Semper Fi (25 page)

Halfway there, Cal turned onto a side road and pulled off. He twisted the key and the engine stopped, rattling a few times before going quiet. The rain had intensified, and even through the trees it beat down on the truck, drumming on the roof as they sat in silence. For a moment Jim could have closed his eyes and been back in the Pacific.

Finally Cal spoke. “I know you’re ashamed of how you feel. Of what we’re doing together. I understand why, even though it hurts me.”

An iron band circled Jim’s chest. “The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

“I know. I understand that it’s all new for you. But no one can tell, Jim. Believe me, I know a thing or two about hiding who I am and how I feel.”

Jim took a shaky breath. “I wasn’t thinking straight. All of a sudden the thought was there and growing out of control. I can’t explain it.” Tentatively, he reached for Cal’s hand on the seat between them. “I’m sorry. It’s all so new. I feel so much. It scares me.”

Cal turned his palm up and clasped Jim’s hand. “It’s okay. Jim, I didn’t say a word to Rebecca. I wouldn’t.”

“I know. I don’t understand what happened.” He groaned. “You’re right— she’s really going to think I don’t like her now.”

Cal peered intently. “What is it with her?”

Jim shrugged. “I only really knew her by sight before Stephen asked her out. Then she was everywhere. Stephen always wanted to bring her along, even when we went fishing. She was always there, hanging off him. Stephen and I were never alone anymore.”

“Ah.” Cal smiled softly.

“What?”

“You were jealous.”

“Jealous?” Jim sputtered and yanked his hand free. “Why in heaven’s name would I be jealous?”

“Until he met her, I bet it was just you and Stephen together most of the time, huh?”

“Well, yes. When you grow up in the country, you spend the most time with your neighbors. We went to the same school. He was a good friend.”

“Then Rebecca came along with her red lips and silky hair and big tits. She was everything you weren’t.”

Jim shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“And Stephen wanted to spend time with her instead of you.”

“Of course. He was completely smitten with her.” A light bulb went off, and Jim sat up straighter. “Wait—if you’re trying to say I had feelings for
Stephen,
you’re way off base.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Cal’s smile had taken on the gleam of a smirk.

“Cal, that’s ridiculous! Stephen was my friend. Nothing more.”

“I was nothing more until recently.”

Jim shook his head. “That’s different.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But…” Jim had to admit he’d resented Rebecca for no good reason when she’d come into Stephen’s life. “I didn’t mind her so much after I met Ann.”

Cal wasn’t teasing now. “Why was that?”

“Because she and Ann would talk each other’s ears off, and…” He swallowed hard, the truth dislodging. “And I had Stephen to myself again.”

“I get it, Jim. Believe me, I get it. But none of it was Rebecca’s fault. So give her a break, okay? She’s a good woman.”

Jim shook his head, amazed by his own obtuseness. “You must think I’m ridiculous.”

“No.” Cal brushed Jim’s hair back from his forehead. “Sometimes we all need a push to see things clearly.”

Stephen had been a good friend, and Jim still mourned his death. But whatever his buried, confused emotions had been all those years ago, they didn’t hold a candle to what he felt for Cal, which was so deep inside him he knew it would never shake free. “It was nothing like this. Like you and me. A crush, maybe. With you it’s so much more.”

Cal’s eyes darkened and he tugged Jim over, kissing him hard. The staccato beat of the rain on the roof matched Jim’s heart as their mouths opened, tongues questing as the spark blazed to life. Jim clutched Cal’s plaid shirt, desperate to feel his strong body.

The drone of an engine and squelch of tires filtered through Jim’s consciousness just as Cal sprang back behind the wheel, breathing hard. Through the pouring rain, Jim couldn’t make out the driver of the other truck as it passed, and was fairly certain the person couldn’t see them clearly either.

As the truck disappeared around a bend, Jim met Cal’s eyes. They burst out laughing, and all the tension and dread Jim had felt dissolved. “Let’s go home.”

With a grin, Cal turned the key and revved the engine.

“Speedy! Can we borrow your blanket?” Jim’s whisper was almost lost in the midnight downpour.

Speedy crawled over the tree roots. “Sure thing. It’s not doing me any good.”

Cal took the blanket and added it to his and Jim’s, already spread out over Sully. Sully’s teeth chattered, and he murmured almost constantly, the fever and chills wracking his increasingly slight frame. Cal gave Sully’s head a pat, wishing there was more they could do. “There you go, pal. It’ll warm you right up.”

Jim sighed. “How could they send him back to the line? At least in the aid station he could keep dry.”

“Said there was nothing else they could do for him,” Speedy whispered. “They needed the bed. I heard a couple boys from Dog Company got their legs blown off. Couldn’t move ’em out right away. Guess we’re lucky up here.”

The company was closer to the airfield now, on higher ground. “Poor bastards.” Cal laughed humorlessly. “At least they’re off this godforsaken island.”

Speedy kept his voice low. “Did you see some of the other guys in the platoon got nailed yesterday?”

“Yeah.” As more men died around them, Cal found himself creating a distance between the dead and the living in his mind. Once they were gone, he tried not to think of them at all.

Sully shook, coughing and writhing. Speedy whistled. “Pistol,” he hissed. “Pass over your blanket.”

“Won’t do him any fucking good,” Pete grumbled. But he still tossed over the sodden bundle of cloth.

Jim piled the blanket on top. Jim murmured to Sully, “The fever’ll break soon. You’ll be okay.” To Cal he added, “He won’t get better out here. We’re a three-man mortar team. He could barely hold himself upright today, let alone the gun.”

Cal shrugged. “We’ll make do. He’s got both his legs. That’s something, I guess.”

