Falling for Ezra Thomas (Life With the Thomas Brothers #4)

13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Ezra

In a word, basic training is…frustrating. No, impossible. Maybe not that either. I know I can do everything that’s assigned to me, but my body repeatedly reminds me that while I might be young, there are still only so many things I can do without breaking myself in half. This isn’t like playing hockey. I don’t get breaks where I can swap out with my teammates and rest. Then there’s that other glaring difference…I don’t have Beck here to shove a guy into the glass if things go too far.

“Again!” Sargeant Sanderson screams bloody murder over the grunts and groans of his personal pack of regretful recruits. There’s not a man among us who hasn’t had second thoughts about this whole join the Army idea, but it’s too late now. Short of failing out, we’re here for the long haul.

My nearly liquified arms push my body up again and again while I pray for the sweet relief of total exhaustion. We wouldn’t be doing so many push-ups right now if not for Chase Buckler, who thought it was a good idea to whisper a smart remark under his breath. Sargeant Sanderson must have the hearing of a bat, because no sooner did Buckler’s last word slip free, and we were on the ground paying for his stupid mistake.

Jacob Masterson, who is a couple of years younger than me, glares at Buckler from his peripheral. I swear, Masterson feeds off of his own anger and frustration. With each push-up, he seems stronger and more energetic, while the rest of us slowly wobble into what can only be described as human shaped gelatin molds.

Begrudgingly, we complete another rep of ten, praying Sargeant doesn’t add another set. I’ve lost count of how many times my arms almost locked.

“Is anyone going to run his mouth again?” Sargeant asks.

“No, sir!” we shout in perfect unison. It’s only been a few days, but we learned fast that he expects perfection, which includes a tightly run group in lockstep, even in speech.

“On your feet!"

We jump straight and stand at attention, not one of us so much as a half-centimeter off step. Lord, please let this man have mercy on us, I pray. We’re beat, and with an early morning training ahead of us, we need sleep. And I’ve got a letter from home I’ve been dying to read since mail call.

“Dismissed!”

The collective exhale can probably be heard across the base, but I pay no attention to anyone else. Instead, I double time it to the showers and back to my barracks. Masterson, who seems to have the same idea, chuckles.

“In a hurry for something special, Thomas?” he asks. The guy is so easygoing, I don’t think anything—except Buckler—can sour his constant happy mood. His lopsided grin almost always puts everyone at ease.

“Got a stack of mail waiting for me from home,” I admit, letting the sting of a blush take my cheeks without even trying to hide it.

He chuckles again. “Me too. Got a letter from Delilah that’s been on my mind since the mail call.”

“Same,” I say, doubling my pace.

He keeps up with me and says, “You got a letter from my girlfriend too?”

We reach the door to the barracks we share with four other men and I nudge him with my elbow. “From Lorelai. It’s the first I’ve gotten, so it must mean she’s either back from the cabin, or she drove to town to drop off some mail.”

Masterson arches his eyebrows and smirks. “That was a whole lotta words to say you’re excited your girl was thinking about you.”

His Georgia accent, courtesy of growing up in Savannah, makes an appearance just as Buckler, Simons, Olson, and Jones fall in behind us. Buckler opens his mouth, likely another smart comment about Masterson’s accent, but one well-placed glare from Simons shuts him up.

Still, Olson adds his two cents. “You run your mouth one more time, and I can promise you they won’t find your body come morning.”

No one knows much about Nate Olson, but there’s something scary about the guy that promises you don’t want to mess with him and that every word he says is the truth. Buckler shuts his yapper and falls onto his cot to stare at the ceiling for a while. No one sends him mail, at least, not yet. It’s only been a week, but I’ve already gotten a letter from Mom and Dad, and a collectively signed card from almost everyone in Coldstone Creek. Most of the guys have gotten something.

“Jacob, what’d you get today?” Jones asks. He sits on the edge of his cot, probably hoping for a sweet treat.

“Just a letter, but I’m positive we’ll get cookies soon,” Masterson says. His home life is something else. He once told me one of his closest friends was raised by her grandmother, a sort of saint who treats their entire friend group like her grandchildren. It sounds a lot like my family, but I know one thing for sure. If my mother knew that I liked his pseudo-grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies better than hers, she’d be on a trip to Savannah to beg for the recipe.

If I had to pick someone from this misery hole to call a friend, it would be Jacob Masterson. As for the rest, they’re not so bad. Except Buckler. I can’t figure the guy out, but Nate Olson simply exists. He’s here to do what needs to be done, and he’ll likely move on without another moment of contact between us once we’re all sent to our duty stations.

