I'll Be Home For Christmas (A Coming Home Novella) (8 page)

“Yeah?” He frowned and waited, his breath catching in his throat.

“I really hope you make it home for Christmas.”

He swallowed. “Yeah, me too.”

He disconnected the call before he let his temper get the better of him and walked out of the shelter and back toward his bay. Nicole didn’t deserve him being a douche bag at the moment but he’d really hoped she’d laugh at the man dress costume.

And when she didn’t… okay, she had but not like she would have if she’d been alone.

He dropped the little piece of fabric on his bunk as he grabbed his kit and headed toward the mission brief, trying to smother his disappointment. His one skill in life was making his wife laugh and tonight he’d fallen flat on his face. He tried not to let it bother him. He wanted to brush it off.

He failed. The one thing he’d needed, badly, was to hear her laugh. To replace some of the miserable strain of the goddamned war with something good and pure.

He barely listened as Iaconelli briefed the plan, his thoughts a thousand miles away, missing his wife.

* * *

Nicole stared at her cell phone in the dim lights inside the car and fought the urge to cry. The whole conversation was stunted and… off. Fear curled up inside her heart. Something was wrong. Vic was never serious unless something was wrong.

She flipped the phone in her hands, unable to put the emotions churning inside her back in the box. God but she didn’t want to cry. Not at work.

“You okay?” David’s gentle voice broke the silence. He was older than she was by at least fifteen years.

“Not really,” she said, hoping her voice wouldn’t break.

“Deployments are tough duty.” He drummed his fingers on the dashboard, the movement creating little shadows in the interior lights. “I’m sorry you’re having a hard time.”

“I’m worried about my husband,” she whispered. “He’s scaring me.”

“I deployed on the initial invasion into Iraq,” David said after a while. “Desert Storm, not the Thunder Run. The news made it sound like we sliced through the center of Iraq and woke up in Baghdad. It really wasn’t that easy.” He paused. “It was the first time my wife and I had ever been apart. She wanted me to call home every chance I got.”

Nicole looked at him. His weathered face was cased in shadows, his dark skin lined with experience. “Did you?”

He shook his head. “No. I couldn’t. There was stuff I couldn’t talk to her about. There’s still stuff I don’t bring up. And it’s hard because she wants to know what the war was like. I can’t talk about all of it.” He glanced at her quickly. “Going to war isn’t all PTSD and trauma. It’s just some stuff is hard to talk about.”

“How did you make it through?” Nicole asked quietly. His words had struck home. She did want to know. She hated not knowing. It hurt her, knowing that Vic wouldn’t talk to her, but David’s words sank in. Maybe he
couldn’t
talk right now.

“I talk to her when I can. Try to share some things with her. But mostly, she listened when I told her there was some stuff I just couldn’t talk about and I asked her to be patient with me.”

“Is she?” She admired David. He was a mentor and a friend. It was difficult to picture him as less than a perfect gentleman.

“She gets frustrated with me. I shut down sometimes. But yeah, she’s there for me.” He reached forward and turned down the air conditioner. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if she hadn’t stuck with me. Even when I was drinking myself stupid every night.”

“You drink?” This was new information.

“I quit. Wrapped my car around a tree about six years ago. CID stood by me and supported me while I went through treatment. So did my wife.” He pulled up in front of her house. The outside light shined like a beacon in the darkness. “So I can’t tell you what to do but if you still love him, hold on until he gets home. Give him some time to process everything.”

Nicole swallowed the sadness blocking her throat and nodded. “Thanks, David.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you’re going through this.”

She closed the door quietly behind her. It was reassuring that he didn’t pull off until she closed her front door and clicked off the outside light. The Christmas tree stood in the corner, a dark unlit shadow. She hadn’t managed to get the lights on it yet. Every time she started, she just got too sad.

She turned her phone off vibrate and plugged it in next to the bed. Then she turned on the computer and logged in to Skype, hoping, praying that her husband would call her back.

She slipped out of her clothes and into one of Vic’s shirts. She tried not to cry as she sprayed his cologne on her wrists, needing the familiarity of his scent even if she was missing the warmth of his body in the bed next to her.

