The Lieutenants' Online Love

by Caro Carson

  He looked just right for Austin after dark. His jeans were so dark, she hadn’t realized his pants were denim until just now, when she dropped her gaze to the ribbon in her hand and saw the contrast of his hard thigh against her dress’s soft, black chiffon.

  She jerked her skirt away. “He’ll be here. And when he gets here, I don’t want to be seen sitting all cozy with another man.”

  “This is cozy?” His mocking tone set her teeth on edge. “I’d hate to see your definition of cold.”

  She couldn’t do this. The worry and the hurt were weighing her down. It took effort to keep them from crushing her. She had no energy left to parry Carter’s disapproval.

  She swallowed down the tears that were so close, too close, to the surface. They made her voice sound a little rough, and too quiet. “Please. I’m begging you, sit anywhere else in this building, but not on this one bench. Anywhere else. Please.”

  He stared at her, or glared at her, for a moment. “Okay, fine.” He stood.

  She was surprised. Relieved. “Thank you. Good night.”

  Carter walked away to the far end of the long bench, then rounded it and started walking back toward her, toward the stairs. She felt him pass behind her and sighed in relief.

  Then he sat down.

  On the second bench.

  A whole six inches away from her.

  I cannot believe this. Controlled, direct communication didn’t work with this man. Chloe fell back on the other option. Ignore him.

  They sat shoulder to shoulder, she facing the window, he facing the theater, in silence. After a moment, she cautiously turned her phone over. Nothing. She looked toward the stairs, but now she had to look around Carter to see them. If Drummer came up those stairs, he’d see Carter first, not her. She wanted Drummer to see a woman with pink and blue flowers in her hair. She touched them lightly, to be sure they were still there, secured in the braided sort of twist she’d spent so much time on this afternoon.

  Carter looked toward the stairs with her, then looked back at her and shrugged.

  She shot him a dirty look as she felt a loose piece of baby’s breath and tucked it back into a braid.

  “What’s that look for?” Carter asked. “Now what did I do?”

  “It’s just—if he comes up, I want him to see...” She started to point to her hair, but caught herself and let her hand plop back into her lap.

  “You want him to see what? Flowers in your hair? Is that supposed to mean something?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Since when do you wear flowers in your hair? I’ve never seen you do anything like that.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You can’t wear flowers in uniform.”

  “Exactly. You don’t wear flowers in your hair. Does this guy have any idea that you’re an army officer?”

  No, she hadn’t told Drummer, and she’d been trying to justify that for weeks now, and damn Carter for poking at a sore point. “That is none of your business. Being an army officer has nothing to do with anything.”

  He snorted, and then he polished off the last of his drink. The ice clinked against the glass as he gestured toward her waist. “This whole pink-ribbon-and-flowers thing isn’t the real you. If you present yourself as this sweet girly-girl, he might be a little disappointed when he finds out what you really do for a living. You’re looking all sexy tonight, but what’s he going to think when you have to leave his bed at dawn for a grenade range?”

  And that poked at years of insecurity, at all the criticism that serving as a soldier meant she wasn’t a normal woman. She hated to hear Carter sounding just like one of those people who made her feel like a freak.

  She swept up the long end of the pink ribbon in her hand. “Maybe this is the real me, and the camouflage and combat boots are the deception. Maybe I’ve been deceiving you, not him. What if, this whole time, I’ve been tricking you into thinking I’m a serious army officer—your fellow MP who has your back—when what I really am is a soft ‘girly-girl’ who loves the ballet and puppies and kittens and sunsets?”

  He’d gone very still, staring at her without blinking.

  She wasn’t going to blink first, that was for damned sure. “What if the real me is a girl who gets a little homesick at her new post, and who gets royally sick of always having to prove that she’s qualified for her job despite her gender and her age and anything else that anyone else feels free to criticize, and so she chucks all that competitive crap for a chance to be her real self with a real friend? She wants to spend one evening, just one, with a friend who knows the real her and who likes the real her and who doesn’t care what she does for a living or even what her face looks like.” She leaned forward, leaning into all the hurt. “And that friend, Thane Carter, is definitely not you.”

