“If you dumped her?—”
Jackson held his hands up. He tried to explain, but the words were rolling in his stomach like one of Radish’s rawhide bones.
The problem with spitting outI want to marry herwas that his mouth wasn’t wired to put those sounds all together like that.
If he couldn’t say it, could he do it?
Didn’t much matter if she didn’t want him, did it?
“Got it bad, man,” Lance said. “Could marry her.”
Kaci slugged him in the chest, eliciting anoomph. “You hush on up,” she said. “You know how many schools that girl’s been to without finishing a degree?”
Lance dug into the chips and salsa on the table. “Internetage, babe.”
“Not for lab work,” Kaci said.
Lance pointed a chip at him. “If you marry her, you can transfer your GI bill to her.”
Yeah, he had thought of that himself sometime between Anna fleeing his house as though her pants were on fire and that darkest part of the night where the loneliness had taken him down an unmanly road. The very act of scrounging in his mind for a way to keep her told him he was swimming in a creek he hadn’t checked for cottonmouths.
He stared at his hands. “She likes to work. Likes to earn it herself.”
“Being married to the military’s earning it,” Lance said. Jackson felt Kaci nodding her agreement. “She could go full-time, let Uncle Sam pay for it. Could finish up a degree before you get orders.”
“And then have to find a new job when we move. Take a chance we end up somewhere that doesn’t have need of fuels specialists and chemical engineers, and then she’d start all over again.” His throat was getting thick, his voice clogged up.
There was an easier answer.
He could get out of the service.
A shiver thrust through his shoulders and rocketed down his spine. Felt as if his life were ripping in two.
He could have Anna. He could have the Air Force. Couldn’t have both.
The bench across from him squeaked. Kaci shooed Lance out of the booth. “You deal with Major Heartbreak here,” she said. “If she’s looking half as bad as he is, she’s gonna need a friend too.”
Jackson opened his mouth.Tell her I said hi. Tell her I love her.
Tell her I’m sorry.
None of them fit.
“She knows, sugar,” Kaci said.
And when she gave his hand a squeeze, he felt like she wasusing a Band-Aid to hold an earthquake together.
She sashayed out the door.
“So,” Lance said, “want to get shitfaced?”
“Will it help?”
“No, but it’ll give you a reason to look like that.”
He grunted. Lance ordered eight burritos and three bags of chips and salsa to go. The two of them loaded up in Jackson’s truck.
“Class Six,” Lance said. “My treat. Merry Christmas.”
