“Yup,” I said, sipping the coffee.
“Good,” Everett said. “I like the heat.”
“Didn’t you get enough of it in the damn desert?” I joked.
“Never. I’ll drive today.”
“Alright. But I get to choose lunch.”
“As long as you don’t choose that damn diner again,” he said. I stayed quiet, and he rolled his eyes. “Great.”
I laughed and Everett sat down on the top step, sipping his coffee. We chatted a bit about the plan for the day, specifically how we probably wouldn’t have much time for lunch if we wanted to get everything done.
When we had gone over the plan for the day, Everett stood, stretched, and returned inside the cabin, likely to read the news on his tablet or watch it on television. He always kept up with current events. I had less interest. I’d seen enough current events unfolding before me on my four tours in Afghanistan to last a lifetime. Now that I was out of the military, I preferred to remain blissfully ignorant of the shit happening in the world.
At thirty-two, I was on my own again, discharged with honors along with Everett and Carter. Carter wanted to go home to Tennessee, and I thought it would be the last we saw of him. He was always so quiet and amiable, I thought he’d disappear into the mountains and be a hermit the rest of his life. When he called Everett and me and asked if we wanted to join him on a business venture, I was so surprised I almost said no.
Of course, running a lumber business wasn’t exactly what I thought my life would be. I had gone to school for business, mostly because it was the only practical thing that I thought I’d be good at.
Working with Everett and Carter was worth it, though. And seeing Carter grow and find happiness was extremely gratifying. I owed my very existence to that man. If he hadn’t been there that day in the dessert, and he hadn’t literally carried us from the burning wreckage of our Humvee, we wouldn’t be here today. He was a legitimate hero. Seeing him finally find a person he could spend his life with and make him happy, much less start a family, was heartening.
It also made me wonder if it would ever happen for me.
Besides all that, the work itself was gratifying. It was physical and hard, but it kept my mind busy. I had the tendency to let my mind wander—back to the desert—back to the things I saw there, images that I could never unsee. And I knew that Everett was bothered by the memories too. Though, neither of us talked about our pasts. We didn’t need to.
I looked back down at my list again and added one final thing to it. I needed to call my mother at some point during the day. I did every week and usually got it over with early. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy speaking to her; it was just that inevitably she would start in on me, asking when I would just come home. When I would take my rightful place in her world of leisure.
My answer never made her happy. I wasn’t cut out to live the way I’d grown up – rich and pampered. Years sleeping on hard dirt floors and eating meals that came out of a bag had leeched all the privilege out of me.
I went inside and got dressed, keeping in mind that the day would be getting rather warm.
My stomach rumbled as I got back into the kitchen, and I checked the clock. We had about three minutes before we needed to be in the truck, which was just enough time to toss a breakfast burrito in the microwave. I grabbed one out of the freezer and threw it on a plate, hitting the thirty-second button until I reached the time I wanted.
With breakfast in hand, I grabbed my bag with backup clothes and headed out behind Everett. We jumped in his truck, and I flipped on the radio. It was a silent transaction we had both agreed on without speaking about it. The person who drove got final approval of the music, but the passenger got the first choice. Everett preferred listening to stuff off his phone, staying well and truly stuck in the music of his youth. I didn’t.
Popping on the only station in Ashford that wasn’t country or oldies, I sat back and waited for Everett to complain. But he didn’t, and instead he started tapping his fingers on the steering wheel along with the music, and I smiled.
Life in Ashford certainly wasn’t what I’d expected, and it was a hell of a change from both how I grew up and my life in uniform. But overall, I liked it. I had good friends, a good job working with my hands, and a nice, quiet place to live in the mountains.