  He didn’t move. For a few intense seconds, they glared at one another, long enough for her to notice every shade of blue and gray in the irises of his eyes, long enough for her to breathe in an aftershave he didn’t wear to work.

  He dropped that icy-blue gaze to the pink ribbon in her hand. If she tried, she could imagine that a little sadness touched the angry set of his mouth.

  “Yeah. It’s not me. I’ll see you Monday.” He stood and walked away, carrying his glass to the bartender in the corner of the lobby.

  Chloe stood, too. Drummer wasn’t coming, and sitting alone on a bench wasn’t going to change that. She didn’t want to go back into the theater, because she didn’t need to watch the final scene, where the little girl wakes up to find it was all a dream, and her brave and protective nutcracker prince is nothing more than a broken wooden toy.

  Chloe headed for the exit, walking toward the staircase that no one had used to come and find her. The end of the ribbon was still in her hand, so she pulled it, untying the bow, pulling the ribbon free from her waist. As she passed the lobby’s large trash can, she raised her hand high and dropped it in.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “What’s that in your hand?”

  Ernesto hadn’t even made it to his desk, and his fellow platoon sergeant had already zeroed in on the plastic food container he was carrying. “It’s a piece of cake. My wife made tres leches this weekend.”

  “Outstanding. Monday mornings need all the help they can get.”

  “It’s not for you, Lloyd.” Ernesto tossed his hat on his desk. “The LT was pretty down at PT this morning.”

  “Yours, too? Carter’s all pissed off at the world today. He had high hopes about some girl he was going out with this weekend. I didn’t even need to ask if it went bad.”

  “Michaels was supposed to have a big weekend, too. I did ask. Get this—the guy didn’t show.”

  “He stood her up?” Lloyd whistled low. “Men can be such dumbasses. I know I was, but still—Lieutenant Michaels? I was never that dumb.”

  Ernesto glared at him as he sat.

  “I mean, if I were a younger man. And not married. And not an NCO.”

  “And not in the same company.”

  “Don’t give me your protective-father glare. She’s not your teenaged daughter. I can’t help it if it’s obvious she’s got a pretty face.”

  “She’s more than a pretty face. She’s smart. She’s got her act together. She’s the whole package.”

  “I know that, Dad.” Lloyd shook his head. “And still, some dumbass stood her up. Men.”

  “Men.” The LT hadn’t been in her office yet when he’d walked by. Ernesto kicked back in his chair. “Makes me glad I’m married. I wouldn’t want to go through all that garbage again.”

  “Man, the things I used to do for the sake of a woman. Going to chick flicks. Paying money to see chick flicks. Hell, Carter went to a ballet this weekend, poor sucker, and got nothing for his trouble.”

  “A ballet?”

  Lloyd laughed. “Can you believe it?”

  Ernesto stopped lounging. “My LT was supposed to have her big date at a ballet this weekend, too. She said it wasn’t a total loss, because at least s
he’d gotten to enjoy the Nutcracker.”

  She’d said it with a shrug and a smile, but Ernesto knew a brave lie when he heard it. His LT hadn’t enjoyed anything. She’d been hurt. His wife’s cake was the best Ernesto could do for a broken heart.

  “Guess that goes to show you the ballet is a sucky place for a date. Hold on.” Lloyd sat up. “They both went to a ballet this weekend? And now they’re both...?”

  They stared at each other. Neither one of them wanted to say it out loud.

  “Just a coincidence,” Lloyd said.

  “Yeah.” Ernesto tried to think of a single time the two LTs had shared a laugh or a joke or even a meal in the dining facility. Never, not that he’d seen. “They barely tolerate each other.”

