Epilogue
LAYLA
One Year Later
My first time being in front of my very own group of cadets was a little more unnerving than I’d thought it would be. I was an instructor now, though, so I was just going to have to put on my big girl panties and deal with it.
The fact was that they were still more scared of me than I was of them, so as I stood at the front of the classroom and looked out at them, I vowed to myself that I would never let them know how intimated I really was by all this.
I also vowed to myself that I would do everything for them that Santiago had done for me, so I thought back to my first time in this classroom and fought the smile that the memories brought as I slowly raised my arm to point outside.
“People die out there.” I let the weight of the words sink in for a moment as I remembered what Santiago had done on our very first day here.
“I’m Petty Officer Layla Perkins and I’m your instructor.
It’s my job to equip you with the knowledge you need to save some of them and with the tools you need to give you the best shot at not becoming one of them. ”
As I repeated his words from so long ago, I reached for the printed list of names lying on the desk behind me, then pointed at a guy who looked like his ego needed to be knocked down a few notches. “What’s your name?”
“It’s Al Adamson, ma’am.” He smirked. “What can I do for you?”
My eyes narrowed as I sized him up, wondering if it was too soon to make an example of him. Deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt for now, I simply asked him the same question as Santiago had asked all of us.
“Why are you here?”
“Well, ma’am, I had nothing better to do,” he joked, and internally, I sighed. Oh, you and I are going to have a problem, Mr. Big Shot.
“That’s nice, but if you came here thinking that I was going to give you a stage to try your hand at being a comedian, you’re in the wrong place.” I sent him a scathing look before turning to the guy next to him and asking him the same question.
Al relaxed, obviously thinking that I was done with him, but I was simply making my way through the rest of my list before I did what needed to be done. I had to make sure that the whole class had reported and only then could I show him why it wasn’t a good idea to mess with me.
Once we were done in the classroom and they reported for their first PT, I was ready to teach him a lesson.
And that was even before I saw him smiling at me and tapping the guy next to him as he muttered something I couldn’t hear, but judging by the way he was looking at me, it was clearly derogatory.
There were a few more girls in this class than there had been in mine, and I definitely wasn’t about to let this guy get away with thinking that he could disrespect me or any of them. “Adamson, front and center.”
The guy frowned but stepped forward, smirking again when his gaze met mine. “What’s up?”
“What’s up is that you’ve provided me with a golden opportunity to show you and your friend that we don’t tolerate disrespect around here.
We also don’t tolerate cadets thinking the sun shines out of their asses.
If you’re not here to work, you’re wasting my time.
If you want to be the class clown or the Station’s Casanova, you’re wasting my time, and here’s the thing, I don’t like wasting time.
There’s approximately two hours until the end of the day.
Run until the sun sets or you quit, whichever comes first.”
“Excuse me?”
“I won’t repeat myself, cadet. You heard me, now go.” I pointed at the field. “We’ll wait here.”
He stared at me like I was utterly insane, but then he huffed out a breath, grumbling to himself about crazy bitches as he took off. I called after him. “One more word like that and it’s not going to be running until the sun sets. It’ll be running until it rises again.”
As I turned back to the group, they were all watching me with round eyes and rigid spines.
I nodded as I pointed at their classmate.
“This wasn’t how I’d hoped our time together would start, but make no mistake about this.
Anyone who is here for the wrong reasons will not make it.
Anyone who treats training as a joke will not make it.
Anyone who is disrespectful or ill-disciplined will not make it.
People’s lives are at stake. Your lives are at stake.
You can either work hard and earn your right to be here, or you can leave.
I refuse to waste my time and yours by having to put up with behavioral issues that should’ve been sorted out in elementary school. ”
Translation: I’m not here to fuck around. Get serious, or get out. It’s that simple.
There were a few nods, and even a few grins that people tried to hide. Clearly, they’d received the message and a lot of them liked it.
Al ended up running until the sun kissed the horizon, looking a lot less smug by the time I finally dismissed them. When we were done for the day, I waited until they all took off before I headed to Santiago’s office.
We were having dinner there together, but frankly, I was exhausted even if I hadn’t done any running myself. It turned out that being a hard-nosed instructor wasn’t as easy as Santiago had made it seem. He smiled when I walked in, then pointed at his sofa.
“You can lie down if you want. I’ll close the shutters so no one will see you.”
I groaned as I stumbled toward it, flinging my arm over my eyes for the dramatic effect of it. “Dear heavens, please tell me it gets easier.”
A low chuckle rang out just as I heard him shut the door. “I’m assuming your first day went well, then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? I had to make an example of a cocky, swaggering idiot who told me he was here because he had nothing else to do and then gossiped to his little friend about me when we got to the field.”
“Did he quit?”
