Away From You (Back To You Book 2) Read online

  Away From You

  By Jessica Mastorakos

  Copyright © 2014 by Jessica Mastorakos

  All rights reserved. Produced by Jessica Mastorakos.

  Away From You is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Find Jessica Mastorakos on Facebook

  Edited by A. Wrighton, Little Green Eyed Press, California

  Cover design & interior design by Jessica Mastorakos

  Cover models: Justin and Stephanie Weller

  Cover photography by Leah Ruth Photography

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  This book is dedicated to anyone affected by post-traumatic stress disorder. Whether you have PTSD or love someone who does, you are not alone.

  The National Center for PTSD has many resources available to service members and their families at www.ptsd.va.gov

  Chapter One

  Olivia

  With a yawn, I padded barefoot into the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee. I popped the Breakfast Blend pod into the machine and slid my favorite mug in place to catch the stream. Matt always made fun of me for my fairly large collection of “Marine Wife” merchandise, the mug included. I couldn’t help it though. I was proud of him. We’d been together since high school and he’d only been a Marine for a fraction of that time, so it was a new and exciting part of him that I loved to give him credit for.

  I grabbed the caramel flavored creamer from the fridge and poured a generous amount into my freshly brewed cup. Next, as was my routine, I settled onto the sofa and turned on the morning news. I knew that this ritual of mine made me seem about eighty years old, but I loved it. It was the way my mom and dad always started their mornings. Like them, all I wanted was about fifteen minutes of sipping my coffee and half-listening to current events in order to fully wake up for my day. Yes, it meant I had to wake up earlier than necessary, but I wouldn’t trade it for a few more minutes of sleep.

  “Good morning.” Ellie sheepishly made her way into the kitchen without looking at me. She was wearing what appeared to be her jeans and tank top from last night. Her blonde hair was a mess as it hung in waves down her shoulders. I waited semi-patiently for her to make her own cup of coffee and then join me in the living room.

  The night before, Ellie had gone on her first official date with Spencer. They’d been best friends for years, but over the last few months had been exploring what else might be between them. They’d gotten off to a bit of a rocky start at first. Ellie had been dating this absolute jerk named Tim, and when she found out that he’d cheated on her while he was away at school she’d dumped him. Spencer even punched him in the nose that night, which was gross but funny since he’d deserved it. Later that night, Ellie and Spencer had kissed for the first time, but since Spencer was right in the middle of his training for the Marine Corps they went their separate ways without really establishing what they were to one another.

  Over the next few months they talked all the time, but due to Spencer’s own issues with his parents he pushed Ellie away by hooking up with other girls while he was in Florida. After everything she went through with Tim, that hadn’t gone over well. Ellie started dating a really nice guy from her work named Eric, but there was no way she and Spencer could stay away from one another after letting some of those sparks fly.

  Finally, after a lot of soul-searching on both sides, they’d decided to go on an actual date. Last night was the big night, and they’d crashed at our house afterwards since Ellie still lived with her parents and Spencer lived in the bachelor barracks on base.

  “Well?” I asked, hardly containing myself. “How did everything go?”

  She chuckled. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

  “Yes,” I considered briefly, “but is Spencer still here? He could have gone home to the barracks…”

  Ellie rolled her eyes. “We’re both still here.”

  “I figured as much.” I took a cautious sip of my still smoldering coffee and gave her a look that suggested I was waiting to hear more.

  “It was amazing.” Ellie blushed deeply and beamed at me. “Honestly, I had some pretty high expectations, but the whole night was just incredible.”

  “Those are some pretty major adjectives, Ells. Seriously though, you seem really happy. I’m glad.”

  She shrugged. “I really am. It was quite the journey getting here, but I’m confident that we can make it work. I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive him for what he did, not completely anyway. But I think that with time I will. And despite everything, I do trust him.”

  “Good. Trust is huge. I don’t even know what I would have done if I were in your shoes. Matt and I haven’t really gone through anything like that before.” I put down my coffee and re-did the messy bun that held my long brown hair.

  Ellie pursed her lips. “Matt doesn’t seem like the type to do that. I think you’re safe.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “But I think you’re safe now too. I think you’re exactly what Spencer needed to settle down.”

  “I think you’re right about that, Olivia.” Spencer’s voice made me jump. He was standing at the foot of the stairs, and I had no idea how long he’d been there. He walked towards us and came to sit beside Ellie on the couch, taking her hand.

  “Good morning,” Ellie said to him, squeezing his hand. “How did you sleep?”

  “Fine, until I woke up and you were gone. I thought maybe you’d ditched me.”

  Ellie laughed and leaned in to kiss him. “Not just yet.”

  I watched as they smiled at each other with real happiness in their eyes. After everything they’d been through lately, I was glad they’d finally figured it all out. And I was doubly glad that the ridiculous amount of sexual tension between the two of them had finally been broken. I didn’t know how much more of their brooding gazes I could handle.

