Help Our Heroes: A Military Charity Anthology Read online

  What neither of them expected was to find an attraction growing between them, the connection allowing secrets to come out and fantasies to be lived.

  But when fear makes Ralph run from the one person who truly gets him, will he ever be able to win Aiden back, or is the whole thing completely Wrecked?

  Chapter One

  Aiden

  I watch the soldiers walking through the arrivals area, most of them being met by family and loved ones. I swallow the giant lump in my throat as I see the happiness on everyone's faces, the love clearly seen between the arriving soldiers and the people waiting on them. I wonder what it feels like to be without someone you love for so long and to finally get to hold them, to know they are safely home with you. I don't think I could live like that, with the constant fear of getting that phone call, the one that would tell me that the man I loved wasn't coming home to me.

  I re-adjust my hat as a little girl is lifted into the arms of some big guy and spun in a circle. A prettily dressed woman stands and watches them embrace, her cheeks wet with tears as her emotions take over. A few seconds later those same big arms are wrapped around the woman, the little family all back together again. I feel myself sigh as I watch the whole thing unfold and I'm distracted enough that I don't notice the person standing in front of me until he coughs to get my attention.

  I'm instantly alert, holding up my sign like I should have been the whole time I've been standing here. When I finally focus and look at the guy in front of me, my mouth goes dry and I know I'm staring, but holy shit. I have to look up to see the guy's face, which isn't exactly a shock since I'm only five-foot-seven, but I think even if I were standing at six-foot I would need to look up at this one. His eyes are dark, surrounded by shadows and as he glares at me, I see they are full of shadows too. His hair is blonde and messy, and even with the short military cut, it's obvious he's been running his hands through it. I try not to let my eyes wander but I don't have any control over them as they slip down over his body. His shoulders are as broad as I am tall and where most gym bunnies waists taper in, this guy is thick and full the whole way down. Add that to his massive biceps and thighs that I'm not sure I could get my arms around, and I would say he is firmly on the daydream wank material list.

  He points at the sign, and that's the first clue that I've been staring at him. "Who are you and why do you have my name on a piece of card?"

  I look down at the offending sign, rereading it like I can't remember the name on it. "Are you Mr Finnegan?"

  "Yes."

  "Mr R Finnegan?"

  He's starting to look at me as though I'm a little slow on the uptake, or maybe I don't understand basic English, but who the hell can blame him. I'm finding it hard to form any words as he stares at me with those unforgiving eyes.

  "Sorry, my name’s Aiden and I will be your driver today." At least I sound a little less like someone who has no idea what's going on, even if my response seems to confuse him.

  "I don't understand, why do I need a driver?"

  His question throws me because I'm not sure what to say. Uncle didn't tell me why I was picking this guy up, only that I needed to be waiting inside arrivals so he would see me. "Um, I don't know. I just get told where to be and who to pick up."

  He continues to stare at me, and I'm beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable. I've helped my uncle out a bit by driving when he is down staff, but usually, I hold up my sign, carry a bag, and then take my passenger wherever they need to go. This guy is making things difficult. "I don't need a lift, my boyfriend will be here soon."

  I want to pretend the knowledge that he's gay doesn't make him even more attractive, but I've always made a point of not lying to myself. He takes off towards the exit, his large bag over his shoulder like it weighs nothing, and it takes me maybe three steps to each one of his to keep up. Not only are his legs thick, apparently they are long as well. We make it to the exit before I start to sweat and I'm thankful when the brisk wind hits me.

  The big guy looks around, searching the cars out the front looking for his boyfriend. I stand behind him and stay quiet, knowing I can’t leave until I take him home but not wanting to be the one to tell him he's been stood up. It's the only reason that I would be here, and it's a pretty shitty welcome home. I don't know where he's been stationed or for how long, but going by the weary energy he’s giving off I know it wasn't a fun time. So no, I'm not going to be the one to tell him that he is on his own because his boyfriend is a fucking arsehole who couldn't even be bothered to pick him up.

  We stand for a while, but I know that he’s already worked out that there's a reason I'm here. Finally, he turns towards me, his head dropped and looking more tired than he had when he arrived, and nods. "Fine, take me to the car."

  I want to offer to carry his bag for him, but it looks fucking heavy, so I just turn and head to the valet area where I parked the car. At least it's close so he doesn't have far to go now. I unlock the car and the boot pops open, so I stand to the side so he can drop his bag inside. When it falls off his shoulder, it's like it takes the last of his energy with it and his shoulders drop. I quickly shut the boot and rush past him to open his door for him. His whole body relaxes as soon as he gets into the car, and he leans back and closes his eyes before he's even shut inside. His arm comes up and covers his eyes, making me feel sorry for him.

  I slip into the driver's seat, trying to keep the noise to a minimum so he can rest. I already have the address to take him to his destination so I don't need to speak to him at all. I start the car and make my way through the slow traffic towards the exit. Three flights arrived at the same time as Mr Finnegan's and now the whole place is almost at a standstill. I hate that there’s a delay in getting him home, but at least it gives him a little longer to rest before the inevitable fight that's going to happen when he gets there. If he doesn't call out his piece of shit boyfriend, he's a better guy than me. The only thing that would be an acceptable excuse for him not being here is death, mainly his own, but since he apparently booked the car, I know he probably isn't dead.

