Dear Jimmy

~Sam~

"So do you know what Jimmy's doing for our date?" I asked Val as we talked on the phone.
"Indeed I do and no I'm not telling you jack diddly squat!" she laughed knowing what I was going to ask next.
"Damn. Well I'll find out in a little bit anyway." I said as I searched my closet for something to wear.
"I promise you're going to love it. Just be patient though." she said making me stop what I was doing  and furrowed my eyebrows together.
"Okay, can you at least give me a clue as what to wear?" I asked. It was silent for a second where I imagine she was thinking.
"I say dress casual. Not your normal Sunday outfit, but definitely not some tight ass mini-skirt." she said making me laugh.
"Honestly, I don't even own a mini-skirt." I said picking a shirt and examining it. I heard her gasp in shock. "What? There's no need for them in the service." I said. I threw the shirt on the bed and closed my closet.
"I suppose that's true." she agreed.
"Alright Val, I'm gonna hang up and get ready." I said. We said our good-byes and I jumped in the shower for a nice long relaxing shower.
"I wonder what Val meant by 'be patient'?" I thought out loud. I shrugged it off and continued my shower. I got out about 45 minutes later and wrapped a towel around my body. I stepped into my bedroom and put on my clothes. I glanced at the clock and noticed I still had 30 minutes left. I threw my hair into a ponytail and left towards my truck. I didn't bother with make up because as a teenager I wasn't into that stuff and I didn't get a chance to get in it while in the Marines. I backed out of our driveway and made my way towards the pier where Val told me to meet Jimmy. I still hadn't given him my number and I guess Val hasn't either. I was 10 minutes early to the pier so I decided to walk down it and look out at the ocean. I looked how the waves crashed against each other and how the sun looked gleaming against the water.
'Huntington really is beautiful' I thought as I took on the sights. I felt arms wrap themselves around me' making me look down seeing the familiar tattoos only found on Jimmy.
"Well hello there beautiful." he whispered in my ear. I leaned back into him feeling his warmth wrap itself around me like arms.
"Hey. You're early." I said. I turned around to face him wrapping my arms around his neck.
"So are you." he said laughing softly. I shrugged but nodded knowing it was true.
"I was early."
"Isn't it normal for women to be late, not early?" he asked jokingly.
"You should know by now that I don't do 'normal' things." I laughed. He laughed again and suddenly his smile faded a little bit.
"So I know that I promised it would only be us two today, and it will be! But I thought for our first activity we would do something with the everyone else." he said hesitantly. I smiled, liking that idea since I liked spending time with them.
"That sounds like fun. What are we going to do?" I asked. He smiled again obviously pleased that I didn't mind it not being alone on the date.
"Well I was thinking we could do paintball. Do you oppose to that?" he asked smiling down at me. I smiled up and him and shook my head making him smile even wider. He leaned down slowly and pressed his lips to mine. I loved the feel of his lips on mine, the softness and the warmth of them. He opened his mouth slowly signaling for me to do the same. Slowly I felt his tongue rub against mine slowly. I ran my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. His fingers gently gripped the loops on my pants bringing my hips closer to his.
"Now now you two, gotta keep it PG! There are kids here!" I heard from beside me. We broke the kiss and looked over and saw Brian standing there smirking at us. I blushed and hid my face into Jimmy's chest.
"Let's go!" Val screamed excitedly from beside Matt. We laughed and joined them. We all piled into Brian and Matt's SUV's and we mass our way over to NPPL, Huntington's paintball arena. Once we got there we all piled out and decided how we were going to do this.
"I say girls against boys!" Michelle proposes. Everyone goes silent and looks amongst each other.
"Alright. You girls are going down!" Johnny yells and runs inside. All the guys follow him and us girls calmly walk in behind them.
"Do we have this?" Lacey asks as we walk in.
"I think so. We have Sam!" Val says smirking at Michelle. I look between the two and realize that they planned this.
"This was planned huh?" I asked. They both looked at each other and then back at me.
"Yeah!" they said at the same time making me shake my head in disbelief.
"Well you've done this sort of thing before right?" Michelle asked as we walked over towards gear rental. Val was getting her wallet out when the attendant stopped her.
