Fragged: A BWWM Military Romance (28 page)

“I believe it. And so do others apparently. Even the ones like this MP who want you nowhere near him.” The sergeant gave me a piercing glare. “Listen, I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to answer honestly.”

“That’s fair.”

“Is there any hate still left in your heart?”

“No,” I said. “No, I don’t hate anyone. I was just too loyal a son. I was too blind to make my own choices.”

The sergeant’s glare didn’t budge. “On the beat, it’s not about choice,” he said. “ It’s about instinct. Someone raises what looks like a gun, it’s your instinct that makes you decide what to do. The last thing the Atlanta PD needs is a scandal where a former racist shoots an unarmed black male. It’s the last thing I ever want to allow.”

“I understand.”

The sergeant just shook his head.

“Now my nephew, he says that your instincts are good. This Purple Heart and excellent service record is a testament to that. I think you might be a good person, who tries to help without hesitation. But that doesn’t mean you won’t hurt the wrong guy without hesitation, too. How can I know you won’t?”

His question was well placed, and I searched for an answer. But even as I did, a new fire raged in me.

I wanted to work for this man. I wanted to serve this city in the way I had only dreamed of. I knew exactly why I could make good calls.

“I can help Atlanta,” I said. “I already helped rebuild a country. My troops and I spent a lot of our time building things up. But we spent even more keeping people from tearing down what was built. There were plenty of times I had to make a choice to pull a trigger before it was too late.”

The sergeant sat rapt now. “Those people weren’t black though.”

“No, but they really weren’t white either. And I was still deeply vested in my family’s legacy in those days. To my father, there was only white and non-white.”

“I see.”

“I can tell you this. I only pulled the trigger a few times. I didn’t once make the wrong call, but after the target went down, there was always a few seconds before someone could check. And those seconds just kept feeling longer and longer. I tried to avoid them every time I could.” I forced myself not to drift off. “So you want to know where my instincts come from? Everything I have comes from my time in the Army”

“Hmm.” The sergeant stroked his bristly jaw.

The words kept coming up endless. If only I could take him into my head and show him who I was now. But maybe it was better if I showed him who I wanted to be.

I leaned over, until I could just see the crown of Rosa’s dark head outside. “You see that girl?” I said. “One day, I’m going to ask her to marry me. And I think she’ll say yes. We’ll have kids together, maybe some sons.” I turned back to him. “Now you think I’m going to kill a kid that looks like the son I’ll probably have? You think I wouldn’t rather take the risk of losing my life?”

The sergeant’s jaw hardened. “No, I don’t think you would.”

The room glistened with stillness. We studied each other, and I could feel his opinion harden as mine did of him. This was a man to respect, to listen to and learn from. He was used to making tough choices and living with them.

All that I’d made in the past few days seemed easy by comparison.

He stood up behind his desk. I shot up with him, just as his hand came out.

“Aright, Black,” he said. “You’re cleared for the academy.”

He beamed at me. My heart swelled in a way that made me realize how much it had been diminished earlier. I grasped him firmly. It was all I could do not to pull him into a shoulder bump and yell “Hoo-ah.”

That was instinct too. I’d find new ones here.

I went out. Rosa only glanced up from her seat, before bounding over and wrapping me in a hug.

“That obvious?” I said.

“You didn’t look pissed.” She looked off thoughtfully. “Actually, you don’t look pissed that often at all anymore.”

“Huh,” I grinned. “I wonder why.”

We strode out into the sparkling early fall day. The red and orange trees rustled but didn’t cast leaves on us as we walked through them to my bike. We rode back downtown to the cafe by the hospital. I clasped Rosa’s hand and led her to the patio to find a nice table for four.

Instead, that table found us.

“Yo.” A wiry hand shot up from one of the tables.

I went over, smiling. Vaughn sat eased back in his chair, looking like a bored high schooler, with his dark, metal-band t-shirt and faded jeans. His thin, diamond edged face held a joker of a smile, and his dark blue eyes lay half shut.

That look had pissed me off so much when we both still wore our cuts. I’d been on his ass about standing taller for the cause, asking if it ever meant that much to him. Turned out, I was the fool, sweating and bleeding for the wrong thing. He’d been able to slink away from the darkness well before I could.

Next to him, his fiancée, Meagan, smiled warmly at me. Then, she beamed and waved at Rosa. Her round milk-chocolate face burned crimson with joy. Rosa ran over and gave her a deep hug. Meagan’s sunflower print dress shimmered against Rosa’s blue one.

The two looked nothing alike, other than their choice of clothing on a warm fall evening like this one. But in a span of weeks, they’d become as close as sisters.

Sometimes you just clicked with a person in a crazy way. All four of us understood that.

Vaughn pulled himself upright and slid over ice teas as we sat.

“I see congratulations are in order,” he said, before I could even get in a word.

“How is it that obvious?” I asked.

“Well, you don’t look so angry,” Meagan said.

This was starting to irritate me. “I don’t always look-“

“Ahp, never mind.”

The three of them set off in a burst of laughter. I buried a treasonous smile and sipped at my ice tea. It flowed down cool and smooth. But I wanted something that burned. Something that stoked the warmth that was settling in me.

