I'll Be Home For Christmas (A Coming Home Novella) (6 page)

She’d done this too many times to be upset by another mangled GI. But Carponti would never get used to it.

Not this.

“We’re getting ready to go.” She took a step closer and put her hand on Carponti’s shoulder.

It took everything he had to keep from shattering from that single, human gesture. He swallowed a couple of times before he could speak. “So you’re not going to chop off any body parts while he’s unconscious or anything?”

She smiled gently. “We hope not.”

Carponti snorted quietly. “That wasn’t really a helpful answer.” He tried to offer up a smart-ass grin and failed. “He’ll be okay, right?” he managed.

“We’ll do our best.” Her hand squeezed his shoulder gently. “It’s time for you to go.”

He nodded and stood. He patted Garrison’s hand awkwardly. “Don’t die, all right, old man? ’Cause there’s no telling the amount of trouble I can get into without your old ass keeping me in check.”

He walked out then, before his voice broke any more.

Couldn’t let the boys see him cry. They had another mission in twelve hours. So he stuffed all the emotion down and bolted it closed.

He’d face that fear and sadness and everything else some other time. Another time when hopefully there would be lots of booze to ease some of the pain. But for now? Now he stuffed it down and went back to work.

Because that’s what Garrison would expect him to do.

* * *

“Sergeant Carponti!”

Carponti kept walking, ignoring the voice of that hell-spawned lieutenant. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with LT Randall on a good day and today was definitely not a good day.

“Sergeant, I’m talking to you!”

Carponti’s temper snapped and he rounded on the LT. “What the fuck do you want, LT?”

“Watch your fucking mouth,” Randall sneered.

Carponti sighed dramatically. “You weren’t hugged enough as a child, were you?”

“I’m not in the mood for your smart mouth, Sergeant.”

“And I’m not in the mood for yours.”

Randall stepped into his face. “Your buddy Garrison isn’t around to protect you now. I’m going to have your ass before this deployment is over.”

Carponti smirked. “You can’t do anything to my ass. That’s a violation of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

“You think you’re so funny.”

“I know I’m funny. You, on the other hand, have no such redeeming quality.” He patted the LT’s chest. “What the fuck do you want? I’ve got a squad of men waiting for information on their platoon sergeant, who just got blown all to shit. Oh, but you wouldn’t care about that because you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘care.’ ”

“I need your paperwork on the sensitive items report.”

Carponti swore and stalked off.

“I wasn’t done talking to you, Sergeant.” Randall grabbed his arm.

“I’m done talking to you, LT. Go find my LT for that officer bullshit.” Carponti rounded on him, yanking his arm free. “And if you put your hands on me again, I’m going to break your fucking hand.”

He stalked off, needing to get away from the LT before he really did something stupid. Because as much as he hated LT Randall, the bastard was right about one thing: Garrison had kept Carponti out of a ton of trouble. If Randall wanted to make an example out of Carponti, now was a prime opportunity.

He really didn’t want to call home and tell his wife he’d gotten busted. Maybe he should start watching his mouth.

He grinned bitterly. Yeah right.

* * *

“Everyone tracking?” Carponti straightened from where he’d been leaning over the sand table and looked around at his boys.

Half of them looked dead on their feet. The other half looked shell-shocked from the attack two days ago. And the one after that. And the one after that. Things hadn’t stopped since Garrison had gotten hit. Somehow, they just seemed worse without him.

Their company had endured three more attacks but no more serious injuries. No one was taking things well but in Carponti’s platoon, everyone was acting like Garrison had died and he hadn’t. There was no way he could take the guys out on the road like this. No one had their head in the game.

Goddamn it.

“All right, look. We had a bad mission but Sarn’t G is going to be all right so y’all need to stop moping like a bunch of crybabies.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Besides, he’s going to be so pissed off when he wakes up. He’s got this tube in his dick like this long.” He held his hands shoulder-width apart. “I mean it’s ridiculous.”

“How the hell do you know?” Wilks asked.

Carponti forced himself to grin like it was just another day. “Because I drew a smiley face on it before he left.”

