9. Chapter 9

It was a strange thing to be disappointed when staring into your mailbox. There was plenty of mail waiting on me after working my shift, but nothing from the one person I wanted to hear from. Posie hadn't even responded to a single one of my letters over the past month and I wasn't sure what to make of that.

My phone ringing pulled me out of my thoughts of the girl who had been taking up residence in my brain far too often over the past couple years. Her letters, those simple words written on paper, were the main thing I looked forward to. When I finally saw Posie again, I had a feeling things would be a lot different between us.

"Did you get it?"

"What are you talking about, Pops?"

His excitement turned into a grumble, which made me chuckle at his expense. "You haven't received a package from Posie, or maybe Evan?"

That got my attention. Posie had written letters to me weekly ever since I sent her a graduation gift two years ago. We had gotten to know one another pretty well, but she never mentioned my little brother in them. Evan never mentioned her either when we spoke on the phone. Pops and Devon were the only ones who ever spoke about her, besides my parents.

"What would I have received that involves both Posie and Evan?"

"Oh, I guess she kept it a secret from you, too." The old man sighed. "There was a time, I hoped that she would open up and trust you with everything. I suppose proximity is why she chose to grow closer to Evan instead."

I wasn't stupid. Pops kept pushing for me to come home and every time he did, Posie's name was on the tip of his tongue. Truthfully, it made me not want to come back. It was weird, but I liked having someone to talk to while knowing that we'd probably never see one another. Writing to Posie was like writing in a diary, only I'd get responses to the things I said, and she would get them back from me. Seeing each other in person might ruin the dynamic we had. It wasn't something I'd admit out loud, but I was afraid to lose that. Then again, I was also afraid not meeting up with her in person would end just as badly.

"What's going on, Pops?"

"Posie and your brother wrote a book together."

"A book?" Not once in the two years we'd been communicating had she ever even hinted at writing more than our letters.

"It's more of a comic book. What did they call it? A comic novel? No…"

"A graphic novel?"

"Yes, that's it. Your brother wrote the story and Posie did all the artwork."

"And its published?"

"Yeah, they even signed a copy for me."

Why did my chest feel tight when I thought about the fact that she didn't want to share this with me? Thinking about it made me realize that there hadn't been any letters from Posie in a few weeks. That wasn't like her. I wondered if maybe the novelty of having what amounted to a pen-pal friendship with me had grown stale.

"Hey, babe! Please, tell me you're naked and waiting!" I turned to watch as my girlfriend walked down the hall, leaving a trail of her clothes behind as she got closer to the bedroom we now shared.

"Who is that?" Pops asked.

"Rebecca," I answered honestly, even though I didn't give away who she was to me.

"And who is Rebecca?" Pops asked at the same time my live-in girlfriend spoke as she finally made it to the bedroom door.

"Why aren't you naked?"

"I'm talking to my Pops," I explained to her.

"Oh! Are you finally going to tell your family we're living together?" She asked, and I didn't miss the fact that her voice grew louder as she did so.

"Shit!" I heard Pops hiss into the phone. "Gotta go," he called out quickly before hanging up.

I frowned down at my phone, not liking the way that sounded. When I attempted to call back, the phone rang out as if no one was there to answer it.

Rebecca crawled up to straddle me where I'd been sitting against the headboard. "Aren't you going to play with me?" She pouted.

"Stop. My Pops just got off the phone in a hurry and now no one is answering."

"He's probably just mad because you hadn't told him anything about me yet." Her lips turned down as she reminded me once again that it was weird how my family didn't even know I was dating anyone, let alone living with a woman. It was a fight we'd been having for the past month, when I told her that we wouldn't be going home for Fourth of July, despite the invite she overheard from my brother, Devon.

"Are you ashamed of me?" She asked.

"No, I'm not. Can we table this until I find out if something is wrong with my family?"

"Something's wrong, all right. The fact that you won't tell them about me."

"Jesus, Rebecca. Stop for a minute."

She scrambled off me and over the to the closet. "You know what? I'm done being your dirty little secret you keep from your family."

