Bring Down the Stars (Beautiful Hearts Duet #1)(68)

Autumn stared at us both, then turned her back again.

“Jesus, Wes.” Connor sighed again, blowing his cheeks out. But I knew him. It was relief in that heavy exhale.

He needs me.

“It’ll be good, right? It’s a good thing to serve our country.”

“Of course it is.” A small laugh escaped me. “You are one crazy motherfucker. You realize what this means?”

“We’re going to Boot Camp,” Connor said, and his grin was back.

“Fucking Boot Camp,” I said. “It’s going to suck so hard for you.”

“Me? I’m going to keep track how many times the drill instructor tells you to drop and give him fifty to get that smirk off your face.”

Autumn turned, her arms crossed tightly though I didn’t think it was against the cold. She started for the house.

Connor reached for her hand. “Hey,” he said. “Hey…”

She kept out of his reach. “I’m sorry I wasn’t a better help to you with your parents,” she said, her voice thick.

He stood, cut off her path, and pulled her into his arms. He tilted her chin up. “You were. You did a good thing for me. No girl’s stood up to them like that. It meant a lot to me.”

Tears filled her eyes and I averted my gaze.

“I’m scared,” she whispered. “For both of you.”

He pulled her in close, held her tight and stroked her hair.

“I’d like to go back to Amherst now,” she finally said. “I’ll take a bus if you want to stay.”

“No, we can go. This visit is over with a capital O.”

She nodded. “Good. I’ll just go pack.”

Autumn went back inside, and Connor turned to me.

“I hate that she’s scared, but it’s too late for me. Not too late for you.” His tone was sober now. “What about track?”

I shrugged. “The offers aren’t pouring in.”

“But you’re so fast.”

“I’ll be the fastest one at Boot Camp.”

Connor laughed and then pulled me in for a sudden hug. “I love you,” he said. “No bullshit, no fucking around. I do.”

I stiffened automatically. A reflex when someone tried to touch me. But Connor was already sunk into my marrow, blood, and bones.

I need him just as much.

I hugged him back hard.

I’d die for him.

I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t speak the words out loud.

But give me a pen and paper… Or an Army sign-up sheet… And I’ll write it down.

The following Monday, I went to the recruiter’s office and signed my name on the dotted line.

Wednesday, the United States Consulate in Adana, Turkey, near the Syrian border, was gassed and the Syrian leader boldly took the credit. Eighty-four dead.

A week later, an orphanage in Ankara was bombed.

Three nights after that, I was working at the dining room table on my Object of Devotion poem. It was due in a week, but it wasn’t done. I doubted it would ever be done. Connor was watching a football game, which was pre-empted by the president speaking to the nation. He had, with the full cooperation of Congress, officially declared war on the regime in Syria.

Connor craned around to look at me. I half expected the phone to ring that very minute to tell us to pack up for Boot Camp. We’d intended to wait until summer break to finish the school year, but U.S. forces were stretched to the breaking point. Deployment was inevitable.

We signed our names on the line. If they call us, we have to go.

Connor must’ve had the same thought as we both jumped when his phone rang.

“Hello? Hey, baby. Yeah, we’re watching now. No. Autumn, don’t cry. Everything’s going to be okay.”

My pen doodled across the page. Everything’s going to be okay, I wrote, and then scratched it out.





Weston



Rain water streamed off the brim of Drill Sergeant Denroy’s round-brimmed hat. If he were cold under his rain slicker, he didn’t show it.

“Who’s smirking now, Turner?” he bellowed at me. “You? You still smirking?”

“Sir, no, sir,” I breathed between push-ups. The mud squelched between my fingers. The cold water soaked me through, making my jaw shake.

“Are you going to cry now, maggot?”

“Sir, no, sir.”

“I heard you were a fast one, is that right?”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

My shoulders were screaming, my biceps were on fire. Halfway through the fourth set of fifty push-ups I’d been forced to do today.

Three weeks into Boot Camp, and I still couldn’t keep my disdain for the entire operation off my face. Call it Sock Boy Psychology, but the only grown man who had authority over me had given up the job. In the real world, it built me a rep for being an asshole. Here, it got me push-ups. Hundreds of push-ups.

“A braggart, are you, Turner?”

“Sir, no, sir.”

“Sounds to me like you are. Three weeks of you walking around here like your shit don’t stink.”

Thirty-seven, thirty-eight.

“You got a problem with authority?”

“Sir, no, sir.”

My face was a grimace as I pushed through the last ten push-ups that made two hundred on the day. So far.