Just Drive

by L. A. Witt

  It reminded me a little of when the landing mishap had grounded me. At first, I’d fought it. I’d refused to give up what I’d worked so hard to achieve.

  But then the cracks had started showing. I’d realized how much worse that accident could have been. That there would be ample opportunity for it to happen again. I’d seen several friends badly injured—in a few cases killed—in training accidents, ejections, disastrous landings, and one catastrophic mechanical failure.

  Back then, it had been hard as hell to give up flying, but it had been time.

  Today, it wasn’t easy to give up the Navy, and to let go of the star that I’d set my heart on two decades ago.

  But it was time. There was someone in my life who meant more than that star ever would.

  I didn’t know if this would work out. Neither of us could see the future. There was no telling if we’d fizzle a year from now, or if we’d pull this off. All I knew for sure was that Sean was here now, and this relationship wouldn’t be another casualty of my career. I couldn’t know what the future held, but I firmly believed this was the beginning of something amazing.

  And I couldn’t wait to see where we went from here.

  About Eighteen Months Later

  “Never thought I’d say this—” Paul tugged at the sleeve of his dress whites. “But it feels really weird to wear a uniform.”

  “Of course it does.” I put my arms around him from behind and kissed above his starched collar. “You’ve been assimilated into the civilian world.”

  “Ugh. You ain’t kidding.” He fussed with the sleeve again. Then he turned around inside my embrace, straightened my tie, and kissed me lightly. “Looks like we’re both ready?”

  “I’ve been ready for twenty minutes. Been waiting on you.”

  He rolled his eyes and kissed me again. “Do we need to let the dogs out?”

  I shook my head. “Did that ten minutes ago.”

  “So what you’re saying is, we should go.”

  I nodded.

  Paul kissed me one last time, and we finally headed out. We took my car to the base, showed our IDs, and continued toward the complex behind the commissary and Exchange. The building shared a parking lot with the base theater, so at least there were tons of parking spaces.

  “One of these days,” he said, “I’m going to forget myself and take that spot again out of habit.” He gestured at the space that was reserved for the CO.

  “I don’t know.” I pulled into another spot. “She doesn’t seem like she’d like you taking her parking space.”

  Paul laughed. “Probably not.” We’d had dinner with the new CO after the change of command ceremony when she’d first arrived. Turned out she’d been two years behind Paul at the Academy, and they’d flown together briefly before he’d been grounded. The world was small and the Navy made it even smaller.

  We got out of the car, and Paul put on his cover and paused to fuss with his uniform one more time.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “When you are.”

  On the way in, he offered me his elbow, and I smiled as I took it. This was the first time we’d been able to be together openly while he was in uniform. Now that he was retired, and no longer Dad’s commanding officer, we had no reason to hide it anymore.

  So we didn’t.

  Arm in arm, we walked into the room where twenty or thirty people—most of them in uniform—were milling around.

  “Captain on deck!” someone barked, and everyone in the room snapped to attention. No one saluted—we were indoors, after all—but all eyes were on Paul. And me. On us.

  “At ease,” he said, and the whole room relaxed. As we continued inside, he added under his breath, “I should’ve worn a suit.”

  “Oh, admit it—you like it.”

  He glanced at me, then chuckled. “Okay, so I do. But this isn’t my event.”

  “But it’s a military event. How many times will you get to wear your uniform again?”

  “Fair point.”

  My dad and stepmom had already taken their seats in the front row, so we joined them. Paul and Dad shook hands, and we’d barely sat down before the two of them were talking about something that had happened on base recently. My stepmom and I exchanged glances, rolled our eyes, and shook our heads. Paul and Dad could live a hundred years after retirement, and would still be talking shop and telling sea stories.

  At least they got along. In fact, these days, it was hard to believe there’d ever been a time when our relationship had caused strife between me and my dad. Once Paul retired, and there wasn’t any work-related conflict anymore, they’d started getting to know each other. And they’d started golfing, which meant I had Sunday afternoons to study in peace.

  Paul had been retired for just over a year now, and the transition hadn’t been completely smooth. He’d struggled to adapt to the civilian world for the first few months—he’d mentioned more than once that he now understood how convicts felt after being paroled—but he’d found his stride after a while. The boredom had been the worst part. His retirement provided more than enough income, so he didn’t have to get a job, and there hadn’t been a lot of civilian jobs that appealed to him. He had found some places to volunteer around town, though.

  And no surprise—two days into volunteering at the animal shelter, we were the proud dads of a six-year-old boxer and three Siamese cats. After that, I’d gently told him we had enough animals, but then the most adorable black lab puppy ever came to the shelter, and even I couldn’t say no. As Paul and I waited for my dad’s retirement ceremony to start, I was pretty sure all five animals were sleeping peacefully on the couch. Seemed only fair to me—I’d said no more pets, and Paul had said no pets on the couch.

