“I used to come out here.” He spread a blanket out, and she sat, looking out over the hillside sloping down to the water.

“You did?”

“Back in high school. When things got shitty, or when I just couldn’t take it, I’d drive out here and sit for hours.”

“So did the military help you?”

He settled next to her, leaning back on his elbows. The fading light cast shadows on his face.

“I joined because I was on a bender.” He snorted.

“That was dumb.”

He laughed. “Yes. But it was a good thing.” He paused, and she made herself be patient, hoping he’d say more. “I signed up in a stupid, drunken macho haze. Oh I was going to go over to Eye Rack and kick some ass. Until I went to basic and it sucked. God. I had to be up when someone else told me to be. I went to sleep when someone else told me. I ate when someone else told me. I was no longer in control of any aspect of my life.”

The stars began to blink up above them as she leaned back to get a better look. He tangled his fingers with hers and she smiled.

“Did you try to get out of it?”

“Fuck yeah. I was miserable. They didn’t give a shit that I was tired. They didn’t give a shit about any of my excuses. Or my lack of control. I got into a few fights and got my butt thrown into the brig. I was thinking if they threw me out I’d be done. I just didn’t care.

“And then my C.O. came to see me and was like look, son, don’t be a dumbass. You have an opportunity here. You can go back to your shitty little town until you finally go to prison. Or you can use this time and experience to get yourself some self-control. Some skills you can make a living with.”

Beth wondered if his father had ever said anything like that to him. Hers never would have bothered. She didn’t know much about Joe’s dad. He’d done odd jobs around a back injury and lots of unemployment. He was big though, like Joe. His mother had worked in the cafeteria at the grade school for as long as Beth could remember.

“So I got out and got into a mechanic’s training program. I had one more narrow miss with jail, and that was it.”

“Then you got sent to Iraq.”

He wasn’t sure why he was pouring his story out this way. He hadn’t ever really done it. But there was something about her. The steady presence beside him, her fingers in his. She was strong. Beth Murphy didn’t need fixing. Or shielding. It was…nice to say it. To talk about himself there in the deepening darkness.

“I was still an ass**le. Not as bad once I’d sobered up. But I thought Iraq would be one way. But when I got there it wasn’t.” He licked his lips. “The people I met were good people. They weren’t my enemy. You know? They had lives and then this war erupted all around them. Everything was different for them.”

“Like it was for you I wager.”

“Yeah. And I didn’t have to go out on patrols regularly like other people did. There was plenty of stuff to be fixed all the time. Every day. The sand and dust got into everything, f**ked it up. And of course there was sabotage. And getting shot at.”

She got very quiet and he appreciated it.

“I went to Iraq not so much thinking of it as Eye Rack like I did when I first signed up.” He was ashamed of that now. “But I figured it was easy. You know? Who the enemy was. But it’s not. And you’re in a public market and someone who smiles at you is the person with the f**king bomb strapped to his chest. Or the old guy you’re suspicious of is the one who risks everything to tell you about a bomb he saw getting planted.” It had f**ked with his head for a long time. Everything he thought was true had been challenged. He’d seen so much death. So much destruction. He felt for the people in Iraq. Felt for the soldiers.

Sometimes he still woke up with his hands shaking, sheets wet from his sweat. But he was alive and he had all his limbs, which was more than some of his friends could say. And he had come back with a skill.

“It sucked. I learned a lot. They kept me longer than I’d have stayed given any choice at all. But it’s over and I have a skill I can use to pay my rent. That’s something. I never thought it. Not when I was young. I figured I’d have some shitty job out at the mill. If I was lucky.”

The night air hung with the scent of flowers, of warm earth and bark from the trees all around them.

“I’m glad you’re back.”

He smiled because she meant it. It was a tease, yes, but she was being honest and it was really, really nice to be wanted.

“How’d you end up owning a salon?”

“I don’t remember much. Not before I was nine or so. Tate says it’s probably because of…well of how things were at my house. But I never did well at school. I got by. To have done any less would have been hard on Tate, and God knows she had it hard enough. Nathan, well, he always saw college as a way out. A way up. I never saw myself going to college. But after high school I took some accounting classes at the community college. Mainly to pass time. I had a bunch of crappy secretarial jobs. Anyway, I found out I was good with numbers and math. I liked it. I liked making things balance. Numbers make sense. There’s a right answer. So I got this job at a medical office in Riverton. I saved my money, thinking about buying a house. Anne and Tate bought the salon, and I helped with the books. Volunteering at first. Helping with the ordering and that sort of thing. The whole family worked on the building. Painting, new drywall, stuff that would have been really expensive to have paid for. They got in about six months and needed more capital to keep going. I proposed to come on as a third partner. I had my nest egg, and boy let me tell you, it took a week of constant arguing with Tate to get her to do it. But in the end I bought in.”