Fragged: A BWWM Military Romance

by Paige Notaro

  “I’ll say. Did you chase him off?”

  “No,” I said, but of course I did. Calix had to have something to do with it. The only question was sort of deal he made. Or how one sided it was.

  “Anyway, I saw him. He was emptying out his office in a rush this morning,” Lilly said.

  “He didn’t leave a note or anything?”

  “For you? I don’t think so, but we can check if you’re really this antsy about it.”

  We squeaked down the polished hallway and into the office wing. Lem’s door lay flung open. I walked in remembering how neat he had kept everything in here. This had been the perfect little space where he kept everything in its place.

  The room was still neat, just also completely empty. Only the filing cabinet, a desk and the hospital’s computer remained. It was like he was never here.

  The stress rushed out of me like a dam had broken. If I were alone, I would have kicked my feet up on the desk or twirled around until I went dizzy and ran into something. Instead, I went over by the window and beamed out somewhere I couldn’t be seen.

  “No note,” Lilly said. “Sorry, sweetie. You did say that the date wasn’t so good.”

  “It’s ok,” I said, smiling at the gorgeous sunny day. “It’s better this way.”

  We headed back to the station. The hall seemed to glow with sunlight from all the open rooms along the way. I had no idea what I would have done if I had to see Lem coming up the hallway at me ever again. Even if he hadn’t left, just knowing the darkness in him would have made me cower in my own workplace.

  Calix hadn’t just saved me, he had saved my future here. But what had he given for it? The anxiety came tumbling back.

  Lilly rubbed my back. “You feel ok about all this?”

  “I’m fine.” I breathed heavy. “You know how fast my flings flame out.”

  “This seemed like a different thing, though.”

  “It turned out the same.” My mind was still on Calix though. Lem didn’t count as a relationship except in the most perverse sense of the word.

  “You can’t read too deep into that. It’s not anyone’s fault.”

  “Mmm.” There were plenty of people at fault for what happened yesterday. Me for trusting the wrong guy. Lem for being a colossally evil asshole.

  And Calix for ending it.

  Even in the sunlit hallway, my body felt cold thinking again about this monumental thing that he had done for me. He had chased Lem over the freaking Mason-Dixon Line. That was how much he was willing to do.

  How different would things be if Lem hadn’t revealed the truth about Calix’s past? There was cold purpose in his doing that - that was clear now - but it was still something I needed to know.

  Would it have taken me two weeks to find out? Two months? Would I just keep testing him and testing him until he roared the N-word at me?

  I couldn’t imagine him ever saying that though. I believed what he’d said about not seeing himself as superior. So why couldn’t he let go of his race thing? That’s all I had asked.

  It can’t have been harder than dealing with Lem. He did that without hesitation, without protest. And he hadn’t demanded a single thing from me.

  Not even my heart.

  The thought spread like a wildfire through my head. Why would he just walk away from me?

  I took a shuddering breath as we entered the nurse’s station. I had managed to chase off the wrong guy.

  “Did you say something?” Lilly asked glancing back at me.

  “Nothing,” I said solemnly. “Nothing at all.”

  She gave me a probing look and pulled me down to a seat.

  “You need to focus on something happy,” she said.

  I checked the digital wall clock. “I need to start my rounds.”

  “Fine, do that, but tell me what you think of the name Marshall first.”

  “Marshall?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled bashfully. “I’m thinking that’s a good name for a boy.”

  I gaped at her, then at her completely flat belly. “Lilly, you know that’s not a good idea.”

  “Yeah, I know it’s my grandfather’s name, but these things are cyclical. It’ll be cool by the time he grows up.”

  The blaze in my brain burned out. I pressed in close so the other nurses couldn’t hear me whisper. “You know what I mean. You’re not even a month pregnant. The miscarriage rate is close to half for a month and still freaking high until your second trimester. You said it yourself.”

