I'll Be Home For Christmas (A Coming Home Novella) (9 page)

“Carponti, I swear to Christ—” He broke off listening to the radio.

“What? I was giving you a compliment.” He pulled the fabric away from Iaconelli’s ass, tearing the rest of his uniform all to hell. “Well, it could be worse,” Carponti mumbled.

“Stop the goddamned bleeding and get the hell away from my ass,” Iaconelli growled. “Roger that, Reaper Main. Two vehicles.”

Carponti focused on the task at hand, which started with cutting a bigger hole in Iaconelli’s trousers. He pulled the end off his CamelBak and flooded the wound with water so he could see what he was dealing with.

“Oh, you’re not going to like this,” he said.

There was a piece of metal sticking out of Iaconelli’s buttock. A small one the size of a penny, but still. It was a sharp penny.

“What?” Iaconelli twisted to look over his shoulder.

“Are there any arteries in the ass cheek?” Carponti asked.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. ’Cause I can put this dressing on your wound but, well, I’m thinking it’s going to hurt worse than if we wait for the medics to pull this thing out of your ass.” He beamed as Iaconelli glared at him. “I’ve always wanted to use that phrase in a sentence.”

Iaconelli turned purple. Yes, definitely purple. “Just… just use your Leatherman or something and take care of business.”

“This is going to hurt.” Carponti chuckled and pulled his Leatherman out. “One. Two. Two and a half…”

“Just fucking do it,” Iaconelli snapped.

But Carponti had been counting on irritating Iaconelli with the countdown. The minute he’d snapped, Carponti had seized the shrapnel and tugged.

Iaconelli hissed and swore between gritted teeth. The shrapnel popped free. Blood flowed freely but he got the pressure dressing in place. Kind of. “There’s really no good way to tape something to your ass this way,” he muttered, more to himself than to Iaconelli. He started cutting strips off Iaconelli’s tattered uniform to tie the bandage in place. “It’s going to take more than a Band-aid.”

He leaned around Iaconelli. “You want to save this?” He held the piece of metal in the tongs of his pliers.

Iaconelli grunted and waved Carponti off. He plunked the metal into Iaconelli’s pocket. He’d want that later. Maybe. If not, he could sell it on eBay or something.

* * *

You’ve reached Nicole Carponti. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back.

Carponti’s heart sank in his chest as her voice mail beeped. “Hey baby, it’s me. Just got back from taking a piece of metal out of my platoon sergeant’s ass. I think this means we’re BFFs now.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Sorry I missed you. I’ll call again soon.”

He hung up, breathing deeply to push aside the disappointment in his chest. He walked away from the call center back toward the open bay where he and the guys were bunking and figured he’d try to get some sleep.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t get blown up in the middle of his nap. That would suck. One of the life support areas had got hit last week. Luckily the guy who’d lived in that trailer had been banging the division commander’s aide de camp across the base at the time so he hadn’t been home.

It was nice to just sweep a bunch of shit into the trash instead of having to attend another ramp ceremony saluting a flag-draped coffin on its final flight. God but he hated those ceremonies.

He swallowed and stepped into the bay.

There was mail on his cot. From a few feet away, he could see his wife’s neat handwriting on a small package.

He suddenly couldn’t breathe. He sat down, back to the rest of the bay. Iaconelli had taken over Garrison’s cot but he wasn’t there right now. He was busy getting his ass stitched back together. It was as close to privacy as Carponti could get without asking Jackson to use his commo shelter, and Jackson was on a mission down at Camp Victory or something so he wasn’t about to go ask one of the other kids.

His hand shook like a schoolgirl’s as he sliced the top off and pulled out the letter and…

And a CD. In neat block letters was the word
private.

He opened the letter.

He could almost hear her scolding him with a smile on her face. Every emotion he’d locked down came tumbling out and he blinked hard and quick against the wetness in his eyes. He’d guard that CD with his life.

Carponti sat for a long moment, just reading her letter again and again. The sound of her voice in his head was as clear as if he was on the phone with her.

He wasn’t sure if he dared to read the letter. It wouldn’t be cool if he started walking around with a raging hard-on in the middle of a bay full of dudes. Then again, it would probably piss Iaconelli off to no end. He laughed. He should leave a crumpled up, wet paper towel on Iaconelli’s cot just to screw with him.

It would be funny to watch him freak the hell out.

’Course, he might actually knock Carponti’s teeth out. That would certainly put a damper on things. Go home after the war and talk to his wife like the Gopher on Winnie the Pooh.

Carponti read his wife’s letter once more, then slowly turned to the next page.

Carponti was going to embarrass himself if he stood up. It was going to be damn near impossible for him to stand up, let alone make it to the latrines a quarter mile away without anyone seeing his erection. He pulled his pillow over his lap and just sat there, reading her words again, hearing her voice in his head.

He smiled and couldn’t care less. His wife loved him enough to violate several federal laws and a couple of general orders, and send him a dirty letter and, better yet, a dirty video.

He curled into his bunk and onto his side. For a brief moment, he shut out the world and thought about his wife. For a moment, he forgot about the shit war in the shithole country and all the bad things that had been happening recently.

He closed his eyes, and let his mind drift back to the States. To the beautiful sexy woman waiting for him.

* * *

Nicole stepped out of the shower and wrapped her body in a towel. She was exhausted after pulling thirty-six hours of duty. She’d barely managed to stay awake long enough to shower but the entire time she’d been in there, she’d been listening for the sound of her phone.