"You're not a damn secret. Can you give me a minute to make sure my pops is okay before you throw your fit?"

She huffed even louder as I continued to watch her throw clothes into her bag. Then, she reached up to the shelf in the top of the closet in an attempt to reach a box of keepsakes or whatever. I got up to go help her while I tried to get Evan on the phone.

She smacked at me when I touched the box and in doing so, made it fall. The contents scattered all over the floor of the closet, but a vivid splash of color caught my eye along with two names. Evan Carter and Posie Gamble.

It was a graphic novel. How in the hell? I glance up to see a guilt-stricken look on Rebecca's face before I looked back down and saw letters. There were letters from Posie, but also the letters I'd stuck in the mailbox to send to her were there. All of them had been opened.

"What the fuck is going on?" I asked through clenched teeth.

"I can explain," Rebecca tried to say as she took a step back.

"There's no fucking explanation good enough for what I'm seeing. What the hell did you do?"

"You wouldn't tell your family about me, and the way your grandfather kept talking about that girl, I got jealous and needed to know if she was the reason. So, I looked at her letter that came in before you could. When I went to put it in the mailbox again the next day, I saw yours there that you were sending to her, and I had to know what you talked about with her. It obviously hasn't been me – your girlfriend. One thing led to another and suddenly, I couldn't put them back because the next letter was asking why you hadn't written to her."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"She's in love with you!" Rebecca hissed.

"She's not in love with me. All we have are the letters. We only ever met twice in our lives before I left for the Army."

"That doesn't mean she isn't in love with you."

"You had no fucking right! No matter what you thought was going on. Posie is family. You had no right to hinder our communication."

"She's not family!" Rebecca shouted. "She's a girl who is in love with you and taking advantage of your too-kind family."

"Kind of like how you took advantage of my too-kind heart when I let you move in here after your roommate moved out without notice?"

She cringed back. "We were on track to move in together anyway," she insisted.

"No, we really fucking weren't." I glared at her. "Pack YOUR shit and get out. Only your shit. As a matter of fact, I'm going to watch to make sure everything you pack belongs to you."

"Are you kidding? Now, you think I'd steal from you?"

"You did steal from me! You probably stole my fucking friendship with Posie while you were at it because she's going to hate me for not writing her back, especially about the book she and my brother worked on together. Fucking hell! My brother is going to hate me for not saying anything to either of them about it."

"Her reaction is more important to you, though."

"Fuck you! Who cares? You don't get a say in how I communicate with anyone, who I write or speak to, or how I feel about them. You were nothing more than a regular fuck who conned her way into living with me."

Rebecca sucked in a huge breath and then began sobbing. "That's not true. I thought we had something. I thought our relationship was going somewhere."

"I'm twenty-fucking-one years old. The assholes in my unit might be eager to settle down with local girls looking for a military man to hitch their ride to, but I'm not. I never told you otherwise, not even after you moved in here."

Becca kept floundering back-and-forth between trying to change my mind and excusing her behavior of hindering my communication with Posie. Tuning her out was the only way to maintain my temper while she packed her shit up. As soon as she was done, I walked her to the door.

"Key," I demanded with my palm outstretched to receive it.

"I don't know where it is," she argued.

"That's fine, I'll have the locks changed today."

"I don't understand how you could do this to me over some stupid letters. Especially if she really doesn't mean anything to you. You said yourself that you're basically strangers. You don't even know that girl, but you're going to throw me out for her?"

"You're damn right," I told her as I slammed my front door in her face.

I picked up my phone and dialed my buddy, Travers.

"What's up, Carter?"

"Need new locks on my doors,"

His initial reaction was to laugh. "I'll grab some new locks and head your way. Just the two doors, right?"

"Yeah man. Thanks."

"We'll talk about what went down when I get there. I'll bring some beer with me."

"Might want to grab some whiskey while you're at it."

"Oh shit, that bad, huh? I know you're not heartbroken over Rebecca, so something else must have gone down. She's not claiming to be knocked up, is she?"

"Nah. I'll fill you in when you get here."