Second Skin
Chapter 24 - Forces of Nature
Songs: Got Nuffin by Spoon and Hello Time Bomb by Matthew Good Band
August 2156. Pensacola, Florida. One year before First Contact.
Small children are as alien to me as if they came from another planet. Small girls even more so, especially because even that young they have that special ability to tug at my heartstrings when the tears start flowing. The problem is that unlike most adult women, two-year-old girls are about as emotionally accessible as a landmine, and just as dangerous if you approach them the wrong way. Not that I've had much experience dealing with crying girls that small before, at least not until Z arrived on Sadie's doorstep with a crying toddler in his arms. I'd have been better equipped to deal with the situation if he'd shown up with live explosives strapped to his chest.
The little girl's first reaction upon seeing me was to burst into tears and start wailing into her father's chest. Sadie looked at me like I'd just stolen her teddy bear, which she didn't seem to have one of anyway. All she had was a small blue blanket with stars on it that was clutched solidly in one tiny fist. I didn't think I'd ever been so tense in my life, not even when Sadie and I had been in the midst of disarming a bomb. What the fuck was I supposed to do?
I suppose I could blame my mother and sister for my particular weakness to crying girls, but I never considered it a bad thing. In the past I'd always instinctually known what would help to make things better. It was a gift, and one I'd eventually started using to my advantage with women my own age. Once I'd figured out how well they responded to wordless comfort, I was generally as fearless when it came to a girl's tears as a plumber might be around a leaky pipe. But everything I tried with this particular crying girl just seemed to make things worse.
The little redhead clung with one hand to her father's shirt, her other hand clutching her blanket while he held her in his arms. She stared at me and Sadie wide-eyed for a second then buried her face and snuffled against Z's shoulder. I thought I heard a muffled plea that sounded something like "I want my mama," but I couldn't be certain.
"Remember Uncle Moose from the vidcomm the other day, love? Aren't you gonna say hello?"
Green eyes peeked at me again and this time she released her hold on Z long enough to give me and Sadie a tentative wave. I smiled and waved back and even tried making a goofy face like I had done to the camera a couple days earlier that had made her giggle. It didn't have the same effect this time, but she stopped crying at least.
Z sighed and patted her on the back as we walked into the house and settled around the dining room table. I popped open a few cold beers and handed him one, taking several swallows from my own just to soften the whole experience as quickly as possible.
"Takes her a bit to warm up to new people, but she's a cheeky tyke once she gets going. You'll see. This time tomorrow we won't be able to shut her up."
"Remind me where Jess is?" I asked, eyeing the small girl cautiously.
He took a long swig from his beer and sighed.
"Got a gig flying rich wankers to some new resort on Mars. She got the short end of the stick, if you ask me."
While we were talking his daughter quietly extricated herself from his embrace. I tensed at her movement and Sadie kicked me under the table. If I could've read her mind I knew she'd be berating me for being frightened of a two-year-old.
"Thirsty, love?" Z asked when she moved to the chair beside him. She nodded, glancing up at me and Sadie bashfully. She looked at Sadie a bit longer that time before turning away.
Z fished in the bulky bag he'd carried in and pulled out a juice box and handed it to her. She stared at it critically for a moment and an odd silent exchange passed between the two of them. She pursed her lips and Z sighed.
"Don't suppose you've got a cup fit for a two-year-old, do you?" he asked.
Sadie chuckled and spoke directly to Jasmine. "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I have the perfect cup just for you, Jazz."
I stared after her as she wandered into the kitchen, wondering if it was a girl thing or if she just had secret powers that let her interact with small children. I'd have to interrogate her on the subject later. She came back carrying a bright blue plastic tumbler with hippos on it that had seen better days and poured Jazz's juice from the juice box into the cup.
Jazz gazed up at her with wide-eyed approval. "Thank you," she said in a clear, ringing voice, which caused us both to stare at her in stunned wonder. She carefully sipped her juice, oblivious to us. Her face was completely obscured by the cup, her dark red pigtails swinging slightly as she drank.
"Wow, Z, you've actually managed to teach her manners. How'd you pull that off?" Sadie asked and settled back into the chair next to me.
Z snorted and said ruefully, "That's all Jess's doing. Wait 'til she finally opens up and you'll see my less than stellar influence."
