Page 2 of Wrong Number, Right Soldier (Wrong Number, Right Guy #11)

Trey

Time moves painfully slowly out here in the desert. Slow, and boring. But we thank God for boring.

I’m up before dawn, a little more than an hour before it’s time to call our unit to formation.

I set up in a small, dusty makeshift office to sign off inventory sheets for the supply officers, review new training procedure for the junior enlisted guys, and especially, to make some coffee.

I envy the way the young grunts here can get up and go —like they’re made to do.

At thirty-one, I need to start my brain to start my day.

Words? Yeah, fucking amazing. Fucking terrifying .

So that’s another reason I get up early, going over these mentorship modules and leadership progression fundamentals.

Growing up, “smart” had never been a word used to describe me, but now, I’ve been promoted to the point I’m expected to sound like I know what the fuck.

Now the Army is my life, always will be; I’m here to make it a damn good one.

And god dang if the hours don’t move forward like molasses, if I’m not focused on something .

I keep my phone on the table next to me, in case Mom calls.

It’s late where she’s at, so I don’t think she will.

She usually calls around dinner, when it’s her lunchtime.

The first deployment, it took us a while to figure the rhythm, and Mom would worry.

This time, we’ve got it down, and she doesn’t call every single day like she did.

Mostly she just DMs me reels that I have to carve out whole chunks of days to catch up on.

But I watch every single one, knowing she thought of me with each send.

It’s sweet, her trying to keep me entertained.

So I’m a little surprised when, not seven minutes in to my reading, my phone does ring; no one else calls me but Mom. I’m even more taken aback when I realize it’s a FaceTime call…from an unknown number.

I’m not in a classified location, but I am on deployment for the U.S. Army. Answering a video call from an unknown number…unsettles me. But, it’s the same local area code where I’m from—maybe an old friend? Could it be a friend of Mom’s? Did something happen?

The second that thought flashes hot in my brain, I swipe the call to answer.

Immediately, electric blue eyes rimmed in black stun me—and every word that’s ever been in my brain dissolves into ether.

“Oh, um, hi.” Her pretty features shift around like shuffling puzzle pieces, as she takes in the backdrop surrounding me, those blue eyes eventually narrowing on the ‘ U.S. Army ’ stitching of my fatigue shirt. “You’re not…Derek. Is Derek…there?”

“We’ve got a Derek. Davis?” I ask.

“No.” She glances down at a business card. “It’s long… I don’t really know how to pronounce it, the consonant-to-vowel ratio is…intense. So probably wrong guy,” she says to me. “I’m confused, though. Where… are you ? Did I just call the military ?” Her eyes widen to saucer-sized.

“Kinda.” I grin, entertained by the way her thoughts seem to stream into words the moment they form. “This is my phone. Maybe you dialed the number wrong?”

“Apparently so. I’m so sorry to bother you.”

“Pfft, definitely not a bother. Being stuck out here for a whole year, it’s nice to get a phone call, even if it’s a misdial.” I look right at her. “Can’t say that I’ve ever gotten a FaceTime call, not even from my mom. She refuses.” I chuckle.

“Stuck out where?” she asks again.

“I’m in Kuwait.” I reach out, so my phone’s camera takes in more of my surrounding workstation. “Not exactly a Home and Gardens spread, but hey, at least I got a pillow this time.”

“When did you not have a pillow ?”

“First deployment, years ago. Totally sucked ass.” Words, you idiot. She’s a gorgeous woman, not a squaddie .

To my surprise, she laughs—a bright, uninhibited sound. “It’s crazy that you can take calls from there. I mean, it’s really cool though.”

“Yeah, well hey, I’ll let you get back to your phone call you actually wanted to make. Derek tralala.”

Smiling, she mumbles, “More like trlrlr,” effectively teaching me in that moment the difference between a consonant and a vowel. “There was a nine that looked like a four. I guess…it was nine.” Her smile falls slightly, but I don’t think she meant for it to show. “Dang ink blotch.”

“Ha. Well. Nice talking to you, though…uh—” I fish for her name, with no idea why. I have her number now. She lives in my home city. Along with over a million other people. But I know I’ll never see or talk to her again. This was just a random, crazy thing.

