But that thought only lasted until I reminded myself that I was dumb and had no business having feelings for anyone, especially him. I’d already spent more than half my life pining away for someone who didn’t see me as anything more than his best friend’s little sister even after we’d… done something. I’d learned my lesson. At least you’d figure I would have learned my lesson. I wasn’t about to go down that road of unrequited love again. I was fully aware of the castle I’d built and what it was made of, and it wasfriendship.
Case closed. The door was locked and deadbolted. I wasn’t going there, not today, not tomorrow, not ever. No, thank you. My castle lived in Denial’s city limits, and it was and would have to be perfectly finethere.
“What are you going to do if he messages you again?” Tali asked as the server approached our table. Neither one of us said anything as he dropped off three plates of food with a sleek smile aimed at my sister that went unnoticed because he wasn’t a woman with at least a D-cupbreastsize.
I dragged my Reuben and fries toward me as I smiled at the server still looking at Tali’s pale skin, dark red hair, and blue eyes, with so much hope. Poor guy had no idea he never could or would stand a chance with my sister. Been there, done that. I knew what that was like. I told her, “Either pretend like nothing happened, or say I’m sorry and that I don’t know why I wrote that and I regret itbigtime.”
My sister snickered as she picked up her own Reuben with both hands, oblivious to the server still hanging around, arranging the silverware around the plate he’d set next to mine. “You want to keep being friends with him, don’t you?” sheasked.
It wasn’t like I didn’t talk about Aaron. I did. My whole family knew about him. There wasn’t a whole lot I kept from them, except this whole giant-crush-on-a-practical-stranger thing. All I’d told them was that we were friendly. “Yeah…,” I said, watching the neglected server shoot Tali one last look before finally huffing andwalkingoff.
“Then just say ‘my bad’ and hopefully he’ll understand you were joking around.” There was a pause and a second later, her lips pinched together. Her chinwobbled.
I knew what she was going to do before she did it, but I still made a face when she started laughing her butt off all over again, loud,loud,loud.
“Why would you do that,Squirt?”
“I don’t know!”I hissed back at her, trying not to laugh and feel mortified at the same time and failing. Like usual. “It just happened. It was like I was talking to you orsomething.”
“You’ve never written thattome!”
I groaned and felt my entire body flame up all over again in shame. “I know! I’ve never sent that to anyone.” Because I hadn’t. Not even at my most desperate with Hunter did I ever writehimthat.
“What haven’t you sent to anyone?” came the other female voice a split second before Jasmine slid into the spot on the bench seat beside me, her hands already dragging the Cuban sandwich with sweet potato fries she would never eat on a regular basis closertoher.
Dragging my hand across my throat, I shook my head at Tali, trying to tell her not to sayanything.
She either didn’t see me or didn’t care, because the next thing I knew, she blurted out, “Squirt wrote XOXO on an IM to her armyfriend.”
Jasmine snorted a second before she bit into her sandwich. With a mouthful of pork, she said something that sounded like, “The oneyoulike?”
“I don’t like him like that,” I triedtolie.
The eighteen-year-old who treated me like the younger one, snickered in what I knew wasdisbelief.
I rolled my eyes and sighed, training my gaze on the wall behind Tali’s chair, ignoring the way my little sister was brushing this all off and how my older one was pretty much dying of embarrassment for me. “Shutup.”
“Before you were a dumbass, did he tell you if he was going to keep in touch?” Tali asked as she tried to reach toward Jasmine’s plate to snag a fry. It was either my imagination or our little sister growled loud enough for Tali to snatch her hand back onherown.
“He said he would, but…” I shrugged and cleared my throat. “We’ll see.” Things would be different once he got back to the States and his life didn’t revolve around the same old people and the same old base. Iunderstood.
“You haven’t kept in touch with any of the rest of the soldiers you’ve written before, have you?” Jasmine asked between bites, making it really apparent that she was usually so focused on her own life that she didn’t pay that much attention to anyoneelse’s.
“No.” Then again, most of my conversations with my other Help a Soldier pairings had consisted of the weather, their kids, and if they liked this-or-that more. I’d never told anyone else things about my family or my lack of relationships or… anything really that personal. I was a moron. A giant moron who knew better. Another sigh that probably gave too much away slipped right out of me. “Who knows, maybe he won’t write me again. He doesn’thaveto.”
Because he didn’t. He didn’t owe meanything.
I didn’t miss the look my sisters gave each other. Neither one of them thought he’d write me. Or maybe they both saw through my façade. Honestly, I would rathernotknow.
If there was one thing I’d learned over the last few years, it was that just because you cared about someone, and just because they made it seem like they cared about you too, didn’t really mean a single thing at the end oftheday.
I’d take what I’d been given and be happywithit.
Chapter13
June
Iwasin the middle of cutting fabric when my phone beeped. I’d been tracing the pattern for the reversible style of bandanas I was working on for the last hour, and wanted to start on the other fabric I was planning on using for the other side. I never got used to how excited the little things in life made me, but knowing I’d see a finish product soon… it made me smile, even if it was dog bandanas I was making, because they weremydogbandanas. Not anyoneelse’s.