  “For real though,” Spencer was saying, “I woke up and thought that I had finally gotten a taste of my own medicine. I have a wonderful night with you and then you just take off before I wake.”

  “It would have served you right!” I laughed. “That Karma has to come around eventually.”

  “What about Karma?” Matt asked as he jogged down the stairs. He was wearing a black tracksuit and running shoes, his headphones already attached to his phone. He looked damn good.

  Spencer got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen with Matt. “Oh, your wife’s just giving me shit.”

  “She’s good at that,” Matt replied with a wink to me. I blew him a kiss in reply.

  “Are you going running?” Ellie asked, nodding at his attire.

  “Yeah, I’ll be back in a bit. You want to come, Hawk?”

  Spencer scoffed, responding to the shortened version of his last name, Hawkins. “Screw that. I have to do a CFT tomorrow. I’ll get my run in then.”

  Ellie and I looked at each other, confused. “What’s that?” I asked.

  “It stands for Combat Fitness Test. It’s a huge pain in the ass. Basically, you have to sprint 880 yards, do as many ammo-can lifts as you can in two minutes, and then do a 300-yard shuttle run with a buddy.”

  I whistled. “Sounds fun.”

  “Not at all,” Spencer said. “It’s all timed and then you get a score based on your time.”

  “And apparently this loser doesn’t care about improving his time or he’d be out conditioning with me today.” Matt punched Spencer lightly on the arm.

  Spencer wagged his eyebrows at his friend. “Or maybe I can think of a way better way to get sweaty than to go running with you.”

  “Okay, that’s enough!” Ellie held up her hands, embarrassed.

  Matt laughed and came over to kiss me on the cheek. He smelled like toothpaste and aftershave, and I inhaled the familiar scent of him with a smile. I watched as he said his goodbyes to our friends and made his way to the door. Having him here, finally under the same roof, had been amazing so far. Being that we’d gone to high school together, we hadn’t been apart until his months of training for the Marine Corps. Thankfully, he and Spencer had both gotten stationed in our hometown of San Diego at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. Matt had a deployment coming up and small detachments to prepare for it. How the heck was I going to deal with him being gone all the time? Luckily for Spencer and Ellie, they wouldn
’t have to worry about that, since Spencer was assigned to a training squadron that didn’t deploy.

  “I’m going to go take a shower,” Spencer called over his shoulder as he headed up the stairs.

  “Make it a cold one!” Ellie yelled back, smiling as if it were an inside joke.

  “So, did you guys talk about this being an official relationship now?”

  She smiled. “Yeah, no confusion this time.”

  “That’s good.”

  I got up to put my empty coffee cup in the sink. “I’m not looking forward to all of the training Matt has to do before he leaves for deployment. He’s going to be gone a lot. I’m jealous that Spencer got assigned to that training squadron even though I know he would rather be in a unit like Matt’s.”

  “I’m so grateful. Now that he’s back I don’t ever want him to leave again.”

  “I hear that. Matt said that he’d be on the ship for the whole summer. He leaves in three weeks.”

  Ellie cringed. “I’m sorry, that sucks. He has to be on a ship? I thought only Sailors went on ships.”

  “No, Marines do too. But he said they get to stop in Hawaii for about a week, so he’s excited about that.”

  “Oh, that’ll be fun! I’m jealous. I definitely can’t afford a trip to Hawaii anytime soon. Even with my job, I just can’t seem to save any money.”

  I chuckled at her. “You have a teensy bit of a shopping problem.”

  “Just a bit.”

  “Well, at least you have a job. I just haven’t had time with the number of classes I’m taking. It would be nice to have some extra cash of my own, but I need to focus on school right now. I’m grateful that Matt is cool with being the only one bringing any money in right now.”

  Ellie nodded. “Yeah, but he knows it’s not because you’re lazy, it’s because you’re in school. You’ll definitely be pulling in the dough when you start working as a nurse.”

  “Heck yeah I will.” I gave her a cheesy high five. “In all seriousness, I’m just glad that school is going to keep me busy so I won’t have time to miss Matt as much on deployment. This summer is going to suck without any classes to keep my mind off of things!”

  Ellie frowned. “Well, you have me!”

  “Thanks, girl.”

  I often wondered if I had the strength that my mother had to get through all of these separations. My dad was in the Air Force and growing up they had always made it look so easy to maintain a happy marriage through it all. The best I could do was hope that my relationship with Matt was as strong as that of my parents. In the end, they were great role models.

  “Well, hopefully this isn’t awkward but I think I’m going to go up and interrupt Spencer’s shower,” Ellie said, nodding toward the stairs with a cheeky grin.

  I wagged a finger at her playfully, and hoped Matt would be back soon from his run so we could have a little fun of our own.

