a losing battle (free at last Book 2) Read online

  I know I said I don’t want him to take me back just because of Hazel, but right now I don’t even care whether we end up together at all. I just don’t want Hazel to grow up without such a great person in her life. And I don’t want to keep him from meeting his super cute daughter—not that I’m the least bit biased. Every day, I take pictures and videos of Hazel, recording all her progress in my diary. Because I’m sure Hunter’s coming back at some point, and I want him to feel like he hasn’t missed out on anything.

  I’m already showing Hazel videos of him so she knows who her daddy is. At the moment, she’s not really getting it, but at some point, she will. I always want her to know who he is.

  Hunter would be such an amazing dad, too. I have no doubt about it. He had a great dad of his own—before Carter ended up not being so great anymore.

  Speaking of, I feel guilty about Carter. He moved to New York now that his sons have left the house, and I can’t help thinking I’ve cheated Carey and Hunter out of their dad. Without me, the three of them never would have ended up going their separate ways. Whenever I say that to Carey, he argues that everybody can decide for themselves how to deal with things. Which is true, but it is hard for me to accept that Carey isn’t in touch with his dad, and that Hazel doesn’t know her grandpa. I understand Carter doesn’t want any contact with me. It was wrong of me to cheat on him with his own son. But it’s still sad that Hazel’s growing up without grandparents.

  I wonder what Hunter looks like now. Has he grown up more over the past two years? Grown more masculine, I mean? I imagine him with his short, brown hair, his chocolate eyes, and lots of stubble and skin dark from his days in the sun. A tan makes everyone sexier, right?

  Especially Hunter. I let my hand slide between my legs, push the fabric of my panties aside, and play with my clit. I think about our only night together, the gentle sex we had. Remember that I have never felt so loved before. I circle my clit with my fingertips before slowly rubbing it. My other hand grabs my breast, kneading it softly before running my thumb across my nipple. My breath speeds up, and my nipples stiffen. I can feel myself getting wet.

  I dip my fingers into the wetness and then slide back up to my pearl, which is screaming for attention. I can feel that I’m not going to take long. I’m almost there already.

  But then I hear Hazel cry through the baby monitor. The kind of cry that doesn’t just stop. My moment is gone.

  Sighing, I get up and wash my hands before going to her room.

  “Hey, sweetie,” I coo, taking her into my arms.

  Her little head rests against my chest. “Mommy.”

  I was going to ween her off sleeping in my bed, but… I mean, the poor girl is growing up without a daddy… Cursing my own inconsistency, I take her to my room, put my arms around her, and, soon enough, hear her breathing grow peaceful and regular as she falls asleep.

  22

  Hunter

  For seven months, I’m in the desert. My time in Virginia was short. Killian is stationed there, too, so we started hanging out again. It still bugs me that I haven’t seen Carey even once. I wanted to, but I was afraid I’d get weak and ask him about her. Since the day Spider was killed, I’ve been seeing a therapist. I’ve talked to him about Mac. And as stupid as it sounds, time heals all wounds.

  I still love her, and I always will, but I’ve started accepting things. Mac is happy with Dad and their baby, and I’ll never be part of her life again.

  It still hurts, but it’s getting easier. I’m not constantly reminded of her, especially since I’ve started seeing other women. It was about time. Seriously. What guy abstains from sex for years? In a few months, I’m turning twenty-four, and apart from that one time with Mac, I haven’t had sex since I was eighteen. It drives you crazy.

  It’s not that I’ve turned into a man whore, either, like I used to be back in high school. But I go out and have fun. I haven’t met the right woman yet, though. None of them have even come close. And nobody ever will. After five years without sex, it’s just baby steps, I guess. Baby steps.

  After talking with my therapist, I’ve met up with Devon a few more times, too. He finished his degree and is working as a journalist in D.C. Ava’s doing her Ph.D. at Georgetown. The two of them are still together, which makes me happy and sad at the same time. But it was great to see them again. It’s like no time has passed.

  And now I’m out on my second deployment. Seven months total. I’m six in. In one month, I’m going back to Virginia. I’m planning to go back to Force Recon after that. I still have to do some more training, but after that, my former dream could still come true.

