Protector #4 (A Navy SEAL Military Romance) (2 page)

“Ava,” he whispered. “Go
get dressed, you’re going to be late to your meeting.”

*****

As
we walked to the
quad and headed for the meeting, I thought about what we’d said to one another
and I turned the discussion over and over as I thought about Brian’s
misinformed view of the anti-war movement and how much pain it had obviously
cost him. I was outraged that anyone claiming to be anti-war would ever dream
of being anti-military member, but then I remembered hearing about some Midwestern
church group who was using the funerals to promote their hate-filled anti-gay
message.

I turned and looked for
Brian, but he was busy trying to blend in with the Sunday student crowd on the
quad. He obviously didn’t want to talk about this with me, so I began
formulating a plan. I’d have to run it by the group members, but I thought that
once I explained the reasoning behind it, they would definitely agree with me
and we could work to end the hateful practice of protesting military funerals.

Brian stayed outside the
room while we discussed ways to take a stand against the groups that were using
the funerals to promote their own hateful beliefs. We sketched out a plan on
the white board and then assigned group members to begin calling and emailing
those we’d identified as allies.
We might
be a small group,
I thought,
but
we’re mighty in our determination to do the right thing.

After the meeting, I
walked outside and saw Brian sitting on a chair in the lounge area. He was
obviously on high alert as he scanned the area, searching for any signs of
Dominic. I smiled and waved at him to let him know I was ready to leave. I saw
him furrow his brow as he looked past me, but when I spun around to see what
had caused it, I saw nothing.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing, I just
thought—” he stopped and started intently at the other side of the student
lounge, then shook his head and said, “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Okay, if you’re sure!” I
chirped. “Do you want to go get some lunch and hear about the plan we came up
with?”

“Do I have a choice?” he
grinned.

“Of course you don’t,” I
grinned back. Two could play this little game.

“Touché!” Brian burst out
laughing as we walked to over to Charlie Chang’s for a lunch of
bim
bim
bap
.

*****

“
So
, tell me about this plan of
yours,” Brian said to me with a mouth full of
kim
chee
.

“Don’t talk with your
mouth full!” I laughed as I took a sip of my iced tea before popping a piece of
the spicy cabbage in my mouth. Brian laughed at my admonition as the server put
two steaming bowls down on the table and asked if there was anything else we
needed. I smiled and shook my head.

“But seriously, tell me
what you’ve got up your sleeve, Ava,” he said as he stirred a huge squirt of
hot sauce into his lunch.
 

“When you said that you
associated the anti-war groups with disrespect and meanness, I started thinking
about how a small number of protesters are defining the movement in negative
terms,” I said as I pulled apart my chop sticks and balanced them carefully in
my right hand. Brian watched and shook his head as he pointedly began eating
with his fork. “So, I suggested that we address the issue of those people who
protest at funerals instead of spending so much time writing letters protesting
a war that is already happening.”

“How do you think you’re
going to affect the protestors?” he asked.

“We don’t think we’re
going to affect
them
, per se,” I
replied. “They’re using their protests to accomplish something entirely
unrelated to the peace movement. They’re using service people as a mechanism to
promote their hatred of people who they feel are eroding moral values. It’s
somewhat ironic that they’re religious people because they seem to have missed
the overall point of their own religion.”

“How so?” Brian asked.
“They’re standing up for what they feel is right and they’re protesting against
what they feel is wrong, aren’t they?”

“Yes, but they miss the
whole point, love thy neighbor and all that is what matters, right?” I looked
up at him as I explained my take on the situation. I wasn’t sure he was buying
it.

“Okay, I guess I can see
your point, but I don’t understand what it is you think you’re going to do
about it,” he replied as he brought another forkful of the delicious rice and
vegetable combination to his mouth.

“We don’t think that we
can change the people who are protesting, but we do think that we can show
those who are not part of the group how damaging the practice is,” I said as I
carefully measured my next words. “We think that if we can show how much pain
and suffering these groups cause, then we can get average everyday folks to
step in and help stop the practice.”

“And how do you propose
to accomplish this?” he asked.

“Well…” I took a deep
breath and pushed forward. “We thought we could use your story to illustrate
the way in which the protestors caused so much pain during the funeral of your
friend. We’ve got a couple of members who are journalism majors and they would
write articles for the newspaper and a couple of other internet outlets that
they write for and then we thought that we could write letters to the
university administration asking them to support our attempts to get the city
to stop allowing these folks to protest within a certain distance. We also
thought that we could do what other cities have done and ask members of various
clubs to come from a human wall around the funerals so that the friends and
family members wouldn’t have to even see the protestors.”

Brian had stopped eating
and was staring at me with steely eyes. I casually continued eating as I waited
to hear his response to my plan.

“Absolutely not,” he said
quietly. “You will not use my story and you will not bring me into this mess.”

“But Brian,” I countered.
“We could do so much good!”

“By spewing my pain and
suffering out into the world?” he demanded. “You want to use me to make some
silly college political statement?”

“No! That’s not what
we’re doing at all!” I cried. “We want to stop these people from causing other
people as much pain as they’ve caused you!”

“By making me the face of
all of the crap that’s going to come out about this?” he was angry and hurt,
but I couldn’t understand why.

“But Brian, this is a
good idea! We want to stop the protests!” I said as I felt myself becoming more
emotional. Couldn’t he see that we wanted to help?

