Away From You (Back To You Book 2) (4 page)

“This is
Linda’s house,” Carrie told us, putting an arm around Linda. “Didn’t she do a
great job?”

“Everything
looks lovely,” I praised her.

“Thank you!
Please, help yourselves to the food in the dining room. There are drinks in the
coolers over there.”

Ellie and I
thanked Linda and the women excused themselves to go mingle elsewhere. We found
a couple of seats at a picnic table in the grass. There were a few other women
who looked closer to our age sitting at the table already. They smiled at us
when we sat down.

“Hey,” one
of them, a brunette, said. “I’m Candace. This is Amy, Catherine, and Nicole.”

“I’m Olivia
and this is Ellie. It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too,”
the on Candace pointed out as Amy answered. “Where are you guys from?”

“We’re both
from here in San Diego,” Ellie responded.

“Oh wow,”
the girl to my right, Catherine, exclaimed. “Did you meet your husbands when
they got stationed here or something?”

I shook my
head. The conversations about where everyone came from seemed to be common in
the military lifestyle. “No, my husband and Ellie’s boyfriend are from here,
too.”

Catherine
made a surprised face. “How lucky that they got stationed in their hometowns.
We’re from a small town in New Jersey.”

“We’re from
Texas,” Candace offered.

Amy sighed.
“We’re from Montana. I miss it so much!”

Before
anyone could respond to Amy, Catherine cut in with more questions. Her tone was
less than friendly. “So, Ellie, you and your Marine aren’t married?”

“No,” Ellie
replied. I could see her eyes tighten ever so slightly, as if she were bracing
herself in response to Catherine’s judgmental tone.

“How long
have you been together?” Catherine asked.

More images
of
Army Wives
flashed in my mind. Was
she trying to sound so catty or was that just her normal tone of voice?

“Not long,
but we’ve been best friends for years.” Ellie didn’t seem outwardly fazed by
the questions, but I knew her well enough to know that she was just as curious
as I was about where Catherine was going with this.

“I wasn’t
aware that they sent out the spouse event invites to
girlfriends.
”

Okay, that
was enough. “I got the invitation and invited Ellie. Does it bother you that
they aren’t married? I’m sure there was a time when you were just a
girlfriend,
too.”

Catherine
smirked. “Of course there was. But I didn’t go to spouse events when I wasn’t a
spouse.”

“Maybe that
was because you didn’t have any friends to invite you to one.” I fired back.

“Alright,
well, this is fun,” Amy interjected with a nervous laugh. “Lay off, Cat.”

Catherine
rolled her eyes and stood from the table. “I’m going to get some food.”

“Good idea,”
Candace said under her breath.

Ellie and I
looked at each other warily. The other girls seemed to be nice, at least. In my
experience with girls, there was always one who was a total bitch. In fact, I
realized that this was the second group at this party alone that was plagued
with one bad apple. I resolved not to hate the whole tree.

“Sorry about
her,” Amy said when Catherine was out of earshot. “She’s not really a bitch,
she just comes off that way sometimes. I’m sure she’s just on edge. This is the
first time she’s been away from her husband without her family around to keep
her company.”

Candace
shrugged, not buying the excuse. “Yeah? Me too. You don’t see me acting like a
psycho.”

I waved a
hand. “Everyone deals with things differently. Sorry if I made it worse, I’m
just really protective of my friends.”

Ellie smiled
at me and I winked at her.

“It’s fine.
At least now she knows she can’t walk all over you.” Candace took a drink of
her soda and looked over her shoulder for Catherine. “A lot of people say that
she seems kind of abrasive when you first meet her, but once you get to know
her she’s really cool. You just have to crack through that layer of bitchiness
first.”

I made sure
that my face didn’t show my doubt about that.

*

Finally,
after almost three months, it was time to pick Matt up from the pier. I was
ridiculously excited to have him home. Our time in Hawaii had been such a blur
and I’d missed him like crazy. Ellie and I stood in the same place we had when
we’d watched them board the massive aircraft carrier months ago. Now we were
back, but with a lot more spring in our step.

Hundreds of
sailors were making their way out of the cavernous lower decks and onto the
bridge to the dock. After what seemed like forever, the first Marines started
appearing in the midst of all of the blue uniforms of the Navy. My heart
instantly started beating a mile a minute at the sight of their dark green
cammies. They were too far away to see their faces, but one of them could be
the love of my life.

Ellie
grabbed my hand. “Here they come!”

“I know, I
see!”

We stood
with Amy and Candace from the spouse barbeque, and they got just as giddy as we
did when they saw the Marines come into view. Most of us had never experienced
a homecoming before, but I likened it to the feelings I had when Matt had
stepped onto the dock in Hawaii. It was also really similar to when he
graduated from recruit training. The only difference was that when he was at
the Recruit Depot, he was in the same city as me, looking at the same sky and
breathing the same San Diego air. This time, he’d been floating around in the
Pacific. We’d talked a lot about the first half of the cruise while we were in
Hawaii, but I couldn’t wait to hear about what the rest of it was like. His
emails had been brief and left a lot to the imagination.

A small
group of Marines branched away from the hoards of other Marines and sailors. In
it, I saw three men I didn’t recognize, Spencer, and Matt. My husband was
laughing with one of the men I didn’t know, so I took advantage of the
distraction and ran up to him. He was surprised, but still caught me under the
thighs when I jumped on him and wrapped my arms around his neck. Even with his
sea bag on his back, he didn’t drop me, thank goodness.

The rest of
the world faded away as I brought my lips to his with a delighted laugh. He was
warm and real and I couldn’t believe how right I felt in his arms. I’d wasted a
decent amount of time while he was gone wondering if this moment would be weird
or awkward, even though we’d had a mini-reunion in Hawaii at the halfway mark.
As usual, I was just being silly. It wasn’t weird or awkward. It was home.

