Deploy, Part One (Rawlings #1)(13)

Declan clenched his fist and told himself to calm down. “That’s not an answer. Murdock know it’s bad at home?”

Murdock did. He’d heard about and he’d seen it. How he felt about it seemed to vary. Murdock liked how overprotective her dad was, and felt privileged her dad let her leave with him. Murdock liked the version of her dad who worked on cars in his shop, or watched the game.

Other times when Murdock was around and her dad lost his mind, he’d either make an excuse or tell her it was the bottle talking.

Murdock Souter had his pluses and minuses, ones Justice had never really cared to figure out. When it came down to the bones of it he was a friend her father approved of.

She arched a brow and grasped a bit of her nerve. “Why would it be Murdock’s issue?”

Declan drew his head back in confusion, “If you were my—” he caught his words almost a second too late. “If you were a Rawlings’ girl it would be our issue.”

She swayed her hand between them. “Something is lost in translation. I’m not getting why you think I’m anyone’s girl, or why my private life is anyone’s business but mine.”

Declan hadn’t heard her boldness in years, so at first it threw him, but then what she said settled a bit. “You’re always with Murdock.”

“He’s my ride.”

“You guys have never—” Again he stopped himself, because he was sure he didn’t want to know the answer.

“Are you trying to ask me if we messed around? If we have benefits?”

“No.”

“What then?”

He cursed under his breath and looked away then right back at her. “Why did he make you cry? Why did Nolan hit him if you and him don’t have anything real?”

Justice felt like she had been punched in the gut. A quake of fear exploded in her chest causing her blush to deepen.

When Declan Rawlings had you pinned in under his gray stare, the rays of baby blue slicing through it, lying was not possible; at least it wasn’t for her. Her issue now was the truth was not possible either.

The morning the fight went down was the same morning her grandmother told her what to expect before and after Declan left. It was the morning Bell told Justice to say her peace. Murdock had heard some of the conversation, how much Justice didn’t know, but on the way to school he told her fretting over a jarhead Rawlings was a waste of time.

She was crying over Declan, and it pissed Murdock off. She was sure he had slept with five girls since then, trying to get her mad or jealous. Neither happened.

“I’d realized how close graduation was for your class. It was a reality check I wasn’t ready for.”

Declan furrowed his brow as his gaze darted over her expression, looking for what she wasn’t saying. Nolan had told him, long before today, that this is how Justice was nowadays. Evasive. Declan’s issue was he didn’t get evasive; he needed bluntness, black and white. It’s wrong or it’s right.

“Murdock leaving next year?” he questioned, trying to pick away at this claim of hers they were not hooking up.

“Not really, Savanna State is the last I heard.”

Which was all of an hour away. Declan was hoping she’d say he was going to be states away.

“Are you going to Parris Island?” she asked, wanting the discussion to flip to him.

He nodded, not really biting. The information helped her, though. The base was just under two hours away. At least he’d be close for the first bit of his contract.

“Why does your daddy like him so much?” he asked.

She shrugged.

Silence filled the small room for a long moment until a rumble of thunder caused her to jar forward.

Declan flinched, not because of the sound, but because his instinct was to reach out for her. He’d barely stopped himself.

Instead, he decided to take her mind off the storm. “What you gonna do next year when you graduate?”

“I don’t know,” she said on a sigh. “Teacher maybe?”

“You don’t know?”

She giggled at his dumfounded expression. “No, Declan, not everyone is born knowing what they are going to do.”

Pride flooded his gaze.

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “It’s always been in your eyes. You are your father’s son.”

“It’s my choice,” he said a bit too defensively. He hated how people thought he was doing this because of some family tradition, because it was expected—at least he hated it when Nolan made him feel like that was why.

After a few tense seconds she asked, “Does that mean you’re not scared?”

Admitting it to anyone, especially a girl—and this one to top it off—that he had any fear was not something he was ready to do. Ever.

“Where did that question come from?”

She moved her gaze from him, “I don’t know. I guess I was wondering if once you made a choice if the fear left or if it was still there, just different. A fear you were ready to face, something like that.”

Justice hit nail on the head, but he wasn’t going to say so. He did give her a short, quick nod. “You got a choice to make?”

She re-crossed her outstretched legs as she answered, “Who doesn’t?”

“Choices like getting away from your * father? You’re ‘bout to vanish because of that f*ck, aren’t you?”