May Contain Wine (SWAT Generation 2.0 5)

After explaining about the interview, and that Luke wanted us to do it, and who was behind it all, they were easily mollified.

As were five of the others—Adam, Dax, Derek, Ford, and Hayes.

Sammy, of course, would do anything that I asked of him—so I hadn’t even bothered trying to convince him to help.

The holdouts were Nathan, Malachi, and Saint.

All of which did not, under any circumstances, want to do another shoot or interview ever.

“I have a right to say no,” Malachi said, sounding annoyed that I kept pushing it. “I don’t want to do any interviews.”

“You do,” Calloway’s soft, melodic voice said from behind us. “Because this charity helps veterans just like you.”

Malachi stiffened at having someone come up behind him without him noticing.

He turned and stared at Calloway, who looked as if she’d come for battle.

She looked good.

I hadn’t seen her in a week, and I expected her to be drained down after all of her extensive traveling. But she looked happy and healthy. The usual dark circles underneath her eyes weren’t there like they usually were, meaning she was likely having a good day.

She was dressed in blue jeans that fit her juicy ass like a glove, a pair of low boots that showed off her gorgeous calves, and a tight black t-shirt that wrapped around her curves like I wanted my body to.

And her hair.

It was down.

Over the years, she’d grown it out. When she chopped all her hair off and then sent it to me when I was in bootcamp, I’d nearly had a heart attack.

Every last reason to stay away from her went down the drain in a fiery storm of regret and annoyance.

Shamefully, I hadn’t had a good reason when I broke up with her.

I’d been selfish, thinking of myself, and not wanting to have a reason at home to stop me from fulfilling my own dreams—i.e., travel the world and do the things that I knew without a shadow of a doubt Calloway would never want to do. And, saying that, I knew that she still had a year left of school. She was forced to stay where she was, and I wanted the freedom to be adventurous and do the things that I wanted without the repercussions of what Calloway would think about them.

In hindsight, it was the worst mistake I’d ever made.

It was shortly after I’d broken things off that I first realized that things weren’t greener on the other side of the fence.

I missed her and wanted her back within days of my epic screw up.

Yet, every time I tried to get near her, she’d go out of her way to tell me that she didn’t need me.

That she didn’t want me around.

That I was nothing to her.

And eventually I realized that I needed to give her time to calm down.

Only, I was still waiting for that calm to come.

Even all these years later.

“I’m sorry… but I really don’t want to do an interview with you,” Malachi admitted, not sounding sorry in the least. “I’m just… I don’t want to do it.”

Calloway tilted her head, her eyes soft, and she smiled. “You don’t have to.”

He breathed a sigh of relief.

“But,” she said, “if you want to interview with me… I won’t post your name or your face. We can do it anonymously.” She paused. “I just did that with a couple of Navy SEALs this weekend. They were willing to do the interview, they just didn’t want to be photographed or have their names printed.”

Malachi looked torn as if he would be willing to do it as long as those two things happened.

“She’s trustworthy,” I murmured. “There was one time that I told her a secret, and she promised not to tell my parents. She even got punished for it because it affected her. But she never told.”

Calloway snorted.

“What did he do?” Malachi asked curiously.

Calloway looked at me with raised eyebrows, and I shrugged.

“I can’t,” she said softly.

“I can,” Sammy said as he came up to us. “Louis wrecked his dad’s car because he was getting a blow job. Totaled it. Calloway took the blame.”

Calloway’s face flamed.

“How…” she started.

“And why couldn’t you just tell him?” Nico asked.

“Because he was drunk as fuck at the time,” Sammy said. “We all were, honestly. I don’t even think any of us know the whole story, but Calloway.”

Nico turned to look at Calloway, who flushed bright red.

Calloway was also the one doing the blow job. So technically it was her fault… not that I would ever tell Nico that.

Calloway had said that she was the one to wreck my dad’s car. She hadn’t been. But the alternative would have been to tell everyone that she’d been giving me a blow job with two passed out people in the back seat, and me drunk off my ass. Funny enough, she’d been the only one not drunk, and was the only one who really knew everything that had gone on, just like Sammy had said.