A Few Good Men

by Cat Johnson

  “No. Would I do that? Come on. Time for bed. You need your beauty sleep, and there will be breakfast and mimosas bright and early in the morning.” He dumped her legs off his lap and stood.

  “Mmm.” In anticipation of that yummy breakfast, she let the insult of the beauty-sleep comment go, lazily getting up from the couch herself.

  “You are so easily bought with food.” Shaking his head, Peter turned toward his own bedroom saying, “Sleep well,” as he disappeared.

  She definitely would sleep well for lack of anything better to do. She would not be dreaming of Bruce, that was for certain. Maybe of mimosas and eggs benedict…or perhaps a certain serious tank commander over in Iraq.

  By the time Peter walked into the living room the next morning, Maureen was already engrossed on the computer.

  “What are you doing up so early and on my computer no less? Having soldier withdrawal? Have to log in and cry over some more emails?”

  She frowned. “First of all, stop being so mean to me before I’ve even had any coffee. Second, I am not logging in to see my emails. I—well, Summer—is starting a blog on my website.”

  What she didn’t tell him was that she had checked her email an hour before and there was nothing good there, at least nothing from John Blake. She definitely was not going to tell Peter that she had written him a quick email anyway, asking him about Jazzy and then telling him how they were having some unseasonably warm weather here in New York and the early spring flowers were already starting to pop up. She always liked to give the deployed troops a little taste of home.

  After a quick glance at the monitor that showed only her blog screen, Peter seemed satisfied she was telling the truth and made his way to the kitchen. “You could have made yourself coffee, you know.”

  “I don’t know how. Your machine looks scary.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Compared to your twenty-dollar piece of crap, I guess it would.”

  She watched him open various compartments in the coffee maker, adding whole coffee beans here and cups of water there, before pushing a series of buttons that began the whole grinding and brewing process. She decided her decision to wait for him to make the coffee and not attempt it herself had been a sound one. God only knew what she could have screwed up if she had tried it alone.

  He wandered back over to the computer. “Coffee will be done in a minute. Now, before I pop the champagne and start breakfast, tell me why you felt compelled to begin your blog so early this morning.”

  “I was inspired.” She grinned and, full of energy even without her coffee, wiggled happily in the desk chair.

  “Really? And what, praytell, was it that inspired you?”

  “My date with the gay man. Not you, the other one.” She rose from the seat. “Sit. Read and tell me what you think.”

  Peter looked skeptical as he sat in front of the monitor. “Seasons of Change: Summer Winters’ Search for a Few Good Men. Is that the name of your blog?”

  She frowned. “I thought it was clever. It was between that and Summer Winters’ Springs and Falls. Should I change it?”

  He made a face. “Nuh uh. If those are the choices, stick with what you have.” Peter leaned forward and read aloud. “Where have all the good men gone? My foray into the dating world… Oh boy. This should be good. Go pour us both some coffee, will you? Maybe some champagne too. I think I am going to need it.”

  He had no idea. Wait until he got to the part where she wrote about their double dating experiment. By the time she returned with two mugs, fixed just the way they both liked it, Peter was looking up at her in an unhappy way.

  “You didn’t even change my name?” he sputtered.

  “I thought about it, but if no one knows who I am, how can they know who you are? Right? I only used your first name.”

  He let out a breath. “You may have to reveal your secret identity to more than just me one day, you know.”

  “Why? Batman didn’t reveal his.”

  “What does that make me? The trusty tights-wearing sidekick Robin to your Batman? Or since I’ll be cooking for you, your staid butler Alfred?”

  Maureen shrugged. “Whichever you want to be. I could sure use a Robin…and an Alfred, come to think of it.” She was a terrible cook.

  He sighed and took the coffee from her. “Go away and let me see what damage you’ve done. I sincerely hope you changed Wayne and Bruce’s names for the purposes of this little writing of yours.”

  “Um…kind of.”

  “Maureen.” The word ended on a pitch so high only dogs would be able to hear it.

  She cringed. “I used the initials W and B.” And that had been an exercise in restraint since the Bruce Wayne joke was such a good one it seemed a shame to waste it.

  Peter shook his head. “I should make you take this thing down right now.”

  She pouted and resisted the urge to stamp her foot. “No. Just read it to the end and then we’ll discuss it.”

  Scowling, he agreed. Scowling, he agreed. “Okay. Go sit over there. I can’t read with you lurking over my shoulder.”

  She moped her way to her banishment on the couch. Sitting and waiting for him to finish, Maureen could see the closing words on the page in her head. She’d read them over so many times she’d memorized them.

  In a world comprised of shades of gray, black and white, how does one know the true color of things? Perhaps they are a rainbow, but is there a pot of gold waiting at the end? I will continue to search for mine, my faithful companion Peter by my side, leaving no stone unturned, no man undated until satisfaction is mine.

  To be continued next week…

  Summer

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Peter pushed himself back from the desk.

  “Well? What do you think?”

  “I think Summer Winters has quite the flair for the dramatic.”

  She pursed her lips, hurt.

  “But it’s good. You can leave it up. My friend from work already knows about the tag-team dating, but no one else is going to believe we are actually doing this anyway. It sounds even crazier written down like that than it did when we first came up with it.”