  The car moves slowly, the nose to tail traffic in front of me not going anywhere quickly. I try to keep my eyes on the road, but they keep connecting with the rearview mirror so I can see Mr F – which is what I'm going to call him since I don't know his name – still lying back against the back seat. His arm is now lying across his stomach but his eyes are still closed, making me wonder if he's fallen asleep. I study his face, thinking that if he is sleeping, he still looks tense. Is that what happens when you're in the army? Do you always look stressed, like maybe you're worried that something will happen when you're asleep? And does that ever go away, even when you come home?

  I jump when the car behind me honks, and I look out the windscreen quickly and see that the road in front of me is clear. I drive forward and stop at the security barrier, putting my ticket into the machine when I reach it. My eyes flicker to the mirror before I move again and I see Mr F's eyes open and he's staring at me. Hating that I've been caught I concentrate on getting past the barrier and out onto the main road. Now that I'm approaching the motorway I need to focus because rush hour is in full swing and that brings out the crazy fuckers who just want to get home. I indicate before exiting the slip road, slowing slightly behind a car in the left lane before being able to pull out and gunning the engine. I'm on autopilot but still acutely aware, so when Mr F speaks it takes me by surprise. He's been so quiet in the back seat that I wasn't expecting him to start a conversation.

  "What's your name again?"

  I keep my eyes on the road but raise my voice so I know he can hear me. "Aiden, sir."

  "Please don't sir me, I'm not a sir. My name is Ralph."

  I don't mean to snigger, but apparently, my brain to mouth filter has taken a momentary holiday. "Ralph? Like you know …" I swear I hear him growl and I decide that maybe it's safer not to finish that particular sentence.

  Chapter Two

  Ralph

  I
know what’s going to come out of his mouth before he even thinks it. Ever since that fucking movie came out, people have been comparing the two of us. It doesn’t help that we are both pretty big guys, making the comparison even funnier. “Yes, like Wreck-It Ralph. I know, I'm huge like him.”

  Aiden smiles, and it takes a little of the sting out of the joke he was about to make. I don’t usually get so pissed off when people mention the film, but I'm just so fucking tired today. I had spent the whole flight home from Canada thinking about being back home in William’s arms. It’s the only thing that made the nearly eight-hour flight bearable. Five months. Five long, tiring months without him and I was finally coming home. I could see other men from the deployment being met by loved ones and it made my heart start to race in anticipation. What I hadn’t expected was to find my name written on a piece of card being held by someone I didn't know.

  I just wanted to hug my man and go home to sleep for the next sixteen hours, I'm now sitting in a car with a complete stranger - albeit a cute stranger – but a stranger nonetheless. I want to get my mobile out and call William to see where he is but it ran out of power about four hours into the flight after I fell asleep listening to music. I would worry about the reason he isn't here, possibly an accident, but since he organised a driver for me, he must have known in advance that he wasn’t coming. That doesn’t explain why he didn’t tell me though and as soon as I get home, he has a lot of explaining to do.

  “Sorry, I take it you hear that joke a lot?”

  “More than you can imagine. As soon as one person said it, it spread around the base quicker than a case of crabs. My team even started calling me WI.”

  “WI?” He asks the question, but I see the moment that he works out what it means. “Wreck it.” His laughter should piss me off, but it has me smiling as I relax in the seat a bit more. “So I know nothing about the army, explain in easy words what you do.”

  “I'm a recovery mechanic.”

  “Is that what it sounds like?” He watches me in the mirror occasionally as he speaks, but he always has to turn back to watch the road.

  “I go in to recover broken down vehicles and repair them. I'm a Lance Corporal, so I have a team that I lead and make sure they're safe.”

  “That sounds interesting. It's like an AA recovery man but with guns.”

  I laugh at his description, thinking that they really should use that description to recruit new people. “That’s pretty close to what it's like, well apart from the cars are sometimes the size of combine harvesters, and there is always the risk of being shot.”

  “Shit, do you really get shot at? I thought you would go in after everything died down.”

  “We go wherever there's a vehicle that needs to be recovered. Sometimes that’s under heavy fire from enemies.” This time I'd been stationed in Canada for training and maintenance of the vehicles, so there had been none of that, but my last visit to Iraq had proved how intense things could get. When you have gunfire going off overhead, it's incredible how quickly you can get a crane in place to move an overturned foxhound.

  “Wow, that sounds … crazy and brave.”

  I can feel the pride swell in my chest, and it’s a strange feeling. I've gotten used to not speaking about my job with William. His eyes would glaze over whenever I mentioned the army, even if it’s the thing we fought about the most.

  “It must be difficult though, leaving your family behind when you get deployed. That’s the right word isn’t it?”

  “It's really fucking hard.” I stop talking, prepared to cut the story short before I end up looking like I'm complaining. He doesn't need to hear my sob story, but he continues talking like he actually wants to know about it.