“You rich kids just don’t
get it, do you?” his face grew red as he struggled to keep his voice down and
not call attention to our heated argument. “You think that the world is full of
like-minded people who have the same options you have and that if you just tell
people to stop doing whatever you think is unfair, they will.”

“Now that’s unfair,” I
lowered my voice to try and calm him down, but I felt myself getting mad at his
judgmental attitude. “We’re not trying to tell anyone how to live their lives,
we’re just trying to help you!”

“Have you ever thought
about the fact that maybe I don’t want your help?” Brian asked as he leveled
his gaze. “Did you ever ask me what I wanted? No, you did not. That’s because
you rich college kids think you know everything that’s best for everyone.
You’re so arrogant and privileged that you can’t look beyond your own lives and
see that other people don’t live the way you do.”

“What does that have to
do with anything?” I angrily asked.

“It has to do with the
fact that those people who are protesting have every right to protest, and that
if it hurts my poor little feelings, then I need to get over it, okay?” he said
in a tone that could only be described as petulant.

“What in the hell is
going on with you?” I was astounded at the rapid shift in our conversation and
could not understand why Brian was so angry at me for wanting to spare other
service members the pain he’d experienced at his best friend’s funeral.

“Just leave it alone,” he
said as he exited the booth and headed for the door. “I’ll be outside waiting
when you’re done.”

I made no move to stop
him as he stalked toward the door and shoved it open with a force that loudly
rung the bells looped over the handle. I think if he could have slammed the
door behind him, he would have done it.

*****

I
finished my lunch, paid the bill and then walked outside. Brian was leaning
against the front of the restaurant looking at his phone and furiously typing
out something on the screen. As soon as he saw me, he disconnected and shoved
the phone in his pocket.

“Oh, please don’t let me
interrupt,” I said in a dry tone. I was mad at him for refusing to even try to
see my point of view and for accusing me of being a spoiled rich girl simply
because he didn’t agree with me.

“You didn’t,” he said.
“Back to the dorm?”

“Yes, please,” I replied
and began walking. Brian followed about ten steps behind, and since I was mad,
I set a fast pace.

The whole walk back I
silently cursed him for being so stubborn and pig-headed, and by the time we
reached the room I was ready to explode. Instead, I entered the room, leaving
the door open, grabbed my psych book, and flopped down on the bed with the book
open to a random page as I continued to fume. Brian entered the room, quietly
shut the door and then sat on the couch flipping through his phone in
silence.
 

“What are you studying?”
he asked after a few minutes.

“None of your damn
business!” I snapped.

“Really? Is that a lesson
in psychology?” he asked with a serious expression. “I had no idea that there
was a chapter on none of your damn business. What does it say?”

“It says that it’s none
of your damn business!” I shouted. “Now shut up and let me study!”

“Oh now that’s just
obstinance
,” he observed.

“What are you even
talking about?”

“I’m sure that being
educated and all, you know that the root of
obstinance
is not in achieving some aim in reality, but in establishing a subjective
feeling of superiority, right?” he said casually as he continued poking at the
screen of his phone.

“Ha
ha
.
Very funny,” I replied, not at all amused. “Yes, you’re smart. You know things.
Now know this: I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“Okay, your call,” he
said with a shrug. “I was just trying to be helpful.”

I sat on my bed trying
hard to contain the rage that was building inside me, but watching him mess
with his phone only made it worse and after a few minutes I blew.

“If you really want to be
helpful, then talk to me, darn it!” I shouted. “Don’t just criticize me and
then walk away!”

“What was I supposed to
do, Ava?” he asked. “Your father hired me to protect you, so it’s not my place
to engage in a political struggle with you about something you know nothing
about.”

“Oh, I see. You can’t
engage in a conversation about something that you view as political, but you
can have sex with me? That’s okay?” I grilled him getting angrier by the
minute.

“Yes, actually, that is
okay because having sex with you doesn’t cause me the kind of headache that
having a political discussion with you does!” he raised his voice to match
mine.

“Oh really? Talking with
me about something serious gives you a headache?” I hollered as I hopped up off
of the bed and crossed the room so that I was standing over him.

“Actually, it does!” he
yelled back as he pushed himself up off the couch and stood glaring back at me.

“Then why do you keep
engaging in conversations with me?” I shouted back. I was trying to control my
anger as well as the fact that this argument had aroused me in a way I didn’t
know was possible. Brian’s strong will made him even more attractive, and the
fact that he stood up to me without using force or violence aroused me.

“Because…because…” he
stuttered angrily as he held my gaze.

“Because what?” I
demanded as I closed the gap between us and stood only inches from him looking
up into his eyes. “C’mon, spit it out, sailor!”

“Because I can’t stop!”
he admitted as he roughly grabbed my waist and pulled me to him. “I can’t stop
wanting you, Ava! You drive me crazy with your idealistic views and your
academic approach to things, but that makes me want you even more!”

He bent down and kissed
me hard as he crushed my body against his. In an instant, my arms were around
his neck and I was returning the kiss with a fierceness I had never felt
before.

“But you’re so stubborn,”
I whispered into his lips as the savage kiss continued. His hands roamed my
body pushing my shirt up before yanking it off to give him access to my bare
skin. He quickly pulled the tiny skirt I was wearing down to my knees letting
it pool around my feet and in seconds I was nearly naked.