But when she slipped between the sheets and pulled a pillow to her belly, she let the tears come. Great, wracking silent sobs broke through and she cried until she couldn’t stop.

“I just want him home.” But it was a plea to the darkness that no one heard.

Iaconelli’s hands weren’t shaking. Carponti watched his new platoon sergeant as he talked with LT Miller just to be sure. Nope, no shaking.

Which meant one of two things: either Iaconelli’s DTs had finally eased back or he’d gotten his hands on some alcohol.

Carponti wasn’t a betting man but he was willing to bet Iaconelli had found some booze. Any and all sins were available in Iraq; you just had to know where to look and be willing to pay for them. He supposed it was just like America after all.

Carponti took a pull off his Dr. Pepper and debated his actions. It had been less than a week since Garrison had gotten sent home and Iaconelli was no more integrated into the platoon than he’d been at the start of this little adventure.

It didn’t help that two more guys were getting stitched up at the aid station. But they were coming back with a prescription for Motrin and a good night’s sleep. Carponti couldn’t blame Iaconelli directly for them getting hurt but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try. He couldn’t keep drinking on the patrols. He didn’t care how much of a functioning alcoholic the man was; his drinking was going to get someone killed.

It could have been worse. He kept reminding himself of that. He reached his hand into his pocket and felt the little piece of fabric that made up the man dress.

It had been funny when he’d started on it a few months ago. He’d sat on his cot and thought about taking pictures and sending them to his wife. Now, after that last phone call, he started to think it was just stupid. He’d wanted to call her back but every time he’d tried to break away, something had come up.

He felt like an asshole leaving the last conversation like he had. It wasn’t her fault she’d been working that night. Carponti had been a shit and he knew it. He wanted badly to call her back, damn it.

But if he was honest with himself, and he really didn’t make much of a habit of telling himself lies, he was terrified to pick up that phone. He was afraid she wouldn’t answer. That maybe the distance on the line hadn’t been his imagination.

That maybe, this time, she’d finally gotten tired of waiting for him to come home.

Things were weird between them this deployment. He knew it was him not calling as much. Putting space between them. He didn’t have it in him to pick up the phone and listen to her talk about work. He used to love hearing her talk about nothing at all. Now? Now he just couldn’t summon the energy to care. He was too tired. Too worn down. The war was kicking his ass and he didn’t know how to be normal on the phone with her. Maybe that made him a prick but the war—the war was taking everything he had right then.

He hoped she’d understand. Maybe he’d get to go home next week after all.

The thought of getting on a plane and leaving his boys, though… He wasn’t sure he could do it. He knew the commander would let him stay if he told him he wanted to push back the R&R dates. Captain Davila wouldn’t argue, especially not since he’d just lost Garrison as one of his key leaders.

“Sarn’t Carponti!”

Carponti stuffed the fabric back into his pocket and pasted on a bored expression as he turned. “Yes, your highness?”

LT Randall’s skin tightened over his bones as he kept coming and stepped right into Carponti’s personal space. “You will call me fucking ‘sir,’ you arrogant little bastard.”

Carponti didn’t really think about what happened next. He blinked and the next thing he knew, strong hands were dragging him off the LT. Iaconelli’s big hand shoved him backward. “Cut the shit, Carponti,” Iaconelli growled.

But Carponti wasn’t done. He squared off with the lieutenant, ignoring Iaconelli’s attempt to pull him off. “Don’t fucking talk to me like that, you scumbag motherfucker.”

“Goddamn it, Carponti!”

They were nose to nose. Randall’s face was swollen, just like his fucking ego, but there was triumph in his eyes. “You just crossed the line. I’m going to have your rank for this, Carponti,” Randall sneered.

“Good luck with that,” Carponti spat.

“That’s not how this works,
Sergeant
.” Randall spat the word. “You will respect my rank.”

Carponti shoved Randall a step backward. “That’s exactly how it’s going to work. Stop harassing my guys because of your incompetence, lieutenant. You lost the fucking equipment, you find it. But leave my goddamned men alone.”

The veins in Randall’s neck stood out against his skin. Carponti was reasonably certain the man was going to have a coronary.

It would have been one memorial ceremony he’d have been happy to attend.

