Free First Class Hero (First Class Novels) by AJ Harmon

his hole-in-the-wall apartment and
have a long hot shower and he wanted to call Nic.
    When he’d asked her if she would like to exchange emails, he
figured he’d get one or two brief, superficial messages and then she’d be done
with him. He’d assumed she’d agreed to his request to be polite. But she’d sent
several emails and they were filled with news and thoughts and even feelings
which had encouraged him. Just maybe she would come to feel the same way about
him as he already felt about her. Although he couldn’t articulate it yet, he
knew in the depths of his soul that he wanted to spend the rest of his life
with her, to make a life with her, and for her to be his life. How he
knew he didn’t understand, but he did know and he was going to go after
it. He just hoped that Nic would comply.
    *****
    That night at work, Nic looked at her phone about every
fifteen minutes.
    “Are you waiting for something?” Brian had asked.
    Even Evelyn had noticed and she was usually oblivious to
everything except that which directly affected her.
    “Just thought I’d have an email by now,” Nic had frowned.
    “Oooohh,” Evelyn teased. “Waiting for your Navy man?”
    Nic rolled her eyes and shook her head. She lifted the tray
of drinks from the bar and set off to deliver them to the table of women out
for a girls’ night.
    By the time Nic returned home, she was irritable and tired.
    “I’m going to bed,” she muttered as she threw her purse on
the couch and walked down the hall. She stepped into her bathroom and pulled
her hair back into a scrunchie and smothered her face in make-up remover and
scrubbed away. How quickly she had come to care for a man she hardly knew. How
quickly she had trusted him by sharing things with him that were so personal
she hadn’t ever told anyone else. All this with a man she had been forced to
meet on a cruise ship in the middle of the Caribbean Sea and had purposely been
rude to. Yet here they were several weeks later and she realized that she had
found someone special. It was quite a shocking revelation. Yet her life was so
unsettled that the idea of anything more than friends was obviously out of the
question. But she could always use a trusted confidante. And Paul seemed to be
fitting the bill.
    *****
    Paul sat in the office of his Commander. He had made it
home, taken a hot shower and fallen into bed to sleep for a few hours before
coming back to the base. Now here he sat having just received news that he
really didn’t want to get.
    “It will be for the remainder of your tour,” he’d been told.
    Paul wasn’t really surprised, in fact, under normal
circumstances it wouldn’t have bothered him for a second, but things were
different now. He was different now. He wandered out of the building and sat on
a metal bench under a tree. Pulling out his phone he mentally added three hours
to the current time to make sure he wasn’t calling too early. She answered on
the second ring.
    “Paul!”
    “Hi Nic,” he smiled.
    “I was expecting an email. This is a surprise.” She didn’t
even bother trying to hide the excitement in her voice.
    “Well, I had some time so I thought it would be good to hear
your voice.”
    “You called at the right time too. I’m home with nothing to
do until I have to get ready for work.”
    “Good!” he grinned. “So how are you? What’s new?”
    “I told you about the job interview next week, right?”
    “Yup.”
    “Well, that could be exciting,” she laughed. “Still
no word from Boston though.”
    “You only need one to love you,” Paul chuckled.
    “True!” Nic agreed.
    “Did you meet with the school board guy?”
    “I did! And it was rather interesting. He asked me all kinds
of questions ranging from the state of my classroom, you know, paint on the
walls, air conditioning, tables and chairs, etc., to what I thought of the
current administration. I answered honestly, not pulling punches and trying not
to let emotion cloud my answers.