I allowed my hands to drop from her face but trailed them down the length of her arms.
When I got to her hands, I folded them into mine and said, “How does this work? Between us?”
She sat up, and I couldn’t stop myself from trailing my eyes down the length of her body.
Her breasts were so beautiful. I wanted to move my hands, but she’d bit her lip, so I knew she had something important to say.
“I only ask that, if you see someone else, I don’t want to know about it,” she whispered.
My gut tightened.
“I can’t and won’t ask the same of you,” I said. “If you see anyone else, I want to know.”
She looked down at my chest. “There won’t be anyone else. You’re…”
“You’re it for me, too,” I interrupted her thoughts. “There won’t be anyone else.”
How could there be, when I was so in love with Beckham Spurlock that I couldn’t even think about being with anyone else?
“I won’t have time, anyway,” she admitted. “With college, then everything else, I’ll literally only have time to get home on holidays.”
“There’ll be boys at college,” I countered. “You’ll eventually have free time.”
She tilted her head, then bent down to press a soft kiss to the corner of my lips.
“I don’t want just any boy, Trouper Aoki.”
“What about when I can finally manage to make it back? What if I get leave time?” I asked. “What if I can get a weekend off here or there?”
“Then I’ll fly to see you, do my homework on the plane, and fly home the next day,” she answered.
She had a fuckin’ answer for everything.
“I’ll pay for that,” I offered.
Her eyes were soft.
“If we can steal a second here and there, I want that,” she whispered. “And I hope you’re okay with talking a lot on the phone. And texting. I do that a lot.”
“What about your parents?” I asked. “They’re not going to like that.”
Her dad wouldn’t, anyway.
In the last year, he hadn’t gotten any better.
In fact, he’d gotten worse.
He did not, under any circumstances, like me.
He didn’t like me to the point where he tried to make his child avoid me, but she never fell into line with that.
To the point where they had a knockdown, drag-out fight about it in the middle of the front yard for everyone to hear.
To the point that I knew if he could, he would get rid of me.
Learning that I was shipping out today was like a miracle to him.
Little did he know that his child planned on leaving, too.
She may not be going with me, but she was going, nonetheless.
I wished I could be here when she told him she was moving away to college.
Instead, I’d have to live with the knowledge that it would make him sad.
CHAPTER 4
Please make it stop.
-Beckham listening to dad jokes
BECKHAM
Dropping him off should’ve been a lot easier with as much as I’d prepared for it.
But not only was it hard, but it was ripping my fucking guts out.
Trouper stood in front of the door to my car, looking at the doors to the airport that would take him to the Air Force Academy in Colorado.
He told me that he’d never been on a plane before. So, I was sure this was a daunting task for him.
“Troup?”
At my call, Trouper turned to face me for one last goodbye.
His eyes were hot and expressive as they met mine.
“You look hot as hell up in that suit and tie,” I teased when he finally came to me.
He snorted. “I feel like a dumbass. These lights are bright and uncomfortable.”
I looked at the lights, and I blamed it on their bright glare for the reason tears were now forming in my eyes.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered. “You’re breaking my heart.”
“It’s the lights,” I lied. “Are you ready?”
He looked over his shoulder at the men and women lining up at the door, waiting for the rest of the group to finish their goodbyes.
“I guess as ready as I’ll ever be,” he mused.
I pressed a kiss to his cheek, right underneath his lips, and pulled away. “Take care of yourself, Trouper Aoki. I want you whole when I finally see you again.”
He mentally pulled himself together and then there was the tough as nails boy that always lived as if it was him against the world.
“Take care of yourself, Beckham Spurlock,” he teased right back.
He turned on his heel, throat working, and hesitated.
That’s when I knew that he needed to know.
He needed to hear it from me before he left.
“Love you,” I whispered to him right before he took off.
“I love you, too.” He leaned closer. “See you in a year?”
I licked my lips. “A year.”
• • •
TROUP
The worst was replaying the look on her face as I walked out the door.
Over and over, I watched in my mind as tears filled her eyes.
As one single tear trailed down her cheek as I waved at her goodbye.
“You know Foster?”
I looked up at the man that was going to control my life for the next few years.
Four of them, to be exact. If I made it that far.
God, I hoped I made it that far.
Getting into the Air Force Academy had been tough.
It’d been a good thing that I had my father’s background and that I’d pulled my shit together my senior year.
“Yes, sir,” I said, feeling dread fill my stomach.
“He says hi.”
That’s when I knew that, without a doubt, this was about to be a really, really bad fuckin’ time.
And the plans that Beckham and I made likely weren’t going to be happening anymore.
I was right.
Other than a phone call here and there, I wasn’t able to talk to her for the next six months.
One thing after another came up, keeping us apart.
However, once I learned of her address in South Carolina where she was enrolled in school, I sent her letters. So many fuckin’ letters.
I knew she wrote back, too.
The thing was, other than a few, I never got any.
And I had a feeling that Foster let his reach show there, too.
Fucking with federal mail was a crime.
However, if they couldn’t prove that you were fucking with it, was it still considered one?
Needless to say, Foster may have won the first battle, but he definitely hadn’t won the war.
CHAPTER 5
The sun is a douche.
-Text from Beckham to Trouper
BECKHAM
One year later
I didn’t know who was more excited. Me or the old lady that was getting her dog back after a six-month-long separation while she moved to the United States and her dog was too expensive to take with her.
I had a feeling it was me, but I wasn’t going to argue with her about that.
I practically danced on the tips of my toes as I waited for the plane to taxi to where he would be getting off that plane.