Sadie and I shared an apprehensive look. I wasn't sure whether to be worried or not, but I supposed we'd find out soon enough what kind of time bomb we'd invited into her house.
The next twenty-four hours were a testament to our endurance. After chatting at the table for a time we ordered takeout and watched a few vids, but when bedtime came, Jazz began to show her more colorful side. At first she went without a fuss but the second Z tried to leave her alone in Sadie's old room she vehemently objected. Sadie and I retreated to her bedroom chased by a domestic chorus of alternating pitches beyond our door as father and daughter butted heads. It was hard to tell who the real winner was from the crying and sounds of deeper-voiced words of irritation followed by appeasement.
Trying to ignore the noise, I shifted close to Sadie and began my heretofore foolproof routine of nuzzling and groping. She made a soft sound of appreciation, rolling over to face me and wrapping herself around me.
Even though the crying had finally faded away outside the door an echo of it still lingered in my head. I'd managed to forget the dreams for nearly two weeks straight, but now the memory of them was vividly present, along with the same persistent sense of desperation digging into my gut in response to the distant wails that reached me from across a desolate landscape.
I hoped hearing a different kind of cry might drown it out and my touch on Sadie's body grew more urgent in an effort to provoke the desired response from her. I craved the sound of her voice screaming in ecstasy again like she had on so many nights recently. I shifted down her body, my fingertips and tongue teasing mercilessly at her pliant, moist flesh. I buried my face between her thighs and went to town thinking maybe I'd get creative tonight, really get her going until she begged for mercy.
"Ow! What the hell?" she said, shoving my head back abruptly and scooting away from me after only a moment.
"Come back, sweetness. I'm not done yet." I shifted closer and nipped lightly at her inner thigh with my teeth.
"Yeah, you're done. Christ, I'm not a damn chew toy. What's with you tonight?"
"Just thought I'd try something different. Some girls like that." I reached out and slipped a hand up her thigh, eyeing the prize she'd so rudely yanked away from me. She pushed my hand away with a disgusted huff, slamming her legs together and nearly kneeing me in the jaw in the process.
"Well I don't like that. Pain is definitely not my thing. Don't touch me. You're obviously not in the right headspace for this to work right now."
She yanked the blankets over her and turned on her side facing away from me, leaving me with about an inch of fabric to cover myself. I went to sleep irritated, horny, and confused, with the incessant echo of a baby crying like the refrain of a song that had gotten stuck in my head, the music repeating over and over but the words themselves just beyond my grasp.
The following day we woke, barely rested and groggy as shit. My tentative attempts at morning sex were shot to hell the second we started hearing the babbling of a small child and tiny footsteps stomping around the second floor. Sadie pushed me away and I lay staring at the ceiling in frustration for a moment before sighing and getting up.
We were greeted in the dining room by an irritatingly perky two-year-old who'd apparently found her voice during the night and wasn't hesitating to make demands of the grown-ups.
On the plus side, Z had thoughtfully cooked breakfast for us. However, after sitting at the table for a moment it became apparent that it was chiefly his daughter's welfare he was concerned with and we were the lucky recipients of his rejected attempts to produce acceptable animal-shaped pancakes for her.
I sat down with a plate-sized pancake and started to pour syrup on it when the shape caught my eye. Sadie started snickering and grabbed the cannister of whipped cream, adding a dollop of white foam in a strategic location near the tip of the oblong pancake.
"This looks like..." I tilted my head, "it looks like a giant..."
Z interrupted me before I could finish my sentence. "Being an artist, you should know inspiration strikes at odd times. Let's just say I was inspired. You want something different, cook it yourself."
"I just wanna know what it was originally supposed to be," I muttered before I shut the hell up and happily ate my dick-shaped pancake. It tasted pretty good, actually, but the insult stung.
Pointing my fork at Jazz and looking at her with a narrowed gaze, I said, "I'm on to you, y'know. Your ruse is pretty damn thin."
She giggled in delight and stuffed a whipped-cream laden bite of food into her mouth, chewed it for a second, then displayed the half-masticated pieces on her tongue to me.
I'd never had a mortal enemy before, but decided if anyone was the pure embodiment of evil, it was this particular little redhead. She was immune to my powers, she'd turned my friends into near strangers, and now that I was being forced to debase myself she was rubbing it in my face.