I shook my head. “Unfortunately, he’s still here. What’s worse is that I think he’s probably going to make it. He seems like the type.”
“You’ll rein him in,” Santiago assured me as he lifted my head, sat down, and then gently lowered my head down into his lap.
His fingers stroked into my hair before he bent over and placed a soft kiss on my forehead.
“We talked about this, remember? You’re young and you’re a woman.
It’s hard enough for any of us to get the cadets to fall in line at first, but it’s going to be harder on you. You just need to stay the course.”
“I know,” I mumbled. “I just wasn’t expecting it to start with such a bang, I guess. Hopefully, today would’ve opened their eyes a little bit.”
“I’m sure it did,” he murmured thoughtfully. “Don’t let them get you down, my love. You earned the right to be standing in front of that class. You’re going to be a damn good instructor and they’re lucky to have you. They’ll realize it soon enough.”
“I hope so,” I said, finally moving my arm off my face and opening my eyes to find his peering down at me.
“You’re sure I earned the right to be standing in front of them?
I’m still a little bit surprised that I got made an instructor so soon.
I can’t help but feel like it wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for you and my dad. ”
He shrugged, his eyes twinkling as they held mine.
“You definitely earned your right to be there, baby. They never would’ve given you the job if there was any question about it.
Not now that I’ve only just got the instructors properly back on track.
If anyone thought you weren’t good enough or that you’d be putting the cadets in danger, it wouldn’t have mattered what your dad and I said. You just wouldn’t have gotten the job.”
“Maybe, but if I’m being honest, I’m still a bit confused about how it even happened.
I don’t mean procedurally. I know there was an opening and that I applied, but no one even asked about our relationship even if pretty much everyone knows about it right now.
You’re my boss again, yet no one so much as blinked about it. ”
“I know the right people,” he teased as he lifted my head again and got up, winking at me over his shoulder as he walked to his desk. “Besides, since our relationship is so serious, it was easier than you might think to get it past the others.”
“What do you mean?” I asked as I sat up, watching him curiously as I yawned and rubbed my tired eyes. “Why would they think our relationship is serious?”
I felt like I was missing something, but I was too out of it after pretending to be a stone wall all day to figure it out. Santiago shrugged his broad shoulders as he looked back at me, something like anxiety now shining from his eyes.
“Well, they thought it was serious because I told them I was marrying you.”
“What?” My face scrunched up. “What are you talking about? We’re not engaged. Sooner or later, someone is going to realize that you—”
I stopped talking when he put a stunning diamond ring down on his desk and my mouth dried up as I stared at it. “What is that? What are you doing?”
“Proposing,” he said before he picked up the ring again and strode over to me. Lowering himself down on one knee, those brilliant blues caught on mine as he held the ring out on the palm of one of his hands and twined our fingers together with the other.
“As soon as you said you might want to become an instructor one day, I knew I had to start working on a plan. The thing is, I love this job, and as it happens, I really do think you’re going to be an incredible instructor.
I didn’t want to go back to sneaking around and I figured there was one way we could both have it all. ”
I gaped at him. “You’re proposing because you want us both to keep our jobs?”
“Nah, I’m proposing because I love you. Honestly, I’ve been thinking about marrying you since long before you even said anything about wanting to become an instructor.
I can’t give an exact date when it happened, but I’ve known you were the one pretty much since the first time I saw you.
I love you, Layla Perkins. There’s no job and no regulation more important to me than you.
Hell, I’ll become a very happy house-husband if you’re the wife coming home to me every day.
If I thought you would say yes, I’d have proposed the day you graduated or every morning since, but I’ve been waiting for the right time. ”
“And this is it?”
“Probably not, but I’m tired of waiting.
” He leaned forward and kissed the back of my hand he was holding.
“I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for you.
You’re it for me, Perkins. If you want to have a long engagement, we can do that.
If you want me to ask again in a month or a year, I can do that too, but I’m going to keep asking.
I’m going to keep being right here, ready to be yours for the rest of my life just as soon as you’ll have me. ”
Tears stung the backs of my eyes as I bent over, touching the palm of my free hand to his face as I looked into those hopeful eyes.
“There is no universe where I won’t have you, Santiago Cortez.
There is no time in which I won’t be ready.
You’re it for me too, but you already know that.
I love you more than anything, so you don’t have to ask again. I’m ready to say yes right now.”
His gaze moved from one of my eyes to the other before he smiled. “Does this mean I didn’t lie about us getting married?”
“Not if I’ve got anything to say about it,” I murmured before I pressed my lips against his and sealed my promise with a kiss.
I couldn’t believe this was the plan he’d come up with, but it worked.
We were serious. We were very much in love and we were perfectly capable of working together regardless.
We’d made it against all the odds that had faced us and now we were finally going to get our happily ever after.