  She nodded. “It is crazy, but it’s good fodder for my writing.”

  “Oh Lord. I’ll be lucky if I—if all of this–doesn’t end up in your next book, won’t I?”

  Grinning, Maureen nodded. “I told you to be careful what you wished for.”

  What she didn’t tell him was that she already had the outline for the book in her head, and if things worked out, it could be the best seller she’d always dreamed of.

  Chapter Seven

  “Why do we need a temporary replacement for Jazzy? He’ll be back soon enough, and we’re handling it just fine by our own damn selves.” For a big, tough guy, Morales could whine with the best of them.

  True, they had been doing fine for the last few days with John jumping into the loader’s seat when needed, but that was not the optimum situation. If the shit really hit the fan, John would rather have four pairs of eyes and hands, even if one set belonged to a new guy.

  “It’ll be fine, Morales. It’s only temporary.”

  There was a grumbling and John could barely make out the drawled words, “I hate fucking new guys,” from his driver.

  The fucking new guy, or FNG, in question finally swung in through the hatch and into the loader’s seat as Morales raised a brow in his direction cockily. “Nice of you to join us.”

  Morales’s sarcasm rolled right off the new guy like water off a duck’s back. “Thanks. Nice to be here.”

  Gonzo grinned from the gunner’s position. John held his tongue and turned in his tank commander’s seat, but if this guy was late again, there would be trouble. Jazzy had never been slow getting suited up and to the tank. Tardiness cost lives. Doing his best to not let his own personal feelings about tardy FNGs affect his job, John attempted to concentrate on the task at hand.

  The problem was that his damn mind kept wandering
back to the most recent email he’d gotten from Summer. She’d asked him to please stop calling her Ms. Winters and call her Summer, and he had actually done it.

  She wrote him often, so much so he’d started to visit the MWR more and more. She never emailed about anything really important, but that didn’t mean he didn’t find each and every correspondence interesting. Things as mundane as the weather where she lived in New York made him smile, and he read every word over three times. He even responded to each and every message she sent him, and there had been more than one a day since that day he’d first emailed her.

  With a little jolt of excitement, he realized he had no doubt that when he returned to camp there would be a response from her waiting for him. That thought kept popping into his mind as he planned how soon he could get back to the MWR to check.

  He never remembered having to try so hard to focus his attention on work before. Maybe because until now there had been nothing to think about except work. But not keeping his mind on the job could cost lives, even on a mission as simple as securing the main supply route, one of the more boring jobs his crew performed regularly. Mundane duties didn’t preclude the occasional ambush, sniper, rockets or missiles. There was never a time to goof off and daydream at war. Strange that recently he’d had to keep reminding himself of that.

  John’s tank led the platoon as it rolled to the designated intersection they were to secure. They arrived without incident and set up a strong point position. Then, all they had to do was watch and wait. Talking in the tank during the long, boring missions helped keep everyone aware and awake, but John wasn’t in the mood for talking tonight. And with the new guy with them, Morales and Gonzo were especially quiet.

  He stared up into the night. With the hatch open slightly, he could see the stars above through the narrow opening.

  When the hell had he started stargazing?

  His mind traveled to New York, and he wondered what Summer was doing at that exact moment. He did a quick calculation and figured out what time it would be for her—late evening.

  Summer had signed her last email with the cutest line telling him to keep his head down and his hatch closed. He had smiled when he read that. Damn. Why was he thinking of this now?

  “Staff Sergeant Blake?”

  He looked up to see all three men in the tank looking at him expectantly.

  The new guy had asked him a question, one he had apparently missed. “Yes, Specialist Warren?”

  “I was just wondering if when we get back I could get a copy of the section’s schedule for the next week, sir.”

  Why did this new loader’s more than respectful and appropriate question annoy him? Because the guy wasn’t Jazzy. God, he missed that crooked grin and cocky attitude, but that wasn’t this guy’s fault. “Sure, I’ll get you a copy as soon as I get back.”

  “White Two. Wheeled supply vehicle needs assistance.” The sound of the lieutenant’s disembodied voice filled the tank from the speaker on John’s radio.

  “Are they under attack, sir?”

  “Negative. They slipped off the road and are mired in the soft dirt.”

  Again? Those guys needed to be more careful. John got the location of the stuck vehicle and relayed the directions to Morales, who spun them in a pirouette like a seventy-ton ballet dancer and rolled forward in the opposite direction.

  “Shit. Another damn stuck truck?” As Morales maneuvered the tank forward, he voiced aloud what John had been thinking. This was almost the exact situation that had put Jazzy in the hospital.

  New boy, who didn’t know the circumstances of Jazzy’s injuries, decided this was a good time to chatter. “You know, if someone gets stuck in my old unit they owe the guys who pull them out a case of beer.”

  Gonzo snorted. “If that was the situation around here, we’d have enough beer to open a bar, or at least get really, really shit faced.”

  “But you ain’t in Kansas anymore, Warren. No drinking here, no way, no how.” Morales reminded the FNG of the rules with a sly smile in John and Gonzo’s direction.