  The boys in my unit are cool. I’m on one team with Jackson, which is great. So far, our lives have been spared—knock on wood. It took me a long time to process what happened that day, but the command center has stopped investigating and decided nobody could have foreseen the attack. Still, it was the worst day of my life. Spider dead, Fire dead, Pitbull dead. Jumbo’s still in rehab. Fire survived but later shot himself because he couldn’t live with his injuries. Florida’s suffering from PTSD and hasn’t been admitted back into service. I went to see him once. He wasn’t doing great.

  Of course, I realize this stuff hasn’t left me completely, either. The fireworks on the Fourth of July in Virginia were an absolute nightmare for me. I thought I was back in Afghanistan. Once, a car near me misfired, and I threw myself on the ground right there in public. But it’s not just me. A few others did the same thing—it sounded like a shot, which wasn’t unusual in that neighborhood.

  And now we’re back here. Back to the groundhog days.

  “Hey, Killer,” Jackson calls.

  “Jax?”

  “This old dude on the bus sees a punk with a red Mohawk,” Jax says without preamble. “He keeps staring at him. At some point, the punk gets sick of it and yells at the old dude, ‘Come on, man, didn’t you ever do anything stupid when you were young?’ ‘I did,’ the old dude says. ‘I used to fuck chickens when I was young, and I’m wondering if you’re my son.’”

  I smile. Count on Jax to make you laugh even when things look dark as midnight. Kind of like Joey.

  “The guys here look like they might be fucking chickens, too,” Meatball says.

  As a kid from Cali, I consider that a racist comment. As a Marine who’s seen them trying to kill us left, right, and center, I don’t give a fuck what jokes people make about the T-Men.

  “I thought they were fucking each other,” Rabbit throws in.

  “Man-Love Thursday,” Jax says, making everybody laugh. Apparently, here in the south of Afghanistan, especially in Kandahar, relationships between men are pretty common. Jax likes to imply the guys fuck each other on Thursdays so they don’t feel lust on holy Friday.

  Normally, jokes like that would get me upset. But over here, nothing is normal. I don’t make jokes like that, but I don’t protest them, either. Like I said, I’m not a fan of the Taliban. I would never do the things some other soldiers have done, especially in Iraq, and I would always speak against them, but I’m not going to shed any tears about the T-Men bastards, either. I’ve seen too many good men die.

  “What are you going to do when you get back home, Killer?” Jax asks.

  “Fuck,” I say, making everybody laugh. I guess that’s what we’re all going to do when we get back to the States.

  “Want me to get you a chicken?” Meatball calls.

  “They’re all yours, man, I don’t want to impose,” I say, making them laugh again. We’re out in a convoy, on our way to a COP, a combat outpost where forty to a hundred and fifty soldiers are stationed. From there, we can start missions into the hinterland to drive the Taliban out of the area.

  “There’s enough of them out here,” Meatball says, looking confused when everybody laughs.

  I shake my head in amusement. It feels good to laugh sometimes, even if it’s just about Meatball’s stupidity. But I’m still looking forward to getting home. Even if that just means sle
eping in my barracks in Virginia because I still haven’t managed to get myself an apartment.

  Just like the first time over here, it’s the sand that gets to me the most. It’s everywhere. No wonder it’s called moon dust. It’s so fine it settles in every last crack.

  “We should go for a little stopover in Germany,” Jax says, ripping me from my own thoughts.

  “Why?” I ask.

  Rabbit grins broadly. “Legal whores.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t need them. I’m not as ugly as you are.”

  Jax laughs. “But it would definitely be better to get our fill before we have to go home and take care of our girlfriends. Otherwise, they’ll be sore when we’re done with them.”

  Once again, I wonder how women can stand being with men. “And you think your girlfriend would still want you after you fucked a German whore?”

  “Not one, man, ten! One for every day.” Meatball laughs. “Germany is the holy land, man.”

  I shake my head. “In my opinion, there’s only one thing that takes a joe to Ramstein.”

  “Which is?”

  “A helicopter. Taking him to the hospital, half dead. So I don’t want to go to Germany.”

