The Fragile Line: Part Two (The Fine Line #3) Read online

  The

  Fragile

  Line

  PART two

  A Fine Line Novella

  By

  Alicia Kobishop

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

  Copyright © 2016 by Alicia Kobishop

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems without prior permission of the author except where permitted by law.

  Published by

  Alicia Kobishop

  PO Box 510183

  New Berlin, WI 53151

  License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your online retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Book Cover by: Alicia Kobishop

  Edited by: Angela Barber Farley

  The Fragile Line: Part Two

  Matt gets the job offer of a lifetime. The only problem? He’d have to leave town just when his connection to Chloe is starting to intensify. He knows what he feels for her is more than just lust. Just like he knows that if he pushes their relationship too far, too fast, it will die before it ever has a chance to begin.

  He only has one week to decide between his dream career, and the woman he can't get out of his thoughts.

  Chloe knows Matt is hiding something, and she is certain that whatever it is will cause their ultimate demise. In an attempt to delay the inevitable, she asks Matt to hold off on telling her what it is for one night.

  A single night to relish in each other.

  A night to savor the bond they’ve formed.

  A night to make a memory that they can both look back on after all is said and done.

  She’s already surrendered to the idea that they don’t have a future together. Will one night change her mind?

  (It is necessary to read The Fragile Line: Part One before starting Part Two of this invigorating, three part, New-Adult Romance series).

  The Fragile Line: Part One

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  CHAPTER One

  ~Matt~

  Past (Age Twenty)

  I hadn’t realized I’d made a mistake until a roadside IED exploded next to the second Humvee in our convoy—the one right in front of mine.

  “Oh shit!” one of the guys in my truck yelled in a shocked response. Maybe it was me.

  In the split second it took for the vehicle in front of us to vault off the ground and land on its side, and while the driver of my Humvee swerved to stop, jerking my body to the right, slamming my shoulder against the passenger door, Maya’s smiling face flashed before my eyes. Her perfect teeth. Her wavy, golden brown bob, glowing like honey in the sunshine. Her lightly bronzed, freckled skin.

  I was an idiot to let her go. Worst mistake of my life.

  Maya’s image was gone in an instant, my mind focusing on the task at hand. As my ride came to a crashing halt directly beside the disabled vehicle, and in the heart of the fucking kill-zone, a hailstorm of concrete debris landed on top of our metal hood and windshield. I drew my weapon, scanning the area for a trigger man. But nothing could be seen through the thick dirt that clouded the air from the blast.

  “Everyone okay?” our commander, Harris, yelled, his voice distant and muffled because of the ringing in my ears from the boom. In between coughs and through our adrenaline, the five guys in my vehicle shouted back a mixture of “yeah” and “I’m good.”

  That’s when the gunfire started.

  “Three o’clock!” Burke yelled. “It’s coming from three o’clock!”

  I fired my weapon a few times in the general direction before shouting, “I can’t see shit through this fucking dust!”

  I had experienced roadside bombs before but never this close. Usually, when it happened, we just kept driving through the debris. Today, we’d need to recover our injured brothers from the vehicle that got hit. I’d like to think they’d be fine, but it’d take a miracle for them to withstand a blast like that without harm.

  Now would be the best time to do it…before the breeze carried our blanket of dirt away.

  Rodriguez, the gunner above me, stood tall through the top hatch and kept firing at the enemy. “I’ll cover you! Go, go, go!”

  Burke and I followed Harris out and made our way to the disabled Humvee—the one now on its side—where two soldiers attempted to lift another out through the passenger side window. Hendrix was on the right, and he looked okay, considering a fucking bomb just hit his truck, but Turner, on the left, had a face full of blood from the shrapnel sticking out of his cheek and forehead.

  Harris hollered to Burke, “Turner needs a medic. Take him down.”

  Burke nodded and helped Turner down from the Humvee. As they retreated back to our vehicle, Harris shouted to me, “Langston! Put those huge fucking arms to use and pull this soldier out so we can get the hell out of here!”

  Harris turned away from me to face the threat and began firing his weapon again, while I jumped up onto the passenger door, now the roof, and reached in. Murphy, their driver, who was trapped inside, grasped my forearm with one hand and Hendrix’s forearm with the other. Once we had a good hold of his arms, we yanked him up.

  I could tell the other soldiers in our convoy had joined in our defense by the gunfire that cracked and popped from near and far. As we brought Murphy to the ground, and the cloud of dust began to dissipate, I heard a bullet whiz past my ear. Damn. I never knew bullets actually made noise as they traveled through the air until that very moment. I thought it was just a sound effect in movies. Guess I was wrong.

  Murphy cried out as his feet touched the ground, “My leg’s broke, man! I can’t walk on it!”