Speedy piped up. “Remember when the rain used to actually stop sometimes?”

They all grumbled. Plopping down beside Jim in the muck, Cal fiddled with a ruined cigarette. Keeping their mortar rounds dry was the priority, and even tucked deep in his pack, cigarettes got soaked.

He ran a hand over his head, glad for his shorn hair. None of them wore their helmets when they didn’t have to because they felt more claustrophobic than ever. Now in mid-November the downpour was an unrelenting misery as rainy season was upon them.

“At least we’re on higher ground now. The river must be overflowing. Those crocs could be anywhere down there,” Speedy said. “They should move the galley tent.”

Cal smirked. “I don’t think the crocs want our wormy rice.”

“Corpsman says we should eat the worms. Good protein,” Jim noted.

“I wouldn’t listen to anything that son of a bitch has to say.”

Speedy snorted. “Aw, Hollywood. Don’t hold a grudge now. You know that ulcer was infected.”

“That may be, but I don’t want that rusty scalpel anywhere near my leg again.” Cal poked at his right shin, wincing.

Jim caught his hand and pulled it away. “Stop that. You’re going to make it worse. Talk all you like, but you sure don’t want flies hatching in your leg. The corpsman did you a favor.”

There was movement in the foliage, and they tensed as one, rifles at the ready. Then Big Joe’s low voice drawled, “Looky what we found.” He appeared with Buster and Smith. “Killed all those slit-eyed fuckers yesterday and now we’re gonna drink their hooch.”

Pete shot to his feet, more animated than Cal had seen him since New River. “That’s a fucking beautiful sight.”

Cradling an enormous bottle in his arms, Joe struggled to sit. They all formed a circle and passed around the container of sake. It was so big they could barely lift it, and they laughed as they took turns slurping from the bottle. The wine was too warm, but Cal didn’t care, gulping it greedily.

Grimacing, Jim drank, and after a while he swayed slightly, nudging Cal’s shoulder, clumsy with the bottle. Buster’s laughter rumbled. “Johnny, you’d better stop. If those Nips come tonight we need your level head on straight or we’re fucked.”

Jim scoffed, slurring slightly. “Me? Nah.”

“To Johnny!” Speedy heaved up the bottle and tipped the wine down his throat before passing it on.

They drank a few more rounds, and Jim leaned heavier onto Cal. Cal’s head spun. “Time to hit the hay.”

He tugged Jim away from the circle, back to where Sully still shivered in the grip of his fever in the shallow trench. They settled in nearby, Jim pliable in Cal’s arms as Cal arranged them on their sides, spooning up behind Jim’s back the way they had those freezing nights out on the rifle range at Parris Island.

Cal was parched, and he gulped water from his canteen before pressing it into Jim’s hand. “Drink or we’re going to have a hell of a headache. That sake’s drier than my father’s favorite vermouth.”

Jim swallowed obediently before settling back down, squirming closer to Cal. They’d dug the slit trench with a makeshift drain on the downhill side, and the water poured over them, but at least they weren’t swimming in it. Of course they were still swimming in mud, and Cal wasn’t sure which was worse.

But one thing was wonderful, and that was Jim, warm and lean and pressing against him. Cal pillowed Jim’s head with his arm, Jim murmuring and drunker than Cal had ever seen him. He could feel Jim’s lips moving against the skin of his forearm, and Cal imagined those lips on his own. On his body.

Of course this was an exceedingly dangerous train of thought, and Cal’s prick twitched.

God, how he wanted to roll Jim onto his back and kiss him until they were breathless, hard and wanting, hips thrusting together. They’d sink into the mud and no one would find them. They could stay there forever, bodies entwined.

“Cal?”

“Hmm?”

“If I don’t make it off this island, you need to do something for me.”

“Shh. Go to sleep.”

Jim gripped Cal’s wrist. “I mean it. Promise.”

“Okay. What’s on your mind?”

“I told my little girl I’d get her a horse. Had to sell ours a few years back when things were tight. I swore when I got home she’d have one.”

“Sure. But you’ll be able to get her that horse yourself. You’re going to go home to your family safe and sound. I’ll make sure of it.”

Jim exhaled audibly, his breath hot against Cal’s forearm. “You’re the best buddy a guy could have.”

“You should get drunk more often. It’s good for my ego.” Cal resisted the urge to press a kiss to Jim’s head.

After mumbling something Cal couldn’t make out, Jim went quiet. Just when Cal thought he’d gone to sleep, he spoke again.

“She won’t even know me.”

“Of course she will.”

“We could be out here for years. If not Guadalcanal, then some other island. We could die tomorrow. Tonight. I might never see her again. Even if I do, she’ll be so big.”

“You’re her daddy. Nothing’s going to change that. I promise.” Cal murmured reassurances as the rain fell, his lips close to Jim’s ear long after Jim snored softly.

As Cal eked out the detail on the last of the dollhouse’s shutters, he leaned closer to the lantern. His hair was still damp from a shower, and he hadn’t bothered to put on even an undershirt over his jeans in the sultry evening. He’d considered coming out in just his boxers.

The pickup rattled in the distance, and Finnigan barked happily when Jim returned to the barn. Cal chuckled. “He missed you. But I fed him a few treats, so he didn’t miss you
too
much.”

Finnigan barked as if in agreement, and Jim scratched behind his ears. “So fickle, eh boy?”

“In his defense, I do give out delicious treats.” Cal carved the small block of wood carefully. “Everything okay at the O’Brien’s?”

“Yeah. I managed to help Mrs. O’Brien talk Gerald into going to the hospital. Doctors make the worst patients.”