My Life as a Navy Wife

I slept well that night, the first time I had slept without having to get absolutely trashed since Adrian died. It was a peaceful sleep, something I don’t actually remember having in my teenage years, correction, something I don’t remember having since the day I got told I was moving from Port Douglas to Hervey Bay. The sleep, I found when I awoke, was much needed, not only because I hadn’t slept for three days but also because Jack had some big plans.

Walking down the stairs I’m assaulted by the heavenly smell of bacon. My stomach immediately aches and I take the remainder of the stairs two at a time. I bounce into the kitchen and hug Jack from behind. He pats my hands and I peer over his shoulder to see that I was right, he’s cooking me bacon for breakfast. A grin spreads across my face and I lightly kiss the back of his neck, he squirms, which intrigues me so I do it again. He squirms again so I gently bite his neck and a small moan escapes from his lips. I giggle and the place a kiss on his cheek and sit on the bench watching him cook.

Jack plates up the bacon and then cuts it into small pieces before mixing it into raw eggs and I realise that he’s making omelettes. I decide that I should probably do something to help so I get out the juice and pour us each a glass and set the table and put some bread into the toaster for Jack. I butter it and place it on his plate as he plates up our omelettes. I kiss him in thanks and place it on the table and we eat together as he tells me what he has planned for today.

“We’re going to the hairdressers, and then we’re going to get you some new clothes,” he tells me and I nod solemnly.

We finish our breakfast and I trudge off to brush my teeth and decide to just fix my hair into a pony tail. I pull on my skinny jeans which hang loosely off my body now and a singlet, along with Adrian’s jumper. Jack meets me at the bottom of the stairs in jeans and a t-shirt and we get into his car and drive to the local shops.

Jack takes the hairdresser off to the side out of my earshot and talks to her before she nods, replies and then he comes over, kisses my cheek and tells me that he’ll be back in about four or five hours. The woman, whose name I learn is Alexi, leads me over to a seat with no mirror in front of it and starts mixing colours in a pot. She paints all of my hair in the colour and hands me a magazine, leaves me for about 15 minutes then takes me to rinse my hair out, she repeats this process of painting and rinsing twice then takes out her scissors.

“No, you are not cutting my hair!” I tell her and try to get up.

“Jackie, your boyfriend told me to do it, he also told me that you’d say no, but he said he knows you well enough that you’ll love the new hair cut and colour so you should just go with the flow,” Alexi tells me. I sigh and cross my hands over my chest under the hairdressing cape and let her do her job.

By the time she’s finished cutting, teasing and hair spraying my hair, Jack is back with about a dozen shopping bags from various shops. He smiles brightly when he sees me and pays Alexi for the work. He takes my hand and I follow him out of the salon trying to catch a glimpse of myself in any sort of reflective surface I can. He notices what I am doing and stops walking, fishing through one of the bags he pulls out a case and opens it, handing me a brand new pair of Ray Ban Wayfarers, just like the ones he has on top of his head. I put them on and kiss his cheek and he smiles happily, leading us to the car and making me promise not to peak until he says I can.