"All of you have been paid for by the guys. A Valary DiBenedetto was paid for by Matt Sanders, a Michelle DiBenedetto was paid for by Brian Haner Jr, a Gena Paulhus paid for by Zachary Baker, a Lacey Franklin paid for by Jonathan Seward and Sam Bernson paid for by James Sullivan.” she said reading off a piece of paper. We all looked amongst ourselves before shrugging and the attendant got all set up in blue uniforms. I looked over and saw that the guys had yellow uniforms on.
“To answer your question Michelle, I have done this before but not very often.” I said putting my helmet on and checking to make sure my paint gun was fully loaded.
“What's your job over there?” Gena asks as she adjusts her laces of the shoots.
"My MOS is supply administration” I said. They all looked at me weirdly making me chuckle.
“What does a supply administrator do?” she asked as we walked over to the starting point.
“We supply the soldiers on the front line with equipment.” I said.
“Cool. Well we still got this!” Val said and I nodded. We lined up at our starting line and the boys lined up at their starting line. I noticed Jimmy standing on the far left and Johnny standing next to him making me laugh at the large height distance. I took a minute to scan the whole arena mentally marking areas that are big enough for a person to hide in and places that are easy to run behind and not be seen.
“Alright the rules are simple. You get hit, you're out for a minute. Now each of you have different color paintballs and we recorded who got what color beforehand. Now teams get ready...get set....GO!” and with that we were off. Instead of going straight for firing, I went and hid quickly as to get a lay of where everyone was headed to. I saw either Matt or Brian run after Lacey and I saw Johnny run after Gena as she headed my way. I quickly ducked out of the way and ran to another spot. As I was running I had a clear shot of Johnny and shot him in the bicep.
“Number 12, one minute out!” someone said from above us. I didn't even know we had numbers, guess I wasn't paying attention when putting on the gear.
“Number 8, out!” I saw someone wearing a blue vest walking towards the time out area. So it was 4 on 4 now. I saw Jimmy running in the opposite direction as me and I had a clear shot so I took it hitting him square in the back of the head.
“Number 56, out!” he looked around confused as to who shot him but went to the area anyway. I saw Johnny come back in and run and hide somewhere. I felt a pain in my leg and looked down to see I had been shot by someone who has baby blue paintballs.
“Number 15, out!” and with that I went over to our teams waiting area. I looked over at Jimmy and saw white paint spatter on his helmet which meant my paint was white. This continued for a while with people getting out and back in and everyone being a good sport about it.
“Alright everyone bring it to the center!” the voice called again. We all made our way to where we were before and saw that everyone was covered in paint. “Now, it's a free for all. No one has to go out if hit, when I say 'go', every man, or woman, for themselves. Everyone understand?” we all nodded and there was a second of silence. “GO!” and with that we all took of again. This time I was tactful about my shooting and just shot whoever I saw coming. I was shot a fair number of times myself, but the amount of white other people had on them was far more than other colors. I shot one of the boys in the leg before running and hiding before they could see it was me. I hid behind a barrel and caught my breath. I peeked around the barrel and saw one of the girls coming my way. I got in the ready position and shot as many as I could before darting to another location before anyone could shoot me. I moved so I was now in between a large crate and the wall peeking out to see if anyone was coming. I saw one of the guys walking towards someone else and raised my gun to shoot when I felt someone push their gun into my side. I felt a flash of panic thinking it was a real gun and I was back in Iraq, but quickly shook that thought out of my head as I focused on the person that the gun belonged to.
“Now, put the gun down!” a guy, I recognized as Jimmy with an accent, said as he stepped closer. I lowered my paint gun until it was beside me. “turn around” he said. I slowly turned around and was face to face with a paint covered Jimmy. He pulled his gun away and stepped closer to me, sandwiching between his body and the crate. He removed my helmet and did the same with his without a word before bringing his lips down to mine once again. My hands immediately went to his hair lightly tugging on it and slipping it through my fingers. His hands went to my waist bring my hips closer to his. He pushed me even more into the crate causing the body heat between us to grow immensely. The sounds of paint hitting the walls and the girls screams and the guys' girly screams completely faded away as we kissed. All the sudden I felt pain in my thigh making me tear away from Jimmy and hiss in pain. I heard someone laughing and I looked over to see one of the girls standing there laughing. I grabbed my gun and shot her right in the stomach making her squeal and run away. We both grabbed our helmets and went our separate ways and continued shooting each other. By the time we were done it had been 3 hours since we started and everyone was staring to get sore. We returned the gear and made our way outside. Gena fell instep with me as we walked towards the car.
