Page 280

Story: Men of Fort Dale

Marco grinned. “When I was a kid, my parents were too poor to go anywhere. But occasionally, we’d drive to San Diego, to the boardwalk on Mission Beach. It wouldn’t have been a big deal tosomekids, but I loved it. I got to ride rides, eat more junk food than usual, and just...I don’t know. I still have a picture they draw for people sometimes, you know, where they make people look goofy?”

“Caricatures,” Carter said quietly.

“Yeah!” Marco proclaimed, jostling Carter’s arm with his happiness. “My parents must have had some extra money that time, I guess. Got all three of us. I should dig it out of storage and put it up one of these days.”

Carter spared a glance at Marco as they walked in silence. Marco smiled as he got lost in his thoughts and memories. Growing up, Carter had always been a little, and sometimes a lot, bitter at the kids with happy families who got to do things like go to the Boardwalk instead of waking up to a room full of smoke because their mom got drunk and passed out after sticking a TV dinner in the oven. Bitter at people who had parents who loved them, rather than those who spent half the time hating their kids and the other half pretending they didn’t exist.

As he aged, he knew the world wasn’t evenly divided and that suffering existed everywhere. Watching Marco, a man who’d grown up with loving parents, he wondered just how much Marco had suffered.

Marco shook himself with a laugh. “But that’s why I like coming out here occasionally. I get a little dose of nostalgia, and the few times I managed to convince my dad to fly out here to see me, we always come here.”

Which left Carter feeling as though he were being included in something. He didn’t know quite what to do with that, but then again, he was also coming to understand that Marco had that effect on him.

“What about you?” Marco asked, looking up at him.

Carter was distracted for a moment by a trio loitering near a drink stand. They were watching Marco and Carter a little too closely for his liking, especially because one of them had a slight curl to their lip that Carter didn’t like. One of them saw he was watching and looked away when Carter glared at them.

“What?” Marco asked, looking around.

“Nothing worth worrying about,” Carter said gruffly.

Who gave a shit if they were two guys locked arm in arm and one of them was holding the gayest drink to exist? That wasn’t anyone’s business. And he wasn’t going to risk ruining Marco’s good mood by telling him about them.

“The beach,” Carter finally admitted when he was sure the trio was no longer paying attention.

“The beach? Was that...your thing as a kid?”

Carter shrugged. “No. I’d never seen the beach when I was a kid, and my parents sure as shit weren’t taking me.”

Marco frowned. “Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense from what you’ve told me.”

Carter squeezed Marco’s arm, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it. My first team took me to the beach on my first deployment. Halfway through, we were given stateside leave. Dumbasses got drunk as shit, then got me drunk, and thought it would be great to take me to the ocean.”

“That’s pretty normal for drunk people near the ocean,” Marco chuckled.

“Yeah,” Carter said dryly. “Except we were in Chicago, and they meant the actual beach, ocean and all.”

Marco peered up at him, cocking a brow. “And uh, just how did that work?”

“About how you imagine.”

“A bunch of drunk soldiers, fresh back to the US, somehow getting onto a plane and going states over?”

“Glad you know because I sure the fuck don’t.”

“What?”

Carter snorted. “None of us could remember how the hell we ended up in Ocean City, Maryland. We got drunk off our asses one afternoon, and woke up almost twenty-four hours later, passed out in the sand on one of the beaches in Ocean City. It had to be a plane, but there’s no nearby airport. We never found any plane tickets, but we somehow made it there.”

“How...you werethatdrunk but somehow managed to get that far without getting arrested or killed?” Marco asked incredulously.

“Hey, don’t underestimate the power of drunk soldiers who are bound and determined to get their asses to the beach,” Carter told him solemnly.

“I’m not sure if I should try to take that beer from you or give you more now I know about this,” Marco said in awe.

Carter chuckled, rolling his eyes. “Fuck off from my beer.”

Marco’s eyes widened briefly before looking away a second later. “Fine, fine, I won’t touch your precious alcohol. Just no plane trips tonight.”

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