Letters To My Soldier

Letter Sixteen

June 2018

"You forgot to add something to that list, I assume."

"What's that?"

"Have you ever been in a tree house?" I ask with a smile.

Heath looks down at me with one of the biggest grins I've seen him wear.

"Nope. But I'm about to."

"Race you to the top!" I say and dash without looking back at him, squealing when I feel him try to grab me from behind.

I know he's letting me win, but I don't really mind.

"You little sneak!" he yells at me and I scream again as I feel his fingertips brush my sides as I swerve back and forth, running circles around trees on our way to the tree house that's about fifty feet away.

"C'mon Heath! Work those legs!" I tease him as I run on a straight path to the awaiting ladder.

"This is okay. I like the view from back here!" he says in a low sultry voice and I'm tempted to look back. God am I tempted. But I get to the ladder so, instead, I don't answer and climb my way up. I push the bag I brought with up onto the tree deck.

I may or may not have shaken my hips a little more than necessary.

The tree house wasn't like your average tree house. In fact, it wasn't really a tree house, per se. It was more like a deck. Or more specifically, a large piece of flat wood wedged in-between tree branches with a rope ladder hanging down from it. The leaves on the tree were sparse even though it was summer. The wood was jaded and had turned a nasty brown color since I last came here about two years ago.

Life just got too busy and my 'social status' prohibited ever being solitary-alone. Ever.

I was literally snatched out of my thoughts when Heath plopped up onto the slab of wood next to me, tickling my sides with a mock-furious frown on his pretty lips.

Giggling, I managed to say, "Stop! Please, we'll break the wood! It's unstable!"

"Trust me, it's very stable."

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

"So," I say, lying on my back now and looking up at the cloudless sky. "How do you like Connecticut so far?"

Heath copies my position, brushing his arm against mine.

"Right now, it's the only place I want to be," he says and it kind of sounds sarcastic but when I look at his face, watching the sky, I see he couldn't be more serious.

I pull the bag towards me, grabbing my giraffe pillow pet and Hartford was sort of chilly despite it being summer and cloudless.

"I remember your favorite animal was a giraffe," Heath says as he moves in closer so both of our heads rest on the pillow.

"You remember that?" I ask even though I remember everything he's written in his letters.

"Yep."

We sit there in silence, the blanket covering just our bottom halves.

"I'm going to make us my grandmother's lasagna tonight."

I look over at him with an encouraging smile, "Okay. But you don't want to wait until a night when Dean and Jess can try?" Dean was surprising Jess to a special dinner, away from her restaurant, since she's been so stressed lately.

"I'll make it again, sure...but I just wanted you to try it first, tell me what you think," he says and sighs, "I don't think I told you this but, you're the only one I talk to about what happened before the ROTC."