Nineteen years under my parents’ roof, four mediocre years studying history in college, months at boot camp, and then A school had me craving freedom and fun.
“Are you settled in?” my dad asked as I walked out of my building.
“Totally settled.” I glanced around, watching as hordes of people headed toward the mess hall.
“Allison there?”
“She’s somewhere, but I was just heading to dinner,” I lied, knowing I was going the opposite direction.
“When in doubt, always go for the salad. It’s the least likely thing to kill you.”
“Got it.” I tucked my hand into the pocket of my coat, fishing out my car keys. “Trust me, Dad. I’ve memorized everything you told me.”
He sighed on the other end of the phone. “I should’ve pulled some strings and had you stationed closer.”
“I have to do this on my own,” I told him, stalking toward the crowded parking lot. “I want to do this on my own. Promise me you won’t get involved, Kasper?” I used his call sign, something I’d heard him called a million times by his friends.
“I won’t, sunshine. I swear.”
“I’m in no way a ray of sunshine, Daddy. Maybe to you, but no one else.”
“Got a nickname yet? Chaos would be a great one for you.”
I chuckled, knowing he was right. I was like a ball of chaos, too wild to be caged, too unwieldy to be anything else. “Nope,” I lied again. “Just Sage or Hill. You know how it is when you’re new.”
“You’ll find your place, sweetheart. When’s duty start?”
“I have a few days to settle in.”
“Everything is hurry up and wait. I’d like to say it gets better, but it doesn’t.” My dad loved talking about the navy. He wasn’t just a regular sailor. Nope. My dad was the elite. The crème de la crème. A navy SEAL through and through.
I had no plans to break the proverbial glass ceiling, trying to be one of the first female SEALs ever. I was happy to find my place as a quartermaster without the pressure of saving lives and risking my own on a daily basis.
“Hill.” Blondie, my best friend from boot camp, waved across the parking lot, leaning against my car. “Get your ass moving. We’re losin’ daylight.”
“I’ve got to go, Dad. I’m here. I’m safe. I’m ready.”
“Okay. Okay. I’m so proud of you. You know that, right?”
“I do.” I waved back at Blondie when he didn’t stop glaring at me because I wasn’t moving fast enough. “I love you, Daddy.”
“Love you too. Give ’em hell.”
“That’s the plan. I’ll call soon.”
“Tomorrow?” he asked.
“I’ll text you tomorrow.”
“Fuck,” he grumbled. “A text is fine.”
“Go spend time with Mom or Sawyer, Dad. I’m heading to the world-famous salad bar you’ve been raving about for years,” I said sarcastically.
Dad chuckled. “Later, kid.”
“Bye, Dad.”
“Well, Jesus. If you move any slower, we’ll get there tomorrow,” Blondie said as I jammed my phone into the back pocket of my jeans.
“What’s the hurry? It’s not even five.”
Blondie ran his hand over his cropped brown hair, always looking exasperated. “It’s our first night without curfew, and I’m not wasting it.”
If Blondie and I hadn’t become best friends at A school, I’d find him attractive. But there was something about him that made him feel more like my brother than possible boyfriend material. His blue eyes and full lips made most of the girls swoon, but I just didn’t see him the same way.
I clicked to open the locks to my Jeep, wanting nothing more than some time off base. “Where are we going anyway?”
He settled into the passenger seat, looking like a giant folded up, with his knees almost touching his chest. “I found the perfect spot down by the ocean.”
“It’s the Gulf, not the ocean,” I corrected, sliding the key into the ignition.
“Um, it’s still an ocean.”
I glanced over at him, unable to keep the judgment from my face. “Listen, the Atlantic is the ocean. The Gulf is the…”
“Gulf?” he teased. “It’s still endless blue water, babe.”
“You’re a goofball.”
“You try growing up in a cornfield in Indiana. I’m sorry I wasn’t a spoiled little girl from Virginia where the ocean was in my backyard.”
I backed out, ignoring his comment. “Where am I going?”
“The Rusty Knuckle.”
I gaped at him as I shifted my Jeep into drive, keeping my foot firmly planted on the brake. “The what?”
“Rusty Knuckle. Supposed to be the hottest bar on the beach.”
“Sounds like it.” I laughed. “Why there? I heard the Seagull is so much better.”
Blondie blanched and pulled on his tank top, the same one he always wore because it showed off his muscles. “Because the Seagull isn’t a biker bar.”
