***
Having spoken with Vincent, there was nothing else to look forward to but the upcoming months, which just about brought me up to the here and now: freezing my ass off on yet another morning watch.
Since that night after my talk with Vincent, Helena and I hadn’t again had a free night together, as our watch schedules had kept us separated during that time. These days, by the time my shift was finished, it was time to go to sleep, and when I woke up, she was just finishing her shift, and was ready for bed herself. It got pretty lonely at times, but at least as I sat here on the porta decumana rampart, freezing my ass off at three in the morning, I had Santino to keep me company.
“Come on, Jacob. Don’t lie to me. I know what’s going on in that tent of yours.”
“Santino, you of all people should know that I’d never tell you anything even if we were doing what you say we’re doing.”
“That’s not an answer, my friend.”
“What makes you think you deserve one?”
“Come on!” He said insistently. “I’m freezing my balls off here. Give me something. Anything.”
I shook my head. “You’re helpless. And an asshole. We need to find you a woman when we get back to Rome.”
“We’d better!” He exclaimed with a shake of his head. “A man can only go so long before going crazy. I don’t know how you’ve done it since the nurse.”
I frowned. It was still a bad memory.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to reopen old wounds.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I assured.
Santino turned and leaned against the railing to face the wilderness. “It’s hard not to.”
I moved to stand against the railing as well, but leaned so that I could face my friend. “Why do you say that?”
He smacked the railing. “Jacob, you have a wonderful and beautiful woman sitting in your tent every night! And then the two of you prance about the camp all day like you hardly know each other, but we can all see it.” He paused. “We can see a lot of things.”
“We’re just friends, John.”
He huffed. “You’re wasting your time if you ask me.”
“Well no one asked you.”
He snapped his head around and stared at me intently. “You shouldn’t have to. Guys like us don’t find a girl like her every day. You’ve been lucky enough to meet two that I know of, and you fucked up the first one. All I’m saying is that you’d better not let it happen again.”
I turned away from my friend and looked out over our wall, past the ditch and wooden stakes, and into the clearing, the tree line far off in the distance. He was right. I’d never find another one like her. I didn’t know why, but somehow that thought didn’t comfort me.