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Every now and then, I'd get a nice view of him and did my best not to stare, but damn it was hard He had chocolate brown hair and hazel eyes that I caughtlost in all too often He was the type of inity to, if it wasn't for the fact that he was so much older than I was

Well, that, and the fact that he'd never shown any interest in me Even when I'd tanned by the pool into catch his eye – I'd never caught hi He'd always been incredibly well-behaved, which I took to mean, he had no interest in me

“Well, tell the kids I said hello,” I said “And I hope to see them soon”

“Will do,” he said

He smiled, but it was a friendly, almost perfunctory smile It didn't quite reach his eyes and didn't strikeMarcus actually s time It had been several years since his wife had died, and I knew hehis best to carry on He was a good father, devoted to his children and his career, but he was always so very serious

What I wouldn't give to see a smile on that man's face – one that lit his eyes up fro it anymore, not even when he ith his kids He always see

All I knew is it was no way to live your life and my heart went out to him

CHAPTER TWO

“Riley went out with Seth,”down a few of the stairs into the base soured it would sort of be a ‘Welcome Back’ part

y for you”

“Mom, you didn't have to do that,” I said

“It's just a few people,” she said “Nothing big I proht ahead”

Yeah, right All e Of my two best friends, Rachel, was at UC-Berkeley, and Hannah was somewhere on the East coast because she was a rebel and wanted to get as far away as possible And as I scrolled down the list of friends in e I was the only failure in one home

It didn'tparty I started to get htwasted She was a pretty girl, so I'd picked up a few pointers from her on how to make my blue eyes pop even more

She was also the one who'd talkedmy nose pierced And I hadn't even been flat out drunk either tiet just a little tipsy as I tried to fit in with the other girls