Beyond the Point(47)
“Yeah? Well, now you know how I feel.”
“So go,” she snapped. “Leave then.”
“I can’t.”
Avery stared at him and he stared back in silence. The eggs hissed and whined in the pan, turning brown and then black at the edges.
“I need a ride back to my car,” he finally explained. “You drove last night, remember?”
In one motion, Avery grabbed the skillet handle and slammed the eggs into the sink. As she climbed the stairs to change and get her keys, yellow trails of yolk inched toward the drain.
THE DRIVE BACK to the bar where they’d met up the night before only took them a few miles off post. They didn’t speak, and soon Fort Bragg’s gate filled the rearview mirror. The silence was a horrible sound. Avery knew that if Dani were here, she’d know exactly what to say—a joke to throw out and defuse the ticking time bomb. But anger had momentarily paralyzed Avery’s vocal cords.
When she pulled her car into the bar’s gravel parking lot, Josh coughed, as if he too needed to shake an emotion out of his throat.
Avery fully expected him to apologize for staying so late and violating the one boundary they’d established for their pseudo-relationship. She thought he’d kiss her and get out of the car, and they’d be back to their odd version of normal. Instead, he turned toward her and took in a breath.
“Can I say something?” he asked.
“I think you have that ability, yes.”
“What is this?”
“This is me, dropping you at your car.”
“No. I mean, this.” Josh swung his hand back and forth between them. “Us.”
Avery rolled her eyes. “You can’t be serious.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
She tugged on her blond ponytail. “What? We’re screwing around. Being kids. Is that what you want me to say?”
Josh shook his head. His voice barely exceeded a whisper. “You’re incredible. Really, fucking incredible. You do whatever the hell you want, whenever you want. No matter who gets hurt—”
“Hurt?” Avery reared her head back in anger. Her voice was low and mean.
“I should have known—”
“I put my entire career on the line—”
“Your career?” he laughed. “You truly think you’re the only one in this equation, don’t you? It’s the Avery Adams Show, twenty-four-fucking-seven.”
“Get out of my car.”
“Gladly.” Josh opened his door and climbed out, then looked back at her again. “Do yourself a favor, Avery. Stop fucking around with people that love you.”
With that, he slammed the door and walked toward his truck, a silver Toyota Tacoma—the only vehicle left in the parking lot. Avery stepped on the gas, spewing rocks and dust into the air behind her.
LOVE, AVERY THOUGHT with a laugh as she pulled back into her driveway. That was a joke. They’d only known each other a few months. When they’d met, she was recovering from a year of involuntary chastity at West Point, and Josh had the body of an English soccer player. The sex was good. Hell, at times it was great. But if this guy thought he was in love, well then Avery had fooled him. And she didn’t feel bad about it either. If she felt bad about anything at all, it was being a hypocrite. She’d told Private Bradley to be careful on Friday, just to return to her own reckless life on Saturday.
Avery was glad Josh had ended it. As with so many other relationships, she was convinced that this one should have never even started.
ON MONDAY, AVERY arrived at work before the sun came up and completed a freezing-cold PT run with her platoon, finishing the two-mile course in 12:07. Not her best time by any means, but she crossed the finish line a full minute before anyone else. She’d seen it time and time again: once her soldiers tasted her dust on a PT run, their skepticism softened into respect. She would have hated their conditional admiration if she didn’t savor it so much. But she often wondered if without her physical edge, she would have remained invisible. What if she was slower? Would such weakness merit scorn? These were the questions that rolled in her mind while she savored her post run endorphins.
After a shower and a microwaved bowl of oatmeal at her desk, Avery noticed an e-mail in her inbox from her boss’s boss, Major Philip Gaines.
“LT Adams, please report to my office this morning. I need to see you as soon as possible.”
Avery’s blue eyes scanned the screen again, while her heart raced in her chest. It was unusual for someone to jump the chain of command—up or down—but even more disconcerting, Gaines had carbon-copied her direct superior, Captain Morris. The subtext screamed that something was wrong. He’d sent the e-mail Sunday afternoon, meaning he’d heard something during off hours that he wanted to discuss. Did he know about Josh? Had someone, somehow, turned her in?
Erik fucking Jenkins, Avery swore internally. She closed her eyes and tried to remember her neighbor’s porch, Sunday morning when she and Josh had rushed out in anger. Erik’s wife—Melinda? Melissa?—whatever her name was, Avery distinctly recalled her red hair piled in a messy bun as she stared out the window onto the street, a hand resting on her hip. Shit, Avery thought. We should have been more careful.
The Army, at times, infuriated Avery. All of its rules. Its demands. Its ladders of authority. The Army was a lot like her dad, actually—constantly providing new bars to reach, moving each bar higher every time Avery got close. It wasn’t that she needed to be coddled, but to hear that she was doing a good job every once in a while wouldn’t have hurt. She could handle being read the riot act for leaving a job unfinished or not meeting the standards. But was she really about to be counseled about who she dated on the weekends?