  “So, worst case, coin flip?” She patted her belly. “That’s better odds than I was looking at a month ago.”

  “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  She laughed loud enough to draw attention. My brain swung right back into panic mode. Had this girl gone nuts?

  “Hey,” I hissed. “You really don’t want to tell everyone yet.”

  “Tell everyone what advice I’m getting from Ms. Heartbreak here?”

  I glowered at her. “That’s not going to be my nickname now.”

  “No, it won’t. Probably not. Well, depends on your next guy.” She pressed in. “But that’s the point. I love that you’re not afraid to just leap into something. You’re fearless. It just has to work once, right? You’ll find your one guy.”

  She rubbed her stomach. “And I will, too.”

  I still thought she looked a bit crazy. But maybe that’s what people thought when they saw me, too. Maybe a little bit was actually a good thing.

  “I know,” I said. “I just wish I knew where he might be.”

  As I did my rounds though, the ideas flipping through my head put the ‘little bit’ part of the ‘crazy’ into question. Lem faded easily, but Calix only grew. I started to imagine him, coming up the hospital halls, hulking and wordless, his eyes frozen on me like ice.

  When I checked on the room where he’d stayed, my chest froze as I pulled apart his curtain, as if I’d find him there, staring out the window. But the bed was empty.

  Why wouldn’t he call me? He wanted to play it cool yesterday, fine. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t want to talk to him.

  But he must have seen my number missing him over and over and over. He knew I was ready to talk. Even if he was still a Nazi or whatever, I at least wanted to know he was ok.

  I called him a half dozen more times during the course of my shift, my heart fluttering like a panicked dove with each missed ring. It didn’t even go to voicemail now. He was just gone.

  Lilly and I had the shift end together, but I didn’t want to stay and talk baby names. I went off into an empty corner of the hospital employee lot and searched the internet for Fort McPherson.

  I found a contact number on the site and called them. Some gravel-voiced communications officer responded, but when I asked for Calix’s number, I just got the old one back.

  “That doesn’t work,” I groaned.

  “That’s the only number I have listed, ma’am.”

  “Well, he’s not picking up.” I pressed the speaker against my mouth. “Do you understand? One of your soldiers is not picking up his phone. You need to be concerned about this. Has something happened to him?”

  “Hold a moment.” The man clicked off.

  The faint smell of rotten eggs floated out of the dumpsters nearby, but it couldn’t make my stomach more sour than it was. I sighed and paced. There was only silence on the other end. Not even syrupy elevator music.

  The voice clicked back on. “Ma’am, what did you say your name was?”

  “Rosa Perez,” I said. “He knows me. Did you find him?”

  “Ms. Perez, I’m going to transfer you. One moment, please.”

  The phone clicked once and clicked again. A man cleared his throat on the other end, but the voice that came on was not Calix. It had a faint Mexican accent.

  “Buenos días Señorita Perez,” the man said. “¿Cómo está?”

  “Soy bueno,” I spit out on reflex. “Who are you? Who am I talking to?”

  “Ah, yo
u prefer English. Sorry, I assumed.”

  Something about his voice gave me the urge to tell him how Mamá insisted on it at home. Then, I realized he still hadn’t answered my question.

  “I’m trying to reach Calix Black,” I said.

  “Calix Black.” The man clicked his tongue. “Such an ironic name. But I guess the world is full of such ironies. Hitler wasn’t blue-eyed or blond, you know.”

  I was all ready to switch back into Spanish for an injection of swearing. Then, I realized what I’d just heard. This guy knew about Calix and his biker gang. Should the army know about that?

  “Sorry,” I said. “What’s your position again?”

  “Ah, where are my manners before such a beautiful voice. I’m Carlos Montego. I head up the military police at Fort McPherson.”

  A sinking feeling joined the ache in my stomach. But I managed to keep my voice level. “Why am I talking to you?”

