Not needing more explanation, he gestures for me to come with him. I fall into step beside him, noticing that we’re taking a long route that goes around my Italians.
“You introduced me to your friends but I never got your name,” I tell him.
“Right, sorry. It’s Jax. Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“It’s not my actual name.”
I eye him shrewdly. “It’s weird to tell me that you’re giving me a fake name.”
He chuckles. “It’s what everyone calls me. It’s just not my real name. My last name is Jackson. In the military almost everyone goes by their last name. People shortened it and started calling me Jax.”
“So what’s your real name?”
He looks at me sideways. “Kenneth. Ken.”
“Jax is good.”
His responding laugh gives me goose bumps.
“What branch of the military are you in?” I ask, stepping up to stand in line next to him. It’s crowded and I have to stand close to him, shoulder to shoulder. I notice either he or one of the twenty other guys milling around smells faintly fantastic.
“Air Force.”
I’m jostled from behind and I stumble a half step forward. It’s nothing outside the hazards of being in a crowded area, but Jax takes a step slightly behind me, his body now half shielding me from the people behind us. If we’re crowded by them again, he’ll take the brunt of it. It’s a subtle gesture, like when a guy offers you his jacket or moves to the street side of the sidewalk when walking beside you, leaving you more protected. It’s an old form of gentleman that feminists find insulting but I see as sweet. Yeah, of course I can open a door for myself and I’m not gonna hate on a guy if he doesn’t do it for me, but I will give him bonus points if he does. I’m doing my part to be a lady, not running around flashing my goods like it’s Mardi Gras and beads are the cure for cancer, so I don’t see the harm in appreciating a guy who still knows how to act like a gentleman.
“Did you come to Germany for Oktoberfest or are you traveling around?” he asks, his new closer stance putting his mouth right beside my ear, his breath tickling my hair across the lobe.
“School, actually. I came to do a semester abroad.”
“Oh yeah? Where?”
“Heidelberg. Just south of Frankfurt.”
“I’m at Ramstein. It’s not far from Frankfurt.”
“We’re probably pretty close to each other.”
He’s bumped from behind, his body and scent cascading into me.
It’s him, I think definitively. He smells faintly fantastic.
I try to breathe the scent in deeply without looking like a freak.
“How long will you be here?” he asks me.
“Uh, four months. You?”
“Two years.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah. It’s a long stretch.” He puts his hand on the small of my back to lead me forward in the line a little. “I’ve been here a year already so it’s really just another year to go.”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s a nice country,” he replies indifferently.
“Say it like you mean it.”
“I’m being diplomatic.” He smirks, ushering me forward again. “We’re up. If you let me buy your drink, I promise not to touch it—with my hands or my illicit drugs.”
“I didn’t mean to imply you’re a creeper.”
He waves me away, pulling several euro from his wallet and signaling for two beers. “Don’t apologize for being careful.”
I grin at him. “I never said I was sorry.”
“I guess you didn’t,” he agrees with a chuckle. He hands me my beer: frothy, golden, and beautiful. “So can this creeper ask what you’re studying?”
“Business.”
“International business?”
I nod my head, taking a sip of the beer and weaving back past the crowded line with him. “Yep.”
“Does the school in Heidelberg have a good program? Is that why you came here?”
“No, I came to Germany to get away. To see something new.”
To hide from the future.
I push the heavy thought down, smiling lightly to blanket it. “I’m going to college in my hometown, the same town I was raised in my entire life. It’s a great school and I love it, but I had to get out at least once, you know?”
“Yeah, definitely. You don’t want to live and die in the same fifty-mile radius.”
“Yes! Thank you. Not everyone gets that. Is that why you joined the Air Force? For a ticket out?”
“Nah. I joined the Air Force to serve my country.”
I’m a little floored by that—by the blunt honesty of it. The simple nobility.
“So you’re a lifer then?” I ask curiously. “This is it for you, this is the career?”
He flinches slightly, the look disappearing as quickly as it came. “Kind of. I’ll do my twenty, retire, then go civilian. What are you going to do with your degree in business?”
“No idea,” I admit, trying not to flinch myself. “I’m having a hard time figuring that out lately.”
“Forever isn’t an easy choice to make.”
“You made it.”
“I guess.”