  “No worries, buddy,” I said. “I’ve got you.”

  I wrapped his arm around my neck and held onto his side as we made our way to our vehicle, his one foot dragging while he hopped forward on the other. Harris and Hendrix covered us, firing at the enemy along the way. The second we entered the truck and closed the door, we took off fast, with Harris on the radio, notifying the rest of the convoy that we’d recovered our injured men and to move forward—or as he said over the airwaves, “Let’s get the fuck out of here now, goddammit! Move, move, move!”

  Only then did I notice the dirt sludge that caked my tongue and throat.

  Fucking Afghan dustbowl.

  ~~~

  That night, I impatiently waited in line at my base’s internet café. And when I say café, I don’t mean some cutesy restaurant where you order a tofu lettuce wrap with your four-ounce mocha cappuccino. I’m talking a tiny room with a bunch of computers lined up against the wall with plastic bags over their components to protect against the air’s dirt.

  Some of the soldiers in my division brought rugged old laptops from home to jump onto in the barracks whenever they felt the need, and I can see now why they felt the extra expense of using the wireless internet was worth it. But at the time of my deployment, I didn’t quite grasp what a boost in morale it would be to
chat or Skype with loved ones. I thought it would be a waste of money.

  I sure as hell understood its value now.

  Now that I knew Murphy and Turner would be okay and had the relief of knowing that every last soldier in our convoy had made it back safely, my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about Maya. About our relationship and how it ended. About how she was right that my choosing to enlist without talking to her first had been the reason we broke up. About how, even after thirteen months without contact, I wanted her back more than I wanted anything.

  And as I stood in line, I thought about how devastated I was that she didn’t pick up her phone five minutes ago when I tried calling her. What I needed to say to her had to be said tonight because today’s events had sent a piercing loud, crystal clear message that tomorrow is never guaranteed. Waiting wasn’t an option. And since she didn’t pick up her phone, I’d have to send her an email instead.

  Thirty-two minutes later, I sat down on a metal folding chair in front of a PC and logged in to my AKO email account. Shit. Now I had to figure out how to write what I needed to say in a way that would make her understand. I should have paid more attention in English class in high school.

  Ah, fuck it. I’d just have to write my thoughts as they came. She knows I’m no damn poet.

  I cracked my knuckles and began to type.

  Maya,

  We both know I suck at words, just like we both know what a fool I was to let you go. I wish I could hear your voice. I wish I could tell you this in person, or at the very least, over the phone, but I know I’m the last person in the world you probably want to talk to, and I don’t blame you for avoiding me.

  So I’m going to try my best to tell you in this email exactly how much I regret what I’ve done to hurt you. Yeah, I said it…I was wrong and I made a huge mistake. What I did was a major idiot move on so many levels. I know that now. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t kick my own ass for it either. Because every day, you’re in my thoughts. And every day, when the wave of pain from losing you comes crashing into me, the only way to cover it up or pretend it’s not there is to inflict a different kind of pain.

  Some days, I lift until my body gives out. Other days, I run until I can’t breathe. Without much else to do in the barracks, I’ve found that working my body harder than I ever knew it could be worked is the only real outlet I have in this fucking sandpit. Or maybe it’s just my own form of punishment for being such a moronic dick to you.

  The bottom line is that I regret it, Maya. I should’ve done everything I could to make damn sure you felt loved. Because I did love you. I do love you. And I always will love you.

  Please. I’m on my knees begging. And when I get home, I’ll even grovel. Tell me we can work things out when I get home. Tell me you haven’t moved on. Because I sure as hell haven’t. And I promise I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure I never hurt you again.

  Love, Matt

  I re-read the email, checking the grammar to make sure I didn’t sound like a complete idiot and the composition in hopes that my words would be powerful and persuasive enough to make her understand. Make her believe me. When I was done with that, I just stared at the screen, letters, sentences, and paragraphs all blurring together as my thoughts took over, self-doubt slowly trickling in.

  Was it too much?

  Not enough?

  Did I sound too desperate?

  Would she even care?

  Fuck it. None of those thoughts mattered. I’ve pretended not to care long enough and have regretted every moment of it. Life’s too fucking short to keep this shit to myself any longer.

  I hit send and waited, staring at the screen for a good ten minutes, refreshing it constantly, hoping she’d reply instantly, yet knowing the likelihood of that was slim to none.

  The soldier beside me stood from his chair and walked away. Burke sat down in his place.

  “Hey,” I gave him a nod. By the looks of his puffy, bloodshot eyes, something was affecting him in a major way. Most likely, he’d been thinking about what happened today. “You look like shit, dude. You okay?”

