13
13
IGNORE OR EXPLORE
M y wedding month arrived with jaunty yellow sunshine and mild weather. Pops of blooming color dotted the emerald lawns, fragrant spring petals perfumed the air, and a spirited expectation lifted my mood. I felt as close to carefree as a cadet finishing up the program could feel, and as close to happy as I thought I’d ever be here.
Mikey’s happiness more than made up for any deficiencies in mine. He’d lost another tooth recently and was acutely self-conscious about his appearance for the wedding. He’d be grinning like a jack-o-lantern at all the energetic wedding prep going on, until realization would dawn, and then he’d clamp a hand over his mouth.
I remembered feeling like that. Felt like a million years ago, and I was only nineteen. Time seemed to speed up here, everything moving at an unnaturally fast pace. While the rest of my peers on the outside were finishing their sophomore year of college, I was graduating from The Cadet Academy Program. A lot of pictures had been taken recently. I didn’t mind, smiling boldly into the camera for the lot of them. I recollected the engagement photos and wondered why they insisted on putting them in both The San Francisco Chronicle and The Clovis newspaper. I had, like, no friends and family outside The Academy, except for the two on the guest list. Isn’t that what they wanted?
My fiancé returned from South America, just in time for my graduation and a celebratory dinner with his brother and me before heading right back out the next day. He looked tired and worried. And preoccupied.
“In a hurry to get back to my team,” he’d explained.
Okay then. Priorities. I got it.
After a quiet dinner downtown, that felt more obligatory than celebratory, he escorted us back to our room, where we stood around awkwardly making small talk. I was staring at Ranger; he was staring at Mikey. Finally, he sent the little guy in to get ready for bed, so he could “practice kissing his sister before the wedding.” This elicited the jack-o-lantern grin and blush. And while Mikey brushed, we kissed. Awkwardly, like a couple of high schoolers after a first date. It’s like we’d lost our spark during our energetic sprint to the finish line: me with my training, he with his mission. And I missed it, and him.
When Ranger didn’t invite me back to his place, I stared long and hard at him while he made his excuses. He was worried, he said, about a newbie named Cortez handling things by himself. He needed to make an urgent phone call to Reese. He had Laticia to check on. Sounded sexy just coming out of his mouth—La-tish-ahh. I wondered if it was a made-up name, befitting the sultry beauty it was bestowed upon. My fiancé interrupted my thoughts with more excuses about why I wouldn’t be going back to his room. This one had something to do with wanting to drag Slater back to Venezuela with him. Apparently, his BFF was recently home on furlough so was available for poaching.
Ranger wound up his well-rehearsed speech with: “Get some rest.” It almost felt like he intended to pat my head, but thought better of it. After a chaste peck on my cheek, he bolted like my father was coming after him with a loaded shotgun. Something was up and it wasn’t anything south of his belt buckle, I can tell you that. I stalled his exit with a desperate grab but could think of nothing to say when he turned around. I relegated myself to searching his intense blues for clues.
This summoned the shield being slammed down and a better excuse for the early exit. “If I invite you back tonight,” he explained, “you’re liable not to have your white wedding.” Dimple flash. “And we’ve already bought the dress.”
I smiled like I believed him. In some ways Ranger was easy to read, in so far as I knew he was hiding something . His preoccupied face refocused on mine, and he bent his head and kissed me in the manner he should have to begin with—nothing sweet-sixteen about it. Still. I closed the door on my night of celebration, feeling that far off feeling, almost a sense of homesickness, a longing for home . . . wherever that was.
After brushing my teeth and washing off my thoughtfully applied makeup, I wandered restlessly to my twin bed. I wondered what it would be like to share a bed with Ranger. Then I wondered if I would share a bed with him. We hadn’t even discussed this, nor had we spent a single night together. A niggle of worry began gnawing at me. We hadn’t really talked about anything tonight. I mainly just sat back and watched him scroll through his emails in between guy talk with Mikey about cars and sports. Something in my gut felt wrong. I could either ignore it and send for a pill that would send me into oblivion, or I could follow the instinct I was taught to explore.
