Page 14 of Soaring and Saucy

The biggest sort of rat, he thought swallowing in sudden realization. I can’t do this – to her or me. I’m not ready for any of this and…

There was a knock on the bathroom door.

“Lance? Can we talk?”

“Um, s-sure?” And his voice cracked.

Wincing, he yanked a towel off the shelf and wrapped it around himself, which was ironic that he was finding a morsel of modesty at a moment like this. Opening the door, he flinched as he met her eyes.

She was obviously panicking, too.

Stephanie had dressed herself quickly, her buttons askew on her blouse. Half of her shirt was tucked in, and the other half looked like an attempt was made at some point. His uniform was in her hands along with his dress shoes that were scuffed. He would need to polish them quickly. Everything was wrinkled, and he was going to get trouble for being in such a sad state when he went back to the ship. He was definitely going back to his bunk – and not leaving it again.

Certainly not in New York City.

Maybe never.

He sure wasn’t drinking ever again.

“Morning,” he said in a fake voice, trying to be polite and avoiding her eyes.

“It is morning,” she began and hesitated, thrusting the clothing at him. “We probably need to talk about last night.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“There’s a lot to talk about, the first item of issue being our marriage.”

Alert! Alert!

Mayday! Mayday!

Man overboard! he thought wildly, visibly seeing his own sense of self running in sheer panic and jumping the bow of his mind, doing a cannonball into anything else but this conversation.

“There’s nothing to discuss,” he repeated brightly. “You’re you. I’m me. I’m due back on the ship any minute – and if something comes up, we can tackle it then.”

Exactly. Good idea, bro. If something comes up – like, oh… a pregnancy test – then they would talk about it at that time, he mused, yanking on his pants over the towel in a panic, not caring that she was standing there.

“We should talk about all of this…”

“We probably should, but when things calm down,” he tossed casually over his shoulder as he turned away, yanking on his shirt quickly as he plucked the towel from his pants so he could button them. “I mean, if you think about it… There was a lot that happened last night. We need to stick with cool heads and let things settle down.”

And heard her intake of breath.

Oh nooo, no, no – please don’t start crying, he thought painfully as he turned to look at her. Sure enough, her eyes were glassy, and her lips were pressed firmly together.

“I messed up,” she began bluntly, and he hesitated, stunned. “This was a mistake, and while it was nice…”

“Nice?” he interrupted, shocked and correcting her immediately. “It was freakin’ great. That was probably the best night of my life and…”

“It was nice,” she repeated firmly, turning away from him and running a hand through her hair to get some of the snarls out. “But you are not what I’m looking for in a husband.”

Everything came to a halt at that moment causing him to jerk back like he’d been slapped. She seemed like she had enjoyed herself thoroughly in bed or that was the best acting he had ever witnessed. He had a steady job, was a fighter pilot in the Navy, gone for months at a time giving her plenty of ‘me’ time to enjoy on her own. How was he not what she was looking for?

“Wait… what?”

Was it really going to be this easy?

“I think you should go,” Stephanie began again. “You should go before my friends come back.”

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