Something Like Rain (Something Like... Book 8) (28 page)

He already knew where this was going. “Uneventful.”

“Jason didn’t apologize?”

“He did this morning.”

Kelly stopped dead, the flow of students forced to move around them. “This morning?”

William nodded. “Yeah. At the pool.”

“You’re still seeing him?”

The question was loud enough for everyone in the hallway to overhear.

William gritted his teeth. “I’m still his friend.”

Kelly studied him anew, no doubt noticing his anger. His voice was quieter when he spoke again. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” William said, the fight leaving him. “It’s just nice to have a friend again.”

“Jason doesn’t want to be your friend,” Kelly stressed. “He wants to be
with
you.”

William shrugged. “That’s been set straight.”

“Has it?”

“Yes!”

Kelly shook his head and started moving forward again. “What about those girls you used to hang out with? Holly. Or Lilith.”

“Lily,” William corrected, “and if you’ll recall, she wanted to be with me too. I can’t help it if I’m irresistible.”

Kelly ignored the attempt at humor. “Just tell me one thing. Honestly. I can deal with Jason wanting you, but how do you feel about him? Are you tempted? At all?”

William chose his answer carefully. “Everyone has thoughts. You told me that from the very beginning.”

“You can look all you want, and you can fantasize about whomever you like. That’s totally fine. What I’m asking is if you’re tempted to do more.”

“I made a promise.” One that was becoming harder and harder to keep. When he saw how unsatisfied Kelly was with this answer, he amended it. “Temptation hasn’t made me forget that promise, and it won’t. There’s a reason I’m standing at your side right now.” Dedication? Maybe at one time. Lately though, all William truly felt was obligation.

* * * * *

“Do you have any questions for me?”

William sat across from the recruiter, or as she had introduced herself, Petty Officer 1st Class Mary Sheffield. He was in heaven, so excited by his surroundings that his nervousness had dissipated completely. He loved the patriotic posters, the boat model she kept on her desk, and especially the photo of her graduating company. William struggled to keep his happiness in check, which was the opposite of how he felt a mere two hours ago. When school had ended for the day, William parted ways with Kelly, using work as an excuse. After riding his bike to his mother’s house, he showered and put on slacks, a button-up shirt, and a tie. Then he had borrowed her car. He abhorred
driving, but the nearest recruitment office was more than an hour away. William had gone exactly the speed limit, no matter how many drivers sped past him on the highway, his hands shaky and palms covered in sweat by the time he reached his destination—a strip mall on the edge of San Antonio.

“I admire your dedication.” This was one of the first things Officer Sheffield—or Mary, as she generously allowed him to call her—had said. “A phone interview wouldn’t do?”

“No way,” William had replied. “I’m way too excited. I also didn’t expect to get called so soon. I admire your efficiency.”

That had earned him a laugh. Then they had gotten down to business. They went over key points of his application together. Mary let William talk a little about himself, then she showed him a video. Afterwards she went into more detail about where a potential career with the Coast Guard could take him, but William knew it all by heart. That’s what made her final question so difficult to answer. What else did he need to know? The truth was, Mary needed to know more. He figured it was better she hear it now rather than later.

“I was in a car accident,” he said. “A pretty bad one. I was the driver, and my passenger… I was careless.”

Mary leaned forward, hands reaching for the desktop keyboard. “Were you charged with anything? Manslaughter?”

“No,” William said. “No!” he added when he realized what she was implying. “The passenger didn’t die, but he did lose his leg.”

“Did any of this go to court?”

“No. Does it decrease my chances?”

“That depends on the circumstances.”

“It was just an accident. One I’d really like to make up for.”

Mary sighed. “Many of us have extraneous reasons for joining the Coast Guard. I’m passionate about keeping America’s waters safe, but that began when I was just a child and my older sister drowned.”

“Oh my gosh! I’m sorry!”

“Thank you. After her death, I became obsessed with how I could have helped. I wasn’t there when it happened, but I wanted to be prepared in case the same happened to someone else. I learned CPR, took extra swimming classes, and got a crush on just about every lifeguard I met.” She laughed. “This eventually led me to the Coast Guard, and while my sister’s death isn’t the sole reason I joined, I’m not sure my life would have taken the same path otherwise. I have to ask, were you drinking during this accident? Or under the influence of drugs?”

“No.” William shook his head. “I’ve always stayed away from all that. I wanted to join the Coast Guard before the accident, but now I also want to make amends by dedicating myself to helping others.” That’s what he had attempted with Kelly, but William didn’t see what else he could do. If he was out there saving lives—helping tow stranded ships back to shore, or pulling people from frigid waters—surely that would be more valuable than carrying someone’s backpack between classes.

“If you make it through the AST program, you’ll have plenty of opportunities for redemption.”

William nodded. “I’m determined to become a rescue swimmer. I won’t let anything stop me. If I get accepted, that is.”

Mary clicked her mouse a few times. “You seem like an ideal candidate to me. I noticed we have an application from almost two years ago with the same name but a different address. This one on Hillcrest. Is that you?”

“Yeah!” William said. “I didn’t think it had gone through.” That had been so long ago. He had filled out the form online, paced the room trying to work up the courage to send it, and when he finally clicked the damn button, the website had given him a timeout error.

“Nobody followed up with you on your initial application?”

“I didn’t hear a peep,” William said. “No email, no phone calls, nothing.”

“Hm. Well, most of the information is the same. I could combine the applications. The only benefit would be that it demonstrates your early interest. There’s no point in delayed enlistment, unless you have other plans after graduation.”