“Biker bar?” A car honked behind us when I didn’t move, still gawking at my dumb friend. “Why the hell are we going to a biker bar?”
“Nothing sexier than a woman in leather,” Blondie said, as if we were having a normal conversation, which we weren’t. “Find the gas, babe, and hit it.”
A few minutes of silence passed as we drove off base, heading toward the water.
“So, leather, huh?” I asked curiously. I’d always pegged him as the type to fall for someone a bit more like Little Bo Peep than Joan Jett.
Blondie turned up the radio, blasting an old heavy metal tune, moving his head like he was in a classic rock band. “Nothing sexier.”
“You’re a freak.” I laughed, tapping my thumb against the steering wheel, following the beat of the music. “I think that’s why we’re friends.”
“We were meant to be together.”
I glanced at him, curling my lip. “Not happening.”
“I know. I know.” He lifted his hands. “I mean we were meant to be friends, Hill. You’re a freak like me. You hide it so much better, but I could see it the moment I laid eyes on you.”
“You have freak-dar.”
He nodded, studying my profile as I drove. “Why do you hide it, anyway?”
“You met my parents at graduation, Blondie. Enough said, no?”
“They seemed really sweet.”
“Sweet? Are you serious?”
“They were sweet. And how would I know otherwise? You barely talk about them. Your mom looks like she’s a runway model, and your dad looked like he was a badass at some point.”
I laughed louder. “When they visit, I want you to recite that statement in front of him.”
“I may be young, but I’m not stupid. And he may be old, but he could probably still beat my ass to a pulp.”
“With one arm tied behind his back.”
“So, tell me, what’s their story?” he asked, angling his body so he was facing me and turning down the volume on the radio.
“You can’t tell anyone. Promise me,” I begged.
“I promise,” he said, but his tone was not convincing.
I glared at him for a moment. “I mean it, Blondie. You can’t tell anyone.”
“Are they felons? On the run from the Feds? Come on, Hill. Now, you have to tell me about them.”
I didn’t answer, keeping
my eyes on the road.
“Fine. Fine. I promise I won’t tell anyone, and if I do, you can cut off my nads and shove them down my throat.”
I winced, picturing the entire scene. “That’s a little much, but I would beat the shit out of you.”
“Like to see you try. Now, talk.”
“Bossy fucker,” I muttered. “Why do I always surround myself with impossible men?”
“You need the strength around you to calm the chaos.”
“I wasn’t asking your opinion,” I told him, rolling my eyes after being called chaos for a second time today.
“Then don’t ask the question out loud.”
I groaned, hating him for a minute for being impossible like almost everyone else in my life.
“Helloooo,” Blondie said. “Tell me about your parents.”
“Tell me about yours first,” I shot back, wanting to know about his life before I told him about mine.
“My mom is an elementary art teacher, and my dad is a farmer. Corn, remember?”
I nodded, liking that his parents led normal lives. I was actually jealous he never had to worry about his parents dying on the job. “Sounds like a nice life.”
“It was boring, and I don’t plan to end up like them.”
“There’re worse things to be.”
“Maybe, Hill, maybe. Now spill the beans on beauty and the beast.”
“Beauty and the beast?” I smirked.
“Your mom and pop. Who are they?”
“Fine.” I sighed. “My mom worked for the FBI, and so did her brothers and father. It’s a family tradition, but one I plan to break. Dad, well, he was a SEAL before he retired and now spends more time building birdhouses than saving the world.” There was not a word from Blondie after I finished speaking, and I turned, wondering if he was still alive. “What?” I asked when I saw the pinched expression on his face.
“FBI and a SEAL? Seriously?”
I nodded and shrugged. “Uh, yeah. Seriously.”
“Jesus. Wow.”
“Not Jesus. Just soldiers.”
Blondie laughed, slapping his legs. “Your mom was G.I. Jane and your dad was G.I. Joe, and you’re saying they were just soldiers.”
“G.I. Jane wasn’t in the FBI.”
“There it is.” Blondie pointed out the window, and my eyes followed.
I pointed at the dive
bar with a row of motorcycles. “You want to go there?”
“You a pussy now?” he teased.
I lifted my chin. “Never been a pussy a day in my life.”
“Of course not, G.I. Junior.”
I pulled into an empty parking spot and glared at him as I put the Jeep in park. “I am not G.I. Junior.”
An easy, playful smile spread across his face. “You so are.”