  “The question is really why are we talking now and not sooner? And the answer is that I screwed up my duties. If I had talked to you directly instead of letting that hospital conduct its internal processes, this whole mess might have been solved sooner.”

  “What whole mess?”

  He laughed cheerfully. “Ms. Perez, I’ve interrogated some of the roughest criminals on the planet. Let’s not waste time shall we? I know about the keycard. I know about the gunshot. I know about the gangs. I know everything.”

  My breath went out. I was sure he had heard that too. “Oh.”

  “I would ask you some questions now to confirm, but they’re not even necessary. Mr. Black confessed everything.”

  “What?” I yelled.

  “Ah, that livened you up, huh? Yes, he sat down before me this morning. He admitted he was shot on his way to help his old club transport drugs. He told me how he stole the card from you to get the bullet. He even told me how he tricked you into taking it back.”

  I heaved in the parking lot, trying to process all this. He had told the base the whole truth about how we met?

  “Don’t worry,” Montego said. “None of this affects you at the hospital. Our military investigations are separate from any civilian questions. Personally, I get why you lied. It was clear how the, uh, circumstances under which the card was returned would make you look more guilty than you actually were.”

  I blushed. My head was spinning. “Why is he telling you all of this?” I said.

  “That’s what a full confession entails, Ms. Perez. Plus, he didn’t have much choice. The tape doesn’t make sense without some personal involvement.”

  “Tape? What tape?”

  “Ah, yes. The one that a Dr. Lem Sygard sent this morning.”

  My heart pounded in my chest. What the hell had that bastard done? I remembered Calix’s voice though, the soft detached way with which he had said. “Nothing I hadn’t already lost.”

  Oh, god, Calix, what did you do for me?

  “Could I hear this tape?” I said.

  “I don’t generally play criminal evidence over the phone for civilians.”

  My eyes darted to the edge of the parking lot. A taxi was dropping someone off.

  “What about in person?” I said. “What if I came in?”

  Even his breath seemed to smile. “You want to come into the middle of a military investigation?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can show it to you. I do have a few questions about it. ”

  “That’s fine.”

  He snorted. “I really should have called you earlier. Yeah, come in tomorrow.”

  “How about now?”

  For the first time, his voice rose. “Right now?”

  “I can be there in twenty five minutes.”

  I heard him tap something. “Yeah, that should be fine.”

  “I’ll see you then.” I nearly hung up, when I remembered the point of all this. “Wait, is Calix there? Can I see him?”

  “He’s being kept in confinement till his tribunal.”

  “No visitation rights?”

  “It’s not a conjugal trailer, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Can I see him or not?”

  He sighed. “We’ll see.”

  I should have been upset to hear that, but even the chance of seeing Calix shoved out everything else in my head.

  I hung up and rushed to grab the ride before anyone else could. The whole way over I tried to imagine what Lem could have done to Calix. The sneaky bastard had left a poison even in his wake. Had he gone after Calix, just cause he couldn’t get to me? He had no reason but spite.

  I arrived at the base entrance. The guard checked in and called for an escort. He led me through yards and buildings that could have been any office campus if not for the guys in uniform posted everywhere, carrying wicked black rifles. The whole place had a smoky, sulfur scent to it.

  The escort led me to a one story office for the military police, and took me all the way through to Carlos’s office. He looked just as slick as his voice, long and tan with cropped dark hair squared on top.

  I gave him the full truth about the bullet. It occurred to me that this might all be a trick, but he seemed to know the information anyway. It felt like small potatoes compared to what Calix had confessed to.

  In return, Carlos played the tape. I listened to Lem’s long, soft voice and Calix’s sparse, deep one trade words as the microphone itched against fabric. It must have been hidden. Calix had never seen it coming.

  I remembered the officer watching me and stayed still, even as I heard Calix reveal dangerous truths and even worse lies.

  But the things Lem said were outright disgusting. He sounded like he already owned me. It was lucky I hadn’t eaten in hours.

