My hands cling to his shoulders, as if I'm terrified that it’s all a dream, that if I lose my hold on him I'll wake up to find myself sweat-soaked and alone. “Tell me you’re really here,” I whisper, and he steps back, shedding his jacket, letting it fall to the floor.
His shadows bounce off the pale wall as he strips off his sweatshirt and tee, and then his boots and jeans, stalking toward me in just his briefs. My favorite version of Lukas.
I sit up, wanting to do the same. Knowing that the heat from his body will warm me better than any layer of clothing. Stripping off my sweatshirt, I toss it to the floor next to me without taking my eyes off of his. I shuffle out of my sweatpants, shoving them off the side of my bed, leaving me in just underwear and a tank. “How? I thought you didn’t have any more time before you left?”
Lukas and I briefly met in Copper Ridge over Christmas. I had a small break to spend the holidays with my family, and naturally, I spent as much time with Lukas as I could. We said our tearful goodbye, thinking that day was the last time I’d see him until after boot camp.
He moves over me, one long arm resting on the bed beside my head, and he crawls in, adjusting himself so his back is facing the wall. “Moved a few things around. I had to spend my lasttwenty-four hours with my girl,” he whispers, curling his free arm against my hip, tugging me to him.
My body falls into his perfectly with my cheek pressed to the inside of his bicep. We curl up together in the center of the bed, legs tangled around one another. Once we settle, a heavy rattle rises in my chest, and I let it out, followed by a sob.
“I owe you an apology.”
Lukas chuckles, pulling me closer into his chest. “What could you possibly have to apologize for?”
“Because I’ve been selfish. Kind of a brat.”
He laughs at that, and I wrap my arm around his side toward his back, splaying my fingers over the thick muscles in his shoulders as he pulls me tighter to him. “Babe, be serious.”
“I am! This whole time, from basically the moment you said you joined the Marines, all I’ve been thinking about is how scared I am. How worried I’ll be. I realized tonight that I don’t think I even asked you how you’re feeling about it. If you’re excited. Maybe this is the change you need. I want you to be happy, baby, I do. I want you to feel how you felt playing ball, it’s just … I’m scared,” I whimper, my chest cracking as I finally say the words out loud.
“Don’t be scared,” he mumbles against my hair. “This is just a change for us. We’ll make it through this just like we’ve made it through everything else.” He presses a soft kiss to the top of my head, and then my forehead, using his palm to tilt my face up to his. “Besides, this is just boot camp. I’ll be in California, spending my days getting yelled at, and probably doing push-ups and missing you—it’ll be fine. And am I excited? I don’t know yet. I know I feel like I’m doingsomething, at least, so that’s a start.”
His lips brush against my cheeks, kissing away the tears that fall. “No matter where I am, or what I’m doing, I spend all day with my mind on you and only you.” He works his way down myface until his lips are against mine, and I inhale sharply at the feel of him.
“But what if you deploy?” I croak out as another wave of hot tears moves down my face.
He doesn’t have anything to say for that. Since the night he called and said he was enlisting in the military, my thoughts haven’t stopped racing. We aren’t in active war, but from what I’ve learned about the military in the last month is that troops are often deployed on missions to protect us from things we never even hear about.
Lukas sighs heavily, reaching his free hand up to smooth away the damp hair from my face. “I know, baby. It’s all happening so fast, and there’s a lot we don’t know. It scares me, too.” He pushes out a heavy breath. “It’s not my dream to do this, Mags. You out of anyone should know that. But this could be so good for us. The sign-on bonus is nice; it’ll be deposited into my bank account back home and rack up interest for the next few years. You know I don’t need much to live off of. I don’t care about fancy clothes. I already have my truck. Any money I make will just be saved, and when we’re older, it’ll be a start for our house, our future.”
“I don’t want the money,” I croak out. “I want you—healthy, happy, alive.”
My voice cracks with the last few words, and I bury my face in his chest. This conversation is one we’ve had nearly every day for the last few weeks since he broke the news to me. He’s worried he won’t be able to provide for us in the future if he doesn’t do this. That life on the farm will mean living paycheck to paycheck. And maybe it will, maybe it won’t.
I don’t view money the same way Lukas does. As long as I have what I need to survive, all the fancy extras don’t matter.
“I don’t want to fight about this, baby. As hard as it is to say this, it’s a done deal. But you need to remember…” He moveshis hand to curl his finger under my chin, tipping it up so I’m forced to look at him. “This is only four years. Four years active, four years reserve. We’ve already done almost five years long distance, this is just another four.”
I move the hand that had been resting against his chest up, curling it around to rake my fingers through the longer strands of hair at the nape of his neck. “I got an offer … in France.”
The hand that had been therapeutically running over my head, smoothing back my hair, pauses for a brief moment. His muscles tense, each one like stone against mine for a second before he relaxes, and his hand picks up the motion again. “Okay,” he says, thinking. “We knew something international was a possibility. You’ve been talking about Paris since we were kids, so this is a good thing, right?”
“Yeah. The company is smaller, but it sounds promising. It’s year-round, some travel within Europe, but there are more opportunities for solos, which means more exposure.” I applied all over the States, to France and Germany. Lukas was the one that encouraged me to apply everywhere, and we agreed that wherever I was hired would be where I was meant to go.
“You know I suck at geography, Mags, what is the time difference between California and France?”
“France is nine hours ahead. So, when you’re going to bed, I’ll just be getting up.”
The first thing I did after I received the offer was look up the time difference. It won’t be easy. There will likely be days on end that conversations flow through emails or texts. Phone calls might not happen unless one of us stays up late or the other gets up early.
“But Paris, baby. You’ve been dreaming about Paris your entire life.” His hand slides down my arm to grip my hip, wiggling it once. “We’re sad right now, yeah, but we have somuch to look forward to. Like you, dancing on a stage in some fancy French opera house.”
I smile at the thought of that, my heart fluttering at the prospect. “I still can’t believe it. I don’t think it’ll hit me until that first show, you know?”
He nods at that, and I twirl my finger tighter around the longer strands of his hair, losing myself in the feel of the silk sliding across my skin. Lukas used to always keep his hair on the shorter side, and I remember the day … God, how old were we? Maybe fifteen or so, not quite dating but the feelings were there. He had gone a few extra weeks without a hair cut one summer. The ends started to curl around his ears, and when it was humid out after he’d been playing ball in the hot sun, it’d get all sun-kissed and wavy, and I told him how much I liked it.
Since then, he’s kept it on the shaggier side, and as I twist it around my finger, I realize that he won’t be able to keep it this length in the military. “Are they going to buzz your hair?”
