Scout: Devil's Rose #11

Chapter 11: Major Owens

I wake up with my arm wrapped around Violet's waist, her body pulled tightly to my body, and I panic. Oh, fuck, I didn't mean for this shit to happen. I had no idea that when I fell asleep, I would wake up with her so close to me.

That doesn't mean that I don't like it, but I also don't want her to wake up and have a negative reaction to what's happening, especially when I didn't mean it to.

I desperately try to pull my arm away from her, but Violet curls deeper into me, pressing her back against my chest. The vanilla scent from her hair sends goosebumps down my arm.

My whole body is on fire, my heart thumping violently, as she turns to bury her face into my chest. It's like I don't have a choice in how my body reacts.

One of my arms goes around her waist, tugging her as close as possible, and the other wraps over her shoulder, so I can rest my hand gently on the back of her head to cradle her.

My eyes close once again, the soft and sweet feeling of her lulling me back to sleep.

I don't know how long I'm asleep, but when I wake up again, Violet is tracing the tattoos on the lower half of my stomach, my shirt having risen.

I run my hand over her waist, squeezing at her side, and she blinks her gorgeous hazel eyes up at me. She takes her free hand and brushes pieces of my black hair away from my eyes, whispering "good morning" tenderly.

"Morning, love."

"Love? That's new."

"If you hate it, I don't have to say it."

"No, I like it."

"I was raised in Louisiana, and I just remember my family saying that to each other and everyone else around them," I confide in her, wanting Violet to know more about me.

"Louisiana? I wouldn't have guessed."

"What do you mean?"

"You just don't seem like you're from Louisiana."

I chuckle, understanding sort of where she's coming from. I don't have much of a Louisiana accent, mostly because I adapted to the places I lived in when I was in the Air Force, and I just grew out of the accent.

"Born and raised in Denham Springs, right outside Baton Rouge."

"What was it like?"

"When I was growing up, it was about the size of what Grove Heights is now. Way more white though. I mean, it still is pretty white. It felt like a small town. Everyone knew each other.

"The people in my neighborhood were all friends, and there was an open-door policy, of course. I liked growing up there, I wouldn't change much about it."

She waits for a second, thinking I'm going to continue, but I don't. I told her all there was to know. My childhood was basic as fuck. I had two parents, mom and dad, and a younger sister. We lived in a small town, a house in the suburbs, and I had good friends.

The biggest thing that seemed to happen was football games and after school, we would go to an ice cream and sub-shop down the street.

When I got my driver's license, we would go into Baton Rouge and hang out there, but that didn't last for long since it got boring fast. There was a Dairy Queen which we also went to on this big plaza, and that was that.

The main reason I joined the military is because it guaranteed me getting the fuck out of there.

Nothing bad happened to me there, but I knew I was going to get stuck if I stayed much longer. My friends were already deciding to just go to trade school, be an apprentice, that type of thing.

And while that's great for them, and it seems to have worked out, I didn't want that for myself. I needed an excuse to go. I wasn't a fan of school, so I didn't want to continue on into college (that's how my sister got out), so in that moment, the military was my next best option.

My grandpa also served in Vietnam, and he died two months before I turned eighteen, and I wanted to honor him. He didn't want to go to war, but he didn't have a choice, and he did his best to be a good man in the way he knew how. A good man is all I've ever wanted to be.

"Is it obvious that I'm from LA?" Violet asks me.

"I wouldn't say LA specifically but definitely not from around here."

"I'm gonna take that as a compliment," she huffs, turning her face away from me.

"You can't deny it though. With your lifestyle, it's clear that you're a trust fund baby."

"What are you talking about?" she dramatizes.

"There is nothing wrong with it, love, but I think the Armani and Gucci give it away."

"I'm just saying that when your parents die, you don't have anything to worry about."

"I can't argue with you there," she shrugs, "I don't have any siblings, so I'm inheriting pretty much everything. Besides their house, because I don't want to live in LA, one of my cousins is getting that."

I can't even imagine having to have that conversation. Our daughter doesn't want our mansion in the Hollywood Hills, so we have to figure out who we are going to give it to when we die. I'm not saying that I grew up poor. I certainly did not compare to lots of places in Louisiana.

However, my family is definitely not wealthy to the level of Violet's. It's just another world. One that I don't entirely understand. I would have turned out to be a different person if I had grown up in the environment that Violet did.

I'm sure that she was affected by it, we all are affected by our childhoods, but she has been able to grow and function outside of that. I don't think I would be able to handle it. I would have collapsed under that kind of pressure.

I am good under a different sort of pressure. When it comes to saving people or trying to find someone, needing to hack something, all of that I can do. Mostly because I don't have that many eyes on me, and I have someone's life in my hands.

It's the attention from others that kills me. The moment I realize that someone is watching me, I forget everything that I know. I forget how to act like a normal person.

Violet, on the other hand, was not only raised but taught how to deal with strangers judging her every move. She's told me some things about who her parents were and what it was like dealing with their fame, and I'm stunned she's as put together as she is.

She continues to remind me that she didn't have to face anything alone, but regardless, she's one of the strongest women I have ever known. Alone or not, she had to make a choice about who she was going to be.

She chooses to be more than what people have told her to be.

There's something really admirable about that. Not everyone has the mental strength to do that. I've been lucky in my life that I haven't had many people try to force me to be someone I'm not.

Yes, the military comes with its own challenges, but those pressures weren't coming from a person close to me. It is a system that is designed to have people conform. I expected it from the military.

But with Violet, she was getting judgment from people who were supposed to care about her. She could barely be her complete authentic self around people who shouldn't have cared about what others thought. But that's not the way it was, and it sort of breaks my heart.

Especially because I love who Violet is. I can tell that she's got this chaotic energy beginning to come from the depths of her. I can't wait to see it for myself. I want to be there when she's celebrating who she truly is.