  “What exactly was the arrangement that this doctor had with you?” Carlos asked after the tape ended.

  “You don’t know?” I said. “I thought you knew everything.”

  “It’s not exactly relevant to Calix’s case.” His mouth tightened. “But I can guess.”

  “It’s exactly that,” I said. “He was blackmailing me into his bed with a lie.”

  Carlos’s face went very dark, and I heard him swear viciously under his breath. “There are grounds from a civilian case against him here. Your involvement would be brought up, but the jury would easily side with you.”

  “No,” I said. “No, he left. I just never want to see him again.”

  Carlos raised his brow. “He left?”

  I stared at the speaker. “Don’t you see what that tape is? Calix was just trying to get him get him away from me. He’s not involved in any of that gang stuff anymore. You think I’m going to be dating a racist?”

  Carlos bent in to the table. “Don’t try to bullshit me just cause I have a heart. Calix confessed. His involvement with the Storm’s Soldiers is real. We already got spent shells from the warehouse where he got shot.”

  “Yeah, so he got shot, but that doesn’t make him a criminal. Did you find anything else there?”

  I had been asking to find out for myself, but Carlos’s rage flattened out. “Just cause there was nothing left doesn’t mean there was nothing there. We have a team casing the site for residue.”

  I knew nothing about the law, definitely not military law. But Carlos’s doubt was easy to read off his face. I couldn’t see any harm in adding to it.

  “You know he was with me most nights the last two weeks,” I said. “There’s no way he was involved in anything then, and I guess he was at base most of the day.”

  Carlos shook his head and stood. “Stealing the bullet and threatening a civilian are plenty big as crimes. The rest is just icing.”

  “Well, that’s going to be a pretty bland cake you’re making then.” I stood. “Now, can I go see the man who kept me from becoming a sex slave?”

  He looked me over like I had just become a suspect. Maybe I had, but I owed Calix whatever little doubt I could raise. After what I had just heard him do, I owed him everything.

  �
��Fine, go see him,” Carlos said.

  He called one of his men and took me to the door, but before he let me out, he held my shoulder a moment.

  “You are being monitored in there. “So be careful.”

  This seemed like a thing he didn’t have to say. “Thanks,” I said.

  He nodded, his face still dark as the falling night. At least he understood Calix better now. It might not save him from what he had done, but it might be worth something.

  I’d expected the guard to take me to some barred jail cell or underground dungeon. Instead they took me to a small bungalow, manned by two soldiers in MP hats. They patted me down, then opened the door.

  Calix was reclined on a cot on the far end. He had on army pants and a white t-shirt, nothing to mark him as any prisoner. His eyes were shut and his broad chest rose and fell with deep gusts. But he wasn’t asleep. His knees were bent up and one leg was crossed over the other.

  He looked like a mountain range, something sturdy and soft to climb into.

  His eyes parted and they turned to me.

  “Rosa?” He popped awake and turned to a seat on the edge of the cot. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh Calix.” I went over and cupped his face with my hands. “What are you doing here?”

  He nuzzled into my grip, the high cut of his cheek carving deeper into me. “I’m doing what had to be done.”

  “Like this?” I looked up for the cameras. The corners of the room seemed to hold little black orbs. This place was fully monitored.

  Calix gripped my arms and pulled them away. “It was the right thing,” he said. “I was tired of holding the lies. Setting them free to help you was a bonus.”

  He looked up at me, curious. I realized he didn’t know what had happened.

  “It worked,” I said. “Lem already left the city.”

  He erupted into a magnificent smile. I forgot how rare it was to see those. It was all I could do not to kiss him, to descend on him.

  “You were lying to him, though,” I said. “You’re not with the Storm’s Soldiers anymore right?”

  He shrugged. “People believe what they believe if you look a certain way.”

  “But you’re not,” I said, looking up to the cameras. “He is not with the gang.”

  Calix yanked me back towards him. “No, I am very far from them. I am far enough to answer your question.”