Page 80 of Dirty Discipline, Vol. 1

She swipes a tear. “I’m just being a baby. I wish…” Her voice trails off.

He picks up her hand and kisses her knuckles. “I know. Me too. This is just the beginning, Hallie. Everything is going to be just fine. Just you wait and see.”

He is about to pull her across the center console into his lap when the front porch lights come on. Gina and Adam were waiting for her inside.

Troy exits the SUV and is pleased when Hallie stays put waiting for him to come open her door. He pulls her to stand next to the car, but instead of walking her to the door, he traps her body against the car, staring into her eyes. “I wish I didn’t have to go back to the base tonight, but I do. I have your cell phone though and you have mine. I’m gonna call you and text you and we’ll make plans to see each other again soon, okay?”

Excitement jumps into her eyes. “Actually, if you could come inside, your Christmas gift should have been delivered yesterday after we left, and I need to give it to you now.”

“Hallie, you didn’t need to spend money on me.”

“Too late and honestly, it is a gift for me too.”

“Intriguing. We better get going in before your uncle comes out to check on you.”

Aunt Gina flings the door open as they walk up the sidewalk hand in hand. “There you two are. You must have been having fun skiing to be getting back this late.”

Troy and Hallie glance at each other conspiratorially. They had fun skiing, yesterday. Today, they’d requested a late checkout and even though it cost Troy an extra night’s charge, had stayed in their room snuggling, talking, and having sex until they had to pack up and leave.

“It was great, Aunt Gina. Troy is a great instructor. I learned so much.” Their eyes meet behind Gina’s back and Troy sees the mischief in Hallie’s eyes at the double innuendo of her comment.

Once in the house, Hallie hugs Uncle Adam and then heads to the desk in the corner of the kitchen where the mail is kept. “Did that envelope come I was waiting for?”

Gina smiles. “Yes, dear. It came yesterday. I put it in on your dresser for you so it wouldn’t get lost.”

Hallie’s smile is like a ray of sunshine. She grabs Troy’s hand and pulls him with her down the hall towards her room. “We’ll be right back.” She shouts over her shoulder to her aunt and uncle. Troy is honestly thrilled to have the chance to say good-bye to her in private.

Hallie rushes to the envelope and then turns, handing it to Troy. “Merry Christmas. Sorry it’s late.”

“We’ve talked about this. You didn’t…”

She cuts him off. “Yeah, I know, but really. I think you’re gonna love it. Please, open it first and then you’ll see.”

Troy turns the non-descript manila folder over in his hands and finally rips it open. When he peeks inside, he sees two tickets, the kind printed for big stadium concerts and theater events. A brief moment of dread hits when he wonders if she had gotten them tickets to see Eddie the Asshole, but he pushes it aside, knowing she would never do that.

Troy pulls out the tickets and knows immediately Hallie was right. This is the perfect gift for both of them.

“Okay, so you were right. This is an amazing gift for both of us. Thank you so much, Hallie.”

She looks nervous. “We haven’t talked about New Year's Eve yet, but I thought this would be the perfect way for us to spend the night together in Denver at the Foo Fighters concert. I hope you don’t mind, but I was kind of hoping I could drive over and since it will be so late, well surely Uncle Adam won’t mind me staying over.”

“You little minx. You had this planned even before we went skiing.”

“But I did good, right?”

“Oh Hallie, you did great. It’s the perfect gift. I’ve been dreading having to say good-bye tonight, but now we only have two days to wait and then we’ll see each other again. And we get to go to a great concert. I’ll make dinner reservations for us for before the concert. Maybe you

can plan on staying over a couple nights, that is if your aunt and uncle don’t mind.”

She has fallen into his arms, hugging him tight. “I’ll work on them.”

After several quiet minutes of just holding each other, Troy finally peels apart from her. He sees a vulnerability in her eyes and knows she fears the same thing he does. That these past two days were so perfect that they don’t want to let it end.

He leans in to deliver a heated good-bye kiss, before reluctantly pulling her by the hand to return to the living room. Before he knows it, he’s back in his SUV, headed back to Denver, feeling more alone than he remembers feeling in a very long time. As aggravating as it is to have to be headed into work, he welcomes the distraction that will help him keep his mind off missing Hallie for the next two days.

Chapter Fourteen

“I just don’t get what changed in the last seventy-two hours that has us against the ropes here.” Troy has spent the last two hours trying to sort out what’s gone wrong with the big project he and his team have been working on for over six months now. They were in the final testing phase and should be handing the code over to move into the next phase of production. Instead, they’re all standing around a conference table at one in the morning, hashing out what they know.

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