  “Yeah.” Lloyd tapped his desk idly. “But they’re both single. Right age for each other. Same kind of attitude. You ever notice that he’s got a Mustang and she’s got a Charger? I mean, those are competitors but they’re both muscle cars. They’re both—”

  “Stop.” Ernesto didn’t want his platoon leader anywhere near that kind of trouble. She was a good kid, a real good kid, the kind of LT he hoped would stay and make a career out of it. She wouldn’t have much of a career if she got caught fraternizing.

  “That would be one hell of a match.” Lloyd lowered his voice. “It’d be a hell of a court-martial, too.”

  “No one’s getting court-martialed.”

  “Letter of reprimand, then.”

  Ernesto stood and picked up the cake, ready to go find his LT before trouble could find her. “Think about it. Carter went on a date that went south. Michaels didn’t go on a date at all. She got stood up.” As soon as he said it, he could breathe a little easier.

  “That’s right, that’s right.” Lloyd clutched his chest. “Man, that got a little scary. For a minute there, I could kind of see the two of them together.”

  “They hate each other.”

  “Right.”

  “So there’s no need to see anything.”

  “Right.”

  Ernesto left to go find his LT, anyway.

  * * *

  Dear Drummer,

  The cursor blinked. Chloe stared at it, hands poised over her laptop keyboard, waiting for the right words to come to her.

  Nothing.

  She didn’t know what she wanted to accomplish with this letter. She’d been stood up on Saturday and looked at a blank white screen all day Sunday. Today had been one of the hardest Mondays of her life.

  I can’t stop thinking about you.

  She paused. Some cooler, more rational voice said he didn’t deserve to know that he’d gotten to her so badly. He shouldn’t get to gloat over hurting her feelings. If he was not going to write to her, then she shouldn’t write to him, either. Right?

  Chloe sighed. She couldn’t muster up any anger or indignation. She didn’t have any sense of pride or self-preservation. She just felt empty.

  I don’t know what made you change your mind. At the theater, I spent the whole time trying to imagine where you could be, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. You had your reasons, and they were important to you. I only know you weren’t with me, and I missed you.

  You must have your reasons for being silent now, too. A blank white screen says it all. This friendship has run its course for you.

  “But not for me,” she whispered.

  You are gone as surely as if a computer glitch had taken you from me without warning. But since it didn’t, I have a chance to tell you how much this friendship has meant to me. You’ve been my stability, my constancy, my anchor while I’ve been moving from one side of the country to the other. I never told you that, did I? From May to November, I was sent from New York to Georgia to Missouri to Texas. I felt like one of those cartoon hobos with a stick over my shoulder, carrying all my belongings tied up in a red handkerchief. Well, packed in the trunk of my car. My job changed, my coworkers changed, my roommates changed, even the clothes I wear every day changed. My whole life changed, but you were constant. For six months and 2,500 miles, I could stop and open our app and there you would be, friendly words in that friendly blue font, without fail.

  Chloe stopped typing to wipe her cheeks. It was okay to shed a few tears. She was inside, not on the balcony where Carter might spot her. Nobody would know that the bold new MP officer in the 584th had spent her Monday night crying over the end of a silly online friendship.

  Thank you for keeping me company all these months. Thank you for listening, and for offering good advice—and it was always good advice. I know this, because I didn’t follow your advice Saturday night, and things turned out badly.

  I couldn’t sit next to your empty seat for the second act. I stayed in the lobby, waiting, because I still had the hope that you had only been delayed. I kept checking my phone, though, and that blank white screen was breaking my heart, so I was not ready at all when that friend-who-isn’t-really-a-friend walked up to me.

  The timing was awful. I should be used to his insults at this point, but when he made fun of my appearance, I kind of snapped. All your advice on controlled confrontations went out the window. I was hurting, and I lashed out at the only person there was to lash out against.

  In the moment, it felt like he deserved it. But now, all I can think about is the way he’d walked up to me and said hello, and the way I told him to sit anywhere, anywhere, except next to me.

