Rich Soldier (The Dirty Thirty Pledge 2)

“Hey,” Tia said, “where’d you go?”

I pressed a kiss to her neck. “Just thinking about graduation.”

“And what comes after?”

“Yeah.”

She rolled away from me and laid down on the blanket, patting the space beside her. “What are you thinking?”

“Same thing I’ve been thinking for a while,” I said. “The army.”

Her face fell a little. “You mentioned that before. Are you sure that’s really what you want? You’ll be gone for a long time.”

I heard her implication, that we’d be a part. “It won’t be all that long. And you’ll be gone too, at college.”

“I guess that’s true,” she said. “But I’d just…I’d really miss you.”

“Believe me,” I said, “I’m going to miss you too.”

I pulled her closer then, and kissed her. Not just kissed her, devoured her. And before long our clothes were a mess and it seemed like we were heading for the point of no return. We broke apart and her chest was heaving like mine. I could see the moonlight reflected in her eyes and her voice was breathy when she spoke. “I want to.”

“Are you sure?” I asked her. I would stop if she asked, but I was praying to every god that existed that she wouldn’t.

“Yes,” she whispered, and we rolled back into each other.

I pull myself back from the memory, keeping myself from falling deeper into it, keeping myself from taking myself in my hand and getting off to the memory of her every curve. Hell, I’m so hard that I’m half-way there. But I can’t. I don’t think that she’d want me to think of her like that, and if I let myself go there, all I’d be thinking about tomorrow is the way she felt underneath me and wondering if she smells the same. Tastes the same. Would she feel the same underneath me, all softness and heat and pure, sheer, pleasure?

No. I have to live with this. And I shut my mind off, just like I used to do when I couldn’t afford to feel. Because there are nights when feeling will get you killed. I let my mind fade into that blackness and try to get some sleep.

4

Wallace

Three Years Ago

Being back in Green Hills is like something out of a dream. I’m not used to all the green. When I was growing up, I never thought about the fact that the town’s name was literal, and now I can’t get over the fact when it’s staring at me in the face. I can’t help it. For the last however many years, I’ve been staring at what feels like nothing but brown. Sure, there was the occasional palm tree or plant, but the desert in Afghanistan is incredibly brown. And hot. This seems like an oasis in comparison, though I don’t think I would have thought that when I was younger.

The lush heat of summer in Tennessee seems like paradise in comparison. And everything else, too. It’s strange. When you’re over there, where every decision is life and death, it doesn’t seem like a place like Green Hills can exist. Kids are walking down the street, people are living quiet lives, and time moves on like nothing is happening on the other side of the world.

Everything is different here. And that’s good.

I don’t think I would have ever come back here if it weren’t for the funeral. And for Tia.

Thanks to First Shot, I have enough money to go anywhere I want. And I was planning to. But unfinished business has a way of pulling you back in, and I have plenty of unfinished business here.

I missed the funeral, and I don’t pretend to be a good person by being relieved that I never have to see my father again. He’s the reason I left this town in the first place, and I won’t miss him. Anyone who knows the truth would understand. Living in that house alone is weird, but it’s better than living in it with him. I’m going to tear it down and build a better one. The house I’ve always wanted to build, and with my own two hands. The house that Tia and I talked about building together when we were young and the world seemed filled with absolutely endless possibilities.

But right now I’m stuck in the house that’s there, and it’s mostly empty. So I need food, which is why I’m pulling up to one of Green Hill’s grocery stores in my dad’s beat-up truck. A new car is on the list of things to buy, too. I don’t plan on keeping anything of my father’s if I can help it. I came home to more money than I know what to do with, thanks to Frankie and Glenn. They took our idea and ran with it while I was on the other side of the world. They didn’t have to include me in the profit, but they did. So I think I’ll be okay to buy a car now that I have millions in my bank account.