In an attempt to find age appropriate entertainment we ended up spending most of the day at the beach. We figured a giant sandbox for the kid would serve to keep her entertained while the rest of us relaxed or played at whatever other games struck our interests. Mostly we just lounged under the shade of a giant umbrella, the August Florida heat hampering our desire to do much else aside from the occasional dip in the salty water of the bay. Our entertainment consisted of watching Z try to pick up beach bunnies using his daughter as bait.
"Oh, he's good," Sadie said, watching from her low-slung lounge chair as Z swooped his daughter up in his arms, tickling her until she giggled, then set his full attention on the bikini-clad blonde who'd been so concerned about the welfare of the seemingly lost toddler. But within a moment the blonde smiled and shook her head before walking off. Z plodded back, deposited Jazz amidst her beach toys, and slumped into his lounge chair sulking.
"Didn't go as well as you'd hoped?" I asked.
"Bloody hell, you'd think as cute as she is they'd be flocking to me, but the second they get close Jazz turns into this monster. If I didn't know better I'd swear her mother coached her."
I snorted but reserved my comments. Then he tried the unthinkable.
First he cleared his throat, then gave me and Sadie a sideways glance. "D'you mind just watching her for... twenty minutes?"
Sadie's head twisted around, her eyebrows shot up. "Oh no you don't. I'm sure she's a sweet girl, but we're not going to play babysitter for you while you go get your rocks off."
"Thing is, I'm goin' a little stir crazy. Jess has been gone for a week already and I can't even leave the goddamn room for five minutes without her startin' to cry like I fell off the face of the planet. Sure I get a bit of alone time while she's sleeping, but that's the only time I get sleep. Was just hoping you two would take pity on a poor, horny bastard."
"Suck it up," Sadie and I both said in unison.
Hell, we were marines. We could handle adverse conditions of the worst kind. Sleep deprivation, exhaustion, crappy rations. In some ways this felt not unlike battle conditions; being pinned down by an enemy who wouldn't hesitate to open fire the second you gave them an opening, and whose preferred method of demoralizing you was psychological torture.
Said enemy was currently occupied with a red plastic shovel and a bucket, singing a nonsensical song to herself while she played in the sand.
Sadie watched her for a little while then sighed and stood up, on a clear mission to head directly into enemy territory.
"What the hell?" I whispered. "She'll eat you alive."
"I'll take one for the team, then. Maybe I'll find some way to give us an advantage. It's not like you're trying anything, you pussy. Besides, if you listen to all the damn propaganda, the next generation's our redemption. I'm just making sure I get on the list when she's fucking president or something."
"You're a brave woman," I said, impressed but still too skittish to be swayed by her other arguments. Z watched her with an expression of equal admiration. After a moment he stood up and shifted to Sadie's chair, pulling a pair of cold beers from the cooler and handing me one.
"Go ahead, call me a wanker, I know you're thinking it," he said, sighing in resignation as he uncapped his beer.
"If it makes you feel any better you're doing better than my dad ever did. It's clear you love her. I can't say I envy you, though. And as much as I love your company I'm looking forward to you being gone. No offense, but I'd rather hang out where there's gunfire involved."
Z didn't speak, but nodded. I got the sense he preferred my kind of enemy, too, but he was making a valiant effort to be a halfway decent dad to the little girl and I couldn't fault him for it.
Sadie was busy chatting with Jazz, asking questions about what she was building. Within a few moments she had her own plastic shovel and was helping build some elaborate masterpiece of wet sand.
We just sat quietly enjoying our beers and watching the girls play. Every so often I caught Z gazing wistfully at a random bikini-clad beauty who'd wander by and give him a flirty smile, but to his credit he stayed put. I knew I was set to go home with the hottest girl on the beach who probably still wouldn't touch me after the disaster of the previous night, so I had no real sympathy for his plight.
That evening unfortunately wasn't much different than the previous one. But this time Sadie tried to capture Jazz's attention with some of her childhood toys. She'd managed to earn the little girl's respect at least, so for the first time since they'd arrived Z was able to leave the room for more than five minutes before Jazz started getting anxious about where her daddy had gone.
