Warrior (First to Fight #1) - Nicole Blanchard Page 0,1
figure beside him.
“Holy shit, is Sofie out there, too?”
Olivia turns from the fridge, a package of bacon in her hands. “Yeah, she didn’t want to miss your big homecoming and I managed to convince Jack to be on his best behavior.”
I glance back at them and note their hostile postures. “Yeah, I’m not sure how long that’s going to last.”
She places a bunch of ingredients on the counter and looks out the window only to shrug them off. “Who knows with those two? Here, will you rinse these off for me?”
I move across the kitchen to her side at the sink. The dress she’s wearing brushes my leg and my body warms. She smiles up at me and all I can think is, Oh, shit.
We’re interrupted by the sound of the back door to the patio slamming. “I’m going to strangle that girl, Liv,” Jack says, grabbing a beer from the fridge. He motions toward me and I nod.
“Relax. You can control yourself for a couple hours,” she tells him.
“I doubt it,” he replies cryptically. And fuck if I don’t have the same thought.
When Jack leaves again, I should put a careful distance between us, but I don’t. Instead I move to her side and lean against the counter. “So how have you been?” I ask, knocking my shoulder into hers playfully.
“Oh you know, busy as hell. How about you?”
“Same.”
“Well, I’m glad you were able to make it. I don’t think I’ve seen you since before you left for boot camp.” She flicks a glance up at me and the memory of our one and only kiss feels like a physical presence. She blushes and then looks back down.
“My mom was about to kill me for staying away for so long. War I can handle, but that woman is terrifying.”
“Mrs. Hart?” she says. “She makes apple pie for goodness’ sake. She’s like five feet tall. How can she possibly terrify you, someone who is essentially an American Jedi?”
“Has she ever chased you around the kitchen with a barbecue fork because you broke her T.V.?”
Olivia gasps. “She did not do that.”
I hold up my hands. “Swear to God.”
“I’ll have to ask her the next time I see her because I just can’t picture that.”
“You’d be surprised.”
She narrows her eyes at me as if she’s still not fully convinced. “Can you grab some more paper towels for me? They’re just up there in the cabinet.” She indicates the one above her head and holds up her dirty hands.
I stretch over her and my chest brushes against her back. She turns to me and our eyes lock. I find myself leaning toward her when Jack bursts in through the back door again. We spring apart like a couple of guilty teenagers.
It’s going to be a long night.
Her laugh sounds, and even across the distance that separates us, I can feel it in my stomach like a sucker-punch. My gaze lifts from the bottle of beer I had grabbed from the cooler and I find her in the center of the group, her eyes shining and cheeks pink with laughter. I pop the top and chug—both to ease the heat building in my chest and to stop any inclinations I may have about finding out if she still tastes as good as she looks. Bad idea.
The first swallow is smooth, but does little to erase the imprint of her smile. I lean against the deck as I watch the crowd gathered by the gently lapping water. Their voices and the soft crackle of the bonfire creates a soundtrack I commit to memory. Friends, simplicity, home. The simple shit normal people take for granted.
Those are the things I miss the most.
When the constant attacks seem endless, when I haven’t showered or slept in days, it’s nights like these I remember. That I want to come back to, even though I never seem to be a part of them. I’m more of an outsider looking in. But unless there’s a gun in my hand or bullets flying by, I can never quite relax enough to enjoy them.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
I’ll admit, I’m not one to wax poetic about women—in the past, they’d been nothing more than a distraction between assignments—but there had always been something special about Olivia.
Special in an untouchable kind of way.
Her brother Jack nudges me with his shoulder and leans against the deck railing next to me. “Gonna nurse that beer all night, Monica?”