  He furrowed his brows, “You didn’t hear.”

  I cocked my head, “Hear what?”

  He sighed and brought his hands to his face, attempting to wipe the exhaustion off it. “Turner didn’t make it.”

  “What?” I squinted, shocked. “What do you mean he didn’t make it? He was on his feet walking when we got back to base. What the fuck?”

  “I know, man,” he said through his own disbelief. “I know. One of the shards of shrapnel in his neck hit an artery or some shit when they tried taking it out. He bled out at the medical center. They couldn’t stop it. They couldn’t stop the fucking bleeding in time.”

  Burke turned toward his computer in an attempt to end the conversation…to hold himself together. He began typing, jaws clenched for strength, his face red, the tension in it causing a vein to bulge on his forehead.

  Fuck…

  Gone. Turner is gone.

  Everything blurred as a replay of today’s attack became fresh in my mind. The deafening boom. The blinding dust. The concrete scraps raining on metal and glass. The clapping of gunfire, muffled by the pounding of my heartbeat and ringing in my ears.

  The memory of Turner covered in blood flashed in my mind. Only instead of the bloody, yet genuine, smile he gave Burke and I as we left him at the medical center, his expression in my morbid thoughts was lifeless, his eyes blank and cold like the zombies you see on The Walking Dead TV show.

  Bile rose to my throat—I fought to keep it down. Turner was my lifting partner. The only guy who could keep up with my training regimen. Solid and strong in every way. All the guys in my troop had become like brothers to me, but I had spent more time with Turner than the rest. He knew the most about my life at home, and vice versa.

  He had a wife. A new baby girl that he hadn’t yet met in person.

  I leaned back in my chair, my palms brushing up and down my face in an attempt to stop the room from spinning.

  My brother was dead.

  “Hey man,” I heard someone call out, cordially. “If you’re done on there, I’d be happy to have a turn.”

  His voice, and the recognition that he was talking to me, snapped me out of it. I came back to present, my gaze landing on the guy who spoke. I gave him an apologetic nod. When I went to close out of my internet tabs, I almost didn’t see the new message in my inbox. Then, it was the only thing I could see. It was from Maya.

  I quickly clicked to open her email.

  Matt,

  You will always have a place in my heart. We have a lot to talk about. Please just come home safe. I couldn’t live with it if anything happened to you over there. Be strong and come home. We’ll talk then.

  Maya

  Chapter Two

  ~Matt~

  Present Day

  “Well, don’t you look chipper,” I cocked a brow at a grinning Logan as he practically danced his way into the shop on the morning of Christmas Eve. With it being a holiday, the shop wasn’t officially open, but Craig offered extra hours to anyone who wanted them, an opportunity I happily accepted. All the other guys must’ve had plans or didn’t want to come because besides us, the place was empty. “Lemme guess…your girl problems worked themselves out?”

  He began to slip the cover off the old Nova his dad left him. That car sat untouched, taking up space in the shop for two years. I had tried a number of times to encourage him to finish the restoration that he and his dad started on it, knowing how completing the job would’ve most likely brought him a sense of closure, but each of my pleas went ignored until he finally told me to fuck off about it once and for all. “Never. Mention it. Again.” were his exact words. And I never did.

  Liv did what no one else could. She got him to start working on the Nova again. A sense of appreciation washed over me, knowing that Liv had been the key to helping him come back to life after his dad’s death. I’ll be forever grateful to h
er for helping my friend.

  “I have no fucking clue how it happened, man,” Logan huffed out a single laugh. After removing the tarp completely, he looked me in the eye and shrugged, “I told her what I remembered of that morning with Chloe. The look in her eyes killed me when I laid out the truth, but she trusts me. She decided to believe in me.”

  The mention of Chloe’s name punched me in the gut. The thought of her with anyone else besides me was enough to handle. The image of her with Logan ripped me apart. As much as my mind scrambled to figure out what happened between the two of them that day—and why—none of it made sense. The girl I knew was good, or at least she tried her damnedest to be. Sure, she made mistakes like we all do, but there’s no way she could ever be the diabolical evil villain Logan made her out to be.

  I tried to keep my reaction to myself, but Logan noticed it, the tension in the air thickening. Even though we’d been friendly with each other lately, we hadn’t resolved the argument we had over Chloe two weeks ago.

  “Look, dude,” Logan sighed, “I don’t know why you’re hell-bent on defending her, but can we just let it go? Everything is perfect with Liv now. I won’t be dwelling on it anymore. It’s not worth another second of my time, you know? You and I have been friends too long to have it all ruined because of some—” My eyes warned him not to say the unflattering remark about the girl in question that I knew he would say next. With an eye-roll, he reworded his thoughts. “—because of anything. Don’t you think?”

  He was right. Whatever happened between them didn’t matter because it was over. The past was the past. He’d already moved on, and hopefully Chloe had too.