“Saylis,” she actually tells me her name. If we ever do talk again, it’ll be a good long discussion on stranger-danger . Then she reads my name stitched on the other side of my fatigue shirt. “Rivers?”

“Trey.”

“Nice meeting you, Trey. I’m sorry again.”

“No please, don’t apologize, it was really nice to talk to you, Saylis. Have a good night.”

“You, too. Bye.” She gives a little smile, and a little wave, and then a little swipe—and she’s gone.

For a long moment, I just blink at my phone screen. She was…the loveliest surprise. I definitely should not go in to her number and add her to my Contacts. She meant to call Derek. At almost nine o’clock at night her time .

Don’t do it .

I do it.

I probably didn’t spell it right… I bet she’s used to that. Unfortunately I am too. It’s Trey, like a person. Not tray, like a tray . Goddammit.

Try like fucking hell as I might to shift my attention back to my work, I can’t stop thinking about her. Those eyes shot me dead on the spot. There was an easiness in talking to her that I can’t explain. That I want more of.

And there’s something else, something deeper, fuller than just my thoughts. This feeling inside of me.

I have to call her back.

I have to call her back now .

She answers right away, with that smile that could end all wars right here right now, and send me home to her. “Evidently, you can also make calls.”

I laugh. “If we’re really good, they let us feed the stray dogs and cats that come ’round like they’re our pets. Some of them even get names.”

Saylis gasps. “I should write my congressman. First pillows, and now pets ? They’re treating you almost too good there.”

“Did you get ahold of Derek?”

“Um, no.”

“Wrong number again?”

“No…I didn’t try,” she says to me. I don’t ask why not. I don’t want to know what I don’t want to know. “What time is it there, in Kuwait?” Saylis asks.

“It’s just after five.”

“In the morning ?!” Saylis shrieks.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Holy crap. Why did you even answer before? Also who are you calling ma’am, I’m only twenty-five.”

“Practically a newborn.”

Saylis repositions, getting comfortable. So, I guess we’re doing this, then. “Seriously, how old are you?” she asks me.

“Thirty-one.”

“Oh, so I should call you ‘sir,’ then.”

I shake my head. “Do not call me sir, I work for a living.” She gives me a look, head tilted, not understanding. I smile. “Trey will suffice.”

“So what are you doing over there, Trey?”

I reposition. “I can’t really say.”

“Ah. Great chat.”

“Ha-ha,” I chuckle. “Tell me about you. What is young Saylis with the most incredible, electric blue eyes, doing at nine o’clock at night on a Sunday, talking to a stranger out of the blue?” I shake my head. “No, what do you do when you’re not dialing randos deployed in the Middle East?”

Saylis tells me she’s about to take her last state exam to become a middle school Language Arts teacher. The time ticks by faster than it ever has here, impossibly, frustratingly fast. Talking to her is a cross between a sedative, and a hit of cocaine.

As it gets closer to six a.m., I know I have to let her go soon. Soldiers are starting to shuffle around and make a shit-ton of noise, and I pray no one comes barging in here and giving me hell—or worse, saying anything inappropriate to Saylis.

And most of all I hope we get to do this again.

“It’s getting noisy over there.”

“Yeah, I better go. It was nice talking to you, Saylis, again. Thanks for accidentally calling me.”

“FaceTiming you,” she corrects. “Don’t even try to downplay my creepy.”

“You couldn’t be creepy if you tried, Saylis.”

“Bet. Can I call you again sometime?”

“You can FaceTime me, as often as you want. It’s late there. Actually, we’ve got formation in ten minutes, I gotta get movin’. You should get sleep.”

“Mm, I really should. Goodnight, Trey.”

“Goodnight, Miss Saylis.” I pause. “How do you spell that, by the way?”

And she tells me. With that smile. Her sweet, bright voice. Those black-ringed blue eyes reducing me to mindless pieces.

I hang up on the best morning I’ve had in a long time. If it’s possible…the best morning ever. And it happened out here, of all places. Here, where I’ve come to expect the unexpected—

But not like that .