“What are we doing?” she asks softly, her voice is just a hair above a whisper and still, I can hear the thread of nervousness that weaves through it.
“We’re lying here in bed after I fucked you well,” I answer, and even I can hear the cocky smirk in my voice.
“You know what I mean.” She laughs as she playfully swats my belly.
“We’re just going to be,” I answer sort of honestly. MacKenzie needs us to go with the flow and ease her into a long lasting, committed relationship. She just won’t know that I’ll be steering the ship in that direction. So really, it’s less go-with-the-flow than I’m presenting it as while still giving us both what we need. “We’re going to be you and me. I like you. I like being around you, I like being in your bed and in your life, and I think you like it too.”
“You know I do,” she answers softly as she trails the tip of her finger over my body, tracing the hair on my chest.
“So we’re going to ride the ride for as long as it lasts,” I say as I gently rub her back, smoothing away the goose bumps that pop up on her skin.
“I’m going to be gone,” she says.
“I know that.”
“Nine months is a long time, Kyle,” she adds, the worry evident in her tone. “What if—”
“No what ifs for right now,” I interrupt her. Fear and anxiety are liars and if she lets them into her brain they’ll ruin whatever it is we have before it has a chance to really begin. After all, we have to get through her impending deployment before we can really start our lives together. “You gave that worry to me. It’s mine now. I’ll worry about the length of time; you just do your job.”
“But—” she starts but I don’t let her. She’s wanting to hold onto those negative thoughts, and I’ll do anything I can to keep her worries at bay.
“I’m beginning to think you lack faith in my ability to be a Marine Corps girlfriend, MacKenzie, and it wounds me,” I joke. My change in direction works because she snorts out her laughter and her eyes twinkle with her merriment.
“Stop it.” She laughs. “I’m just saying. It’s hard being the one left behind. I’ve never had a relationship work when I was on a deployment rotation.”
“Neither have I,” I admit. And it’s true. I was close once. There was a woman I had cared for but in the end it wasn’t enough. She didn’t like the mission callouts, the broken plans, and the weeks on end without phone calls without a wedding ring and babies. And in the end, I didn’t want to give her those things, so she left. There were no harsh words or broken hearts, in the end we realized that we weren’t in love and we weren’t it for each other. Good thing too, because now she’s married to a nine to fiver, with half a baseball team of kids. She got what she needed and now I’m finding what I need. But Mack doesn’t need to know that right now. That’ll only add ten more checkmarks in hernocolumn and I need the scales tipped in my favor before she leaves.
“That doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in me either.”
“Hey,” I say to grab her attention, and she tips her head back to look me in the eye. “How do you eat an elephant?”
“I don’t know, Kyle. How do you eat an elephant?” she quips, looking at me like I’ve lost my damn mind and truthfully, I have. I’ve lost both my mind and my heart to her.
“One bite at a time,” I explain. “Let’s take it one day— one problem at a time. Okay?”
“Okay,” she agrees. She’s silent for a minute, but then a frown mars her face again. “What about fraternization? We still have to be a secret.”
“Not exactly,” I hedge. Fuck me running. I think I’ve already screwed up again. Now, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have made a major life decision without her today. I took a major career change with the intention of furthering our relationship as one of the heavy perks to my decision and I did it all without even telling her there was an offer on the table. She’s going to kill me.
“What do you mean?” she asks as she leans back so that she can look at my face and see where the truth lies.
“I’m getting older,” I explain. “I’ve known that my time with the teams is coming to an end. So does Jackson Cole. He offered me a job with Cole Security.”
“Are you going to take it?” she asks after a moment.
“Yeah, I think I am.” I watch her face for any sign that that isn’t what she wants. I hold my breath. Fuck, I never thought she might not want what I want. But then I think I see a look of…reliefand then it’s gone, she’s buried it in an instant.
“Is that what you want?” She asks me quietly and I use the tips of my fingers to brush back a lock of hair that’s fallen in her face and trace the soft skin at her temple.
“Yeah, I think it is.”
“So, how will that work?”
“I’ll be stationed with them at the Virginia Beach office,” I explain. “I have a crappy apartment here, but I’ll be looking for something more permanent there. I’ll submit my papers to not re-enlist tomorrow morning, so I’ll be done with the navy by the end of the month.”
“Right when I leave.” Her spoken words hang heavy in the air between us and I have to steer us back to a safer course.
“Just about,” I tell her. “I’ll make sure things line up so we can be with each other on those days.”