“Bullshit.” This from a skinny kid they called Tigger because he bounced when he played whatever video game they’d stolen from the commo geeks. Tigger was six and a half feet tall and weighed a buck fifty soaking wet.

Carponti placed his palm over his heart. “Hand to God. He’s going to get an awesome Christmas present when he wakes up in Germany or the States or wherever they ship his old ass to.”

Chuckles scattered through the group and Carponti figured it was best not to push his luck. “Everyone rack out. No computers or shit. Just get some fucking sleep. We’re going to be busy as hell tomorrow and I don’t want Tigger falling asleep in the turret again.”

Tigger flipped him off. “One time and I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Carponti blew him a kiss. “Go to bed, sweetheart. If it gets cold, I’ll come snoodle with you.”

He waited until everyone was racked out before killing the lights. The hundred-man bay descended into darkness, lit only by the emergency exit lights near the doors and the occasional flashlight as someone ignored the directive to go to sleep. Carponti couldn’t summon the energy to care about the few rebels.

“You’re not crashing, Sarn’t C?” Wilks’s bunk was at the foot of Carponti’s.

“Nah. I gotta go find LT Miller and the new platoon sergeant and some other shit.” Wilks didn’t leave. Carponti sat up. “What’s wrong?”

Wilks swallowed hard a couple of times. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Sarn’t G’s going to be okay, right?”

“Yeah, man. I saw him. He’s gonna be fine. Now go the fuck to sleep.” The emotions he’d tried to lock down were surfacing, threatening to break free. If the boys saw him fall apart, there was no telling the chaos that would unleash.

So he’d lied. And now he needed to get the hell away from all of them because he was this close to losing his shit completely.

Carponti stalked away from the bay, away from his boys who were all racked out, sleeping off the adrenaline from the constant chaos.

He stalked away. He didn’t care where, he didn’t know where, he just needed to get away.

Garrison was gone. Jesus Christ, putting Garrison on that MEDEVAC was the most god-awful thing he’d ever done.

He slammed back against the nearest barrier, sliding down the concrete. He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, fighting the grief that ripped through him, tearing and slashing and cutting.

His ass collided with the ground and he pulled his knees to his chest and finally let the grief come, ignoring the pain in his ribs. He wept bitterly for his friend, his mentor, his
brother
.

The tears tore out of him, ragged and raw and bitter.

He hadn’t been able to get an update on Garrison. Nothing from that fuckwad lieutenant Randall, nothing from the CO. Trent had been more busted up than Carponti at Garrison’s condition.

For the first time he could remember, Carponti had no jokes, no smart-ass comments. He’d gotten his boys racked out like Garrison would have expected him to do.

And now this? Garrison would whip his ass if he saw Carponti fall apart like a crybaby in some deserted sector of the base where only the camel spiders congregated. But he couldn’t stop. Jesus he couldn’t stop.

He didn’t know how long it was before the tears stopped coming. He sat there as the moon slid over the top of the barrier and illuminated the smoke and the dust swirling beneath the stars. Distant explosions echoed in the night.

He should get up.

He should head back. He wanted to call his wife but the words he needed were just… they were gone. He had nothing. No way to tell her what had happened. It was better that she didn’t know anyway. She’d worry about him and the last thing she needed to do was worry about him.

He’d call her soon. Whenever he felt like he could bullshit his way through a conversation without telling her everything that had happened. He wanted to call her and just listen to her voice, telling him about something at work or griping about the line at the grocery store. God, he’d give anything to go grocery shopping with her. Something so simple.

He just wanted time with his wife. Just a few minutes alone, listening to her talk. Feeling her breathe on his chest. He’d been gone so much.

He’d call her. Soon. But not today. Because as badly as he needed to hear her voice, she’d hear the sadness in his and she’d worry. He didn’t want her to worry. He was terrible at lying to her. Every time he tried to surprise her with flowers or a date night, she caught him.

He dragged his hands over his face. His eyes felt raw and swollen.

He needed to get back. To find LT Miller and check on him. Check on Trent. To
do
something.