  At least he wasn’t jumping out of bed at six in the morning anymore. And even though he was no longer held to military fitness standards, he didn’t slack on his workout regimens. If anything, he went to the gym more often to occupy some of the newfound free time on his hands. I sure wasn’t going to complain about the results.

  He’d grown his hair out too. Not super long, and he’d never really had a high and tight to begin with—he just looked a bit more . . . relaxed. The gray was more obvious now too. He hated it, but I liked it. A lot.

  Someone walked past me, snapping me out of my thoughts. Chief Romero, one of Dad’s friends, stepped up to the podium and started the ceremony. Like any military function, it was a lot of pomp and circumstance, and a lot of the same old shit.

  I’d been to dozens of retirement ceremonies in my life. A little over a year ago, I’d gone to Paul’s. Now, as everyone went through the usual speeches and plaque presentations, I wondered if this would be the last one I attended. That was a weird thought.

  Dad and Paul both had friends who were still in, though, so there’d probably be more of these. Still, it was odd to see my dad at his retirement, knowing this would be his last active-duty function. He’d been in the Navy since before I was born. Seeing him walk away from it hit me in the gut. More than I’d thought it would. As much as I’d resented the Navy at times, it had been an enormous part of both our lives. I’d been a Navy brat from the day I was born. Leaving all that behind was . . . well, it kind of took my breath away.

  Paul squeezed my hand. I turned to him, and he lifted his eyebrows in an unspoken You okay?

  I nodded, squeezing back, and as subtly as I could, wiped my eyes.

  The master chief’s wife got up to do the spouse part of the ceremony, which included reading a poem about life as a military spouse. As always, there was a certificate and a small award for the retiree’s wife. I gritted my teeth through that part of the ceremony. I loved my stepmom, and she’d definitely had to deal with some of the Navy’s bullshit, but she’d only joined him for the last three years or so of his career. In a weird way, it seemed like my mom should’ve been up there getting something. After all, she’d been there for the first sixteen years of his career, including all of the deployments, not to menti
on the early years when he’d been entitled to the shittiest base housing and barely made enough to keep us off welfare.

  And, finally, it was Dad’s turn to get up and hand out a few things and say a few words. I wondered if he might get emotional, especially when he mentioned some of the guys who’d gone to Afghanistan with him and hadn’t come home, but he held it together.

  “And of course,” Dad said, “no one is in the Navy alone. My wife has been there through the last few years, but I want to give a small gift to the person who’s been there the longest, and who’s gone through all kinds of hell so that I could get here. Sean?”

  Cheeks burning, I rose. Paul squeezed my arm, and we exchanged glances before I walked up to the podium where my dad waited. I’d kind of expected this part, but it was still weird to be in front of everyone. Dad had kept himself from getting emotional—I hoped like hell I could too.

  He cleared his throat and looked at me. “I’m going to keep this short because I know you hate stuff like this.”

  I chuckled, and quiet laughter rippled through the group.

  Dad went on, “I could stand up here for a long time and talk about everything you’ve had to go through because of the demands of my career, but I’m not going to tell you anything you don’t know. What I will tell you is this—I may regret that my career forced you to be as strong and resilient as it has, but I will never stop being proud of you for being that strong and resilient.”

  I smiled, and goddamn it, that whole not-getting-emotional thing was getting tougher by the second. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “So I’ve got a plaque for you that I think sums it up nicely . . .” He handed the small plaque to me.

  I read the engraved words: Sorry for all the bullshit. Love, Dad.

  I burst out laughing, which—thank God—helped me corral my emotions again. “Thank you.”

  He laughed too, and then he hugged me. Everyone applauded, and there were a few “Awws.”

  Dad held on a bit longer than I thought he would. “I’m proud of you, Sean. I really am.”

  I sniffed. “Thanks.”

  As he let me go, he kept a hand on my shoulder. “I said I’d keep this short, but I do have one more thing for you before we’re done.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  Dad smiled. “My very enthusiastic blessing.”

  “Huh?”

  He nodded past me.

  I turned around, and my heart stopped. When the hell had Paul joined us?

  And what the hell was in his hand?

  And why the hell was he getting down on one . . .

  I gulped.

  Paul took a breath and held up the small black box. “Sean, I gave most of my life to the Navy, but I want to give the rest of it to you. Will you marry me?”

  I stared at him in disbelief. Everyone in the room was dead silent, and I could feel them all watching me. When I looked at my dad, he inclined his head as if to say, Well?

  My mouth had gone dry, but as I faced Paul again, I managed to whisper, “Of course I will.”

  Paul laughed with palpable relief as he stood, and when he was on his feet, he pulled me into a kiss.