After the bedtime ordeal was over Sadie and I lay in silence in the dark. I was hesitant to overstep whatever arbitrary boundary had been drawn, so I just kept quiet. Finally Sadie shifted closer to me and placed her hand on my bare chest, her gentle caress reminding me of the night we'd met. Her touch felt nice, but I was determined not to get my hopes up that it might lead to anything more. She wasn't oblivious to my ease of tension when I let out a breath and relaxed beside her finally.
Sadie's voice was hesitant when she started speaking. "She's a pretty sweet kid, once you get to know her. Super bright. And she loves Z to death which explains why she gets so upset whenever he leaves the room. He's hardly ever home, and she adores him. Give her a little slack, alright?"
"It isn't her. Well, it is, kinda. It's just the kid thing makes me a little uncomfortable."
"Don't you plan on having kids someday?"
Well if that wasn't a loaded question I don't know what was. The sound of the crying baby from my dream resonated in my head, along with the instinctual, protective feeling I had every time I heard it, and the frantic need to reach the source. It made me really uncomfortable because it was such an undeniable urge but I always felt helpless and isolated. I realized hearing Jazz crying provoked the same feeling as the dream child's cries, but I wasn't her father, and Z seemed to be the only one who had a clue how to ease whatever distress she was in. I thought if I ever did have a kid I wouldn't want to be that kind of dad - the kind who was only around for short spurts, or who'd end up getting killed and abandoning the kid completely.
I cleared my throat. "I don't know. I mean, with this particular career path, maybe not. Z's doing decent at it when he's around, but you said it yourself, he's hardly home and she's not better off for his absence. I think your dad had the right idea, but look what happened to him."
Too late I realized my mistake. Her warmth disappeared from my side and there was a chasm of empty, silent bed between us. I wasn't sure if I should try again, but I was exhausted and drifted off, too tired to make any greater effort at the moment.
The next afternoon I took sanctuary from the confusing litany of child's cries and my girlfriend's critical glances. I went to the only place I could think of that had felt anything like a safe place.
The first time I'd stepped into the garage the day after Sadie's mother's funeral I was overwhelmed by her dad's presence. It was a weird thing. I wasn't superstitious, but it was apparent from the precise placement of every tool that the man had taken obsessive pride in this space. Now, after spending so many days studying the data he'd recovered I already felt a strange affinity to him.
I sat on the worn out stool by Ben's workbench and stared around again. He was meticulous, He wasn't a neat freak or anything; everything had a healthy dose of grease stuck to it, but everything was in its own spot, and each location he'd chosen made perfect sense. A place of honor was reserved on one wall for colorful childish sketches that each said "Sadie" in awkward lettering in the lower right corner. The sight of them reminded me of the conversation I'd had with her the night before and I berated myself again for being so insensitive, but I knew I was right. Not that any dad intends to go out the way hers did but I wondered if he'd known what would happen to him, would he have done things differently where his family was concerned.
We'd kept Jazz well occupied during the day between beach playtime and naps, but in the evening it was tough to find a moment of peace and this was the one place where I knew the kid wouldn't venture. The noises from inside the house were muffled to at least give me some peace while I was working. Not that there was much to work on considering our bikes were brand spanking new. I tinkered with them a bit, familiarizing myself with the engines. Eventually I just sat with my sketchbook to draw, but that evening all I kept seeing were the corpses I'd climbed over in my dream, accompanied by the memory of the crying child.
The dark images of dead faces stared up at me from the sketchbook, grey shadowed visages staring blankly out at me, lips drawn back in fear or agony, frozen that way in the moment of death. I recognized some of them. Too many of them for comfort, but something still lived out in the stark wasteland of my subconscious, something helpless but with a huge voice that cried out incessantly.
"You busy?"
I looked up, startled. Sadie stood in the doorway between the garage and the kitchen. Her posture tense and uncertain, the light behind her silhouetting her figure.
"Not really," I said. She looked anxious and I tried my best to suppress my baser desires because she also looked hot as shit.
She glanced around the room and shivered slightly. "Dad was a little bit obsessive about his tools, huh?"
"Not just his tools. Seems like you had your own little art gallery out here. You never mentioned what a talented artist you were." I joked, hoping to earn a smile at least.
She smiled a little but still seemed hesitant about something.