She padded through their bedroom toward her phone.

Missed call
.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

The voice mail notice vibrated in her hand. Tears welled in her eyes as she listened to Vic’s message.

He sounded terrible. Her heart cracked in her chest and she sat down on their bed, giving into the exhaustion and the sadness. She was so tired of the war.

She curled into a tight ball and wept bitterly. Vic’s voice was so off. So tired. He was avoiding her. He always did that when bad things happened. She knew it but she still didn’t like it.

She’d prayed he’d call, that she’d get to hear his voice. But she heard his voice. And it wasn’t enough. Damn it, it wasn’t enough.

She listened to his voice mail again, cursing herself for forgetting to turn the vibrate off.

She pushed up off the bed and wiped her eyes, then went back into the bathroom. She found his cologne and sprayed it on her wrists and chest. A lonely ritual, but one that kept her sane.

Then she pulled on a pair of his old sweatpants and climbed onto his side of the bed, hugging a pillow close and breathing in his scent, and trying to ignore the breaking of her heart in her chest.

“Hey Carponti.”

Carponti frowned. He’d been having an amazing dream about his wife, her deployment boyfriend and a bottle of lotion. He really didn’t want it to end but damn it, someone was poking him in the back.

“Unless you’re checking my kidneys, stop touching me,” Carponti mumbled.

“Wake up, man. You gotta hear this.” It was Tigger.

Carponti groaned and sat up. “What the hell is so important you had to wake me up?”

“We’re on lockdown.”

Carponti frowned. “Why?”

“There’s a bunch of shit going down about some missing optics.”

Something sank in the vicinity of Carponti’s heart. Missing optics were on par with missing weapons systems. As in really not good. “What missing optics?”

Tigger shrugged. “I don’t know but everyone’s talking about it. Randall’s apparently got to go get sworn statements from some of the guys back in the States. And there’s rumors that the commander is going to get fired.”

“Why the hell does the LT need to go back to the States to get statements?”

“It’s what everyone’s saying. I figured you knew.”

Carponti shook his head. “No, I haven’t heard anything. And for the record, news about that fucktard Lieutenant Randall was not important enough to wake me up from dreaming about my wife.”

Tigger stood, looking completely unfazed. “Yeah, well, something’s going on. You might want to find the platoon sergeant and see what’s up. I think we’re on lockdown until the commander figures this stuff out.”

Carponti swore and dragged on his uniform. “I’ll go see what’s going on,” he said. He was still irritated that he’d been woken up for some drama at the company but he’d lied when he’d told Tigger it wasn’t important enough to wake him up.

Missing optics was definitely on the list of things to wake someone up for.

He crossed the base quickly, walking into the company ops. Since the new soldier had started working up there, the ops had gotten decorated with more and more Christmas stuff. Someone needed to give the ops clerks more to work on before it exploded with Christmas cheer.

He walked into the commander’s office without knocking. Trent was busy typing away and motioned for Carponti to sit while he finished whatever he’d been working on.

“So what’s this I hear about you firing the XO?” Carponti asked.

“Sadly, I’m not firing him.” He tossed his glasses on the desk. “I don’t have any cause to fire him.”

“Missing equipment seems like it might be a good reason,” Carponti said.

“Yeah, well, he’s investigating said missing equipment, not the cause of it.”

“Sure. Whatever you say.”

Trent frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Carponti looked around the office, searching for the words he needed. “I’m just thinking that Randall’s got some integrity issues, that’s all.”

“Anything you can prove?” Trent asked cautiously.

“Nothing other than supposition and rumor,” Carponti said. “But is he really being sent home?”

“If he can’t find the stuff here, yeah.” Trent grinned humorlessly. “And on top of all of that, I have to report to the commander that we’ve done a hundred percent weigh-in. So are you ready to go get a class on how to properly evaluate body fat?”

“You’re serious?”

“Yep. We’ve got professional development class in…” he glanced at his watch. “Five minutes. I get to be the guinea pig for first sergeant to demonstrate the proper conduct of the army’s body fat test.”

Carponti sighed dramatically. “I’m quite confident I have never been to war before when garrison broke out. You realize this is stupid, right?”

Trent stood, circling the desk. He slapped Carponti on the shoulder. “Oh yes. Very much so.”

* * *

Nicole stood in the lounge at her office headquarters and scanned the news ticker for any information about her husband’s base. She flicked the vibrate button on her cell phone. On and off. On. Off.

“Hey Nicole, we’re going out for drinks to celebrate. Are you…?” Major Olivia Hale stuck her head in the door then paused and came all the way into the break area. “Are you okay?”

Nicole offered a smile and hoped it passed for a reasonable facsimile. “I’m fine. Just waiting for news, that’s all.”

“Yeah, it’s been a bad week for attacks across the board.” Olivia glanced at the TV. “I’m sure your husband is fine,” she said quietly.

“I know. I just, I worry, that’s all.”

Olivia sighed and tucked her hands into her pockets. “A few of us are going out to drink to celebrate putting that sex offender in jail. Want to join us?”

Nicole glanced down at her cell phone. Somehow, it felt wrong going out to the bar while her husband was deployed, suffering through God only knew what. She shook her head slowly. “I’ll pass, thanks. I’ve got some last minute Christmas stuff to do.”

“Christmas isn’t for another ten days. You obviously don’t know the meaning of the phrase ‘last minute,’ ” Olivia said dryly.