Casualties of Love (12 page)

Marcus shook his head. Kellan had loved Terri more than his own life; their son Jake, too. And why wouldn’t he. She was smart and pretty. Terri was the best woman Marcus had ever met outside of his own mother. No matter how much he, Lassiter, and the boys hung out, she always welcomed them into her home. She always welcomed
him
. Marcus wished he could talk to her and tell her how sorry he was. Sorry he couldn’t have saved her husband, his friend. He wanted her to know that he’d be there for her and Jacob for as long as they needed.

They’d all been good friends to him, good to him. Marcus’ mother had passed away just after he’d been commissioned. His father rarely even acknowledged he was on the planet. He knew he had siblings, but he didn’t know them. Everyone else was gone. No grandparents that he knew of. No aunts and uncles to claim him. Lassiter, Terri and Jake, Tyson – they had become his family. They looked out for him, checked up on him, cared whether he made it home. Now, Lassiter was dead and Marcus couldn’t even be with his family to grieve with them. It sucked. 

It had been weeks and it was still hard from him to believe Kellan was gone. Dead, from a war that seemed like it might never end. A war that his dumb ass was itching to get back into.
Stupid.
But he didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know
how
to do anything else. The only thing he’d ever been trained for was war and strategy. His degree was actually in history and military science. As pathetic as it sounded, war was his life. Even more pathetic was that excelling in the Army was his way of sticking it in his father’s face. He didn’t see the man often, had never been deployed with him, but when they managed to cross paths, Marcus made sure the asshole knew he had made it just fine without him.

Fuck.
He had to get out of the damn room. Too much time to think was definitely not a good thing for him. Marcus turned on his heel and went to the corner to grab he liquor he’d scored. He was going to find Tyson and get good and solidly drunk. He knew Tyson was probably with Jessica. They spent damn near every free minute with each other.  Marcus didn’t really know what kind of game plan Tyson had, but he suspected the guy had better come up with one soon. Marcus had already told him so, but Tyson seemed to be ignoring him. He suspected that Tyson wouldn’t be able to ignore the reality of what was going on with him and Jessica Watts much longer. At the moment, Marcus didn’t care what the plan was or whether Tyson and Jessica wanted some alone time or whether he burst in on them butt-ass naked. He needed some company and, lucky them, they were about to fill the role.

******

              “Damn it, man. You gotta start knocking!”

              Jessica quickly pulled her shirt down and removed herself from straddling Tyson’s lap.

              “Whatever. Ya’ll need to start locking the door.”

              She grinned as Marcus continued to enter the room, totally nonchalant. He grabbed a chair and set a bottle of vodka down on the desk in Tyson’s room. It was not a small bottle.

              “Lt. Jones, it appears you’ve got plans. To get drunk maybe?” she asked with a smirk at him.

              “Yep. That is the plan. Thank you, Sergeant Watts, for not making me point it out myself,” he said with a wink, but his expression was serious.

              “You boys want me to leave you two alone? You look like you could use a talk with your captain.”

              Tyson was frowning at his friend. His expression was a blend of frustration and concern. The frustration Jessica knew was from the aroused state he was in after the stuff she’d promised to do to him just moments before as he’d had his hand up the back of her shirt. The concern she figured was for the sad countenance of his fiend, the usually jovial Marcus Jones.

              “Nope, Jess, darlin’. I expect you to sit here and drink with us. Hell, if you’ve got a pretty friend, go get her and she can drink, too. As you can see, I have enough share.”

              “Yeah, with an army,” Tyson said drily.

              “We are the army, so there. And Jessica, I’m not kidding about the pretty part. I’m in no mood for entertaining homely girls.”

              “Have you already been drinking, Marcus?” Jessica asked.

              “No, but all the more reason to get started right away. Put that thing away and let’s get to it,” he said gesturing to Tyson’s obvious erection.

Tyson quickly shifted in his seat and gave Marcus a sheepish look. Jessica laughed out loud. Marcus Jones simply shrugged and opened the enormous bottle of liquor.