  *

  The next day, I busied myself while Matt was at work by organizing and unpacking the rest of the boxes from our move. I spent a few hours putting pictures of family, friends, and from our wedding into frames and hanging them around the house. The spacious townhouse looked more and more like home every day.

  My mom had gotten us a slow cooker as a wedding present, so I put a roast in it and prayed that it would turn out like her recipe said it would. By the time Matt walked in the door, the house was filled with the aroma of a home-cooked meal. I was pretty proud of my domesticity. Since I was currently working towards getting my nursing degree, crockpot meals might be the best way to balance having a full time job and still managing to cook dinner every night. I’d never felt like such a grown-up and I savored the feeling of being out on my own.

  “Smells great in here, babe,” Matt called as he hung his keys on the hook by the door.

  I reveled in the “Susie Homemaker” feeling and smiled at him. “I was going to greet you at the door with an iced cold beer, but I thought that would be a little too cheesy.”

  He chuckled. “That would’ve been awesome. In fact, you can do that tomorrow. Wearing lingerie.”

  I rolled my eyes. “There is so much wrong with what you just said.”

  Matt kissed my forehead. “I know. How was your day?”

  “It was good, I got a lot done around the house. How was yours?”

  He walked to the fridge and got his own beer with a sardonic smile. “It was eventful.”

  “Oh?”

  “Spencer got transferred to my unit.” He took a long pull of his beer and awaited my reaction.

  “Seriously? How did that happen?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I was working on a jet, and I look up and there he is. I guess they needed another body and since he had just checked in to the other squadron they pulled him over. He was so stoked.”

  I didn’t doubt that Spencer was excited, but my first thoughts were with Ellie. We had just talked about how glad she was that he wasn’t leaving, and now he was literally in the same boat as my husband. Hopefully she wasn’t freaking out too much. After all, at least we’d have each other to lean on.

  “Well, I’m glad the bromance lives on. I feel bad for Ellie though. It won’t be easy with how much you guys are going to be gone.”

  Matt smiled sadly. “Babe, don’t worry, you’re used to this stuff. You’ll do great.”

  I wasn’t so sure, but it helped to hear how confident he was in my strength.

  Chapter Two

  Matt

  “What’s up, Mills?” Spencer nodded at me as he entered the shop. He looked eager to start his first full day as a Red Snake.

  “Not much, man. Just learning about the GBU-38. I can’t believe that bomb weighs five hundred pounds. We’re gonna get so ripped doing this job.” I handed him the manual I was reading and he glanced at it before shrugging.

  “It says here that four guys lift it, so really that’s not a lot to lift per person.”

  “Doing it all day can’t hurt, bro.” I eyed him warily. “What’s up with you?”

  “I don’t know. I just wasn’t expecting to get transferred right after fixing shit with Ellie.”

  “Wait,” I held up a hand, “first you were bummed when you thought you weren’t going to deploy. Now you’re bummed that you are?”

  He shrugged again.

  “How’d she take it when you told her last night?”

  Spencer frowned. “Fine. Just like I thought she would. She’s not the type to get emotional. But still, I’m sure she’s not happy about it. I kind of feel guilty about saying that I wished I could deploy.”

  I watched him shuffle his feet, not sure what to say. Olivia knew what she was getting herself into when she married me. In fact, we talked about the military a lot when we were still in high school, and since her dad was in the military she was pretty encouraging about it. But I also wondered if maybe the whole distance thing would be harder on Olivia than I’d thought. How bad could it be though? At least there was always a light at the end of the tunnel. I wouldn’t be gone forever.

  “Listen, man, I think you’re overthinking this.” I tried to sound reassuring but I didn’t know if it was working. I was pretty conflicted about it myself, but I figured everything would work itself out in time. “I’m sure Ellie knew that there was always a chance you could leave. You’re an Active Duty Marine, for Christ’s sake.”

  Hawk seemed to realize that he was being dramatic because he stood up a little straighter. “Yeah, you’re right. When will we be gone, anyway?”

  “We’ve got a training exercise for the summer, then we’re home until we deploy in January. They said the deployment should be like seven months. Not bad at all.”

  “Guess not.”

  I shook my head at him, not sure how he had gotten so doom and gloom since the last time we talked about his future in the Marines. Everyone knew that when you wanted to make a career out of the military, it looked way better to deploy than to not. He should be pumped about this. A combat deployment would look great on his service record, not to mention the increased pay when you’re gone.

  I clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Hawk. This is why you joined, right?”

  *

  Being in the same shop with Hawk for the past few weeks had been pretty awesome. It was like old times when we were in training, only with the added bonus that we went home every night to some pretty hot girls. Spencer and Ellie had been spending a lot of time at our house lately, not always spending the night, but dinners and such. I was glad that Olivia had Ellie to help her get through the deployment. Hell, I was glad that I would have Spencer, too. We worked our asses off every day and it sure helped to joke around with him about stupid stuff to pass the time.