“Whatever.”
Blondie climbed down from the Jeep, stretching like we’d driven for longer than five minutes. “I’m ready to get a little wild. How about you?”
“I was born wild,” I told him, throwing him a wink.
“I have no doubt.” He stalked toward the front doors, cracking his neck. “Once we’re inside, we’re going separate ways.”
I gawked at him and stopped walking. “You’re ditching me?”
“Well, yeah. How am I supposed to get laid with a girl next to me? I came here to get laid, not hang out.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do?”
Blondie ticked his head toward the run-down building. “I don’t know… Maybe find someone and get yourself laid too.”
I wrinkled my nose and threw my arm out toward the place. “At a biker bar?”
“There’s no better place to find a piece of ass with no strings attached. No one’s here for forever.”
My lip curled as I
strode past him and headed to the door. “We’re not friends anymore.”
He ran up next to me, slowing when our shoulders were side by side. “Liar…you love me.”
I looked him up and down, snarling. “You can go screw yourself. I’m hungry. I’m grabbing a burger and a soda and heading back to base. You can find your own way back.”
“I wasn’t planning on going back with you. I’m going to get my dick sucked at the very least, maybe twice if it’s a good night.”
“You’re disgusting.”
He shrugged, grabbing the door handle before I could as if he was a gentleman. “I’m a man.”
“You’re an idiot,” I told him before walking inside and heading straight to an empty chair at the bar.
“Later, Hill,” Blondie called out somewhere behind me, but I barely heard him over the chatter and music.
“Fucker,” I muttered, sliding onto a stool.
“What’ll it be?” a man with the biggest beer belly I’d ever seen asked me.
“A menu and a Coke.”
“A Coke?” He blinked, his bushy white eyebrows twitching.
“A Coke,” I growled.
He threw his hands up and backed away.
“Fuckin’ right,” I said to myself. “You better move along.”
A man laughed. “That was one of the funniest damn things I’ve ever seen.”
I ignored him, not knowing if he was talking to me and not caring even if he was. I just kept tapping my fingers against the sticky bar top, hating Blondie and men in general.
“Put whatever she wants on my tab,” the man next to me said to the bartender as he slid the glass of Coke in front of me, followed by a menu.
“I’m perfectly fine paying for my own drink,” I told the guy, not glancing at him but glaring at the bartender who looked at me like I was vicious and bitchy.
“Whatever she wants, she gets,” the bartender replied.
“It takes a lot to rattle Clive, but somehow, you did it. All five foot three inches of you.”
“Five four,” I corrected him, eyeing the appetizer section as soon as I flipped open the menu.
I could feel the weight of his stare, even with my eyes glued to the endless list of things I wanted to eat. After eating military food for months, every time I was able to eat at a real restaurant, even a dive bar, it was a treat.
“You got a problem?” I asked, annoyed by the way he was staring.
“No problem at all, darlin’. Just trying to figure out how you stay upright with that giant chip you’re carrying on your shoulder.”
I set the menu down, placing my hand on top of the greasy plastic before I swiveled around on my stool, coming eye-to-eye with the man who felt the need to speak to me. “Excuse me?” I asked, my voice filled with venom.
The corner of his lip tipped up. “You heard me,” he said, looking all adorable with his cropped dark hair, strong jaw, and icy blue eyes. “Doesn’t it get exhausting acting so tough all the time?”
I twisted my lips and curled my hand into a ball as I did everything I could to hold myself back from socking him in his handsome face. “How hard is it for you to be a constant asshole all the time? I mean, eventually, ...
There are so many terrific moments in this one, and I could go on and on listing them, but where's the fun in that? I'll just say you might want to have the tissues ready. You know, just in case. And be ready to swoon because Austin is totally swoon-worthy. Sage is loaded with sass and gives him a hard ...
There are so many terrific moments in this one, and I could go on and on listing them, but where's the fun in that? I'll just say you might want to have the tissues ready. You know, just in case. And be ready to swoon because Austin is totally swoon-worthy. Sage is loaded with sass and gives him a hard way to go, but it works for them.
They have a journey to get to their HEA, and things definitely get emotional. And it is so worth it. So, if you've never read a Chelle Bliss book, you can pretty much pick any one and dive in. At least, that's been my experience. But be prepared because the characters grab hold and don't let go. I'm completely attached, so I'll be continuing to catch up with Chelle's backlist while waiting for whatever comes next.
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