But instead, he sat there, staring up at the stars. He wasn’t a praying man. But he sat there, looking at the night sky unable to think of anything except how tore up Garrison had looked in that hospital bed. A whispered plea crossed his lips.

“Please, let him be okay.” His voice broke. His eyes burned.

And after a while, when he was empty and raw, he wiped his eyes, brushed off his pants, and went back to work.

* * *

Nicole stepped back and looked at the tree. It tipped slightly at the top but for the most part, it was straight. She reached for her cell phone in the breast pocket of her husband’s dress shirt and checked it for the umpteenth time that morning. It wasn’t on vibrate. Vic just hadn’t called. She slipped the phone back into her pocket and studied the tree.

She didn’t think she was going to be able to make it any straighter than it already was. Folding her arms over her chest, she simply stood there for a moment and tried to find the courage to climb into the attic and pull down the decorations.

She sighed hard and reached for the glass of wine she’d poured herself before dragging the tree in off the roof of her husband’s truck and into the living room. The scent of fresh pine needles filled the air.

She hadn’t gotten a dreaded phone call from Laura, either, which meant that Vic was probably busy, not hurt. She could console herself with that. She didn’t really have a choice. The wine was sharp and crisp across her tongue, sliding smooth and easy down her throat.

Her laptop was on the kitchen table. No new e-mails from Vic the last fifteen times she’d checked it. She knew he was okay. But she still wanted to hear it in his voice. Something.

But no matter how many times he’d deployed, she’d never been able to explain to him how hard it was to wait for news. She always worried about sounding like a nag. Like he was over there, dodging roadside bombs and she was bitching at him about a phone call. She knew all she was asking for was a phone call but sometimes? It felt like she was asking too much.

She took another look at the slightly tippy tree and took another drink of her wine. The silence from her husband made her miss him; that was all. She hadn’t had a good laugh in, well, forever.

She padded over to her inbox, looking for the last note from Vic.

She smiled. The note was from a week ago. She looked at the box on her kitchen table, filled with junk food and five-dollar previously viewed movies.

She could make him a video, right? It wasn’t much different from having a glass of wine and writing him a dirty letter.

She swallowed the rest of her wine even as her blood warmed at the thought of touching herself for him. She thought of how surprised he’d be—and how thrilled. She smiled.

She was going to need more to drink.

“Why the fuck aren’t your optics tied down to your weapon, soldier?” Carponti looked up as Tigger attempted to stand up straight while the new platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class Iaconelli ripped him a new asshole.

Carponti tossed down what he was doing and strolled over.

“What’s the problem here, Sarn’t Ike?” Carponti said, and stepped between him and Tigger. He hated the nickname Ike, which was why Carponti made every effort to call him that.

It must have looked a little strange having a five-foot-ten ginger kid step between two men who were easily six feet tall but then again, Carponti wasn’t exactly counting on having to get into a fight.

But he damn sure wasn’t going to sit there and let Iaconelli treat Garrison’s boys like they were fucking morons, either.

“Mind your own business, Sergeant,” Iaconelli snapped.

Carponti tipped his chin. “Tigger is in my squad, ergo this is my business, Sergeant. So I say again, what seems to be the problem?”

Iaconelli glared down at him and Carponti couldn’t miss the fact that his eyes were rimmed with red. Either Iaconelli wasn’t a big sleeper or there was something else wrong.

“His optics aren’t tied down.”

Carponti looked over his shoulder at Tigger’s weapon. “They’re tied down just fine.”

“No they’re not. It’s not done like this.” Iaconelli held up his weapon, which had some intricate mixture of five-fifty cord and hundred mile an hour tape securing his optics to his weapon. “This is how we do it in my old platoon.”

“Well,” and Carponti turned and held up Tigger’s weapon, “this is how we do it in Garrison’s platoon.”

“This isn’t Garrison’s platoon anymore,” Iaconelli snapped.

Carponti handed Tigger back his weapon. “If you have a new standard, tell us. Don’t come in here and get your panties in a twist and start yelling. That’s not how we do things here.”