Please enjoy this brief bonus chapter from the world of the San Diego Marines! This scene takes place between book one and book two, so it’s right before the guys leave for their first deployment.
Matt
“Merry Christmas, babe.” I held the small box out to my wife, eagerly awaiting her reaction.
I’d purchased her gift when I went with Hawk to ring shop for Ellie and keeping it from her since then had been nothing short of a miracle. I kept waiting for her to stumble across it while she was organizing or whatever it was that she did.
Olivia took the box from my hand and gingerly untied the red ribbon before opening the lid. Inside there was a silver bracelet with three small beads threaded on it. The first bead was a snowflake because her favorite season was winter. Not that we ever got a real winter in San Diego, but who was I to judge? The second bead was a yellow ribbon to represent my upcoming deployment, and the third bead was a nurse’s cap to represent her journey in nursing school. It was a pretty perfect gift for her, if I didn’t say so myself.
Her eyes sparkled as she fingered each bead and gazed up at me.
Nailed it.
“Thank you so much,” she whispered. “I love it.”
I took the box back from her and removed the bracelet from the pieces of white elastic keeping it in place. She held out her arm and I fastened it on. She shook her wrist to let it fall into place and took a deep breath, smiling.
Olivia wasn’t hard to please with gifts, but I always knew when a present really meant something to her. Her favorites were always the ones that showed how well I knew her.
It was our first Christmas morning together as husband and wife in our own home. While I was used to waking up on Christmas morning with my family, this was much better. Olivia had gone all-out making it feel festive. She’d made coffee with peppermint mocha creamer, Christmas music played in the background, and she’d even streamed a faux fireplace on the TV for ambiance. And now we opened presents before an immaculately decorated tree that she’d spent way too much money on. Not that I’d have it any other way, of course. Happy wife, happy life.
“Okay, now open yours.” Olivia excitedly handed me a big bag with tons of red tissue paper stuck in the top.
I pulled out the paper, wadded it into a hard ball, and tossed it at her, almost causing her to spill her coffee.
“Jerk!”
“Jerk? You want me to take that bracelet back?”
She laughed, clutching her wrist to her chest and shaking her head. She leaned over to kiss me, and I got lost in the peppermint mocha flavor on her lips. I contemplated taking her back to bed and forfeiting any other presents. She caught the gleam in my eye and wagged her finger at me, so I sighed and reached in the gift bag instead.
I pulled out a wrapped box and arched a brow. “You wrapped this and then put it in more wrapping?”
She nodded. “Yeah, and that’s not the only one.”
Curious, I peered into the bag and saw a pile of small, wrapped presents. It was like that Russian doll thing that you opened only to find more things to open. Women. She probably did that on purpose just to annoy me. Olivia loved doing stuff like that. It was adorable how funny she thought she was.
I unwrapped the first box and found a handheld video game console. “Thanks babe! This is going to keep me busy on the boat.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“Never thought you would get me something that would make playing video games all the time even easier,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her.
She snorted. “I won’t be around to get annoyed about it, so as long as you don’t have it glued to your hand when you get back, we should be fine.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll be busted from overuse before the deployment’s over.”
“Money well spent, I guess.”
I turned my attention back to the bag. Next, there were two video games to go with the console, headphones, a carrying case to store it all in, and finally, a can of whipped cream. I pulled out the cold can with its red spout, trying to connect the dots between the dessert topping and my video games.
“What’s the whipped cream for?” I asked.
She smiled coyly at me and took off for the stairs. I sat there for only a moment before my tired brain caught on and I sprinted after her, presents forgotten.
***
Later, at my parents’ house, the whole family peppered me with questions about the deployment. All I wanted to do was have a good time with my friends and family before I had to leave. Unfortunately for me, all they wanted to do was talk about it. They wanted to hear how I felt. Seriously? How do you think I feel? Instead of being outwardly rude, I lied.
Yes, I’m looking forward to seeing the world.
Yes, I think it will be really cool to experience other cultures.
No, I’m not worried about leaving my wife behind for nearly a year.
The first two things weren’t really lies, as much as they were the silver lining of a bad situation. I knew I’d signed up for this, but I wasn’t as “gung ho” as Hawkins was about it. Deploying was part of being a Marine. I just viewed it as more of a necessary evil than an adventure, unlike my best friend. Maybe it was because I’d never done much travelling growing up. In fact, until boot camp I actually hadn’t spent more than a week away from Olivia since we started dating in freshman year of high school.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her or thought something bad would happen while I was gone. It was more that I was used to her always being there. Like she was a security blanket or something. And I meant that in the least pathetic way possible.
I had a large family, so holidays at my mom’s house were always full of screaming kids, lots of laughs, and a dose of drama. I wouldn’t have it any other way. My three older sisters were there with their husbands and kids, as well as my parents, several aunts and uncles, and hordes of cousins.
We’d had brunch at Olivia’s family’s house that morning, so it had been a long day, but at least it was a good kind of long. It was the kind of long that reminded you how many cool people you had in your life that you probably took for granted. Christmas spirit was clearly rubbing off on me. Either that or the eggnog was spiked.
“So,” Aunt Sue interrupted my thoughts, “are you two going to try for kids when you get back?”
“Oh, Susan,” my mom chided her.
“No, it’s okay, Mom,” Olivia waived her hand at my mother, “we’re used to that question by now.”
Susan raised a brow. “Are you? And what do you say?”