              Jessica left briefly to go get Kendall, some food, and some chasers. She had no desire to consume large quantities of straight vodka or to drink on an empty stomach. She had duty the next day. Kendall was all to eager to join them, especially when she knew it would involve drinking with a couple of hot guys. The visual appeal of Lt. Marcus Jones had not gone unnoticed by her, and, since the end of her ruined marriage, Kendall was open to casual possibilities on occasion.

              They had returned to find the guys already relaxed and laughing. Jessica had sat on the bed with Tyson, but with some distance between them, but he’d soon dragged her next to his side. He kept his hands on her, rubbing her thigh or the back of her neck. She tried not to be so pleased by it, but she was. She was too pleased she knew, but all the time they’d been spending together in the last several days made her happy.

Kendall and Marcus sat facing them in the two chairs in the room. They both had their feet up on the edge of the bed. Kendall watched Marcus a lot. There was no small amount of interest in her gaze. Marcus didn’t pretend not to see it, from what Jessica could tell. But he seemed to keep his usual degree of flirting tamped down. He didn’t shut Kendall down, but didn’t seem to be up to making something happen in the current night.

They talked and laughed. They told stories about their time in training. They traded war stories, literally, and talked about what they’d rather be doing if they weren’t in Afghanistan. Marcus seemed to relax all the more and when Tyson asked him what was really up with him and the drinking, he confessed about his thoughts of their teammate, Lassiter, and his family. Every one of them understood and empathized. They had all lost friends. They all had fears of losing more. 

They were listening to music on Tyson’s computer when an Internet call started to ring through. Tyson got up to look at the screen, but he didn’t answer. When the computer chirped a couple more times during the night, Jessica told Tyson he should just answer. But, he assured her it wasn’t important and could wait until the next day. She saw Marcus give him a raised brow and a look that she couldn’t interpret, but she was tipsy and didn’t dwell on it.

They drank a lot and had more fun than Jessica enjoyed among friends in a long time. It was almost normal, even if they could occasionally hear mortar rounds off in the distance.

“Hey, I better get going. I have a really early start. I’ll see you tomorrow?” Jessica directed to Tyson. Kendall had left about an hour earlier. She had early duty, as well.

              “You better,” he said with a grin.

She got up from her position next to him and started to move toward the door, but Tyson grabbed her hand. He pulled her back to him and then down until she was bent over his seated position with her mouth hovering over his.

              “Geez, you two are whipped.” Jessica heard Marcus’ teasing tone as Tyson closed the remaining distance between their lips.

Tyson kissed her slow before letting her go with a grin and a wink. Jessica rolled her eyes at him before turning toward the door.

              “Night, Marcus,” she said.

              “Hold up, Jess, I’ll walk you back. I’m headed to bed, too.” Marcus said to her.

The walked out after farewells to Tyson with Marcus shutting the door behind them. As they walked across post toward her barracks, Marcus was silent. It was unusual for him so Jessica wondered if he was back to thinking about his friend. She asked him as much and was surprised to learn what he was really contemplating.

“Do you know what you’re doing, Watts?”

“Ahh...Doing about what?”

“With Ty. Do you know what you are doing with Tyson? Jessica, this is Afghanistan. What do you expect to happen when you leave? Have you two even talked about when you leave?”

“I know where we are. And, well, I’m not sure what we’re doing, exactly.”

“Explain,” he demanded. Jessica might have taken offense if she hadn’t known he meant well, seemed genuinely concerned, and had in the last few weeks become a friend.

“Marcus, I don’t know where this is going. All I know is that I don’t want to stay away from him. I know that I want to be with him, even though I don’t know where any of it leads.”

“And, what has Tyson said about all of this.”

“Nothing. I don’t push it.”

“Why? Tyson’s my friend, the best I’ve got, but you deserve...to know where he expects things to go.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“What went down between you two?”