  Totally blank faced, the new guy blinked. “I’m not from Kansas. I’m from Maine.”

  Apparently, Warren wasn’t so quick on the uptake.

  Morales opened his mouth to explain but must have thought better of it. Instead he shook his head. “Never mind.”

  John knew what they were all thinking, Jazzy would have gotten the Wizard of Oz reference and would have made a joke of his own in return.

  They rolled on in silence.

  Hours later, when John finally made his way into the MWR after he’d returned from the successful mission, completed his paperwork and gotten Warren his schedule, he found Jazzy sitting in front of the computer reading aloud to Gonzo and Morales.

  He crept up behind him and cleared his throat pointedly. “Ahem.”

  Jazzy spun his head slowly like it hurt. “Hey there, sir. I heard it went good today.”

  “Yes, it did. What are you doing out of bed?”

  “Jeez. Did my wife tell you to say that? She already yelled at me on IM before. I’m feeling good enough to sit here in a chair. I swear.” Jazzy made a cross over his heart along with the promise.

  John scowled. “If you say so. But when the doc puts you back in the hospital because you got out of bed too soon, don’t come looking for me to get you out. What the hell are you reading?”

  “Summer’s new blog. It’s hysterical. She’s planning on going on all these blind double dates, one each week, and then she writes about them in her blog.”

  John suddenly felt as if a ten-pound lead ball had dropped into the pit of his stomach. Doing his best to sound casual, he asked, “Really? Why is she doing that?”

  “Something about trying to find the last few good men in the world. You gotta sit down and read it yourself. Here, take my spot, the wife had to go pick up my son from karate class so I can’t talk to her anyway.”

  John didn’t even glance behind him to see if there was a line waiting for the computer. He didn’t really care. The only thing he cared about was that Summer was out there somewhere in New York actively looking for a man.

  The question was why did he care? It wasn’t like he was ever going to meet her or anything, but he already felt like he knew her. Maybe if she found herself a boyfriend, she’d stop emailing and sending support for his men. John could pretend he was concerned for the welfare of his troops, but in reality, he knew the truth. It was himself he was worried about, because now that he’d started to look forward to their emails, not having them in his daily life would bother him.

  Shit. This was Jazzy’s fault. He’d been just fine on his own before.

  John read through the entire sole entry in The Seasons of Summer Winters, or whatever the hell it was called, and his only condolence was that her first date had turned out to be gay. But the blog entry was nearly a week old. It was already the weekend again, which meant that at this very moment, she could be on her next date. What were the chances this guy would be gay too? A million to one, he figured. Not great odds.

  John leaned back with a sigh, which Jazzy, still lurking behind him, misinterpreted as a laugh.

  Wearing his ever-present grin, Jazzy said, “See. I told you she was funny. Tag-team dating. That is just too much. She’s going to keep doing it and then write about each date afterward, but I don’t see how she’ll ever beat this one where the straight guy turned out to be gay. That was classic.”

  “She certainly is a vivid writer,” John said when he realized Jazzy was still expecting him to make some comment on the damn blog.

  “She sure as shit is, and she has some crazy-ass kind of imagination too.” Morales commented. “That one scene in the book she wrote where they’re in the elevator stuck between floors… Damn.”

  Gonzo jumped in. “Shit. I know. After reading that I had to clean my gun, if you know what I mean.”

  Covering his face with one hand, John realized his entire tank crew had read Summer’s book, except
for him, that is.

  John rose from the chair.

  Jazzy sat again. He logged off the computer and then relinquished his spot to Gonzo. “Your turn, Gonz. And sir, you should have taken me up on reading the book next. Now I don’t even know where it is. One of the other guys from the platoon borrowed it, and I haven’t seen it since.”

  John held up one hand before Jazzy continued any farther. He really did not want to read the book given the sexual images of Summer Winters that he had begun to find too often in his head already. And that was just from her emails. Forget about if he read her sex novel. He didn’t even want to think about that.

  “That’s okay. I’m good. Don’t worry about it.”

  John found Jazzy shaking his head. “I do worry about you, sir. You need to have some fun. You work too hard.”

  John laughed. “We’re in a war zone. There’s neither time nor opportunity for fun.”

  Besides, reading romance novels was not exactly his idea of fun, even though he had never actually read one.

  Not that what he had to do next today was fun either, but it was a necessity and would make his life easier. “I need to get online after you’re done here, Gonzo.”

  Jazzy raised a brow. “Hmm. Really. Emailing someone special?”

  The guy never gave up. Had Summer emailed Jazzy and said they had been corresponding? For some reason John didn’t want to let Jazzy know exactly how often he and Summer had already written.

  John rolled his eyes and made light of it. “No, I’m not emailing anyone at all, special or other. The laundry service has managed to lose half of my boxer briefs and half my socks over the past few months. Every time I turn around I’m out of clean underwear and socks. I need more, and I have to find an online retailer that will ship to a military address.”

  John was also not going to admit to Jazzy that he had intended on doing this task for a week now but he never got around to it because he was too busy corresponding with Summer.

  Jazzy looked disappointed. “Oh well. I still have hope for you, and the offer of a pen pal still stands if you want one.”