Stone Cold (30 page)

What he wasn’t expecting was to find out he was in love with the same girl as one of his trainees.

One day
, several weeks after he’d completed his training with Josh, they were hanging out waiting to get their orders when Josh decided to show pictures of his girlfriend to Conall and the other guys for the first time. Up until then, he hadn’t let anyone know anything about his relationship status.

“Somehow
, someone pulled some strings and I’m going home next week to see her for her birthday.”

Josh tossed a few pictures to Conall.

“We’ve been dating for a couple of years and I’m totally in love with Hannah.”

Conall’s heart skipped a beat when he heard her name. He was more than afraid to look at the pictures but he reasoned that there was virtually no way it could be the same girl he’d fallen
immediately in love with on a boat several years ago.

As he picked up the pictures his heart skipped more beats. There in his hands, he was holding pictures of the girl he’d been hopelessly in love with since he’d first laid eyes on her.

His hands were trembling as he concealed his angst. His heart was being torn in two and yet he couldn’t put them down. He wanted to keep them, to be able to look at them forever but at the same time he wanted to throw them away. He didn’t want to have to imagine Hannah with another man, especially a man who’d become his friend.

Sadistically
, Conall sat there and looked at, no stared at the photos. She was older but even more beautiful than he’d remembered. Like before, he couldn’t take his eyes away from hers. It was as if she was there with him, in the flesh, looking back into his. He could feel the tears rising up inside his chest with a pain as great as anything he’d ever felt.

Choking back the tears, he finally found the courage to speak. “She’s beautiful - very lovely. You’re a very lucky man.”

After one last look, he slowly handed the pictures back to Josh.

“Thanks man. Yeah, I’m so in love with her but I
always get the feeling that she isn’t really in love with me. I mean, I think she loves me but not in the same way I love her. I’ve always wondered if her heart belongs to someone else.”

Conall couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Maybe it wasn’t a match made in heaven. With cautious optimism, he sought answers from Josh.

“Has she ever said anything to make you think that? What does she do that makes you think she doesn’t love you the same?”

Josh put the pictures back in his footlocker then reclined on his bunk.

“Well
for one thing, her mom and she would always take these trips once a year to see her aunt in NYC and every time she came home she seemed distant, like she didn’t want to be with me. I asked her once if I could go with her but she said no and never offered any reason except that it was her and her mom’s special thing they did together since she was born.”

Conall started to feel a bit better.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, there is something else that’s kind of private but I’m wondering what it means. The night before I left for basic training, I tried to have sex with her for the first time and long story short we ended up not doing anything and haven’t yet. I get the feeling that she wants to do it but just not with me.”

Conall’s heart soared. He didn’t want to get too excited but he was hoping it had to be because she was in love with him – that had to be the reason. He wanted it to be the reason anyway.

While he went from feeling the lowest he ever felt to elation in a matter of minutes, he still felt bad for Josh.

“I don’t know what to tell you man. It really sucks to not know where you stand. I’m sure everything will work out the way it’s supposed to though.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking. I keep asking myself if I made a mistake by joining the army and leaving her.”

Conall remembered thinking that himself on more than one occasion.

“I know what you mean. I
’ve often wondered the same thing.”

“Y
ou have a girlfriend?”

Conall hesitated as he
thought about how to answer Josh’s question without giving himself away.

“I’m in love with a girl, yes.”

“Is she in love with you?”

“I think she is. At least I hope she is.”

“Do you carry any pictures of her with you?”

“Only in my mind right now. She’s safer that way.
”

“Oh, right
. Well hang onto her no matter what it takes.”

“Oh I plan on it. She’s one of a kind.”

After seeing Josh’s pictures of Hannah, Conall was deliriously happy. He remembered how attracted he’d been to her when she was fifteen years old but what a knockout she’d become at nineteen.

If there’d been any doubt before, n
o matter whom he was dating or who she was dating, he had it in his mind that he’d always try to meet her again no matter what.

He was jealous that Josh was going to get to see her for her birthday but it was only for one day. Besides, the signs were on the wall that they’d be deployed within a couple of weeks or so and then who knows the next time they’d be able to see each other.

It was almost two weeks to the day that they did get their deployment orders as Conall had suspected. Josh had gone to Hannah’s birthday party and had already been back for a week when they received them.

*****

Conall was still thinking about the past when the plane caught some turbulence and jolted him back to his present surroundings.

Both
he and Josh’s platoon were on their way. He looked around and could see that the smiles the men wore on their faces a few short hours ago had turned into stern stares. It was natural to be somewhat fearful of the unknown; it would be inhuman not to be, but Conall was glad to finally be getting closer to putting the skills he’d been trained in to good use.

His mind
kept reminding him that he’d miss seeing Hannah again. He knew she’d be there, waiting as she probably had done every year he’d not been able to make it. He hoped she knew he’d wanted to be there too.

