Read Online Lost in You: Petal, Georgia, Book 2 by Lauren Dane - Free Book Online Page A

tensed and bunched as they took a corner.
    The night all around them was glorious. The twilight casting a pink-orange glow on the world.
    He pulled down a long road out toward the lake and stopped but didn’t get off. He reached back, giving her an arm to help her down. She was tall, but he made her feel small. Not helpless. She liked it even as it sort of kept her off balance.
    “I used to come out here.” He spread a blanket out, and she sat, looking out over the hillside sloping down to the water.
    “You did?”
    “Back in high school. When things got shitty, or when I just couldn’t take it, I’d drive out here and sit for hours.”
    “So did the military help you?”
    He settled next to her, leaning back on his elbows. The fading light cast shadows on his face.
    “I joined because I was on a bender.” He snorted.
    “That was dumb.”
    He laughed. “Yes. But it was a good thing.” He paused, and she made herself be patient, hoping he’d say more. “I signed up in a stupid, drunken macho haze. Oh I was going to go over to Eye Rack and kick some ass. Until I went to basic and it sucked. God. I had to be up when someone else told me to be. I went to sleep when someone else told me. I ate when someone else told me. I was no longer in control of any aspect of my life.”
    The stars began to blink up above them as she leaned back to get a better look. He tangled his fingers with hers and she smiled.
    “Did you try to get out of it?”
    “Fuck yeah. I was miserable. They didn’t give a shit that I was tired. They didn’t give a shit about any of my excuses. Or my lack of control. I got into a few fights and got my butt thrown into the brig. I was thinking if they threw me out I’d be done. I just didn’t care.
    “And then my C.O. came to see me and was like look, son, don’t be a dumbass. You have an opportunity here. You can go back to your shitty little town until you finally go to prison. Or you can use this time and experience to get yourself some self-control. Some skills you can make a living with.”
    Beth wondered if his father had ever said anything like that to him. Hers never would have bothered. She didn’t know much about Joe’s dad. He’d done odd jobs around a back injury and lots of unemployment. He was big though, like Joe. His mother had worked in the cafeteria at the grade school for as long as Beth could remember.
    “So I got out and got into a mechanic’s training program. I had one more narrow miss with jail, and that was it.”
    “Then you got sent to Iraq.”
    He wasn’t sure why he was pouring his story out this way. He hadn’t ever really done it. But there was something about her. The steady presence beside him, her fingers in his. She was strong. Beth Murphy didn’t need fixing. Or shielding. It was…nice to say it. To talk about himself there in the deepening darkness.
    “I was still an asshole. Not as bad once I’d sobered up. But I thought Iraq would be one way. But when I got there it wasn’t.” He licked his lips. “The people I met were good people. They weren’t my enemy. You know? They had lives and then this war erupted all around them. Everything was different for them.”
    “Like it was for you I wager.”
    “Yeah. And I didn’t have to go out on patrols regularly like other people did. There was plenty of stuff to be fixed all the time. Every day. The sand and dust got into everything, fucked it up. And of course there was sabotage. And getting shot at.”
    She got very quiet and he appreciated it.
    “I went to Iraq not so much thinking of it as Eye Rack like I did when I first signed up.” He was ashamed of that now. “But I figured it was easy. You know? Who the enemy was. But it’s not. And you’re in a public market and someone who smiles at you is the person with the fucking bomb strapped to his chest. Or the old guy you’re suspicious of is the one who risks everything to tell you about a bomb he saw getting planted.” It had fucked