  I want to delete that sentence so that you won’t know how awful I can be, but maybe I should leave it in. It was awful of you to stand me up, but it was also awful of me to tell that man I didn’t want him near me. I wish I could take it back. If you wish you could take it back, too, then please know that I would still love to talk to you as we always have.

  If not, then I’m still glad that, out of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, this app sent you walking into mine. I loved being your—

  Ballerina Baby.

  * * *

  Two shorts and a long.

  Thane stood on his balcony in the cold December air and glared at Building Four’s empty matching balcony. She was over there, just behind those sliding glass doors, and she was trying to reach him. Or rather, she was trying to reach Drummer. He’d promised her he’d be at the theater in D131, and she’d driven an hour to Austin to meet him, and he hadn’t shown up. Why would she try to talk to him now? A woman like Michaels would kick a man’s ass for standing her up—or at least write him off as a total loss, no longer worthy of her time.

  She’d be fine.

  She just hadn’t been fine yet today. She’d been really quiet, actually. And sad. Her platoon sergeant had seen it. He’d brought her some cake. That was nice; she had someone who’d try to cheer her up in the future. Michaels wasn’t friendless, for God’s sake, no matter what she’d said so passionately with her pink ribbon in her hand.

  She was going to be fine.

  Thane looked at his phone. The app’s icon indicated one message was waiting. It was probably screw you and goodbye. The way she’d walked into row D, down there at orchestra level, so full of hope—she must have been so pissed off when the man had said he wasn’t Drummer.

  But Thane couldn’t fool himself. He’d been able to see her face. She hadn’t been pissed off. She’d been sad.

  He stared at her empty balcony a moment longer, then he opened the app on his phone. Dear Drummer—

  By the time he got to all the gin joints in all the towns, he knew he had to write her at least one more time.

  Casablanca. (Too easy.) I wish I had an easy explanation about Saturday. I do not. But I want you to know that you did nothing wrong. If I could have made everything turn out differently, I would have.

  Thane did not hit Send.

  He’d wanted everything to turn out differently, it was true, for every selfish reason. In his perfect scenario, he would have walked into row D and found a woman who was beautiful, easy to talk to, quick to smile, interesting to him, interested in him. He’d experienced that
only once before in his life, with Chloe, stunning Chloe, with whom he’d damned near fallen in love at first sight.

  He’d wanted a new woman to be as exciting as Chloe. He’d wanted lightning to strike twice.

  Only now, on a miserable, lonely Monday evening, could he admit to himself how much he still missed Chloe and the dream of what might have been. The reality was that, from the first moment of that first ride-along, Chloe had never acted like a woman who’d missed the dream of being with him. In the parking lot of the MP station, rather than being shocked or hurt or sad when she’d seen him, she’d taken him to task. Chloe had turned into Michaels within a few sentences, and he’d been resenting her ever since.

  Ah, hell. The truth hit him in the face. Michaels was Ballerina, so the friend-who-wasn’t-a-friend was him. She’d confronted him in the parking lot because that’s what he had advised her to do.

  He looked once more at her sliding glass doors. All along, he’d been the coworker who made her professional life hell. As Drummer, he’d been so worried that the not-a-friend would hurt her...

  And he had, a low blow when she’d least expected it, on a Saturday night when she’d been all dressed up for her favorite ballet. Thane closed his eyes against the memory of the hope on her face every time she’d turn to look at that mezzanine staircase.

  He slunk back into his apartment, slid the door shut and leaned against his wall. He looked at his phone once more, and felt all the truth of his blue words. I want you to know that you did nothing wrong.

  She wasn’t going to believe him. Her letter was too full of apology, telling him she was sometimes a bad person, too, offering him an easy olive branch.

  She should have told him to go to hell. She’d done nothing wrong at the theater, and he’d stood her up. One month ago, she’d done nothing wrong by the pool, and he’d left her without an explanation. She’d done nothing wrong by requesting a radio on their first ride-along. She’d done nothing wrong by developing a better duty officer schedule. She’d done nothing wrong.

  But he had.