“So did you and Jimmy have fun in the corner?” she asked smirking at me her eyes smiling. I looked over at her mouth agape.
“That was you who shot me in the leg?” I asked. She smiled widely and nodded vigorously making me chuckle. “Well for your information, yes we did have fun!” I said making her laugh which caused everyone else to look at her and I had to laugh at her face, which was blushing and looking at her feet.
“Aww babe. You're so cute!” Zacky said coming over to comfor his girlfriend. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. Val turned towards Matt and slapped his chest lightly.
“What was that for woman?” he asked looking down at her.
“How come we're never that cute anymore?” she asked crossing her arms. He looked like a fish out of water with the way his mouth was opening and closing. Finally he turned and glared at Zacky who looked amused at Matt's suffering.
“Thanks a lot Zack!” Matt said before running after Val who had walked away. I had to laugh at how cute those two were. I walked up so I was beside Jimmy and linked my arm with his. He looked down at me and smiled.
“So where to now?” I asked.
“Its a secret. The guys are going to drop us off at the pier and we're gonna go from there. That okay?” he asked wrapping his arm around my shoulder. I leaned into him and nodded. I saw Michelle and Brian smiling at us from beside me and smiled back at them causing Michelle to laugh. All these guys and girls really were amazing and I was so glad that I get the chance to hang out with them so much. We got in the car and everyone talked amongst themselves but I noticed that Jimmy's arm never left my shoulder. I talked to Zacky about baseball again as we rode back to the pier. I glanced out the window behind him and noticed that the sun was getting a little lower in the sky casting a more orange and less yellow glare across the sky. Minutes later we arrived at the pier and I promised Zacky we would go to the batting cages together before I left next Monday. I turned towards Jimmy giving him my full attention as we walked along the beach.
“Alright, so I admit I don't have a real fancy date planned. I was hoping we could walk along the beach and just talk.” he said rubbing the back of his neck in way that I found 100% adorable.
“That sounds wonderful.” I said. He smiled at me and grabbed my hand intwining our fingers before starting on our stretch down the beach.
“So what made you decide the military and why the Marines specifically?” he asked.
“Well I knew I wasn't cut out for a desk job and I hated school, so why put myself through 4 more years of hell? I guess at the time the military seemed like my only option besides a lame job that I wouldn't even like. I chose the Marines because they're toughest branch of the military and I figured that if I was going to join, I might as well go for the hardest they have. Kind of a 'go big or go home' type of thing. Besides, it feels amazing to be part of something that is respected around the country, maybe even the world, but I doubt that” I said honestly. He nodded silently and looked out at the ocean. “Why join a band?” I asked.
“Well I've been drumming since I was 10. It was my escape, instead of beating up people, I could beat up the drums and I wouldn't get in trouble. Then I met Matt, and he always loved music and he created a band when he was in high school, but they didn't work out and then he, Zacky, and Brian formed a band but they didn't have a bassist and a drummer, so they asked me and I accepted. Johnny didn't come into the picture for a while. I don't think any of us imagined that we would become this big. Its still surreal to wake up in a tour bus and you think to yourself, 'wow this is really happening'. Makes you wanna pinch yourself. I normally just pinch Johnny instead.” he said smiling. I giggled at the thought, making him smile even wider. He stopped walking and wrapped his arms around me. I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my head on his chest looking out at the ocean.
“I like you Sam.” I heard him say. I lifted my head off his chest and looked at him to see him looking straight at me.
“I like you too Jimmy.” I said. I didn't think I would meet someone every, much less in a bar.
“I wish you didn't have to go. I'm going to miss you when you're gone.” he said sadly looking down.
“I'll be back before you know it! And I'll write to you every chance I get!” I said. He smiled sadly at me. “Hey do me a favor.” I said.
“Anything.” he said without hesitation.
“Smile for me!” I said. He cracked a small smile making me smile before leaning up and pressing my lips to his.