Weeks start to blur together and our weekend flings turn into more weekday fun though only at his house or at far away clubs so we don’t get caught.

There’s no talk of us or what’s going on, just sex, dancing in other towns, sex, and more sex. It’s the best non-relationship I’ve ever had, and, of course, I go fuck it up without even realizing it.

He lies on his stomach and I trace my fingers over his naked back covered in tattoos that are more like a collage of stories than random designs. I can’t help myself when I ask, “What’s the meaning of your tattoo?”

Immediately, he flips over, hopping out of bed, and grabs a shirt to cover his ink before trying to walk out of the room without saying a word.

“Whoa, what the hell?” I ask, sitting straight while pulling the sheet up. Suddenly very aware that I’m naked in his bed and he just stormed off with no explanation.

He grabs the doorframe and with his back to me he grits out, “We said from the get-go, nothing personal.”

“Well, excuse me. Sorry to ask a simple question to the man I’m fucking.”

I throw my legs off the bed, hastily grabbing my clothes, pulling them on in a hurry to leave.

A deep sigh rumbles through the room, and when I look up, he’s standing in the doorway, blocking my exit but not saying a word.

“Jenelle, I told you. I didn’t want this to go there because believe me, you don’t want to know about me. Sex. That’s all this is.”

I can tell he’s treading lightly. His eyes cast down to the ground and his voice is almost a whisper. The way his shoulders lean forward it almost seems like he’s guarding his own feelings more than mine.

But it’s too late. I won’t put up with someone treating me like that. We may just be fuck buddies but neither of us can deny this might be turning into something more. We both know it’s happening so maybe we should just end it now.

“I asked you a simple question. You can’t expect me to not want to know anything about you. I’m your commanding officer. The rules changed when you walked into my office a couple of months ago, or did you forget? No matter how causal this is, I think I have the right to want to know something about someone I’m risking everything for. Now, please, excuse me.”

I try to leave, but he won’t budge, and even though I could move him with the slightest of touches, I don’t want to. He’s blocking me but intentionally testing my boundaries at the same time.

He wants to see how far I’ll go, and damn it, I can’t bring myself to push him out of the way because I don’t want to.

I’ve done it. I’ve started to care for him. I want to know more about him, but I didn’t see it coming until it slapped me across the face.

Both our bodies stand at attention, not willing to move but not willing to give into one another either. We’ve come to a crossroad and neither one of us is willing to move yet both of us are scared to walk away.

I get the nerve to make my move to the side to start my exit, but he stops me, grabbing my arm slightly and holding me there, looking down and whispering, “It was my brother.”

Tears burn the backs of my eyes as the knowledge I learned before I knew who Alex really was runs through my head.

“The military, all of this, this was his dream. Not mine. But he didn’t get to live it, so I—”

I turn to stop him there. “I know.”

Watery eyes look into mine, “You what?”

“Alex, I know about your brother. I know he was killed in Iraq. I know you joined the military in his memory.”

“And you’ve never said anything?”

“No. Remember? No truths, no personal information. I was playing by your rules.”

He looks down, taking a deep breath.

“So, is that what the tattoo signifies? Your brother?”

“Yes. He was always the good kid, straight A’s all throughout high school. He played sports and even got a football scholarship but turned it down because he felt it was his duty to join the military. Me, on the other hand, I was the complete fuck up; always causing trouble, barely graduated high school, landing myself in and out of jail for petty theft and minor drug offenses. There he was doing the honorable thing, fighting for his country while I was getting drunk and high every night with my wife.”

He runs his fingers down his face while shaking his head in disbelief. “Man, our relationship was toxic. We were nothing but bad for each other. Our lives were one big blur of parties and drugs and barely making it by. We fought like crazy and stole anything we could get our hands on to get our next fix.”

I put my hand over which is still holding on to my arm for support. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”

His eyes are soaked with sadness as he looks away. “It should’ve been me. I’m the son that should be dead. Not him. My family wouldn’t have mourned me like they did him. They would’ve looked at it as a favor to them if I was the one killed.”

He walks to his bed, sitting down and placing his head in his hands shaking back and forth.

“The night I found out he died I was high as a kite. Melissa and I had just taken a hit when my phone rang. It took months to get the sound of my mother’s screams out of my head when she cried out that Ky was dead. I just remember looking over to Melissa as her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell back on the couch in delight. But it never hit me. Pure disgust did. Disgust for who I was. Disgust for the life I was leading. Disgust that I missed his going away party because I was too high to give a shit.”

“Alex—” I sit down next to him, leaning my head on to his shoulder “—I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head, sniffing loudly as he wipes tears that escaped from his eyes. “I quit that day. Never looked back. Tried to get Melissa to quit too, but she didn’t have the drive I did. And when I joined the military to finish the career Ky wanted, she left me—filed for divorce and moved out with a guy I thought was my best friend. Turns out she was just with me because I could score the best drugs and when I wouldn’t, she moved on to the next.”

“So tell me about the tattoo,” I ask, running my fingers up the back of his shirt where it’s etched in his skin.

“Ky tried once to help get me clean. He bought a ‘69 Chevelle and asked me to help him fix it up. We were almost finished when he was deployed. When he left, he asked me to complete it for him but I went back to my drug-filled days. It’s sitting in a garage at my parents’ house. I haven’t been able to even look at it since his death.”

I kiss the image of the car before asking, “And the lake?”

“When we were little boys, we loved going to Lake Michigan; there’s a small out cove where we hung a rope swing and used to jump off it over and over again.” He takes a deep, shaky breath in. “I guess these are my two favorite memories of him.”

I don’t say anything about the other tattoos, knowing I don’t want to push him too much. Instead, I reach up, pulling his lips to mine, and for the first time, we don’t just fuck. We hold each other, slowly feeling the emotions of the tattoo and the life he’s led bleeding out with me being his calming force leading the way.