He snorts on a low chuckle. “Yeah. That’s what every guy coming home from war thinks about first, Kat.Ice cream.”
A giggle replaces the impending sob, but I catch the heat in his eyes. I realize there’s really only one thing guys coming home from war are thinking about… and the tingle between my legs confirms it’s got nothing to do with ice cream at all.
“You want me to take you to a strip club?” I tease on a shrug and a wink, a hollow ball in my gut hoping he says no.
“Fuck, no.” He looks angry. “No fucking strip club, Kitty Kat.” His teeth tug his bottom lip for a second before he finishes, “But, you can give me a little dance later if it makes you feel better.”
I smack his belly. “Trent Reynolds!” My protest is overly dramatic as I imagine gyrating on his lap.
“I need to go home and relax. I’m fine.” Trent gives me another smile as he takes a step forward, a small grimace twisting his face.
“At least lean on me a little when we walk. Just pretend I’m your wife...” I pull his long, heavy arm over my shoulders, wanting him to accept at least some of my help. Wishing he’d let me protect him from something for once.
“Oh yeah? Pretend you’re my wife, huh? You know the first thing soldiers want to do with their ‘wives’ as soon as they get home, don’t you?”
I press my lips together, hoping he didn’t hear the little squeak that stuck in my throat at the thought. Yep. We’re not talking about ice cream.
Even in the midst of this 90-degree heat, my skin prickles with goosebumps.
“Well, that’s how heroes should be welcomed home.” I let out another nervous giggle, trying to cover my embarrassment. But even to me I sound flirtatious in a way that isdefinitelynot sisterly.
At the same time, Trent growls in response, whichdefinitelydoesnot sound brotherly.
Lowering my eyes, trying to hide my blush, my gaze falls on the zig-zag scar that runs across the meat of his right forearm. I know that scar as well as if it were my own. Because he didn’t get that fighting for Uncle Sam.
He got that one fighting forme.
* * *
Suddenly,I’m back in sixth grade. I’m walking down to the corner store to get a pack of sour gummy worms. The sun is beating down on my shoulders. The cicadas are in the trees. I’ve got a book in my hands.Harry Potter,I think. And I’m in my own little world.
A menacing click-click-click of bicycle tires makes me lift my eyes. Across the street is Henry Weaver. With his close-cropped hair. Freckles that are too pronounced to be cute. And a look in his eyes that was pure evil. “Hey, Chubbs,” he calls out. “Moooooo.”
And all his friends erupt in laughter. Everyone knew Henry was held back twice and should have been a sophomore in high school, instead he was stuck in eighth grade looking like a man.
I knew enough to know I was different than the other girls. Puberty was on the horizon for all of us. Bodies were changing, acne was coming. But they were like gazelles. And I was a little bear. Or a cute little bunny.
My mom tried to tell me I was lovely. My grandma fawned over my eyes, my hair. But always, in my heart, whenever I saw myself in the mirror, I heard it.Chubbs. Moooo.
I was the first to blossom in my grade. My hips, my breasts, came out of my child-sized body, bewildering not just me, but all the boys in school and drawing attention that I neither wanted nor knew how to handle at all.
Henry Weaver stalked me, pursued me. No matter what route I took. No matter what time I left. He found me.
Day after day that year, the attacks got worse and more aggressive. And scarier. At first, he’d taunted me with his friends. But then he started cornering me by dumpsters, in back alleys. In places where I had to scramble to escape.
There were days when I fought back, throwing my own insults toward his menacing freckled face. There were days when I walked with friends or begged my mom to pick me up from school. But one way or another, he’d find me.
I didn’t tell anyone. For that whole year, my embarrassment and terror was mine alone. Until one day I came home, my cheeks red with shiny striped rivers, to find Trent standing in the kitchen, eating an apple, in only his workout shorts.
“What the fuck happened?” he said. “Who hurt you?”
Not,What did you do?NotWhat’s wrong?ButWho hurt you?
I remember his hand flexing into a terrifying fist. All muscle and power and danger. I had just turned ten then. He was seventeen. As big as a man. And as angry as a wolf.
Standing in the kitchen, all the torment and pain tumbled out of me, in snot and tears and sobs. Trent wrapped me in his big arms, smelling like Irish Spring and Old Spice. And when I had cried it all out, he kissed me right on the part of my hair, holding his lips there for a beat, letting me feel the warmth of his breath.
Then, without another word, he walked out of the house, got in his Pontiac Charger…