Undeclared(59)

“I’m sorry.” It was such an inadequate sentiment. I wanted to do something. “Maybe Noah and Bo could kidnap him, and we could take turns kicking him in the balls.”

Lana looked like she was contemplating this, but then said, “No. But I’m making an appointment at the health clinic to see if Peter passed anything on to me. I feel like such a stooge for sleeping with him when I got back to school.”

“You couldn’t have known,” I said and added, “I’ll come with you.”

“Maybe you should think about getting checked out too,” Lana replied.

“But I didn’t sleep with Noah,” I protested, my voice coming out high and squeaky.

“No?” Lana looked me up and down skeptically, as if she could see I was devirginized just by staring.

“No, I mean, we slept together but we didn’t sleep together.”

“You can say it Grace. S E X,” she said, drawing the word out for emphasis.

“Okay, fine. We didn’t have sex.” I looked around to see if anyone was listening to us, but it appeared that everyone was engaged in their own conversations. Our drama wasn’t very interesting.

“Did you do anything else?”

“Not really. I mean, we fooled around, and then we slept. I woke up at four in the morning to find out that Noah wants to run a mini empire of self-serve yogurt stores.”

Lana’s eyebrows rose. “That’s, um, interesting.”

“Gunner,” I said glumly.

“So all is forgiven then? His friend-zoning you after years of correspondence is a thing of the past?”

I really didn’t want to reveal all of Noah’s private confessions, but I also wanted Lana to like him. I wanted the two of them to like each other. “He came to visit me in Chicago, but was intimidated by Uncle Louis’s house and left.”

By the look on Lana’s face, I don’t think she’d ever contemplated that this was the excuse that Noah would provide.

“As explanations go, that’s not a bad one. Do you believe him?” Lana asked.

“Yeah, I guess I do. Why would he lie about it? It can’t just be to get me to have sex with him. I don’t think someone like him has a hard time picking up girls.”

“No, you’re right. He’s prime,” Lana said. That his primeness was so obvious concerned me, but I kept that worry to myself.

“Could we all go out some time or do you need some post-Peter downtime?” I suggested. It was important that two people I cared deeply about enjoyed one another’s company.

“Yes, let’s go out. Maybe we can target Jack,” Lana suggested. The idea seemed to perk her up.

“Jack, of the tequila shots with Amy, Jack?”

“Yeah, he’s sent some signals toward me, but at the time I was still thinking I’d give Peter the benefit of the doubt,” Lana admitted ruefully.

“Where will Jack be this weekend?”

“Not sure. I’ll go to the house before dinner and see if I can find out what the weekend party schedule is.”

“Okay, I’ll ask around, too, although I don’t really know anyone who knows Jack,” I said. Satisfied with our plans, I left Lana to meet up with Noah to study and then have dinner.





Chapter Twelve





Dear Grace,

It’s not that the Marines was my only option. It just seemed like the best choice at the time. My father is an asshole. He’s kind of like your Aunt Sarah. Nothing I did was good enough for him. He has a miserable life working a number of odd jobs and getting fired for not showing up or being too hung over and making mistakes.

He wanted me to be beat-down like him. I couldn’t afford to go to college, and I didn’t want to work construction for the rest of my life. Hence, the Marines. But when I came back during my first leave, after deployment, everyone in town treated me different.

Before, I was just a punk that might knock up their girls or break into their stores. Now I wore a uniform. Old vets saluted me. People who had never said hi thanked me for my service. It was like I had leveled up. But half the time, I think folks were sorry that there wasn’t another generation of Jacksons to point to as a cautionary tale. I haven’t told Bo yet, but I’m not going back home.

I’m going to volunteer for another tour. I felt more at home at a forward base unit than back in Little Oak, Texas.

~Noah


Grace

Noah and I were eating at a dive off campus that served the best tacos, when his phone rang. He ignored it so I gestured for him to answer when it rang again.

A barrage of words sputtered out of the phone, so loud that I could even hear it. Noah drew the phone away slightly from his ear and flicked the volume down.