Page 110 of Men of Fort Dale: The Complete Series

Marco eyed him, the corner of his lips quirking. For a moment, Carter wondered if Marco would call him on deliberately avoiding Marco’s message because it could apply to Carter just as easily, though in his case, he was exceptionally lost.

Marco instead chose to flop down next to Carter, his back against the couch, his head on Carter’s chest. “I’m sleepy and need a nap. Let’s be lazy until the boardwalk opens.”

“You slept all night,” Carter accused with a scowl. He’d been up all night and up early in the morning, after all.

“I know, but that’s why I said lazy,” Marco said.

Carter rolled his eyes. “You’re not fooling anyone, Marco.”

“Shh, napping,” Marco told him, closing his eyes.

Carter sighed, deciding the fight wasn’t worth the payoff, and closed his eyes. If he had been conscious, he would have been surprised at how quickly he nodded off despite how much his head buzzed like crazy.

“I really don’t get the point of all these lights,” Carter complained, staring at the small theme park on the boardwalk as they passed by. “Reminds me of Vegas without the hookers and booze.”

“You’re drinking a beer,” Marco pointed out.

“Yeah, but there’s shitty boardwalk beer and shitty overpriced Vegas drinks that are everywhere,” Carter grumped.

Marco laughed softly, hooking his free hand around Carter’s elbow.

In his other hand, he held a plastic cup full of what Marco had insisted was a ‘Unicorn Smoothie’ from one of the many stands that opened at night after the stores had closed.

Marco insisted it tasted like birthday cake and frosting.

Carter had informed him it tasted like diabetes, which prompted Marco to smirk and drink about a quarter in one go.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Marco asked as they walked at the crowd's edge to avoid getting hemmed in.

“You say that like I can stop you,” Carter muttered.

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 to some kids, 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 were that drunk 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.”

“Oh, how will I manage?” Carter said wryly, wondering what that look had been for.

“So, because your buddies took you, that made it important?” Marco asked, apparently not willing to explain.

Carter snorted softly, glancing over the railing toward the dark sands of the nearby beach.

“I woke up hungover as hell, and it took us a while to figure out we were in the most god-awful tourist trap. But the next day, I got to walk on the beach and saw the sunset, and it just...yeah. It’s the beach. ”

He stopped, suddenly struck by how odd the conversation felt. Carter didn’t talk much about his teams, especially not the first one who had been the closest to a family before they’d been separated at the end of that deployment. And he definitely hadn’t talked about significant moments with them.

“Have you seen it here?” Marco asked.

Carter looked down at him. “Seen what?”

“The sunset on the beach.”

“No, don’t come to the beach here.”

“Well, if you’re up to it, maybe sometime soon, we could do it. It really is quite beautiful.”

Marco still didn’t look at him as they walked, though there was a slight smile on his face whenever they walked under one of the lights on the boardwalk.

Carter wasn’t so blind as to understand what Marco was asking.

Carter had just made Marco a part of his past and wanted to know, without pressure or demand, if he could be included in something similar, something just for them.

“Yeah,” Carter grunted, not looking at Marco now. “We could do that.”

Because what else could he say?