I went to Europe to study. To party, to hide, to run away from the endless sea of choices that would mold and shape the rest of my life. I wasn't ready for any of that. Not yet. I wasn't ready to have all the answers.
And I definitely wasn't ready for Jax.
Handsome, sweet, and sporting the biggest blue eyes I'd ever seen, he swooped into my world and changed everything. Suddenly I wasn't scared of making choices. I wasn't afraid of voicing answers. It was easy because where Jax was concerned, my answer was always "Yes".
But loving a military man isn't easy, and while Jax seemed like the answer to everything, he has questions of his own.
Doubts about his future. Fears about his past.
Chapter One
“The toilets are flooding! The toilets are flooding!”
I look up to see Mel standing in the doorway to our compartment, her face flushed with panic and disgust. “What is that? Is that like ‘The British are coming’?”
She frowns. “What? No, it’s like the friggin’ toilets are friggin’ flooding.”
“Number One if by land, Number Two if by sea?”
“I don’t think that’s how it goes,” Ben comments, propping his sunglasses up on his head and into his black hair. He winces at the bright morning sunlight pouring in the window of the train. Promptly he pulls his glasses down again.
“Like it matters,” I tell him. “It’s toilet humor. I have artistic license here.”
“Anything goes? Like in international waters?”
“Is that a toilet joke too? ’Cause I don’t get it.”
“We can’t all be as clever as you.”
“Anyway,” Mel interrupts emphatically, “I was coming back from the bar car, which is packed, by the way. Seriously, an absolute madhouse. Took an hour to get a drink so I stuck around and drank it while I waited in line for another one.”
“Why didn’t you just buy two at once?” I ask.
“Can we stop talking about alcohol?” Ben complains.
We ignore him and his hangover.
“Because they don’t let you,” Mel whines at me. “It’s like they’re trying to keep people from getting too drunk—which is insane because everyone is smashed already. Did I mention it was a madhouse in there and the bathrooms are destroyed?”
“What do you expect? It’s literally called ‘The Party Train to Oktoberfest.’ It should not be experienced sober.”
“Or hungover,” Ben groans.
“Shush it!” Mel shouts at him, making him wince and visibly cower in his seat. “We told you to stay behind at school. You should have listened.”
“I thought I could rally.”
“How’s that working out for you, Rally Queen?” I ask him, poking him in the stomach.
He grabs my hand hard and glares at me through his Ray-Bans. “You’re the devil.”
I smile sweetly at him.
“And don’t call me ‘Queen,’” he continues. “People will think I’m gay and I’ll never nail a hot foreign chick.”
“Technically, you’re the hot foreign chick here,” Mel reminds him.
“Stop talking to me like I’m a girl.”
“Then man up and stop acting like a bitch,” I snap, poking his stomach again.
He groans and lurches across the cramped compartment toward the door. I note the panicked look on the faces of the strangers sitting across from us and I feel a little bad. We are loud, obnoxious Americans through and through today. We’ve all been together on this train since five this morning and they have yet to speak to each other. I don’t even know if they speak English. If they do, we’ve probably made them wish they didn’t.
Mel quickly opens the door for Ben. “Where are you going?”
“To the bathroom to throw up!”
“But the toilets are flooding!”
“I’ll never get tired of hearing you say that,” I chuckle at Mel. “It’s melodious somehow.”
“He’s going to be sorry he went in there.”
“I think he’s sorry about a lot of things right now.”
“How much longer till we’re there?” she asks, sitting back down beside me. She smiles politely at the strangers. They don’t respond. I’m not sure they’re real humans. “I need to keep this buzz going until we get there or I’ll crash.”
I check my watch, hissing sharply through my teeth. “Four more hours.”
Mel throws her head back against the seat and sighs heavily, devastated. “That’s too long.”
“Take a nap. Then it won’t matter if you crash ’cause you’ll wake up revived and ready to go.”
She rolls her head to look at me, her blond hair fanning out over the seatback. “Are you going to take a nap too?”
“Oh, hell no.” I grin, pinning my own brown locks high on the back of my head. “I’m no punk.”
“Oh it’s like that, is it? You think you can hang better than me.”