He put me
down and took both of my hands in his, looking me up and down. I wore my
favorite new sandals, jeggings, and a whimsical summer top. I’d worn a dress
when I’d surprised him in Hawaii, and I’d made a mental note at the time to
wear pants to this occasion so I could jump on him without flashing the rest of
the world.

He whistled
appreciatively. “You have no idea how good you look to me right now.”

I blushed.
“I think I have some idea. I missed you!”

He hugged me
to him again and whispered in my ear. “I missed you too, sweetheart.”

We broke
away after not long enough and found Ellie and Spencer embracing behind us.
They didn’t appear to be ready to use their words yet. I averted my eyes, only
to land them on Catherine hugging the Marine that Matt had been talking to when
I’d jumped on him.

I nodded in
their direction. “Who’s that guy?”

“Him? He’s a
Lance Corporal in my shop. His name is Brooks. Why?”

“Because I
strongly
dislike his wife. She was a
huge bitch to us at this spouse thing Ellie and I went to this summer.”

Matt raised
a brow. “That sucks. I like Brooks a lot. His rack was right above mine so I
hung out with him all the time on the boat. You’ll have to get used to her,
babe.”

I scowled at
him. “Seriously?”

He nodded.
“Seriously. He’s a cool dude. I’m sure she’s not
that
bad.”

Ellie and
Spencer approached us before I had a chance to protest further. That
conversation would have to be continued later. As the other three started
making plans for us to go out to dinner, I watched Catherine and her husband
head toward the parking lot hand in hand. If Matt really liked her husband,
then who knew, maybe she wasn’t that bad. But if she was, I wasn’t just going
to ‘get used to her.’

Matt

I scanned the crowd looking for a sexy
nurse and a bumblebee. I thought it was fitting that Olivia had wanted to be a
nurse since she would soon be one. Plus, I made it my mission to get her to
wear the skimpy little costume in private for me, too.

My eyes
landed on the black and yellow stripes of Ellie’s dress and I signaled to Spencer
that I’d found them. We pushed our way through the Playboy bunnies,
Ghostbusters, and firefighters. I had to say, the lack of originality in the
costume choices for Halloween this year was really apparent. Though, I supposed
I shouldn’t talk. Olivia and I weren’t exactly wearing anything creative. She made
me go as a half-dressed doctor so our costumes would match.
Marriage.

Spencer was
Tom Cruise’s character from
Risky
Business
. He kept getting pissed at me for calling him “George Michael.”
Personally, I thought it was clever. He was wearing his sunglasses at night,
after all.

“Hey,
handsome,” Olivia smiled mischievously at me.

I handed her
one of the red plastic cups full of keg beer that I was holding. She touched
her cup to mine and took a swig. I watched her dance in place to the beat of
the song. Her long brown hair was swept up in a donut-shaped bun on her head.
It kind of made her look like a ballerina, but I liked it.

“You should
do your hair like that more often.” I leaned in close so she could hear me over
the music.

She looked
surprised that I would notice her new hairdo. “I will!”

“Are you
having fun?”

“Yeah,” she
said with a tilt of her shoulder, “but is it bad that I kind of wish we were
home watching Netflix right now?”

I kissed
her. “Me too.”

“You guys
are ridiculous!” Ellie chimed in, overhearing our conversation. “Live a little!
Stop acting like an old married couple!”

“We are an
old married couple!” Olivia defended us with a laugh.

Spencer
rolled his eyes. “Lame.”

I held up a
hand. “By the way, I don’t want any drama at this party like the last one we
all went to.”

Everyone
looked at Ellie and she raised her hands. “Hey, it wasn’t
my
fault!”

Olivia put
her arm around Ellie. “Yeah, you can’t blame Ellie. I get so annoyed when
people blame the girl for ‘giving the wrong impression,’ or some such nonsense.
A creep is gonna creep no matter what.”

“Yeah, I
know, Olivia.” Spencer said with good-natured sigh. The night in question was
back before Spencer and Ellie were together, and Spencer had made some pretty
rude comments at the time about how the guy wouldn’t have had the opportunity
to mess with Ellie if she hadn’t been dancing with him in a provocative way.
He’d apologized later for saying that stuff, though.

“If anything
like that ever happened with Olivia, I’d lose it.” I shook my head at the image
of some asshole like Jon with his hands on her. I’d always admired Spencer’s
restraint that night. He’d only threatened the dude, rather than actually
killed him. On the outside I may have been calm and collected, but on the
inside, I was in a rage.

“Well, don’t
ditch me to hook up with some random girl upstairs and we shouldn’t have to
worry about that!” Olivia said, smirking at Spencer. That was a bit of a sore
spot for him, and my wife knew it.

“Hardeehar.”
Spencer deadpanned. He finished the last of his beer and elbowed me lightly.
“C’mon, I need a refill.”

“Already?”
Ellie asked.

“Yeah,” Spencer
answered, shifting his eyes from side to side, “already.”

He was
acting strangely, and I knew him well enough to know that something was up and
he wanted to get away from the girls. Hopefully he hadn’t taken Olivia’s poking
at him about that other party too seriously. We were all just messing around.

I chugged
the rest of my beer and kissed Olivia on the forehead. “Be right back.”

Olivia
nodded at me with the slightest hint of concern in her eyes. She could tell
something was up, too. I followed Spencer to the keg. He always seemed to be
brooding about something, so who knew what it was this time.

“So, this is
going to come as a bit of a shock, but I need you to run an errand with me
tomorrow.” Spencer said as he refilled his cup from the hose on top of the keg.
“It’s important.”

“What kind
of errand?”

“We’re going
ring shopping.”