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“I have to go, Dad,” Rylie says, “I’ll talk to you soon. Love you.”
The sound of her voice stabs me in the heart, especially those two words. I’m desperate to say something to her, but anything I can think of at the moment would only make matters worse. My head starts to throb in pain.
“Say hello to Ethan,” Frank says into the speaker phone. “He’s sitting here in my office.”
“No thanks,” Rylie says, and the line goes dead.
I practically feel my heart fall out of my chest.
Frank goes back to being the Lieutenant Colonel in charge of this unit, staring at me with a scowl.
“Care to enlighten me what that was all about?” he asks with a stern command voice that I know won’t take any deflection for an answer.
“It’s complicated,” I finally say after a moment of awkward silence.
“Don’t bullshit me, Major,” he says roughly. “Start explaining.”
I’m stuck. If I lie, things will definitely be worse. If I tell the truth, my only option here, I might be in a shit ton of trouble. But I might also finally find out what happened with Rylie and why she’s flown to Boston to be with her mother, something she told me, less than a week ago, was totally off the table.
“Sir,” I say. “You’re not going to like this, but…”
It takes an hour, mostly with him hammering commands and furious vitriol at me that I take like I’m a private standing rigid on parade. I hold my guns, faithfully explaining that I’d fallen in love with his daughter and that I had no idea what had gone astray.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he says finally, seeing that I am not backing down on this. I don’t care if he dumps me at the last base on the planet.
“I love her.” I say simply. Because that’s all there is.
Frank slumps in his chair – a posture I’ve never seen on him when in uniform.
“Sir, I’ll accept a transfer or whatever punishment—” I begin. I won’t ever apologize for loving his daughter.
“Not now,” he says interrupting my justification. “I need you thinking about your job. I’ll consider this—complication—over the weekend. Report back to me Monday morning, first thing.”
“Sir,” I say standing.
“Get out of here,” he says, not unkindly, but with a resignation in his voice that something has come between us.