  “What’d he say?” someone called out from the back.

  Into the microphone, Dad replied, “He said yes, Petty Officer.”

  And the room erupted with applause.

  Laughing, Paul and I separated. My face was on fire, but my head was spinning and my heart was pounding so fast, I didn’t even care if I’d turned twelve shades of red.

  Dad reached past me and shook Paul’s hand. “Welcome to the family, sir.”

  Paul laughed. “Thank you, Senior Chief.”

  Dad clapped my shoulder. “Congratulations, kid.”

  Ignoring that damn “kid,” I just smiled and said, “Thanks.”

  We took our seats again, and the retirement ceremony went on, but for me, the rest was a bit of a blur. My mind had gone blank and my head still spun from the shock of Paul’s proposal. I hadn’t seen it coming at all. We’d talked about getting married, but this . . . Jesus. Mind blown.

  When the whole thing was over, everyone moved to the NCO club next door for the retirement party. After we’d congratulated my dad and gotten some drinks, Paul and I hung back by the bar so we could have a minute to ourselves.

  Hand on my waist, he grinned. “I get the feeling I caught you off guard.”

  “You think?” I glanced toward my dad, who was talking to some uniformed guys I didn’t know. “He didn’t mind us upstaging him, did he?”

  Paul laughed and kissed my temple. “This was his idea, actually.”

  I blinked. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. We were out golfing, and I told him I was thinking about proposing.” He shrugged. “Between you and me, I think he still feels guilty for how things went because of our careers, so he thought it would be . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “Poetic?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “Wow. How long have you guys been planning this?”

  “A few weeks.”

  “I didn’t suspect a thing.”

  “I know.” He grinned. “That was the idea.”

  “Mission accomplished, then.”

  “Very much so.”

  I checked out the ring he’d put on my finger. It was a simple band, nothing extravagant or flashy. Exactly what I would have wanted, and I still couldn’t believe I was wearing it. I couldn’t believe he’d asked, or that we’d made it this far after that rocky start. We’d come so close to losing this. But somehow, here we were.

  I turned to Paul. “Back when we first met, I asked you if you thought the military was worth it. All the sacrifices, I mean.”

  “I remember that, yeah. And I seem to recall I said to ask me again after I’d retired.”

  “Mm-hmm. So, now that you have . . .” I raised my eyebrows. “Was it?”

  He was quiet for a moment, looking out at the sea of uniforms as people congratulated my dad. Then he turned to me, and he smiled. “Considering it brought you into my life?” He kissed my cheek. “Absolutely.”

  “Aww. You’re such a sap.”

  “That shouldn’t be a surprise anymore.”

  “No, it’s not.” I wrapped my arm around his waist. “I wouldn’t expect any less.” I paused, then grinned. “You ever think your father-in-law would be younger than you?”

  Paul laughed. “Eh, I got used to the idea about five minutes after I decided I wanted to marry you. And besides, I only have, what, two years on him?”

  “Something like that.” I rested my hands on his sides. “So where do we go from here?”

  “Don’t know. We get married. And then . . .” He shrugged. “See where the road takes us.”

  I pulled him closer, wrapping my arms around him. “I really, really like that idea.”

  “Do you?”

  “Very much.” I scanned our surroundings. All the people and uniforms and decorations. “Maybe not a crazy complicated wedding that requires a lot of planning, though.”

  “Oh thank God. The simpler the better.” He smoothed my hair. “Maybe something on the beach?”

  A memory flashed through my mind of the first time he’d told me he loved me, and goose bumps prickled my spine. “The beach sounds perfect.” I lifted my chin and kissed him softly. “I’ll let you plan everything. That should give you something to do in between adopting every critter that catches your eye.”

  “Oh, that reminds me. They brought in a really sweet collie yesterday, and—”

  “Paul.”

  “I’m kidding.” He kissed the tip of my nose as he pulled me closer. “She was adopted five minutes after she came in the door.”

  “Not by you?”

  “Not by me.”

  “Good.”

  He chuckled, then pressed his lips to mine. Barely breaking away, he whispered, “I love you, Sean.”

  “I love you too.”

  He kissed me again and let it linger. It didn�
��t matter who saw us now. Anyone who didn’t like two guys kissing could look away, but no one could tell us we couldn’t do this. Tonight, we’d go home together like we did every night. In a few months, we’d be married. No one had any reason—or authority—to stop us now.

  Dad and Paul would be telling sea stories for the rest of their lives, and there would be Navy-related decorations in both houses until the end of time, but as of today, they were both retired. From here on out, it was the civilian life.

  For me and Paul, there was nothing standing in our way anymore. The only thing in front of us was an open road.

  And all we had to do was drive.

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  Anchor Point series

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