Tyson Simons is friendly enough, but he’s almost always too tired to bother with conversation. What little we’ve had has been pleasant enough, but I doubt we’ll keep in contact. Drake Jones is the comedian, although Masterson gives him a run for his money. Between the two, our barracks is pretty easygoing and relaxed.

I’ve waited long enough to read my letter from Lorelai. Masterson is already laying down, grinning ear to ear while devouring every word from Delilah, his high school girlfriend.

The room quiets as people settle in to get as much rest as possible. Once I focus my mind, I open the letter and try not to grin as goofily as Masterson when I unfold it. If Lorelai were sitting here beside me, I’d tease her about her penmanship. It’s perfection, but that’s Lorelai for you. She never does anything halfway, and you can bet if she sets her sights on something, she’ll fight to the death to achieve her goal.

And she’s falling in love with me.

I’m her goal. And something about that makes the pain—physical and emotional—of the past week worth it. The light at the end of the tunnel shines on her face, and there’s a certain calmness it brings to my heart.

I sit up in my rack and shuffle through the meager things I’m allowed to have until I find a notepad and pencil. I don’t know how long it will take her to get my letter, but the sooner I write it, the faster it will reach her and hopefully ease any worry she might have over what she wrote to me.

Dear Lorelai,

I finally got your letter, and it’s made my day. There’s another guy I share the barracks with, Jacob Masterson, who I’ve become fast friends with. He got a letter from his girlfriend today too, and we might have gotten a little teasing about it from the other guys.

Most of the guys aren’t so bad. We get along well enough, but if Buckler doesn’t quit getting us into trouble by running his mouth, some of the guys might resort to drastic actions. Maybe I shouldn’t write that in a letter that people will read before letting me send it. It’s all in fun, though, so I guess it’s not a big deal.

I’ve thought a lot about the past, too, especially all the vacations our families took together when we were growing up. I remember tic-tac-toe under the bed, but what I remember most from that trip happened the next day. Remember when we all hiked up that trail and you sprained your ankle? You only trusted me to get you back down and rode on my back the whole way. Well, except for the ten minutes you let Beck carry you so I could eat a snack.

And he dropped you.

So yeah, I can see why I’m your favorite Thomas. I’m the only one who hasn’t physically harmed you over the years. I’m kidding, mostly.

I think I agree with what you said about feeling like we lost something that day. I was worried that Vivien and Beck would ride off into the sunset and never look back, but I think they’ve both proven that is not what is going to happen. If anything, now we’re stuck having to watch them make swoony eyes at each other all the time. How did we get so lucky?

While we’re being honest, I gotta say, I miss kissing you. There are way too many weeks between now and when I get to do that again.

I also think you’re right about our feelings. Growing up as close as we did would probably make it complicated for anyone, but yeah, looking back it has always been the Mays sisters and the older, wiser, and much more handsome Thomas twins—even if Beck was always grumpy and hid in the shadows.

Having you in my life has meant as much to me as having Vivien, because yes, while she has been my best friend, there are things you know about me that she doesn’t. And I think that’s okay. She doesn’t need to know everything, and as our relationships progress, I think we’ll see even more changes. It’ll be Viv and Beck taking on the world together, and a whole lot less of me. On the other hand, that means I’ve got more time available for kissing the other Mays sister, which I must admit, sounds like an amazing situation for a guy to find himself in.

Because I’m falling in love with you, too. And it can’t be a coincidence or an accident. It’s years of growing a friendship, getting to know one another even past that. I think we’ve always been more than “just” friends, even if we didn’t know what we were. When I think back over the years the same way you did, I see a lot of times when it was just the two of us, bonding and sharing things we didn’t share with others. We were building something more, even if we weren’t aware of it at the time.

The night of the popcorn fight was…I’m not sure what to call it. It was like a wake-up call, something that said pay attention, doofus. This is your future. Grab on to it now, before it’s too late. I wish I had heeded that alert sooner, had a few more days with you by my side rather than spending it questioning my entire life. Even so, we’re here now, and I wouldn’t want to go through all these changes with anyone else.

I get that this letter writing thing is supposed to be like dating, but I’ve gotta be honest. For me, it’s only confirming what I already know. I want to do whatever it takes to make this work, because now that I’m aware of these feelings and I see all the ways in which we are perfect for one another, I can’t imagine letting it go.

I’ll fight for you, for this, and for a future for us. No matter what it takes or how hard it might become, I’m in this for the long haul, Lorelai.

Love always,

Ezra