"Dad used to let me pretend to help him work on stuff. He had a bike, too. And Mom's car, and other projects, off and on. Uncle Joe cleared out most of it, but told me the tools were my 'birthright'."
Her lips twisted to one side in a strained little half-smile and her eyes grew wet. I wanted to go to her and hold her but I couldn't figure out how to get past this tension that had been hanging between us the last couple days. She took a deep breath.
"Why'd you let me buy you this bike?"
"Because you offered. And because it's a fucking amazing bike. They're both still yours, though. If you're having second thoughts and want to return it, be my guest."
She shook her head adamantly.
"No! Keep it. It was probably impulsive of me to do... hell, I know it was, but we're only young once, right? Besides, whatever happens to us, I want you to keep it."
Her words alarmed me. What the hell did she think was going to happen?
"Sadie, what the fuck is up with you?"
I set my sketchbook down and stood up, taking a step closer to her. She backed up like we were two positively charged poles of a magnet, shaking her head and giving me an incredulous look.
"What's up with me? What the fuck is up with you? Why does the presence of a kid in the house make you so jumpy?"
"I'm not jumpy. If anything you're the one pulling away. We haven't screwed since they got here."
She laughed bitterly. "No, well there are a couple reasons for that. Your methods are a little less than delicate lately, and did you know you talk in your sleep? I'm not exactly getting much rest. Something about 'reaching her'... her who?"
"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," I said, but my mind was churning, almost panicked about what I might have said in my sleep.
"I thought we were starting something good, you know. But you're in this really weird place all of a sudden and it's like I barely know you. I get it if you hate kids, but I don't get the feeling that's what's going on here. When she cries it's like you have this Pavlovian response. You get all tense like we're about to dive into a firefight or something. She isn't the goddamn enemy. She's just a kid."
As if on cue, the nightly operatics started up inside the house letting us know that it was bedtime. Jazz had some lungs on her and I could even see Sadie cringe at the noise. I was over it, though. Maybe Sadie was right somehow, maybe I did have some deep-seated fear of kids, but I didn't have a clue why that would be true. All I knew was that I needed some space to work it out.
I stared out the garage door into the distance for a second before turning to face her again. Her expression caught me off guard - part challenge, part fear. It was a little like how she'd looked the day of that infamous bet, like she wanted to prove something and was scared as hell what the outcome might but was determined to go through with it come hell or high water.
"She might be just a kid, but I don't think I'm the only one who's been thrown off balance by her being here. I'm sorry about the other night - I was... I don't know... trying too hard to pretend our lives weren't changing really fucking fast. It's spun me all pretty hard, to be honest. Training coming up... your dad's murder... you and me. I'd never admit to anyone but you or Z how much it's thrown me. You were my friend before all this, but now... I don't know how to talk to you yet the way things have changed the last couple weeks."
She stood stoically while I spoke and flinched a little bit when I finished talking. I waited for a moment before turning to my bike when a reply didn't seem forthcoming.
"I'll be back in a bit," I said, slinging a leg over my bike and pulling my helmet on.
"I'll go with you," she said, but it was clear her heart wasn't in the offer even though she seemed to want her own escape.
I shook my head and avoided looking at her. "I've just gotta get out and clear my head," I said and gunned the engine, shooting out onto the street into the night.
The wind caught me as I sped onto the expressway a few minutes later and headed wherever the road felt like taking me. Brake lights blew past, red blurs of fire in my peripheral vision. A warning light on my HUD flashed and beeped, letting me know I was exceeding the speed limit by ten, then fifteen, then twenty. I ignored it, pushing the bike to go faster, wanting to test her limits as much as my own.
The interstate stretched for a couple miles over a bridge spanning the bay, the air growing noticeably cooler from the water. My skin erupted in prickles of gooseflesh from the wind tugging at my shirt. It had ridden halfway up my back, but it felt good; a cool caress like the touch of the woman from my dream, like Sadie's touch. As nice as it felt, the thought that accompanied the sensation was intrusive. I didn't want to dwell on her now. I needed blank nothingness for a while longer. The steady, calming hum of the blue-glowing eezo engine between my legs and the wind beating at me from all sides were what I needed.
