“Done.”
“I was thinking more like hot girls in bikinis and body shots—oh, hello again, Mrs. Stephenson,” Kevlar says as my mom comes into the room. We really haven’t talked much since Dad moved back home, and I feel uncomfortable around her again. I don’t want things to be this way between us—she was really cool for a while—but I don’t think she wants to hear what I have to say. And vice versa.
“Thanks for aiding and abetting their mission, Mom,” I say. “They strapped me to my bed with bungee cord.”
She laughs. “I came up to see if your friends will be spending the night.”
“Thank you for your generosity, ma’am,” Kevlar says. “But we’ve already booked a room down on the beach.”
“We should probably get going,” I say.
“Where are you boys off to at such an early hour?” Mom asks.
“Fishing.”
“Oh, that should be fun.” The enthusiasm in her voice doesn’t match the sadness in her eyes. “Will you be around for dinner?”
“We’ll probably go out.”
“Okay, well, be sure to take sunscreen.” She follows us down the stairs, and when I shut the front door behind us, it feels like the day we left our outpost in Marjah. There were dogs that hung around our camp and even though we weren’t supposed to feed them, we did. When we left for the last time, this one white dog with black spots on his ears stood there looking hopeful—as if maybe we wouldn’t leave. That’s how my mom looks now and it makes me feel bad.
“Can we get some breakfast?” Moss asks as we pile into the Jeep. Kevlar calls shotgun.
“We can stop somewhere,” I say. “What do you want?”
“Waffle House.”
“Not again,” Kevlar groans at Moss’s suggestion. “Solo, did you know there are thirty-eight Waffle Houses between here and Lejeune? Now, we haven’t eaten in all of them, but wouldn’t you say four in a seventeen-hour period is excessive?”
“I like Waffle House,” Moss says.
Harper is probably working, which is a good enough reason for me. “Shut up, Kenneth. If the man wants Waffle House, we’re going to Waffle House.”
Harper looks up as we enter the restaurant. Kevlar is out in front, so I wink at her and put my finger to my lips. She gives us a bright, generic smile. “Hi! Welcome to Waffle House. Have a seat anywhere and I’ll be right with you.”
“Damn, Solo, if there were girls who looked like that in the other Waffle Houses, I’d have stopped at every single one of them,” Kevlar says.
“Why? So you could sit there and not talk to them the way you did when you, me, and Charlie went to New York?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“C. J.,” I say, “you should have seen him. The whole trip he talked about how he was going to get laid. Then we get to the bars and he’s like, ‘She’s hot. Maybe I’ll go ask her to dance.’ And Charlie and I would be all, ‘Do it.’ But did he? No.”
“I talked to that one girl.”
“Oh, that’s right.” I nod. “One girl. Did you get laid? Kiss her? Get her phone number? Dude, it’s not difficult. In fact, I bet I can get that girl”—I point at Harper—“to kiss me before breakfast is over.”
“No way.” Kevlar shakes his head. “You’re not that good.”
“How much?”
“Twenty bucks,” he says.
“Deal.”
Harper brings menus and silverware. “My name is Harper. Can I get you some coffee? Or maybe some orange juice?”
“Harper? That’s a beautiful name,” I say. “Were you named after Harper Lee?”
The corner of her mouth twitches, but she doesn’t give anything away. “No, Charley Harper.”
“The artist? He’s one of my favorites,” I say. “My name’s Travis and these are my friends Kenny—”
“Ken,” he interrupts, and I nearly lose it. Ken? Since when? “Ken Chestnut.”
“And this is C. J.”
“Very nice to meet you,” she says. “You gentlemen aren’t from around here, are you?”
“We’re down for a couple of days from North Carolina,” I say.
“Marines,” Kevlar adds. “We just got back from Afghanistan.”
She turns her high-beam smile on him and his face goes as red as his hair. “Nice.”
“We’re going deep-sea fishing later,” I say. “You wouldn’t—would you like to join us?”
Then she smiles at me and this charade takes on a whole new dimension and I like it. A lot. “Sure, sounds fun,” Harper says. “Now, about those drinks.”
While she’s gone, Kevlar fills me in on company gossip. I don’t know how he finds it all out, but he has dirt on nearly everyone. “Dude, you remember Nardello from second platoon? His wife left him and took everything, even his ’66 Mustang.”
“Damn, that’s cold.”
“And Day—dude, he tried to off himself.”
“What? No.”
“Yeah,” Kevlar says. “He was pretty tight with Palmer.”
Palmer was one of the eight from our battalion who were killed. I didn’t know Day or Palmer very well, but I guess I know how Day feels. Like you’re a glass that’s filled to the top. Then you have to face everything back home and the glass overflows.
Harper comes back with a pot of coffee and I push it all out of my mind. “You guys know what you want?”
Moss orders biscuits and gravy with grits and Kevlar goes for a pecan waffle, but I cock my head and look up at her. “All I want is a kiss.”
Her eyebrows lift. “What?”
“Nothing on the menu would compare.”
Kevlar groans and even I have to admit it’s the cheesiest thing I have ever said. But this isn’t about successful pickup lines. It’s about winning twenty bucks from the guy who bungee-corded me to my bed.
“Well, that’s just about the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” she says, and slides into the booth beside me. Harper touches my face with her fingertips and presses her lips against mine. She smells like apples and bacon and maple syrup. This is supposed to be a joke, but her tongue teasing against mine makes the Waffle House disappear and sends me dangerously close to cold shower territory. Her green eyes are on mine as she pulls slowly away and gives me a tiny, private smile. I extend my hand across the table—palm up—and Kevlar slaps a twenty in it. Harper gives me another quick peck on the lips, then stands up. “Are you having the usual, Travis?”
“Yep.”
“Solo, man, that was so not fair,” Kevlar protests.
I snap the bill between my fingers. “I’d say it almost makes us even.”
Moss laughs and fist-bumps me, and I feel the most normal I’ve felt since the day we got back from Afghanistan—except for when I’m alone with Harper. These are my brothers. This is my family.
“Hey, Harper?” I call across the restaurant.
“Yeah?”
“I was serious about the fishing.”
“Me, too,” she says. “I just have to finish up with this table of idiot Marines and I’ll be ready.”
“So, wait. Are you and her…?” Kevlar’s head swivels from me to Harper and back. He leaves the thought unfinished, which sums up me and Harper pretty accurately. Unfinished. She’s not my girlfriend, but I’m not interested in anyone else. Unless you count Paige, but… I don’t know why she gets to me the way she does. I don’t like her the way I like Harper. He drops his head to the table, making the silverware rattle. “This world is so unfair.”
“Dude,” I say. “I told you already. If you’re going to get a girl, you have to actually talk to one.”
He gives me the finger without looking up.
Harper finishes her shift and we follow her to the radio station, where she leaves the Rover for her dad. Driving down Daniels, Kevlar keeps rocking forward in the passenger’s seat, as if he’s trying to make the Jeep go faster.
“Jesus, Solo,” he complains. “My old granny drives faster than you.”
“I’m doing sixty.” The limit is forty-five and I’m keeping pace with traffic. “What’s your rush?”