The night they’d met, he would’ve pegged her for being just out of college, maybe a couple years older. Wrapped up in the drama of having an ex-boyfriend, or maybein pretending she had one so she could use a jealous ex as an excuse to make out with strangers in bars. But she was definitely older than the rest of her team. The diverse group of girls all had one thing in common—they seemed to be looking to the blonde for guidance and reassurance.
She’d pat one on the back. Get nods from two others. Make half of them laugh. All in the span of four heartbeats.
Her group kept their distance during the awards.
Probably best.
He didn’t take well to being called a cheater.
An hour later, he was home. The place still smelled like sawdust and fresh concrete. The weekend his wedding hadn’t happened, his mom and sister had quietly taken care of the boxes of wedding presents piled in the guest bedroom. They’d plastered the living room walls with photos of planes, some withLance in them, some those inspirational crap posters. Cheri, his twin, had brought in University of Alabama throw pillows, fleece blankets, and bobbleheads to cover up the bare spots where Allison’s knickknacks and her grandmother’s crocheted afghans had been.
But within three days, he had known it wouldn’t be enough. He needed to get the hell out of Gellings, out of Georgia, out of the South. He’d only asked to come here because he’d known Allison wanted to be close to home. Left to his own devices, he’d have gone anywhere west of the Mississippi. Overseas. New England, even.
Would’ve been nice if Allison could’ve decided she was done with him six months earlier. Out-of-cycle orders were hard to come by. Deployments aside, he was stuck here for at least two years.
So he’d made the worst-best decision ofhis life.
“Pony’s pulling the old man card,” Juice Box announced when Lance walked into the kitchen. Where Allison would’ve been waiting with fresh cookies on the counter and a chicken in the oven, Juicy was digging through the liquor cabinet over the fridge. “Says we’re doing a bonfire at his place instead of hitting the bars tonight.”
Lance tossed his keys on the granite countertop separating the kitchen from the living room. “Good. Had enough of women for one day.”
“We’ll find you one who doesn’t talk,” Juicy said.
Lance grunted.
“Not like that blonde. Holyshit, she was a hot mess. You think she gives good head?”
“Shut up, Juicy.”
“You got marshmallows?”
The things he had to teach this kid. “Youtake marshmallows to a bonfire with the squadron, they’ll change your call sign from Juice Box to Breast Milk.”
“Can’t saybreastin a call sign. New Air Force, dude.”
Taking a roommate had seemed like a good idea at the time. Lance didn’t want to come home to an empty house while he waited for his deployment rotation to come up, and Juice Box had been living in an apartment with a leaky roof, questionable plumbing, and two hundred more a month in rent than Lance charged.
Having Juice Box here was like having a horny puppy that talked. He left shit everywhere, loved chasing sticks, had the attention span of a gnat, and tried to hump anything with legs and a pulse.
“Running low on beer again,” Juicy said. “Hey, can we bring dates to the squadron picnic next weekend? Got a buddy whosesister goes to school over at the college here, and he asked if I’d watch out for her.”
Lance’s sister had never had any issues taking care of herself, but that didn’t mean his big-brother instincts didn’t spike when Juicy was talking aboutanybody’ssister. “On behalf of your buddy, if you touch her, kiss her, say anything suggestive, or so much as imagine her naked, I will personally twist you into a human pretzel, light your hair on fire, and kick you off the ramp of my Herc without a parachute next time I’m in the air. Got it?”
Juicy grinned. “Lightning doesn’t let you threaten her boyfriends, does she? Hey, when’s she coming back to town?”
Four months.
Lance deployed in four months. He could tolerate this for four more months.
God only knew what Juice Box would do in the house while he was gone, but on somelevel, he knew having the kid here was better than living with a wife who didn’t want him.
Plus, if the deployment went well and he played his cards right, he’d have networked his way into a by-name request from another squadron, and he’d be putting the house up for sale and getting out to see the world.
But in the meantime, Juicy was a good distraction.
Not as good a distraction as the blonde would’ve been, but life was never perfect.
3
