing that I could ask her about every stamp, every country, wanting to know every single detail about her so I could know her all that much better. “Mine is nowhere near as exciting.”

“Well, now you have time to travel, you know. If you want.” She shrugged, but it almost sounded like she was holding back from saying something. Maybe that we could go together wherever she was going next.

“This is true. I always wanted to travel. That’s part of the reason why I wanted to join the army.”

“It was?”

“Sure. I wanted to get to go see places, like Thailand or Alaska, which I did. But basically Afghanistan is where I stayed most of the time.”

She appeared thoughtful. Maybe she was thinking what it would be like to have a new travel partner.

“How have your parents been?”

“Just fine. I’m sure they’d love you to stop by if you ever went back to California.”

“Cool,” she said. “I’ll look them up if I do. I’m curious. What were you like as a soldier?”

“Kinda quiet. I guess I figured I just kept my head down and did my work. Didn’t question much of it. Just did my job.”

“That sounds like you. Loyal Trent who does his duty. And Degan?”

“He was a character. He didn’t get in trouble, since everyone liked him. But he always was pulling some stunt. Like getting everyone together to play Frisbee golf or have poker tournaments.”

Her eyes shone, and she picked up her fork.

After dinner, we got up and cleared the table. I washed the dishes and she dried, which jogged another memory. “Degan always got stuck on KP duty.”

“Kitchen Patrol? He did?”

“Yeah.” I laughed. “Sometimes he’d volunteer, just so he could hang out with the cooks and grab some cereal for later.”

“That sounds like him.” She caught my eye, wistfully. “I still can’t believe he’s gone. I miss him.”

“I do, too. Constantly.”

I handed her a glass, and she dried it and put it away. With her back turned, I saw that she was wiping a tear. Quickly toweling off my hands, I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her, nuzzling her neck.

“I think he’s always gonna be with us.”

“Yeah,” she whispered, then turned around and gave me a hug.

We stayed in the kitchen for a long time, with our arms wrapped around each other, not moving.

Once we finished the dishes, she lit a candle and incense, then turned on the television and started flipping channels. The smoky scent felt like her. “What do you want to watch?”

“I have no idea what kind of TV there is in Spain.”

“Umm,” she mused, as she flipped through. “The Simpsons in Spanish. Some weird old Western movie. The news. A sitcom. And oh! This one. We have to watch it!”

“Which?”

“This French movie. Amélie.”

“I’m voting for cartoons.”

“But Amélie is my favorite movie!”

Like I cared what we watched. “Fine, babe.”

I lay on the couch, and after a tentative second, she curled up in front of me, both of our heads on the same cushion. I played with her bare shoulder while she watched the movie.

Since it was in French with Spanish subtitles, I was totally lost.

Before I knew it, filled up with a good dinner, a few glasses of wine, and still jet lagged, nestled with this tiny beauty on her couch, I fell asleep while the movie played in the darkened room.

* * *

The blades of the Chinook helicopter whipped overhead. We needed to get a move-on.

“Just a few more,” Degan said.

The interpreter said something to the group of five or six Afghan men waiting off to the side. The body language of two or three of the men made me nervous. They were glancing around, fidgety, expecting something.

But my unit had already done an anti-IED sweep before we got here.

Today we worked in this little village, high in the shrubby, remote mountains of the Korengal Valley. While it was May, there was a still a bite in the air. Our job was to register every male and take their biometrics.

“Let’s get these guys done and go back,” I muttered.

Sunglasses covered Degan’s big blue eyes, but that smile was unmistakable. “What are you gonna do when we get back home?”

“I dunno,” I said. “Probably go to In-N-Out.” A branch of this fast food chain had been by my parents’ house my entire life.

“Oh, yeah. Double Double.” His eyes rolled up. “Sounds so good. Animal style?”

“No. Just regular.”

“Burger,” he drooled. “Want.”

I laughed. That guy was governed by his stomach.

For now, all I had was fruit punch Mentos to chew on. The guys in my platoon always carried them. We never knew how long we’d be out, and they were portable energy.

The next man in turn stepped up to have his retinal scan. Jerry Lin, one of our buddies, clicked a few keys on the laptop and took his picture. “All done. Next.”

As the man walked back to the village, he turned around, and I saw his face. And I could tell, I could just tell, that something was up.

“Deg, we need to get out of here.”

“Yeah, I don’t like that guy.”

“Degan. I think. I think he’s up to somethi—”

A scuffle.

A few clicks.

A moped engine vrooming by, then the beep-beep of an inadequate horn.

Commotion. Yelling off to the side in a language I didn’t understand.

And as if in slow motion, Degan pushed Jerry behind a Humvee and threw himself on top of me, his short, sturdy body heavy with a helmet, equipment, and his backpack, knocking the wind out of me.

“Dude,” I started to huff.

And then I heard the explosion.

Boom.

Like a mortar strike.

I struggled to get up, but he hissed, “Stay down.” He trapped me on the ground, his eyes wide and visible through his sunglasses.

More shouts. Gunfire. And I couldn’t move, Degan holding me down.

I felt something soak through my pant legs and shirt.

His heated, dark blood.

“No!” I screamed. “No!”

“It’s okay, Trent.”

“You are not okay. Let me get a medic. Let me get you out of here.”

As I struggled to get up, he leaned over and retched off to the side. To my horror, he was missing his legs. His femoral artery burst, bleeding all over me and him. I ripped off my bag, searching for anything to stop the bleeding.

“Degan,” I panted. “Dude. Stay with me.”

He shook his head, his eyes pleading. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I don’t feel anything. It’s all gone. T, just promise me you’ll find my sister.” He coughed and gasped. “Tell her I love her, and dude tell her you love her too. Please tell her.”

“I promise, Deg.”

“Find Dani, T. Keep her safe.”

“I promise. I’ll find Dani. Just hang on, Deg, we’ll get you help—”

But his eyes glazed over, he got a sort of smile on his face, and his last breath sighed from his chest.