Page 89 of Strangers in Love

As I walked back around to get into the driver’s seat, I gave myself a mental pat on the back. I’d actually called Bruce to find out the best place for a romantic, but not cliché, place to take Aline, and when he’d mentioned that one of Firefly’s claims to fame was their Library Lounge, I’d know that’d be perfect.

Between her educational background and the way she talked, I got the impression that she liked books. If nothing else, it sounded like it’d be a good balance between too romantic and not romantic at all.

“I have to ask,” she said as I pulled out of the driveway, “how’d you find out about Firefly? Google ‘nice places for a first date that isn’t really a first date?’”

I laughed, glad that I wasn’t the only one who thought our road to a relationship was a little strange. Almost backward. The only thing that would’ve been more backward would’ve been if she’d gotten pregnant, we’d gotten married, andthenhad started dating.

“I asked Bruce.” I glanced at her. “The blond guy from the team who isn’t Cain.”

She nodded. “I remember.”

I hoped that was a ‘I have a good memory’ sort of remembering and not a ‘I checked him out’ remembering.

Damn. I didn’t think of myself as a jealous guy, but the thought of her being attracted to Bruce bothered me.

I reminded myself that she was here with me and not with Bruce. Plus, she’d slept with me twice, and the second time, she could’ve picked him. Or any of the other guys. Or any guy in the whole damn bar. But she was here with me on a date. She didn’t strike me as the type of person who’d go out with someone she didn’t like out of a sense of obligation.

“How did you get involved with that team?” she asked. “It doesn’t really seem like the kind of job you get looking on Indeed. I mean, a normal security firm does bodyguard and protection detail. Not ‘go to a foreign country and rescue hostages’ sort of thing. Right?”

I found myself relaxed enough to grin. “Cain.” Current work talk was a good place to start. More personal than the weather but not overshare territory. “He was in army intelligence and came to one of the bases where I was stationed.”

The conversation went from there to the fact that Cain and Freedom had dated, by which point we were at the restaurant. When we went inside, I made a mental note to buy Bruce a beer for suggesting the place.

Dim lighting, but not so dark that it felt like it was closing in around me. Tables far enough apart to be intimate, but not so much that I felt like we’d be on display. The Library Lounge was what it sounded like. Massive bookcases covering each wall, going all the way up to the ceiling. I’d never been a big reader, but even I thought it was a great effect.

We talked a bit more about our Thanksgivings and our families while we waited for our meal to come, and after the pause in conversation that came with the waiter, I thought it might be okay to steer toward a more personal topic. “Can I ask why Freedom’s back in Stanford, but you’re still here in L.A.? You both graduated, right?”

Aline pressed her napkin to her lips before answering. “She’s talking to her advisor, Dr. Ipres, about possible faculty positions, tenure tracks, that sort of thing. We have an apartment there already, so if we work at the university, we won’t need to find a new place.”

I didn’t like the thought of her being so far away now that I was in L.A., but if it was what she really wanted, and things went well between us, we’d figure out a way to make it work.

“So that’s what you want to do? Be a professor?” I tried to picture her lecturing a room of horny frat guys and decided I didn’t like that idea either.

She shrugged. “I’m not sure, honestly. I want to teach, but I took elementary education for a reason. I could end up being a professor for something in that field, but I’ve never really seen myself in a college position.” She hesitated, like she was weighing her next words, whether or not she wanted to say them. “I actually want to teach at the poorest schools. Work with kids who come from low-income families, places where I can really make a difference.”

Her confession didn’t surprise me, but it did impress me. She’d gone to Iran to do good and ended up in a dangerous situation, but she was still willing to put herself into other places where she’d possibly be in danger. The work would be more difficult, no matter how bright the kid or how good the family was. There’d be no resources. No fancy tech. Crowded classrooms.

“Good for you.”

She beamed at me, and I was glad I hadn’t brought up any of my worries. It wasn’t my place to worry. Not yet, anyway. If we continued dating, maybe I’d talk to her about me being concerned, but right now, I’d give her my support.

“What about the army?” she asked, changing the subject. “How different is it to work with Cain’s team than it was when you served?”

I didn’t see any pity or morbid curiosity on her face. She wasn’t fishing for the story of how I’d gotten my scars or wanting me to thrill her with all the dangerous shit I’d done. She just honestly wanted to know about that part of my life.

Maybe it was that, or maybe it was just her, but either way, I found myself telling her about Leo and how we’d both enlisted, and then what happened during the ambush. As I talked, the horror in her eyes was genuine, and she reached across the table to put her hand on mine, squeezing it as I told her about visiting Leo’s family and how hard it had been to come home without him.

It might’ve seemed weird to talk about something that personal and that intense on a first date, but when I finished, I felt like some of the weight had been lifted off my shoulders. The relief I hadn’t felt when I’d killed those men in Iraq came here and now, with her. With her hand on mine, her eyes compassionate but not pitying.

Damn. I was in deeper than I thought.

Fifty-Nine

Aline

I was farfrom the only woman to make it through college and into my early twenties before losing my virginity. It was less common that I’d barely been kissed before Eoin. A couple fumbling attempts by college boys the few times Freedom and I had spent time with some of her friends, but never anything more than that. That was also the extent of my dating experience too. Study groups, mostly, but always groups. Never a single date or even a double date.

So, now I was on my first date with the man who’d given me my first real kiss…and who had been my first time having sex. It felt a little awkward, going from having had sex twice with him tothengoing on a date, but nothing else in my life had ever been traditional, which meant I was accustomed to forging my own way.

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