“I haven’t explained it all to Tyson, Marcus, so I can’t tell you. I know you’re concerned, but this is between Tyson and me. I need you to leave it alone.”

They stopped walking and Marcus looked at her in silence for a bit.

“Fine. I’ll stay out of it. I can appreciate your position, but you take care.”

“I don’t intend to hurt him any more than I already have, Marcus.”

“I believe that, Jessica, and that’s why I’m talking about you. You need to take care that
you
don’t get hurt.”

They walked on and finally made it to her door in her barracks. Jessica watched Lt. Marcus Jones walk away. He was worried about her. She wondered if she really could take care of herself, watch out for her own feelings. Why wonder, she thought. It didn’t matter. Whatever happened, she was already fully invested in what she felt for Tyson. There wasn’t any way to slow down or turn back, even if she wanted to try. Whatever happened, she loved him. All she could do now was hope that maybe, just maybe, he could somehow feel the same.

******

              Tyson pulled his computer into his lap. He hesitated and delayed, but ultimately ended up dialing the number back on the Internet calls he’d ignored while Jessica and her friend were in his room. He waited for the call to connect and the face of the receiver to appear on the screen.

              “It’s about time,” the speaker said. “Were you ignoring me?”

              Tyson peered at the face looking at him through the computer monitor. She was pretty. She always had been with her dark hair and her green eyes.

              “No, I was out. Just saw you’d tried to get me.” Tyson sighed.
Why was he lying to her?

              “How are you?”

              “I’m fine. Healing up, you know. The leg is much better. They...um. I’m getting good care.”

              She went quiet and he didn’t know what to say to fill the void so they just looked at one another in silence for a while. Tyson didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

              “I’ve missed you, Tyson.”

              “Bethany, it’s been a long time.”

              “I know. And I know it’s my fault, but I do miss you. I want us to...work on things.”

              “Why now? The military life was too much, remember? The deployments and the distance.”

              “It’s hard, Ty.” He tried not to grimace at her whine. “It’s so hard for me, but I don’t want to lose you. Are you giving up? Just because I got a little scared?”

              A little scared. She’d basically told him she didn’t know how much longer she could stay in their relationship. And that was before he deployed. She’d complained about him being gone long before he was scheduled for his yearlong tour. Since he’d been in country, her calls had basically been nonexistent. Quite frankly he had expected to return home to find he had an ex-girlfriend.

              “Beth, I don’t know,” he said as he thought about Jessica.

              “Think about it, babe. OK? Don’t throw it all away because I made a mistake. I miss you and I want us to work this out. Think about it? Please.”

              “Ok. Sure,” he heard himself say. He could see Jessica’s face in his mind’s eye, as clearly as if she was the one whose image was coming through his computer screen.

What the hell am I doing?

              “Good. Good, babe. Tyson, I... I love you.”

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh.

What the
fuck
was he doing?              

Chapter 11

Tyson watched Jessica. She was seated in front of him on a stool; her body was angled between his legs. His left leg was slightly elevated so she could tape the healing cut. It no longer needed to be wrapped, just had one long band-aid type covering. She had already probed his thigh. She had come with him to get it checked by one of the doctors at the infirmary. According to them, it was looking good. Tyson was glad to hear it. As much as he was enjoying his R&R, he didn’t think he would deal well with being forced out of the Army, even if honorably.  As it was he was already getting restless.

              Jessica took her role in making sure his injuries we well attended seriously. Tyson basked in it, though he supposed it could simply be motivated by her promise to Morrison to make sure he didn’t die of infection. He didn’t think that was the case though. She liked fussing over him. It reminded him of when they had dated. Just like then, she made sure he ate and slept. She made sure he didn’t overdo it on the PT, just as she used to coax him into taking breaks at school. And, also like back then, he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off of her. Right in this moment, he wanted to pull her into a kiss. He wanted to put his face in her neck and breath the soft scent of her, which was floating toward him on the air. He had to force himself to refrain from tucking her loose hair behind her ear.