Vi handed him a pink stuffed unicorn with big eyes.
Chase smiled and tucked against it like a pillow. “That’s much better.”
***
“Did you just look at that woman’s ass?”
“Vi! Of course not! I was just checking for concealed weapons! You know how alert I like to be to my surroundings.”
“Alert to your hot women surroundings.”
“It’s the first time we’ve been out in a while! I’m just trying to see how much fashions have changed.”
“In six weeks?”
“Besides, Vi, nobody’s ass can compare to yours. I could probably write a poem to your ass. We’ll call it ‘Ass, a haiku by Chase Smith, alias’.”
“Oh, purée.”
“Ass
High, firm, round, tempting
Inviting the touch of my hands
Also of my d—”
“Chase!”
“What, doesn’t that make five syllables?”
“You know everyone at the other tables can hear you, right?”
“Sorry, honey. I forgot you were so shy.”
***
“Tell me a story.”
“A story?”
“About you. Anything, really.”
“Well…once there was a young man who met this really hot blonde and decided he was going to get her. This woman was so hot that nobody could get her. So obviously she had to put him through some tests to make sure he was worthy. She threw knives at him, and he survived. She threw him into a deep river, and he survived. And then she thought, that was way too easy for him. He’s going to win too fast if I don’t think of something really hard. So she thought really evilly, and she figured out the very hardest thing to do for that man, and she said he had to do it: he had to wait. But he was strong-willed, and he was brave, and he was stubborn, and he did that, too. And then she had no choice. She had to keep her word. So…”
Vi buried her head in his side, laughing. There was really maybe nothing quite as perfect as two people stretched out on the same couch, on a quiet evening, tucked together. “But I meant a story I didn’t know.”
“Oh, so you know the ending, too. You’re just pretending not to.”
She pinched him. But not really enough to sting.
“Okay, what kind of story?”
“Just any story. Maybe a story you like to tell. Or maybe one you never tell, because you wanted to, but you didn’t know who to tell it to.”
“Comedy, tragedy?”
A little pet of fingers against his chest. “Anything.”
He took her hand and ran his thumb up her work-toughened fingers. “We can take turns. You tell me some, too.”
She nodded into his side.
He thought and thought. “Well…once there was this young man who saw people fall from tall, tall towers. And it hurt his heart, because he couldn’t catch them, and he watched the towers crumble to the ground. And so he tried to make himself into someone who could always do something, never just watch a television helpless again. And…I don’t think I can tell this.”
Vi squeezed his hand. “I’ll go for a little bit. You grew up on a ranch, and my grandmother and brother have farms, right? Let’s start with that.”
***
“Does this package contain what I think it does?”
“Oh, look at that! More fan mail. Now I wonder which of your fans could have sent you pink peekaboo panties?”
***
“Wow, you look happy, even for you. What’s going on?”
A big grin. “I’m cleared for action again. You would die of jealousy if you knew the training they’ve got us on for the next month. It’s in Corsica, with your 2e REP, SAS from Britain, and the KSM. They said this time the imperative really was for us to learn how to cooperate and not try to beat all the other forces, but we’ll see how that goes.”
A faint smile, green eyes watching him very alertly. “This just revs you up, doesn’t it? You love your job.”
“It’s my purpose, Vi.”
She came to stand in front of him and rested a loose fist on his chest. “Have fun. Kick ass.”
“Will you miss me?”
“Of course I’ll miss you. But I’ll be busy kicking ass, too.”
“It will get harder,” Chase warned, warily. “I’m with SOCEUR right now, but they don’t have to keep me there. The next deployment could be six months in a war zone again.”
“Is this the part where you realize you need the kind of woman who can pack up her life and follow yours around?”
“No. This is the point where I know how good it is to be with a woman who has a full, good, happy life without me. So I don’t have to feel guilty about my own life choices. But it will still be hard. For both of us.”
“Chase. Please try to wrap your mind around what it means to apprentice in a starred kitchen at fifteen and work my way up to my own two stars by twenty-eight. I. Do. Hard. Things.”
“Damn, I love you.”
“I love you, too, you arrogant idiot. Now go kick ass.”
***
“Vi! Vi! Wake up! Guess what day it is?”
“It’s…is it four in the morning? Merde, Chase, we just got to bed an hour ago.”
“It’s January! I survived!”
“You might be premature on that.”