Unbidden, the frustrations of the last couple days wormed their way back into my head and I couldn't help but dwell on them. I'd been an asshole to Sadie, but she'd become distant. We were two completely different people around each other now, and I had no idea whether it was just the strangely foreign presence of our friend's daughter or if there was some serious malfunction in how the two of us worked together as a couple. Neither possibility thrilled me and I just grew more agitated as I rode, trying in vain to figure out how to solve the problem.
When I reached the dark solitude of another bridge that crossed one of the fingers of the bay, I pushed the bike harder, opened up my lungs, and let out a roar, too bloated by frustration to hold it in any longer. Halfway across the bridge I took another deep breath and did it again, breaking into elated laughter at the thrill of it. I felt a little drunk when I pulled off the interstate and headed south along a route that took me through the massive air fields that made up Eglin.
I slowed down enough to take in the surroundings a little bit, passing by neat rows of F-60 Tridents waiting near a massive hangar for the next day of upper atmosphere flight drills. Sadie's uncle would probably be out there somewhere come daylight.
In another week she and I would both be moving into the barracks on the base, separated again by block walls and stairwells. It would be like we were back at the beginning, only this time around it'd just be the two of us navigating the new surroundings without Z for his unique perspective on the situation. The two of them had become anchors of a sort for me. As much of a loner as I was, I knew I couldn't have made it this far without them.
That thought lingered while I pulled off the road into the parking lot of a convenience store. My bladder had begun complaining about twenty miles back but I was loathe to pause. Once I used the facilities my stomach kicked in with its own complaints and I grabbed a protein bar and a drink and went back out. I leaned against the bike and munched for a few minutes, gazing out over the water of the bay and replaying the pieces of the dream in my head, trying to make some sense of it because I sure as hell couldn't make any sense of my actual life at the moment.
"She's a beauty."
I turned my head, startled out of my thoughts by a sweetly accented feminine voice. I finished chewing and swallowing my bite of food, then took a drink to wash it down while I regarded the cammi-clad woman standing a couple paces away. She stood with the bearing of someone fearless enough to approach a guy like me, which said a lot about her. From her attire I guessed she must be a soldier, or at least in the same club.
"Thanks," I said. My first inclination had been to say "It's my girlfriend's" but that didn't come out. Then I realized it would've technically been a lie anyway since my girlfriend had just an hour ago told me she wanted me to keep it. That thought flitted away along with all my other thoughts the second the woman smiled and a pair of dimples appeared in her smooth, olive-toned cheeks.
"Mind if I take a look?" she asked with a graceful gesture of her hand. "I've never seen one of these up close."
I smiled and stood up, gesturing to the bike.
"Knock yourself out, just try not to burn your fingers, she's pretty fucking hot."
She caught my meaning and gave me a knowing smile before stepping closer and drifting a hand appreciatively over one handlebar in an absent gesture that was just a little bit suggestive. I quickly finished my snack and chugged the rest of my drink, throwing the wrappers into a nearby wastebin.
"What's your name?" I asked. I was damn curious now. She was pretty, and she had her hands all over my bike.
"Hmm?" she murmured, glancing up at me from her intense inspection of the semi-exposed engine.
Her hands drifted over the eezo core's raised transparent housing. The small rods within were still glowing, the bluish light reflected in her hazel eyes. A long, black braid fell over the front of her shoulder, tangling for a second with her dog tags before falling against her chest. I watched the end of her braid sway for a second longer, admiring the landscape it dangled against. She was too preoccupied to notice, which in itself was pretty sexy.
"I wouldn't mind being on a first-name basis with the person manhandling my equipment," I answered, subtly emphasizing the last couple words.
She was crouched now, fingertips teasing at the inner workings of the engine. Boy, she really was interested in it. I was a little more interested in how well her t-shirt and fatigues fit. She was athletically curvy without exactly being what I might consider voluptuous.
"Kali," she said, ignoring my quip, meeting my eyes when she told me her name.
"Callie, that's pretty."
"No," she said, glancing at me with an amused expression that said 'you're a dumb westerner'.
"Kali," she said again, drawing out the first syllable.
"Sorry, Kah-lee. I'm Sam."
"Have you opened her up yet?"
"Yeah, that's what tonight was about. Putting her through her paces."
"Have you been out to Yeager Field with her? Really let her find her legs?"