“Doesn’t this place have anything stronger?” I asked.

“Man, just shut up and drink your sugar water,” Vaughn said. “We’ll get plenty blasted tonight. You’ll be toasty inside and out.”

Meagan leaned into his arm. “Are we finally going to build a bonfire? Are we going to take our shirts off and dance around?”

“Uh, what now?” Rosa asked. “I did not sign up for that.”

I hugged her in by the shoulder. “What do you think you do out in the wilderness?”

“I don’t know? Lay back, gaze at the stars?”

“We do that too,” Meagan said. “They’re gorgeous out there like you’d never believe. But…after a trip or ten, you realize that they really don’t change.”

“Not in a million years,” Vaughn said. “Whatever new you see up there, it’s just a reflection of where you are on our own planet.

I stared quietly at Vaughn. His eyes lay wide on the dimming day overhead. He was beyond me now, in ways I could have never foreseen.

I flicked my straw wrapper at him. “Christ. Thought you were studying history, not philosophy.”

“History makes you philosophical, bro. There’s a lot of what-ifs nudged in there if you’re really keen on understanding why things worked out the way they did.” He eyed me. “After all, we got just the one history to help us figure out why we became who we are.”

The thought shivered down my spine in a way ice tea never could. “I’d rather not think about the decades lost. Better to think about the possibilities still open.”

“Do you know what these two are talking about?” Rosa asked at Meagan.

“Very rarely.”

Rosa smacked my forearm. “We’re here to celebrate.”

“Yeah,” I took a freezing gulp of tea. “I apologize, Meagan.”

“Aw, it’s fine. I mean your day is way bigger than mine.”

“Nonsense,” Rosa said, grasping Meagan’s wrists. “So how was the first week teaching?”

“Good,” she said. “The kids are super well behaved for middle-schoolers. I’m almost afraid of explaining something wrong.”

“Well, who sends their kids to a magnet school?” Vaughn said. “Old, rich people right? Boring parents, boring kids. Or maybe they installed chips to electrocute them if they said the wrong thing.”

Meagan laughed. “It’s not quite that bad. But yeah, it’s a little like the kids don’t even need me.”

“You already got a big kid of your own to worry about,” I said, flicking my head at Vaughn.

“Aw, he’s tame. I have ways to get him to behave.”

They eyed each other with such warmth that I tugged my own girl in tight. She and I didn’t have two years yet, but we would. That much of the future was certain.

“Anyway,” Meagan said. “I’m only teaching there for a couple years to pay off debt. Once Vaughn graduates, we can go teach somewhere meaningful for a while.”

“And leave me alone here?” Rosa asked.

“I should be the one bringing that up,” I said. “You have family already.”

“Well, I like my family as big as possible and nearby. I can’t go incommunicado for years.”

“I don’t think I can anymore either.”

“Yeah, let’s avoid that,” Vaughn said. “We’ve got no philosophical disputes left, anyway.”

We clasped hands. Vaughn’s hand wasn’t quite as thick as mine, but I felt his strength all the same. He didn’t need me anymore, but we had each other.

“Hold on,” I said. “Didn’t you say you have a cat at home?”

“Yeah.” Vaughn’s brow crinkled.

“What about it?” Meagan asked.

Rosa chimed in. “You’re cat people? How did I not know this?”

“I mean we have one cat,” Vaughn said.

“Oh,” Rosa was shaking her head. “No thanks.”

“You want something slobbering over you?” Meagan asked. “That’s affection?”

“You mean someone who’ll stand by you till the day you die?” I asked.

We set off in a roaring debate that had us burning and glowing in equal measure. It was fierce and hot and cozy like we were already seated by a fire out in the wilderness.

The sky started to glow less bright, and we had to get going. We set the debate aside and headed for our bikes. Vaughn’s saddles already bulged with packets of food and bottles of whiskey.

He passed one of the rolled up tents to me and I fixed it onto my own ride. Just the smell of the soil and grass had me ready for what came ahead. It had been a long, long time since I’d been camped in a place where no one would try to shoot me.

We got astride our choppers, Vaughn and me riding and each of our ladies clutching on in back. One by one, our rumble tore through the air, and we sliced up onto the Atlanta freeway.

In an hour we’d be there, in two we’d be set up, in three we’d be living life large. Rosa’s arms clenched me tightly. She was everything I needed. But the past two weeks had shown me there was more than I wanted. The four of us were a great start. We’d bring more into our world soon, one way or another.

As we made our way out of the Atlanta downtown, I saw Vaughn look up at an exit sign. I didn’t have to read it. I knew where we were.

Off to the right, just past the highway was a gleaming new gas station. Something new where there had been something old. A place built over the land where Vaughn and I had lost our mother. Where we had lost our family. Where we’d lost ourselves, for far too long.

I hoped our mother saw us now. We wore no cuts. I didn’t need one to know my brothers in this world. I had the one that mattered the most at my side again.

We blazed past it quick. It was in the rear-view just an instant and then a turn took even that away.

It was just us, side by side once more, riding free with the women we had chosen to spend our lives with.

I revved the engine and charged boldly into the future that awaited us.

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