The one thing no one ever bothered to tell me about New York was that I’d never be able to afford anything bigger than a shoebox in Manhattan on an associate’s pay. Or maybe everyone assumed I’d permanently live off Mom and Dad.
In Brooklyn, however, I could manage a small one-bedroom apartment on my own. It was a second-story walk-up in Dumbo with an actual closet, and the best part was the scent of freedom. Freedom from my parents’ expectations and their constant badgering that I use my law degree to do what I could to further their business.
“I can actually see the water from here if I stand on the couch!” Serena said from her precarious perch on the arm of the sofa. She’d been here all of an hour and was already climbing up the walls. My sister had never been good at sitting still.
“I’d be careful if I were you. That’s not the sturdiest piece of furniture.” I threw my suit jacket over a dining room chair and went back to organizing the grocery order that had just been delivered.
“Are you telling me you put it together with a butter knife?” she asked, jumping to the hardwood floor.
“Hardly.” A corner of my mouth lifted. “Nate put it together when he came to visit about . . .” I did the mental math. “Eight months ago.”
“And you don’t trust his construction abilities?” She wedged herself between my body and the opposite counter in the U-shaped kitchen and grabbed the coffee creamer, then put it into the refrigerator.
“I do. But I also know what that thing looked like coming out of the box.” I rose on my bare toes and put the boxed stuff on the highest shelf.
“Eight months seems like a pretty long time,” Serena said, leaning back against the counter. “Have you seen him since then?”
“Nope.” My chest clamped down like a vise. “He’s been gone more than he’s been home, according to his texts and letters.” I put the fruits and vegetables away. “If he’s not at some training or school, he’s . . .” I shrugged because I honestly had no clue.
“Is that normal for Special Forces, or whatever he’s doing?”
“How would I know?” I handed her a box of coffee. “Behind you.” Truth was, I’d barely heard from him in the past seven months, and what I had heard had been vague and short.
She leaned sideways and put the coffee away without getting off the counter. “But you’ve heard from him, right?”
“Yeah.” I finished the last of the order and leaned back against the counter. “I mean, not in the last month, but he told me that he was going to be busy.” There was some kind of test he was taking, but he hadn’t gone into detail, which meant I wasn’t supposed to mention it.
“Busy?” Serena cocked an eyebrow as Tybee, my six-month-old Maine coon kitten, jumped onto the counter.
“You’re not supposed to be up here, are you?” I asked him, scratching under his chin before I set him back on the floor. Not that he’d listen. Tybee had taught me that cats did whatever the hell they wanted whenever the hell they wanted to. I envied them their give-no-fucks attitude. I shrugged. “He texted and said he wouldn’t be able to talk this month, but he’d meet me at O’Hare.”
Serena blinked. “So you’re just going to fly off to Palau tomorrow and hope he meets you at O’Hare?”
“It worked last time.” I shrugged again. It wasn’t like I needed to worry. Nate was one of the only people in my life who always did what they said they were going to do. “No news is good news with Nate. If something had gone awry, he would have told me. We planned out our trips for the next four years while he was here over Valentine’s Day. We couldn’t buy our tickets or book most of the resorts, so Nate hired a travel agent and dumped more money than I care to even think about so they’d make the arrangements when the dates became available.” It had been overwhelmingly, sweetly romantic, and yet had told me he was still planning on this being the way we lived for the next four years. He’d gone so far as to tell me that even the wives weren’t getting much face time. Hell, I wasn’t even a girlfriend. “Assuming we don’t have to move dates for deployments, which he said we undoubtably would. I’ll just have to cross my fingers and pray I can get time off when he has leave.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And it doesn’t bother you that you don’t know where he is half the time or what he’s doing?”
“Of course it does.” I lifted my shoulders and let them fall. “But I don’t exactly have the right to know.”
“What if something . . .” She struggled with her words. “Happened to him?”
“Then hopefully someone—probably one of his friends—would tell me.”
Her head tilted to the side as she studied me. “He could have an entire family, a wife and kids, down there in North Carolina and you wouldn’t know.” She pointed her finger at me. “And don’t you dare shrug at me again.”
I locked my posture. “He doesn’t. I might not know where he’s sent, but he’s always honest with me when he’s dating someone, the same as I am with him.”
“And how long has it been since you’ve dated someone?”
“Two months.” Hugh had been a massive mistake, an attempt to fill the void, an attempt to see if I could live without Nate. I pushed off the counter and walked out of the kitchen and into the dining room, connected to the living room. “And I thought you were taking this week as vacation? Stop interviewing me like I’m your latest story.”
“I’m not!” She hopped off the counter and followed me into the bedroom. “I just worry about you.”
That made two of us, but I couldn’t say that to her. I walked into my closet and stripped off the remains of my suit, opting for drawstring pajama pants and the hoodie Nate had given me for Christmas with some logo that represented his unit. “Thank you for taking the week to watch Tybee, by the way.”
“No problem. I legitimately had nothing better to do.”
I came out to find her lying across the expanse of my bed, staring up at the ceiling. “You don’t have to patronize me. I know how hard you’re working at that new paper.”
“Apparently not hard enough.” She sighed.
I lay down next to her. “Spill.”
“I didn’t get the assignment I wanted. They’re sending a more senior photojournalist.” Her voice lifted in an imitation of her boss. “But not to worry, I can keep covering the Hill until my time comes.”
“I’m sorry.” I kept my eyes on the blades of the ceiling fan above us so she wouldn’t see the lie in my eyes. That country had a death grip on the man I loved, and I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit for it to get its hands on my sister too. “I know how badly you wanted to go.”
“I just want to cover something meaningful.” She laced her fingers over her rib cage.
“Afghanistan isn’t the only place to do that,” I said softly. “I’m sure lots of meaningful things happen on the Hill. It’s the seat of our government.” It was all I could think to say, and I knew it fell short of what she needed.
“You’d be amazed at how much there isn’t.” She turned her head toward me. “Senator Lauren’s bill failed again. It didn’t even get out of committee.”
My brow furrowed. “Remind me which one that is?”