  “Killjoy,” Meatball grumbles.

  Rabbit laughs. “But the legal whores…”

  “Go to Vegas,” I retort.

  The guys let me have the last word, in part because I’ve been made commander of our team. Jax has been here longer than me, but I’ve gone up through the ranks faster, which is kind of fucked up.

  Turns out life at the COP is no different from life at the base, except we don’t have a mess hall here. We only get ready-made meals, which taste of nothing if you don’t pour loads of Tabasco on them. Which, in turn, makes them super spicy. We all look forward to the day we get to go back to camp. Sometimes we tell each other what kind of food we’re looking forward to most. Mess Hall 6 has a Mongolian barbecue. That’s my current favorite.

  We talk about food like we talk about women. To distract ourselves and keep ourselves from going crazy. My team’s full of crude bastards, but really, they’re faithful boyfriends and husbands. Especially Rabbit, who’s always writing to his wife or talking to her on the phone. He would never think about sleeping with another woman. But that’s what they’re like: barking dogs who don’t bite. They like to talk, but really, they’re decent guys.

  Over the next few weeks, there are a few small skirmishes with Taliban, but nothing a Marine wouldn’t get through. After all, we’re part of the most advanced military in the world, and our opponents are mostly just shepherd boys brainwashed by their mullahs. I can’t stand to think about it, or I’ll start feeling sorry for them, and I don’t need that. Pity is for pussies.

  We don’t really have time to give much thought to anything. We patrol and protect our small fort. We eliminate their strongholds, making the area safer, but they keep shooting up like mushrooms all over the place. You kill one Taliban only to turn around and face another ten.

  We could actually learn from them. Troop motivation. Recruitment. But their methods don’t have much to do with freedom. And our operation is called Enduring Freedom, so things are different for us.

  23

  Mackenzie

  I’m sitting in my office. Hazel’s second birthday is coming up, but she’s with her nanny. I couldn’t afford the nanny anymore and didn’t want to take Carey’s—meaning Carter’s—money, but I didn’t have a choice. I can’t stay home, I need to come here to work every day to make some money—otherwise I’ll be depending on Carey even more.

  I look out the window, wondering how we can make this statement more to the point, more memorable. Maybe we need an exaggeration to get our message across. But what could be one memorable, provocative phrase? I realize I’m not going to get this done today.

  So I move on to something else. People power. We need to convince people—especially multipliers—to support our campaign. And as we all know only too well, a movement is only successful once white, heterosexual men join it, so they are the ones we need.

  In two weeks, we’re having a big fundraiser, which will be attended by the governor and a California congress member. Actors and singers who have joined our campaign will speak. Which is great, because it means I don’t have to.

  Around six, I pack my things and hurry home so I can spend a couple of hours with Hazel. She beams when I come in and runs toward me. “Mommy, up.”

  I pick her up and kiss her on her sauce-covered mouth. My little piggy is so cute.

  “Thanks, Maya,” I tell the nanny, who promises there have been no major incidents and says good-bye till Monday. I always look forward to my weekends with Hazel and Carey. Tonight, Hazel and I play for a while before I give her a bath and tuck her in. I read to her from a picture book and say good night. Then I plop on the couch and turn on the TV.

  Suddenly, I feel alarmed. A chilling, bone-deep feeling of terror.

  I go to Hazel’s room and check on her. Then I call Carey, who’s on the nightshift today, but he’s fine. I send messages to Shane and Sheila, but they’re okay, too. Finally, I call Carter, who’s surprised to hear my voice, but he sounds pretty together. He tells me he has a new girlfriend, and I’m relieved because this means our relationship might finally improve. Carter no longer needs to be jealous of Hunter.

  Still, after we hang up, I can’t shake the feeling that something’s horribly wrong. I can’t sit still. I just pace, up and down, up and down the apartment. That’s when I realize there’s only one more person in the world I feel close to.

  Close enough to sense if something were to happen to him…

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  Copyright: © 2017 Annie Stone

  Translation: LanguageBIZ

  Editing: Annie Cosby

  Cover: Cassy Roop of Pink Ink Designs with pictures from Shutterstock

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