Confessions of a Wild Heart Read Online Free Page A

done; the second, he’d been damn near broken; and then the mess with Christa had distracted him enough on his third to make him realize this just wasn’t the life for him anymore.
    He’d loved the people he met, the camaraderie, and the discipline he’d learned. He enjoyed having a direction he’d lacked when he was a teenager. But now he was ready to be his own man, find his place in the world.
    That’s why he didn’t regret taking this last leave to himself. He’d saved almost all his extra funds since he’d joined up, even the small bonus he’d gotten early on for joining up before there was discussion of troop withdrawal. Sure, he’d sent home money to help out when they needed it, but his parents had insisted he keep his money for himself.
    So he had. He’d lived most of his time in barracks and been miserly with his commissary. He wasn’t rich by any means, but when he got out, he could finish the last credits he needed for his criminal justice degree—which he hadn’t dared finish while enlisted because he did not have any desire to be MP.
    He also had a nice cushion to enjoy during his time off. He’d spent the last two weeks backpacking in Switzerland, playing around in Amsterdam, and taking in the history of Germany. It’d been fascinating and fun and really awesome for his nerd side. He hadn’t been held back by anyone for the first time in his life, was able to go and see and do what he wanted.
    But he’d had the underlying loneliness and the fights with Christa to make things frustrating here toward the end. Which is why Ase was a nice distraction.
    He was actually excited, beneath all the trepidation about the night. He’d never done anything so reckless as meeting a cute fellow-American tourist and bar-hopping like a normal twenty-one year old. Certainly, he’d never bar-hopped gay bars. Sure, he’d done pub-crawls with buddies and been to a gay bar here and there on his own, but he’d never had what Ase continued to refer as a Gay Ole Night.
    He checked his phone again to remind himself which stop he needed. He looked up to see the next stop was his— Müllerstraße . After he hopped off the streetcar, he wandered down a sidewalk, taking in all the lights and people. He’d seen busy streets in the last few years, but there was something jovial about the atmosphere here. There were rainbow flags and people crowded in front of bars, but there were also little old ladies walking their dogs, completely uncaring of the gay couples walking hand-in-hand.
    There were gay bars and pubs mixed among bookshops and hardware stores. He remembered the word “kitschy” Ase had used for the neighborhood and thought the description was apt for the random hodgepodge he was walking past.
    Finally he recognized the sign for the place Ase had told him they should meet up, and the closer he drew, he could hear a laugh that was permanently imprinted in his memory. He’d recognize anywhere the ass on the man standing on the sidewalk talking to a drag queen.
    “Ase,” he called, as he walked closer. Ase turned, and goddamn, was he looking nice. He sported a leather biker jacket and different pair of skintight black jeans. His boots were leather and his t-shirt a plain white V-neck. He had his black hair slicked back, and had clearly gotten a haircut, because the sides were shaved. As good as Ase looked tonight, Jase could skip the dancing part and take Ase back to his room for all he gave a shit.
    Ase air-kissed the drag queen on each cheek, and she gave Jase a fluttering wave as Ase swaggered over Jase’s way. “I didn’t realize we were going to a leather bar,” Jase half-teased.
    With a leer, Ace retorted, “I didn’t realize we were going to a honky-tonk.”
    Jase looked down at his blue jeans, blue plaid button-up, and his nicest boots. “What? These are my going-out clothes.” Okay, so he knew he probably looked a little too Texas for Munich. But he hadn’t wanted to buy all new clothes for