Purposefully Coincidental ✓

11. Nicole

Leo

I put my headphones on and shuffle the first playlist I see on Spotify. But then I skip about a hundred songs because I don't feel like listening to any of them.

Eventually I settle for an Ariana Grande song—because why the hell not—about exes or something and lean my head on my pillow and close my eyes.

Nicole should be here any minute now, but she's everything but punctual.

I love Nicole very much, but her incompetence with arriving on time really annoys me. I'm used to structure, doing things to the milliseconds.

With me being a sniper, a nanosecond turns a regular shot into a kill shot. So, yeah. I like being on time. My family always teases me about how I'm always fifteen minutes early to everything. But that's better than being half an hour later, like Nicole.

I know I can't expect everyone to be as punctual as me, so when I'm going out with my family, I tell them the reservation is an hour earlier than it is. And sometimes they still arrive late.

After a few more songs, I sense someone coming into my room. And like I know she would, Nicole jumps in the bed.

"I'm hereeeee." She sings.

"You're early," I laugh and turn to lie on my front, my head resting on my crossed arms.

She plucks an earbud out of my ear and listens to what song is playing. "Is this Ariana Grande?" She guffaws.

"Yes. And she has an amazing voice." I defend. She puts the bud in her ear and leans back against the headboard as we listen to a song together. This one about being a dangerous woman.

When the song fades into a new one, she removes her earbud and then mine. "Want me to give you a back massage?"

"Yes." I know she's only offering so I can return the favor, but I say yes anyway.

She starts 'massaging' my back, hitting the side of her palms on me with quick succession. "Not on my spine!" I say.

"Oops." She says then and continues hitting me, but not directly on my spine this time, thank God. She does this for a few more minutes before she sighs and plops on her stomach.

"My turn." She tells me with a devilish smile. I chuckle and sit on my knees next to her frame. My fingers work on her shoulders first. She lets out a pleased moan.

"Stop making sound effects or I'll stop." I warn. She makes no more sounds as I knead her back, easing out the tension. When you're a soldier, you have to know basic medical stuff. A lot of the time there isn't a nurse or doctor available to remove a bullet or close a bleeding wound. So I know the right places to apply pressure on a person's back.

After a few more minutes, I flick her ear and sit straight after grabbing the remote. "What film are we watching?" I ask. I don't have a favorite genre of movie. If it's well executed and it has a good plot, I'm sold.

"There's a new thriller. Let me search for the name." She takes my phone since she doesn't carry hers on her 99 percent of the time. We all hate it because if we're trying to reach her...well, we can't. She says that's the point. She likes being unreachable. Which is why she travels to the most faraway countries where Wi-Fi is hard to get a hold of.

I'd kill to have a phone on me on the battlefield. Being able to call my family whenever I need to hear their voices. It's the reason I spend so much time with them when I'm home and memorize their features, their laughter, their sounds...

We settle back on my bed with popcorn and watch the movie she's picked out. A few scenes in, she turns to me and asks, "Izzy wanted me to ask if you've gotten laid yet." Nicole can't keep a secret to save her life. Something I love about her.

I give her a quizzical look. "I was with her just yesterday and she didn't ask me anything. Besides, what's your obsession with me having sex?"

She widens her eyes, shaking her head. "I don't care. You can stay a virgin your entire life."

"I'm not a virgin." I grumble.

"I was with the girls last night and they wanted me to ask you." She shrugs.

Laughing, I say, "They didn't mean for you to tell me that."

"Whatever." She waves her hand in the air and continues looking at me.

"What?"

"Well? Have you gotten laid yet?"

"I'm not gonna tell you." I smirk and face the tv again.

"You're full of shit." She calls me out and stops the movie. "But seriously." Her tone turns serious. "You need to go out more. And I don't mean just to hook up. You spend all your days inside."

"I do not."

"Maybe not, but you need to do something fun every once in a while."

"Like what?" I ask. If one person knows how to have fun, it's Nicole.

She shrugs. "I don't know. What's your idea of fun?"

I think about it and honestly I'm not sure what I can call fun.

So I settle on one thing I enjoy doing. "Spending time with you and the rest of our family."

She rolls her eyes. "That's not fun."

"It is for me." I say defensively. If she prefers to be alone and travel the world, that doesn't mean it's lame that I do enjoy spending time with my family.

"All I'm saying is you need a friend."

"Like you have a million of them." My tone is sharp. Nicole and I never argue, but for some reason, what she's saying is working me up. Maybe because it's true. I want to have a best friend who isn't my cousin or my brother.

"I don't have friends, you're right." She chuckles, dismissing my comment. "And I'm content that way. But I feel you'd benefit from having a friend that doesn't share the same surname as you."

"Izzy has a different last name." I smile.

"Or someone who won't have the same surname as you in the near future." She deadpans.

I stay silent for a beat. She's right. I do want a friend who doesn't know a lot about me. Who won't try to make me laugh all the time because they think I'm sad or depressed. Someone who won't filter what they say, with fear of triggering some kind of PTSD they think I have.

Not all soldiers have PTSD.

At least not as severely as my family thinks. I won't crumble to the ground if we watch an action movie, for fuck's sake!

Heaving a sigh, I lightly punch her shoulder. "I hate that you're right about one thing."

She gasps, pretending to be offended. "Bitch, I'm right all the time."

"Yeah, right." I mutter just loud enough for her to hear me. She pinches my thigh, but I barely feel anything. I grin at her but she just rolls her eyes again and hits play on the movie.

• ••• •

A/N:

I love Nicole. She doesn't give a fuck about anyone's opinion and is wild and carefree.