"I was a freaking scrawny kid. I didn't hit my height until I was almost twenty, and the weight didn't add on until I was close to twenty-three. I had strength, but it wasn't enough. And I didn't want to be stuck on a ship."
Ansley chuckled. "As a Marine, I didn't realize how much time I would spend on a ship. I mean, they told us, but I really didn't get it. My first month at sea was hard. I was sick every day. It took a lot to get my sea legs."
“Will you miss it?”
She shook her head. “Hell no. I’m glad I joined, but I’m glad I’ll be out.”
“Where will you live?”
“No clue. I won’t go home. I plan on taking some time and traveling.”
“If you pass through North Carolina, I’m based there. You should visit.”
She nodded, and for a moment, he thought she would ignore the suggestion. Then she nodded. "I'm in California now, but I don't want to stay there."
“Really? You don’t like California?”
"I do in a way, but it's too expensive and there is too much military there. I want to blend into the background and just live. I don't want to constantly be reminded of my time in the Marines."
“I get that. When I retire, I doubt I’ll stick close to a base. I may just move into the condo and live there full-time.”
Ansley glanced at him, wondering if he was just being nice or asking her to really visit him. She wouldn’t mind spending time with Link. He was nice. Maybe outside of work he would be different.
She hadn’t ever had much luck with guys, and she was sure this was Link being nice, not hitting on her. He was only talking to her because they were stuck together right now. Did he wish he’d let his buddy grab her, so he wasn’t here with her? She was being a pain in the ass with her injuries. She needed to buck up and just move.
“Tell me about the condo.”
She listened to him describe how he bought a condo that needed some renovations, and how he'd worked on it for months. He said he rented it out for a few years, but that wasn’t great.
“I got tired of renting. Some people who stayed at the place were pigs and left huge messes. It cost me more in cleaning than I received in rental fees some weeks. Then I was having to charge three or four hundred dollars in cleaning fees just to break even.”
“Oh, that sucks.”
“Yeah. Now I let my friends, people I know well, stay there. They pay a reduced rate and clean up the place before they go. I have to have someone go in and vacuum and make sure all the trash cans are empty, but it’s not the same as when I rented to the general public. My buddies treat the place like they own it, clean up, take out the trash, that kind of thing.”
“That’s good that your friends are that considerate.”
“So if you came for a visit, would you be willing to spend a week at the beach?”
A thrill shot through Ansley. There was no way he was being anything other than nice. She wouldn’t be an idiot about this. He’d asked her to stay at the beach with him just because they were stuck in this situation, nothing more.
“I could spend a week at the beach. It would be nice to relax.”
“You’ll probably have to stay out of the water for a while until that thing on your leg heals.”
She grunted. "How bad do you think it looks? I can kind of see it, but it hurts to bend that way to look."
Link shrugged. “It’s not great.”
“I’m angry that we were targeted. I hate that this all happened. I’m sure some of my friends are dead.”
“It sucks. Losing friends is the worst part of the military. Some of us joke about what the worst thing is. Some may say the food, or loss of autonomy, but losing friends sucks more.”
His words twisted through her. There were a lot of terrible things that happened in the military, but then there were the great parts. There were things it would have taken her decades to learn, but the military instilled those virtues in her fast.
“I’ve had a few people die here and there, but based on what I saw on this mission, we lost way too many good people.”
Link slowed, and she slowed, too. He was giving her time to adjust, to make sure she could keep moving. She hated to admit it, but her leg hurt too much, and she wouldn't be able tocontinue on without taking a longer break. She was about to say something when he put his hand on her shoulder and pointed to a small room to the left.