“The sooner, the better,” William said with a grin. On the edge of his mind, he was fending off images of Kelly, Jason, and his mother.

“Of course we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. You still need to report to a MEPS and pass your ASVAB.”

If this was part of the test, William wasn’t intimidated in the slightest. “I’ve been training myself almost daily for years now. If I can’t pass my Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test at the Military Entrance Processing Station, then something’s seriously wrong.”

Mary smiled. “You certainly have the lingo down! You’ve either been paying attention, or you already know this all by heart.”

“Both,” William replied.

More forms had to be filled out. Then Mary helped him schedule an appointment with a processing station in Austin, one week from now.

“I’ll contact you afterwards to see how it went,” she said. “Unless you have any other questions, it’s been a pleasure. Your enthusiasm is refreshing. You have the potential to go far!”

William thanked her, trying not to fawn too much, but he couldn’t help it. In his mind, she was a rock star. He managed not to make too much of a fool out of himself when saying goodbye. William felt so giddy over the entire experience that he forgot to be nervous when driving home. At first, anyway. Once he hit the highway he resumed his death grip on the wheel, pulling over when he needed to call work to say he’d be late. None of this could put a damper on his spirits. When he arrived at the mall and stepped out of the car, he inhaled deeply and smiled, convinced he could taste freedom in the air.

* * * * *

“It’s the only high you don’t pay for the next day.”

Errol had said this once after William asked him why he smoked pot. “Booze makes you feel crappy. Pills make you feel like shit when they run out. Don’t even get me started on acid. With weed, you get a great night’s sleep and wake up like nothing ever happened.”

William was convinced that smoking dope
did
come with side effects. His brother didn’t have the best memory, and he only got weirder as the years went by, but the essence of what he said rang true. Not just for drugs. Any high in life, no matter how natural, came with a price. William felt guilty after his visit with the recruiter. He worried he was betraying Kelly simply by entertaining the notion, and that he was wasting the Coast Guard’s time by starting a process he couldn’t finish. Hitting bottom only made him eager for the next high, and those came every morning when he spent time with Jason. That too had a price to pay, but at the moment, William was enjoying himself too much to care. He was sitting on a locker room bench, shoes beside him. That’s as far as he’d gotten undressed because he was distracted by Jason, who was leaning against the row of lockers and retelling the story of their double date at Bonnie’s recital, which was a lot funnier in retrospect.

“Tim made me switch colognes. Seriously. I finished getting dressed and went to their bathroom, because at the time I didn’t have cologne of my own. I grabbed the coolest-looking bottle and sprayed some on. The second I came down the stairs, Ben got all starry-eyed and excited for me, but Tim, he walks a circle around me like a drill sergeant inspecting a uniform. Then he leans closer, sniffs, and freaks out. ‘Is that my cologne? I will
not
be one of those couples who dress the same, talk the same, or smell the same. You hear me?’”

William shook his head. “But you weren’t really a couple.”

“Ben made sure to point that out! Well, actually he said, ‘Don’t worry, even your real boyfriend doesn’t want to smell like you. Especially your socks.’”

William chuckled. “They sound cool.”

“They are! You should totally meet them. Properly.”

“That would be fun.” William cocked his head. “Does Tim really have smelly feet?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding? He smells amazing. Even in the morning.”

“Are you sure you don’t have a thing for him?”

“Absolutely. You need to see them together to understand. Yeah, Tim is hot, but he and Ben are so right for each other that I can’t even think of him that way.”

“They must be really secure in their relationship,” William mused. “Not many people are willing to loan out their boyfriend.” Kelly certainly never would!

“I talked them into it. I’m good at stirring up trouble.” Jason sighed theatrically. “It’s just a matter of time before they realize that and boot me out.”

William grew serious. “Is it hard for you to talk about your time in foster care?”

“Not really. Why?”

“Because you said you were in twenty-something different homes, and it made me wonder if foster parents are always that hard on their kids. It sounds like if you make them mad, they kick you out.”

Jason shook his head. “It’s not that simple. I’m just really good at what I do. I didn’t want to stay with any of my foster families. I wanted to go back to my mom, and I thought that if they couldn’t find a home for me, they’d be forced to return me to her. So I did whatever it took to get kicked out.”

“Such as?”

Jason grinned. “Well, in foster home number three, the lady there collected jigsaw puzzles. Who does that, right? She had this room with box after box of puzzles and completed ones hanging on the wall like art. She was also a vegetarian, which isn’t a big deal, except that she was fixated on lentils. She would use them to replace any sort of meat, so lentil burgers, or lentil hotdogs… And I don’t mean a nice patty or sausage made from lentils. She would literally give you a hotdog bun filled with boiled lentils and expect you to put relish and mustard on top.”

“Yum.”

“I know. So anyway, one day when she wasn’t home, I went into the collection room and dumped out every single box in the middle of the floor, making a giant pile of puzzle pieces.”

“Was she pissed when she came home?”

“No, because after mixing the pile up, I put all the pieces back into random boxes. I told her I wanted to do a puzzle together that night. After a dinner of pizza with lentils on it, she let me choose a box, and we sat down at the table together. You should have seen her face as she slowly figured it out. She ran, literally
ran
to the collection room and started opening the other boxes there. I thought she was going to cry.”

“You’re such a bastard,” William said with a grin. “Still, that seems like an unfair reason to kick you out.”

“Oh, that didn’t do it. I was still learning the ropes back then, so it took a few tries. A fake hunger strike is what finally got me out of that house. I used the allowance she gave me to buy cheap stuff like bread to live on. She thought I was starving myself, when in fact, I had a decent stash of food hidden under my bed.”