Several minutes later, the plane landed. Conall had been
right again. He was in Iraq. His spotter Ryan Danick had arrived with the rest of the sniper teams on a different plane. He and Ryan were to be with a special operations unit and they would receive their mission orders from there.

A
fter the plane landed, he didn’t have a chance to see or speak to Josh again. He’d taught him everything he knew and it was up to Josh to take care of himself – no more training.

*****

Over the next five months, Conall had gone on at least two hundred missions. Although there was no such thing as an average day in the life of a sniper, most of the missions were for reconnaissance.

While they were moving to their objective he and
Ryan would look for other targets of opportunity. Sometimes they walked all day to get to their position and sometimes they had to blend into their surroundings, laying there watching over a position all day long. If they weren’t in the field, they were training at the barracks.

Conall was great at his job. He had to be or an entire platoon could be compromised if he failed to complete his mission. He called all the shots from planning and coordinating the mission with command, to having the final say in the field to determine the route, position, rendezvous point
, and escape route.

He and
Ryan depended on each other for survival. Most of the time, they were on their own and they had to work together perfectly like a well oiled machine to successfully accomplish their mission.

Due to the number of missions, after
about four months, they were given leave. This is when Conall returned to the states to resume his college courses.

His first leave was in the fall of 2003. When he went home,
Addison was waiting for him. She’d transferred to his college and they began spending almost every day together.

Much to his dislike, s
he’d taken a job as a Hooter’s waitress because she needed money for college. He thought she could do better at a more respectable position where the dress requirement was more conservative and covered her female assets.

As much as he didn’t want to think about it, he had to admit the jo
b did fit her personality and ultimately he lost the battle. She continued flaunting herself for tips.

Conall wanted to find a job as well to help with his living expenses. The army was paying for his college tuition but he needed
more to live on because he found out that having a girlfriend was expensive.

His friend
Max had been working as a male dancer in a club. He introduced Conall to the owner who was immediately interested in hiring him due to his muscular physique and good looks.

Conall resisted at first. He was way too shy to be able to dance in front of anyone, let alone wearing nothing more than a g string. The only way he would ever be able to do this is if he was drunk and that was not something he was remotely interested in.

He continued to look for work but with minimum wage jobs being the only thing available he decided to find out more about dancing.

Max was making about two
thousand dollars to dance two nights per week at an upscale club. The women weren’t allowed to touch them and most of it was for private bachelorette parties. As much as he hated the thought, Conall decided to try it. The worst that would happen is that he’d quit if he didn’t like it.

After several months, Conall had had enough. The money was great but he felt like it was too degrading. People assumed that because of the way he looked, he was a player, a playboy, a sleazy womanizer
. This was the farthest thing from the truth.

The way the women would cattle call and try to touch him and rub up against him was nothing short of disgusting to Conall. He was a one woman man and he had no desire to satisfy the untamed sexual fantasies of
the mostly middle aged, unsatisfied, wild women who frequented the club and bachelorette parties.

He wished
Addison would’ve been dead set against it but the opposite was true. It shouldn’t have surprised him that she was all for it given her personality. She wanted him to keep dancing for as long as possible because she thought it was hot.

All he could think about was ho
w he was certain Hannah would’ve begged him not to do it. She was the kind of girl who believed in what he believed in; that a person’s body should be saved for their significant other and not for the world to objectify. Hannah would want to be the only one he shared his intimate self with and that’s what he wanted too.

With that in mind, Conall
decided to quit dancing after three months much to his girlfriend’s disappointment.

While he was still on leave,
Addison threw Conall a huge 21
st
birthday party. She spared no expense but as he found out later when the Visa bill came, she’d used his credit card to pay for everything.

This wasn’t the first time she’d spent more than enough of his money. Nearly every Friday and Saturday night since he’d been home, he and Addison would go out on the town. He’d been okay with that except she would invite her friends to come along and then expect him to pay the bar tab which easily ran close to
five hundred dollars every weekend.

Conall was too nice to deny
Addison anything she wanted. She had a way of making him do things he really didn’t want to do and spending money was no exception. He justified her wants by reminding himself that they only saw each other several times a year for about four months so she deserved to have what she wanted.

What he
wanted was to spend more alone time with her without her friends. He had no interest in them and if he and Addison were going to be together, he wanted to get to know her as much as possible before he had to go back to Iraq. She felt differently and wanted to have as many people around as possible. She was the life of the party and would rather be surrounded by a group of friends as opposed to being alone with her boyfriend.

It was a good thing Conall had
been deployed again after the fall semester. He’d made a lot of money dancing but had spent at least half of it on Addison and her friends. He also needed some alone time and there was plenty of that to be had when he was waiting for however long it took to spot his target in the field. It could be hours or days and that was exactly what he was comfortable with. He couldn’t wait to go out on his next mission.

It was the beginning of January 2004 and
Conall was going to the airport alone. Addison didn’t bother to get up to see him off because she was too tired from partying the night before.

He turned around one last time to look at her before he walked out the door.

Shaking his head in disappointment he said, “April can’t come soon enough.”