Total pages in book: 176
Estimated words: 164533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 548(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 548(@300wpm)
“So, you decided to keep this in your office?” Her gaze searched mine, and a hard lump thickened in my throat.
I swallowed it down before answering, “As I said, it was a good summer for me. Good memories.”
“Because your mom finally divorced your dad?”
“That was a big part of it, yeah.” And you. It was a good summer because of you.
Charli nodded, her attention returning to the photo. “You were so cute back then. When you came into my aunt and uncle’s house that night a couple weeks ago, I hardly recognised you.”
I recognised you straight away. As soon I’d stepped through that door and saw a woman standing in the hallway, my heart gave a swift, hard thump, her name echoing in my mind.
Charli.
“You didn’t?”
She shrugged, looking shy. “You’ve changed a lot.”
The statement made me curious. “In what way?”
Charli handed the frame back to me, her fingers accidentally brushing mine. Her gaze flicked up, and a small smile shaped her lips as our eyes connected. I smiled back, my pulse ratcheting when her scent hit my nose. Sometimes I felt like I could happily drown in that scent. It wouldn’t be the worst way to go.
A second later, she withdrew her hand and returned to the seat in front of my desk, ending the moment. The faintest blush tinted her cheeks as her eyes lowered to her lap.
“Well, I guess, in certain ways you haven’t changed,” she said, answering my question. “Your personality is mostly how I remember it. You’re just older, a little wiser, maybe. You carry yourself with a lot more confidence, and you also look more, um …” She trailed off, and I started to smile.
“Are you trying to say I lost the puppy fat?”
Charli flushed harder. “Not that there was anything wrong with being a little chubby. Obviously, I liked how you looked back in the day.”
“Obviously,” I repeated and grinned, enjoying her rosy cheeks. It was a welcome change from her pale, wan complexion when she’d first arrived.
A beat of silence. The air between us thickened. Charli sniffed and glanced away before she continued, “I imagine your training when you joined the French Foreign Legion was intense. That probably helped a lot with weight loss. Did you … um, I mean, I remember your reasons for enlisting. I just wondered if it helped as you’d hoped?”
Charli’s expression was so sincere and open, but her question had me tensing. I knew what she was referring to. When I was a kid, I’d gotten it into my head that training to become a soldier would help me eradicate all the shit that had kept me awake at night. The stuff that had kept me scared all the time. And in a sense, it had. Having a purpose and being a part of something bigger than myself had made me feel more at ease in my own skin. And knowing how to defend myself against danger had made me confident when I was out in the world. But it had also been a rudimentary existence. Everything had been duty and routine. There had been no softness or comfort, and I’d had to develop a hard shell to survive.
I ran a hand over my jaw. “In a way, yes. But in other ways, no.” She blinked, looking both surprised and curious. Memories filled my head, those terrifying first few days after I’d presented myself at the recruitment office in Aubagne. There’d been about ten other blokes with me that day, and only four of us had gotten through the initial tests. It had been a good thing I’d started working out with Derek because one of the tests involved running almost two miles in less than twelve minutes.
Once I’d managed that and passed the medical, the other lads, many of them from Eastern Europe or further afield, and me had had our heads shaved. I remembered the feeling of freedom like shaving off all my hair symbolised a new start. A new me. Being assigned a new identity helped, too, as my father’s name in the recruitment documents had been changed to the randomly selected “Gabriel.” I’d felt untethered from my past, and it had been incredibly liberating.
But then things had gotten harder. We’d been sent off to Toulouse for four months of initial training. I’d had a decent amount of French since I’d studied it at school, but we’d also had to attend classes to become fluent. I’d never forget the day Piotr got punched for repeated failed attempts at pronouncing the word Chirurgien, which meant surgeon. I was pretty sure our superior officer introduced the word to our lesson on purpose because it was particularly difficult for foreigners to pronounce.
So, yeah, there’d been a few bullies to deal with, but I’d spent my life dealing with my father, so I’d been ready for them. Clearing my mind of the memory, I brought my attention back to Charli.