"Wait, are we talking about a racehorse or a motorcycle?"
"Same difference. You need a big, wide open space with no obstructions. Just give her her head and let her take you for a ride." She gazed directly at me while her hands continued slipping across the contours of the bike so very gently.
I cleared my throat.
"Um, that sounds like it'd be fun."
She gave me a flirty smile, not embarrassed in the least by what I thought she was suggesting, but not exactly overtly flirting, either. I decided I liked subtle.
"Yeager's the best place to ride. They keep it paved with the perfect grade of traction, keeping it prepped to land frigates, which is rare, so the runway just sits there. Six miles of virgin plasticrete waiting for a fresh tire to touch it."
She looked at me expectantly. I cleared my throat, uncertain for the first time whether I should take the bait she was dangling in front of me.
She seemed to sense my uncertainty. "Mine's over there," she said, pointing at a sweet looking bike parked a little ways off. "Don't worry, I wouldn't make you share her unless you were comfortable with that kind of arrangement."
Her hazel eyes twinkled. They were just a little bit mesmerizing now that she was looking straight at me. A slightly darker stripe ringed her irises making them stand out even more. She was goddamn sexy and I wanted to say yes, but my conscience tugged at me.
I laughed, hoping it didn't sound nervous. "I'm not worried about sharing. I just... have someplace to be tonight. Another time?"
"Alright," she said and lifted her wrist, tapping at her omni-tool. She nodded her head to me and I lifted my own wrist, opening up my comm link so we could exchange details. I felt a little rush when I tapped send. A split second later I saw a small flash on my wrist letting me know her own details had been received.
"You're stationed at Eglin, right?" she asked.
"I will be in a week," I said. "Next EOD session."
"EOD huh?" she said, a rebellious glint flashing in her eyes. "I would've pegged you for a pilot, considering your appreciation for fine equipment. Look me up when you get here, Sam..." she glanced at my details and her brow furrowed.
"Sam Blanco," I finished for her with a touch of impatience.
A look came over her face that was equal parts awe and giddy excitement. She grinned.
"Right. I'll show you Yeager sometime. You'll love it."
She took a couple steps backwards, still looking at me, then waved and turned to jog back to her bike. The back of her t-shirt had the broad winged emblem of an Alliance pilot spread across her shoulders.
Several conflicting feelings struck as it dawned on me what her look probably meant. Sadie's uncle notwithstanding, I hadn't stopped to consider the kind of reaction Dad's name - shit, my name - would provoke among other trainees assigned to Eglin while I was there. Somehow I felt a little dirty, but mostly because I liked it. I liked the look of recognition Kali had given me just before turning away. And if I was being honest with myself I probably shouldn't have liked it anywhere near as much as I did.
I took my time on the ride back to Sadie's with no idea what I was going back to, whether she'd even be speaking to me after leaving her standing there in the garage like I had.
Maybe this was it for us. The idea sunk like a lead weight in my gut. I really didn't want this to be the end. It hadn't even been a month yet. Fucking hell, I was better than this. What was I thinking getting some other girl's details, no matter how pretty and into bikes she was? Sadie was infinitely hotter, probably more fun, and she knew how to put up with me. Mostly, anyway. She'd stuck by me for more than a year already, in spite of her own feelings. I guess I hadn't made it very easy for her the last few days, though. We hadn't made it very easy on each other, but I wasn't ready to give up that easily in spite of everything.
Of course it all depended on whether she was still speaking to me. When I finally made it back to the house it was late. I parked the bike in the garage, spending a few minutes polishing Sadie's bike while my own cooled off enough to see to. After half an hour of detailing, fatigue began to hit and I finally admitted to myself that I was delaying the inevitable.
The inside of the house was quiet and mostly dark, with only a small light on in the kitchen. I walked up the stairs and down the hall to her room as quietly as possible but just stood in the doorway watching her sleep for the longest moment. She looked so peaceful I didn't want to take the chance of waking her up.
Yeah, I was full of excuses, but way too tired to contemplate the real reasons why I hesitated to crawl into bed with her.
I shut the door quietly and went back downstairs. Her sofa was pretty damn comfortable at least. Plus, the beers were cold and there was bound to be something mindless on the vidfeeds to fall asleep to. With any luck it might even drown out the dreams.