Iaconelli finally moved his hand off Carponti’s chest and stepped into the fray, shoving Carponti back and stepping between them. “LT, what’s missing?” he asked.

Carponti frowned as one of the guys came up to watch the fireworks. It was Neal Sloban, a guy who’d been with Carponti since the middle of the last rotation.

“Since when did Iaconelli become a voice of reason?” Sloban muttered.

Carponti shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe his horoscope told him to play nice today.”

Sloban shook his head and walked off as Carponti continued to watch the de-escalation between the two, like Iaconelli was some kind of lieutenant whisperer. Randall finished gesticulating wildly and stomped off. Iaconelli hesitated a moment before he walked back toward Carponti.

“That was impressive,” Carponti said as Iaconelli walked back to the waiting convoy.

“I have my specialties.”

“You have to tell me how you did that.” It was strange truce between them. Half the time, Carponti was certain that Iaconelli was going to whip his ass if Carponti made one more smart-ass comment. Which of course, Carponti did. Iaconelli never laughed, though.

“I threatened to knock his front teeth out if he didn’t stop fucking with my platoon.”

Carponti laughed and stuffed his hands in his pockets. The piece of fabric made him think of his wife. Something slipped out, something briefly happy in the midst of the fucking sadness that had been haunting him since he’d watched them put Garrison on the plane.

He needed to call home. Right then, before they rolled out the gate. He glanced toward the company ops.

He didn’t have time. Damn it, he didn’t have time.

He brushed his thumb over the fabric in his pocket. He’d call her when he got back to the FOB.

He swallowed and pulled his helmet on. He’d finish sewing when he got back to the base.

It would have to be good enough. He’d been an ass and he really needed to hear her tell him that she still loved him.

* * *

Carponti ducked behind the tire of the truck that was currently the only thing providing even a smidgen of cover for the last half of their convoy. Rounds exploded overhead even as Tigger manned the fifty cal and tried to lay down suppressive fire.

Their convoy had gotten hit exactly one block outside the base. Carponti would be angry later. Right then, he needed to get his boys set on the defense and figure out if anyone was wounded back in Sarn’t Iaconelli’s truck.

Iaconelli, in the trail vehicle, had been hit by the IED that had blown the front end of his truck all to shit.

Carponti ducked and rushed from his own vehicle to where Iaconelli was leaning on Carponti’s seat, blood running down the side of his leg and talking on the radio. “Sarn’t Ike, you realize you’ve got blood pouring out of your ass?”

“Shut the fuck up, Carponti. I’m trying to call this in.” He paused, his face going grey for a brief moment. “Where’s the LT?”

Carponti glanced toward the front of their patrol, where he saw Miller directing some of the guys. “He’s getting the lead vehicle out of the kill zone.”

“Security?”

“Security is set. I’ve got Foster and Sloban manning the rear position. LT is going to recover the downed vehicle or blow it in place, then we’re going to get the hell out of here.”

Iaconelli was leaning against Carponti’s truck, the hand mic from Carponti’s radio in his hand. “Casualties?”

“None, other than your ass, apparently.”

Iaconelli looked like he wanted to punch him. A piece of concrete blew off the building and Carponti ducked. It bounced off his eye pro and he jerked his head, cracking his helmet on the side of the vehicle.

“You’re going to want to apply pressure to that,” Carponti said when his vision had cleared up. He reached for Iaconelli’s first aid kit.

Iaconelli slapped his hand away as he listened to the radio. “Not in this lifetime.”

Carponti stood there for a second, completely speechless. Then he started laughing. “Then you need to let the medics check you out, because that’s a shitload of blood and you’re so pale you look like the Emperor on
Star Wars
right now, which for a brown guy is pretty fucking pale.”

Iaconelli shot him a dirty look. “Are you ever serious?”

“I try not to be. Bad things happen when I’m not making jokes. It upsets the cosmic order of the universe or something.” He glanced around at Iaconelli’s bloody uniform. “Still bleeding. And the sergeant major is calling you.”

Iaconelli sighed heavily and lifted the hand mic to his face so Carponti could get the bandage from his first aid kit. Carponti grinned as he pulled the bloody uniform away from Iaconelli’s ass. “You have such firm, round…”