Page 63 of Better Late Than Never

“It is. But I’ve also seen what the Navy does to relationships. Deployments, money being tight, moving around every couple of years. I figured I’d just have booty calls until I retired, and then maybe think about finding a partner.”

“Wow. Damn. I mean, I get it—I know firsthand what you’re talking about. Not that my marriage would’ve lasted either way, but the military life definitely put a strain on things.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he said softly. “I’ve watched a lot of marriages and long-term relationships fall apart, and even when the military isn’ttheproblem, it’s almost alwaysaproblem.”

I grunted in agreement.

“What about you?” He held my gaze. “Are you out?”

“Not at work, no. My sons and my parents know I’m bi. A few friends back home do. But I’ve never really come out or anything.”

“So chances are, if anyone saw us together, they wouldn’t suspect we’re screwing.”

That brought me up short. “Oh. Yeah, good point.” Being friendly would still be frowned upon, and it could still get us disciplined, but despite my earlier“we might as well fuck since we can’t be friends,”I knew damn well that wasn’t the case. I’d just been trying to find a reason to say“let’s do this anyway.”

If the Navy found out we were friends, they’d warn us about being too familiar, spending time together outside of work, and all that bullshit. As likely as not, we’d get a stern talking to, and that would be the end of it.

If they found out I knew what Alex’s dick tasted like? Well, that could get messy, and not in a fun way.

But if no one had any reason to think we were any more than friends?

“I guess we won’t register on anyone’s radars, then,” I said. “Assuming we even work with anyone with enough time on their hands to care.”

He laughed. “In our command? Pfft. On a busy day, I’ve got enough plates spinning, I could find out my chief is a serial killer and I’d just say, ‘nope, not gonna deal with that.’” Then Alex’s eyes lost focus and his features tightened with apprehension.

I touched his arm. “What?”

He chewed his lip. “There’s… my ex. The guy I warned you about on the app? He’s…” Alex swallowed. “He noticed I wasn’t home when we were in Sevilla. He went by my apartment and saw that my car was gone, so he guessed I was out of town.”

My blood turned cold. “Oh. Shit. Is he stalking you or something?”

“No, it’s not like that. Not… not really. But he’s persistent, and he still comes around looking for a piece of ass sometimes.” He sighed. “I still want to do this, but if you don’t because he’s?—”

“Alex.” I ran the backs of my fingers along his jaw. “I do want to do this. We’ll just have to be careful, that’s all.”

He searched my eyes, silently begging me to mean that.

I lifted my chin to kiss him softly. “I think we’re in the clear as long as we don’t get careless.”

He hesitated, but then nodded. “Okay. Agreed.” His brow furrowed. “Question is,howdo we do this?”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. “I mean, what we’re doing now and what we did in Sevilla—that’s probably a good start?” I chanced a cautious smile. “I did want to explore Spain, so…”

“I’m always down to explore more.”

“Me too. Though it could turn some heads if we go too far too often.” I grimaced. “Since we have to put in out-of-bounds chits.”

“There is that,” he acknowledged, rolling his eyes.

“Ugh.” Sometimes I thought that was a stupid policy—we were grown-ass adults. Why the fuck should we have to tell the military where we were going in our off-time? But truth be told, our commandsdidneed to know if we were outside an area where we couldn’t be quickly recalled, especially if we weren’t on leave. So if we were venturing beyond about four hundred miles from the base—any distance where we couldn’t be reasonably expected to report back within a few hours—we had to let someone know.

Madrid was at the very edge of that radius, so I’d put in a chit for this weekend just to be careful. Places like Sevilla, Córdoba, Málaga, and Granada, however, were well within that range. Which meant there were plenty of places we could go without turning in any paperwork.

“We can make this work,” I said quietly. “Stay within the out-of-bounds range most of the time—who’s gonna know?”

Licking his lips, he nodded. “That’s true. And, I mean, we’re in different departments. We answer to different superiors. Even if weareboth putting in out-of-bounds chits for the same area at the same time—hell, if we’re going on leave at the same time—no one’s going to see both. No one’s going to notice. Especially since people go on leave and go out-of-bounds to explore Spain all the damn time.” A lot of service members never left overseas bases for some reason, but plenty of them did actually take full advantage of being stationed someplace this amazing.

“Good point. And if we run into someone we know, we just say we bumped into each other.”

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