Chapter 7
Alyssa
Boomer goes right back to work after Harley drives away. He doesn’t mention their conversation or ask questions, and it feels a lot like the online appointments I had with the therapist after my abduction. And just like those meetings, the silence begins to drive me crazy to the point I can no longer stay quiet.
“Have a good chat?”
“Sure,” he says, his spade digging into the tough earth over and over in an attempt to aerate the soil.
His tongue peeks out of his mouth, angled at the corner as he works, and I find it insanely cute. Not in a way that means I’m attracted to him, but endearing maybe. Boomer is adorable, but in a kid brother sort of way even though I’m pretty sure he’s a few years older than me.
“What’s your real name?” I ask instead of asking what I really want to know.
He chuckles, making it clear he knows I’m struggling. I laugh, too, finding his playfulness to be exactly what I need.
“Boomer,” he answers.
“It’s not,” I argue, flipping a little dirt in his direction. “But if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. Maybe explain why they call you Boomer.”
“It started out as more of an insult. The guys in my platoon didn’t know what to do with the reflective, quiet guy. Of course, Boomer is in reference to baby boomers who were born way before our generation. It just means that I’m old for my age.”
“I don’t see that as an insult. It’s like they’re saying you’re wise for your age.”
He smiles at me, leaning back on his heels. “It carries that connotation now, but years ago, it annoyed me.”
“And your real name?”
“Are we playing twenty questions?”
“We can,” I tell him with a quick shrug.
“Alexander Smith,” he answers.
“No middle name?”
He turns his full attention to me as if he’s trying to decide how much information he wants to share with me, and it makes me even more curious because a name is just a name, right?
“Isaiah,” he says, keeping his eyes locked on mine and waiting for my response.
“Alexander Isaiah Smith. It’s a great name. My middle name is Katherine after my grandmother. I think I’d like it more if she wasn’t such a mean old lady.”
I turn back to place a plant in the hole he just dug. A long moment goes by without him moving, and eventually I look back up at him to see him staring in my direction.
“What?”
“Are you making assumptions in your head or do you really have no questions about my name?”
I lean back as well, wanting to groan at the ache already forming in my back from the small amount of work we’ve done today.
“Should I make assumptions?”
He shrugs. “Would you make assumptions if I told you I grew up just outside of Salt Lake City?”
I cock an eyebrow up at him.
“Are you trying to tell me you’re Mormon?”
He tilts his head a little.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know much about religion. I wasn’t raised in a church, but I recall a class I took freshman or sophomore year that had a small section on LDS members being from Utah.”
“I was raised Mormon,” he says, leaning forward to dig another hole. “I’m not anymore.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t have questions?”
“Do you want me to ask questions? I mean, I can if you want to talk about it, but I’m not usually an intrusive person.”
“Are you curious? Most people are very curious when they find out.”
“Are we trading tit for tat, because I’m not in the right headspace right now to answer questions about myself.”
He grins at the ultimatum, laughing under his breath as he swipes his dirty forearm over his sweaty forehead. “No tit for tat today, but I hope at some point, you’ll be comfortable enough to talk to me about what you’re struggling with.”
“Maybe someday,” I promise. “So does that mean you have a hundred brothers and sisters?”
His grin grows, spreading across his face and crinkling his eyes in the corners. “So you know more about Mormons than you let on?”
I shrug. “I didn’t want to be rude. Wanna clear up the stereotypes?”
“I do have a lot of brothers and sisters. My father had three wives. I figured I’d get that out of the way before you hint at it instead of asking directly. My family is more than just Mormon or members of the LDS church. We’re—they’re polygamists. My mother had nine kids before I left Utah. I was kid number six.”
“You left?”
He nods, leaning over to grab the next plant, handing it to me since this is my agreed part of the job.
“I joined the Marine Corps right out of high school.”
“You never went back home?”
“Men don’t leave their families to join organized groups outside of the church. The motto is in the world, not of the world. Once I left, I wasn’t welcome back.”