My body reacts to the image I’ve created in my mind with a little throb between my legs.
Who’d have thought Adam looked like that underneath all the hair?
I let out my pent-up breath and smile. “I do like the suit. And your face. You know, without that animal clinging to your jaw, you’re not hard to look at.”
“Not hard to look at, eh?” He runs his finger along his square jaw, following the line of the thin scar all the way to the cleft in his chin. “Even with this?”
I bite my bottom lip and lean closer to him. “That makes you all the more dashing. Like a pirate who’s been in a sword fight.”
“I thought the beard was pirate-like.” He winks.
With a slight shake of my head, I wrinkle my nose. “Not so much. More like a stunted muskrat that’s been shot and taken to a taxidermist.”
“Muskrat?”
“Yeah, you know…rodents?”
He shakes his head and scratches the back of his neck, mumbling, “Muskrat.”
The P.A. system crackles as someone takes the stage.
“Good evening, ladies and gentleman. I’m your MC, Rex Rom—” High-pitched audio feedback interrupts.
The blond guy smiles as he makes his way to the center of the stage, tapping the side of his wireless microphone. “That would be Rex Romans for those of you who don’t lip-read.”
The audience cheers and welcomes Rex to the stage. Adam stands as he slowly claps. One by one, the entire room follows Adam’s example.
After a couple of minutes of trying, Rex finally calms the crowd and gets everyone to take their seats. “Thank you. I appreciate the sentiment, though I don’t deserve it half as much as many of my fellow vets.”
Rex shares a small bit about how he was injured in the line of duty—a grenade took the lower part of his leg.
“However, my affliction is small as compared to some. And really, none of us can truly compare our pain to another’s sacrifice and suffering. Each person’s experience is unique.” Rex straightens his tie and coughs. “But, before I cause any more suffering for my esteemed audience with my droning on and on, please welcome to the stage one of the best men I know—a true American hero and my good friend, Adam Hardick, Staff Sergeant, honorably discharged from the US Army.”
Adam rises, and the room once again erupts in applause.
When he takes the stage, he accepts the mic from Rex, and they shake hands. Then they exchange one-armed man-hugs.
“Thanks, Rex. The check’s in the mail.” Adam’s smile is sexy as hell.
The scar along his jaw seems intensified by the foot lights on the stage. Somehow, it makes him better looking. Hotter, in a tough guy who lived through something traumatic kind of way.
“Evening, folks. I’m a virgin at this public speaking thing, so, please, be gentle.”
The crowd laughs and some applaud a little more.
“As Rex told you, I’m a vet—a proud vet. I had the honor of serving our nation with some of the finest men and women this country has to offer, on foreign soil, in a war torn country, filled with sand and strife…”
Adam talks about the plight of many American Veterans who’ve been all but forgotten. He discusses those crippled by either physical or mental injuries, sometimes both. He speaks about homelessness among veterans, the strides that have been made in improving the numbers, and the work yet to be done.
Clearly, Adam cares about his fellow veterans.
It’s in the way his knuckles whiten around the mic as he asks for those in attendance to get involved—to do more than pay for a meal at a banquet hall. It’s in the crack of his voice, that he tries to disguise with a cough, when he brings up the first few photos on the big screens positioned around the room. Homeless vets, men and women, sit under overpasses with cardboard signs. Wheelchair-bound, disabled, missing limbs, long, unkempt beards. Sad eyes and broken spirits apparent in their dirty faces. Every picture worse than the last.
The entire time Adam’s on stage, walking from side to side, engaging the audience with his sad smile and those beautiful eyes, I can’t tear my gaze from him. He’s larger than life and even more charismatic and charming than I’d realized.
His body language screams confidence and sex appeal, even while he implores the masses to support his cause.
After enough photos have been shown to bring a tear to almost every eye in the room, the credits for the photography and editing of the slideshow roll up the screen. Silence fills all the spaces between the draped tables, the crystal goblets, the shining silverware, and the able bodies of those unmarked by war.
Adam tucks the microphone under his arm and steeples his hands beneath his chin, solemnly looking out across the audience, allowing them time to contemplate the severity of the conditions he’s highlighted. Then he walks to the edge of the stage, carefully placing the microphone onto its stand, gripping the black mic clip.