Olivia looked at me and I rolled my eyes. This conversation was another one that I didn’t feel like having right then. Apparently, no matter how young you are when you get married, everyone still wanted to know when you’d be popping out a kid. Was I crazy, or was judging someone for getting married too young and then harassing them about having kids a little hypocritical?
“We usually say that we’ll have them when we’re ready,” I answered for Olivia.
She was always so sweet about it, but the topic annoyed me for some reason. Whether we wanted to have kids now or when we’re thirty was no one’s business but our own. My mom hid a smile from Aunt Sue. She knew my feelings on the conversation and was probably annoyed with her sister for bringing it up.
Renee, the youngest of my three sisters, brought her hands together as if she were praying. “Please have them soon, Liv! You guys are going to have the cutest babies! I need more babies in my life.”
“Clearly.” I snickered at Renee.
Renee had three kids already, and the youngest one was a huge handful. If anything, watching all three of her kids grow up and teach me the meaning of the phrase ‘terrible-twos’ was enough birth control for anyone. My oldest sister Cassie and I joked about that all the time.
But then I looked at Olivia and saw the gleam in her eye as she watched my nieces and nephew play by the tree. She was coming down with baby fever and fast.
“Okay,” I feigned a yawn and stretched my arms over my head. “I think we’re gonna head out.”
“So soon?” My mom asked, her brow crinkling.
She had a pleading look behind her eyes that I knew was because of the deployment. I was going to miss my mom a lot, too. I was the youngest and she never let me forget that I would always be her baby. No matter how much it embarrassed me. But right then I had the sudden urge to hug her. These next several months would probably be just as hard for her as for Olivia.
“C’mere, Ma.” I wrapped my arms around her small frame, her curly brown hair tickling my nose as I breathed in the scent of home.
“Don’t worry, babe. I’ll take good care of your mama while you’re gone.” Olivia rubbed my back and my mom pulled her into a group hug with us.
My nieces and nephew ran up and wormed their way through our legs and joined in, making everyone laugh. Thankfully, it also distracted my mom before she could cry or something. Goodbyes always sucked. I wasn’t leaving for another few days, so I figured I’d be seeing my parents again before then. I definitely wouldn’t see my sisters or the rest of the family before then, so those goodbyes were long and full of tears on my sisters’ parts. They stood around us in a loose circle, all three of them looking weepy. Allie, the middle sister, blamed it on her hormones after just having had her son. But I knew better. She’d be crying anyway.
“Seriously,” I reassured Cassie as she told me for the tenth time to ‘be safe,’ “the most danger I’ll be in is if I fall off the flight deck and into the ocean. But that’s why we practice the man overboard drills so often.”
Renee swatted me on the arm. “Shut up! That’s not funny, Matt.”
I laughed. “It’s kind of funny.”
Cassie shook her head. “It’s not as funny as you think it is. Look at mom’s face. She’s terrified.”
My mom rolled her eyes. “I taught my boy how to watch where he’s walking. He won’t fall off the boat.”
“Thanks, Ma. And you won’t have to worry about me getting sucked into a jet intake, either. That only happens to people to who don’t watch where they’re walking.”
All three of my sisters and my mom scowled at me and Olivia grabbed my arm. “Are you trying to freak them out?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it,” my dad piped up for the first time in a while. He’d been engrossed in shoptalk with my uncle about the carpentry business they shared. “Get out of here before you drive these women nuts. They might cripple you just to keep you from going.”
“Good point.” I shook hands with my dad and helped Olivia with all of our presents to the door. Another round of “be safes” and “I love yous” were called after us as we left.
As the door closed behind us, I sighed.
“You okay?” Olivia asked.
I shrugged. “I’m fine. But that’s what’s weird. I mean, why am I so ready for this when everyone else is so clearly not?”
Olivia gave me a sad smile. “Because you’re going off on some big adventure and we’re all here just waiting for you to come home.”
“Does that upset you? That I’m ready for it?”
She shook her head. “It would upset me if you felt the same way about it as I do. That would mean you were miserable.”
My shoulders sagged under the weight of her confession. The last thing I wanted was for her to be miserable. I reached for her hand, tugging her against me and wrapping my other arm around her back. “Mrs. Mills, you are the strongest, most amazing woman on the planet.”
“Oh, really?” she challenged, smiling up at me.
“Really. You are going to rock this deployment.”
“I’m not so sure.” She bit her lip, and my hand automatically came up to cup her face.
I brushed my thumb over her bottom lip to free it, then kissed her softly. For a moment, we just stood there on the porch, lost in the moment, surrounded by twinkling lights and the sound of Christmas music coming from the animated wonderland my parents had set up on their front lawn.
When we pulled apart, her eyes were swimming with tears. “I’m really going to miss you.”
“I’m going to miss you, too. But seriously, cheer up. You’ve got our families, friends, and nursing school to keep you busy. We are going to get through this first deployment without any problems, and then just think—every deployment after this one will be a piece of cake.”
She inhaled deeply, her eyes closing and her chin lifting as if she were saying a silent prayer. “Okay. If you say so.”
“I do. Now, come on.” I pulled back and slung my arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go home.”
If you haven’t already read Matt & Olivia’s story, you can check it out here. It’s no secret that this deployment is going to be a little hard on them, but I hope you enjoy watching them navigate the rough waters ahead!
And if you’ve already read their story, I hope you’ve enjoyed this little trip down memory lane! Especially if you got to know them even more throughout the rest of the series! 🙂