Seven Letter Words #Wattys2016

Part 4

Juliet

It felt so good to laugh again. I almost couldn't remember the last time now that the week before the funeral was all I could seem to remember. Liam's smile was breathtaking. He was smooth and he knew it, but his playfulness even in all this grief was like a warm ray of sunshine right to my soul. I could see why he and my brother were friends. The two of them couldn't be serious even when the situation called for it. It's why I loved Ken.

"He was always very protective of me," I smiled, remembering many times when he'd go crazy just because a boy had called for me. He knew he never had to worry about me falling for a man in the Marines. I'd had the word on my list since we were teens.

"Smart man." We were in a small patch of shade, but it was still stiflingly hot. I pulled my hair off my neck and twisted it in my hands. His eyes moved with me, watching the shiny strands bend and twirl like it was the most interesting thing he'd ever seen.

The dog tags were still tucked safely under my fingers and when I released my hair and it sprung back to its full puff of curls, I spread out the two thin pieces of metal in my hand. "Damn it," I said softly, remembering the promise I'd made my brother the night before he'd left. How was I going to keep it without my mother shutting it down?

"What's the matter?" he asked, and I looked to his chest and wondered if he was wearing his tags.

"You have any family?" I asked. Standing in a cemetery at my brother's funeral might have given me the false sense of intimacy, but he didn't even flinch.

"I have parents and an older sister." He answered like my question hadn't been too personal.

"Did you ask them for anything before you left?" I held the tags in my hand and felt a little sick again. When I'd made my brother the promise, I'd never really thought I would have to carry it out. He was my hero. I couldn't picture him not coming home to us.

"You mean like final wishes or something?" I nodded my head at his words.

"I wanted my death benefits to pay for college for my sister. My parents have enough money to get by. If I died, I wanted her to go to school without any worry about loans or how she was going to make it. I asked that they keep that promise." He said it so matter-of-factly, as if planning for something after your death while still being under the legal drinking limit was no big deal.

I let the dog tags slide from my hand until they were dangling from my finger. "I promised him I'd give these to our dad." He watched the metal catch the light and glint in the sun. Then his eyes swept up to my face before looking over my shoulder at the hill from which we'd come.

"And you don't want to?" he asked.

"Oh, no. I don't mind giving them to him. I agree it's where they should be." He shifted a bit, his shiny shoes pressing into the small blades of grass beneath his feet. "It's just that he's in California." I looked up into his eyes again as he put the pieces together. My father wasn't here. He couldn't really make it to this funeral. Liam tipped his head to the side and narrowed his eyes.

"Your brother wanted you to send them to California?" he tried to make sense of it one more time.

"No, I need to take them in person." I captured the tags in my hand and folded my fingers over them again. "It's just something I have to do. Only, my mom is a little on edge now with him gone and I'm not so sure she's going to let me hop into my brother's truck and take off across the state to fulfill a final wish I never really told her about." He nodded once with my words.

"I can't believe that Pines would have intended for you to drive all that way alone. It's not safe." He crossed his arms and looked into my eyes as if I'd suddenly spill the reason. I might have, if I'd known it. We didn't really talk that through. All I know was that he told me they had to get there. He even told me I could take his baby, the Ford truck he'd left in our garage before he flew back to base. I laughed a little. He must have trusted his truck to keep me safe.

"I'm not sure how it all played out in his head, but I have the keys to a well-taken-care-of truck, and a small piece of "trash" that needs to be packed." My brother had loved that word. Ever since boot camp, he'd lovingly referred to all of his belongings as trash. I still had many of his things and while I loved those dog tags, I had no doubt in my mind that they belonged with our father.

Liam chuckled at my use of the word. "Well then it all makes perfect sense." He shook his head a little and his smile tipped up on one side making my heart swell in my chest and my own lips move to mirror his. "Your brother used to sing this little cadence at PT. We all took turns switching around the lyrics, but his would have us busting up every time." His voice grew rough and gravely as he sung out a cadence:

          "Sister, sister can't you see,

           Love the Corp for it owns me.

          Stand and fight for my country,

          Do it so that you'll be free.

          Shed no tears when I'm at war,

          You are who I'm fighting for.

          Love the blood and all the gore,

          Nothing stateside I love more.

          If I die when over seas,

          Fulfill my last wishes please.

          Jody gets my girl to fuck,

          You of course will get my truck.

          Dress me up in my dress blues,

         The only death that I would choose

          At my funeral don't you cry,

          Marine Corps motto do or die!"

I was mesmerized by his voice and the way the low timber seemed to tingle every nerve in my body. A chill broke out across my skin, causing tiny bumps to run up and down my arms. I could almost picture him running along side my brother as they chanted and screwed around whenever they got a chance. After all, they really were just boys who'd grown up too fast. Little pieces of the teenager in them still popped up from time-to-time. Ken had even gotten in trouble once when he'd first arrived at his permanent duty station. He'd been caught changing the words to one of his Gunny's cadences, which of course his Gunny didn't find nearly as amusing as the men in his shop.

"Your brother might have wanted you to deliver those tags to California, but he didn't intend for you to do it alone." He took my hand in his and I felt a slow wave of heat start at the tips of my fingers where his lightly danced across them, and then spread up my arm. He took the tags from my palm and tossed them up in the air and caught them in his strong fist. "Your brother knew damn well I love that truck."

I tried to hide my smile but failed miserably when my stomach lifted and the butterflies awoken and fluttered relentlessly beneath my heart. Liam leaned in and his cheek brushed against mine as he whispered, "I think he also knew that I wouldn't be able to resist you either." He pulled back and looked into my eyes. I know my cheeks were on fire, even hotter than they were from the burning Texas sun. "I've got a few weeks off and have never turned down a mission before. Looks like we're going to California." 

***Do you love Liam yet? Got a friend who would love Liam? Send them the link to the story! ****