  “Where have you come back from, and how long were you there? I saw some of the men coming out and seeing their families. God, they all looked so happy to be back together.”

  My chest tightens a little when I think about not being met by anyone who loved me. “I was stationed in Canada for five months, helping train up another team with a new winch. It was a long haul but not as bad as some of the other deployments.”

  “What's been the longest?”

  “Seven months but it felt like seven years.”

  “Why …”

  He stops talking and indicates to move to the middle lane. He's concentrating really hard on his driving, and I'm pretty sure he's using it as an excuse not to carry on with what he was about to say. “Why what?”

  Aiden stays quiet for a few moments and I think he's going ignore what I asked but he eventually takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly before speaking. “Why wasn’t anyone there to meet you?”

  Now isn't that the million pound question. “My parents live in Spain and it's difficult for them to be here. My brother and sister have their own families, so as long as they know I'm safe, they're happy to see me in a few weeks. Now my boyfriend William, I'm not sure why he didn’t come to get me. Hopefully, in about twenty minutes, I will find out why he wasn’t there.” My mind fills with all the reasons that he was missing. Maybe something had come up suddenly at work, or perhaps he has a surprise planned. My hopes are on that one. We'd spoken a lot about possibly getting married before being deployed, saying that maybe when I got home, we would finally take the leap. We already live together, so it isn’t a huge step but one that I want.

  “I'm sure that he has a good reason.” Aiden smiles at me, but I can't see any conviction behind the move. He doesn’t look as though he thinks there could be a good enough reason, and part of me agrees with him.

  Just under my predicted twenty minutes later we pull up outside my house. I scramble to get out of the car, not wanting to believe what I'm seeing. I run around the back end of the car and come to a grinding halt. I stare at the pile of stuff on the front lawn not understanding what’s happening. I step forward slowly like I'm back out on patrol and there's a chance that I'm going to stand on a mine, but that won't happen here, the only fear is what I'm about to find in the stack of black bags in front of me. I rip open the top of the first one I come to and it's full of my clothes, confirming that I was right to have my fears. I open another one just in case I had made a mistake with the first, but this one too is full of my belongings.

  What the fuck?

  I don’t think about what I'm doing as I go storming up to the front door and finding it locked, start banging on it. I never take keys when I go on deployment just in case I lose them. It's not like I will need them while I'm away, it's not like I can come home and surprise William. I'm starting to see my mistake by not taking them because now I'm locked out of my own house. I continue to hit my fists on the door, but I know William isn't inside. Who would do all this shit and then wait around for me to come home? Now the driver makes sense. He sent someone to get me because he's a fucking coward. I stop the attack on the door, all the exhaustion from too many hours travel taking everything from me.

  I turn away from the door and sit on the top step, dropping my head and trying not to give in to all the emotions that are battling inside to be let out. Frustration, anger, and shock are all there, but the one that wins out is fear. I have no idea what I'm meant to do now because I have no idea what's going on. Does this mean that William has kicked me out? Okay, so that part is pretty obvious, I just can't work my head around the why. Before I left, we were planning marriage, and now all my shit is sitting outside our house in black bags. My biggest problem is I don’t know what to do now, where to go. I don’t have anyone close to here that could take me in, and because William didn’t want to live on a base, I don’t have accommodation on there. I run through anyone on base that might be able to take me in for a few nights, but since most of my friends have a family, I can't put them out like that. I also refuse to share a room with Tyson’s toddler again. I did it one night after a party and it wasn't a fun experience.

  I become aware of someone standing looking at me, and I lift my head to find Aiden standing there, his hands in his pocke
t while he pretends this isn't as awkward as fuck. I feel sorry for him. He didn’t sign up for all this.

  “Hey, so um … what do you want to do?” He chews the inside of his mouth and it makes me feel even worse for him. I wouldn’t know how to handle this if I was him. He's watching my life implode spectacularly and it can't be fun to watch.

  “You can just leave my bag with the rest of my shit. It's not like I have anywhere to go.”

  He looks sad as I speak but I choose to ignore it. If I give in to the tears that I can feel burning at the back of my eyes, then I'm going to be a sobbing mess and that’s the last thing I need just now. Best to just let the exhaustion win over anything else.

  “I'm not just leaving you here. Do you have someplace I can take you?”

  I shake my head because even speaking seems like too much effort just now. I cover my face with my hands because I just want to vanish for a little while. Maybe if I concentrate really hard then I will wake up, because I'm praying that this is nothing but a bad dream.

  Chapter Three

  Aiden

  I don’t know what to do. Ralph looks like he's fallen asleep sitting up and all his stuff is still strewn around the grass like it was thrown there in a hurry. The minute I pulled up in front of his house I knew that it wasn’t going to end well but this is a shit show I didn’t expect. Now as I watch every ounce of energy drain from his body, I can't believe that his boyfriend has put him through all this. What sort of guy just dumps and runs when their man has been away at war? Okay, it wasn’t precisely war, but he was helping our country protect itself. Five months he went without his home comforts so he could help train up soldiers who would, in turn, protect our nation, and his fucking boyfriend couldn’t even stick around until he got home.