Ignore or explore?
My feet made the decision for me. Before I realized it, they had padded across cold wood, slipped into trainers, hit flagstone, then concrete. Me and my hoody jogged across a whole desolate campus. The graduates and elites were still out celebrating, and the shorties fast asleep. The closer I got to Officers’ Quarters, the faster my pace got. I finally slowed to a walk when I came upon the grove of Joshua trees in the northeast corner. They were rustling in the wind, conjuring up familiar feelings of loneliness in me. It was a fifteen-minute jog going at a pretty good clip. Tonight, I made it in ten. The adrenaline coursing through my veins amping up my energy quotient. I paused and took a breath at the mountain of stairs before sprinting up them to bang on the door.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
No answer.
Is he banging someone else?
Of course, he was. All along. It hit me, with a jolt, this realization I’d been suppressing. I recalled seeing Elizabeth whizzing down the same path I was coming from, a little finger twirl and a Cheshire smile as we passed in the night.
Pound! Pound! Pound!
Still no answer. Well dang. I took a breath and closed my eyes before focusing my concentration beyond the door. I didn’t feel anything. I tried a few more politer knocks, feeling a little foolish. I jogged back down the steps and bent down to retie my laces before heading back. He could be anywhere. I was out after curfew. The video cameras knew I was here, and were okay with it, because I often made an appearance at OQ. But I’d better get back. Couldn’t go wandering around throwing rocks at every window to find the cheat. I scratched that. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt—the ten to fifteen percent chance that I was wrong.
A whack followed by a crack caught my attention. Low murmurs of base voices and some kind of background noise like TV or music broke through the quiet night. I hadn’t picked up on it earlier in my singular focus to get to his door, then there was all my huffing and puffing and trying to pound the house down.
Slater. Could it be my fiancé was simply hanging out with his best man? He did say he was trying to talk him into going back to Venezuela with him. I snuck around the corner to the other side of the building. The voices and music got louder. I recognized the low rumble of Ranger’s voice. That appeared to be the case. Whew! I was about to turn back before I got caught spying on spies. But then raucous laughter and a sarcastic retort from my fiancé renewed my curiosity. I knew I should beat a hasty retreat. I recalled what Ranger had told me the night he caught me with his psych book: Curiosity killed the Katie-Kat. Well, I had a few more lives to spare.
The door was ajar. If I closed one eye, I could see right in. My peep-eye witnessed two dark, handsome men in the middle of a heated game of pool. He’d dumped me to go play pool with Slater? A line of anger rose up my midsection, until a thump followed by an impressive whistle made me jump.
“Nice shot,” Slater acknowledged. “Guess you’ve been practicing working your stick in other areas, since your f iancée has you on ice.”
Ranger simply grunted and lined up his next shot. He pulled the stick back and pushed it forward. Another ear-splitting crack penetrated the darkness.
“Waiting for marriage?” Slater resumed. “Are you crazy?”
After a dismissive, sardonic laugh, Ranger duffed the shot. “What makes you think I’m waiting for marriage?”
Now a thin layer of ice needled up my midsection, freezing the air in my lungs.
“Well, that’s the rumor, bro. I don’t believe it though. No way—way too hard.”
They both cackled like jocks in a locker room, then sucked a couple of swigs from their beer bottles. I rolled my eyes.
“Grow up, man.” This, from my fiancé.
Slater filled the silence by rubbing a blue square on the tip of his stick. “So . . . is it?” Whack. A striped ball rolled into the back-corner pocket.
“What?”
“Gonna be a white wedding?”
Ranger stalled by rubbing his cue with the same blue chalk. “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes. She’s waiting.”
Sneery laughter erupted from Slater. I knew I didn’t like the guy.
“You can take the girl out of the church, but not the Catholic out of the girl,” Ranger said as explanation. “Figure it’s the least I can do, after what she’s been through.”
“At some point aren’t you gonna wanna check out what’s under the hood . . . Is she really a virgin?”
“Yup.”
A beat of silence. “Davenport never . . .”
“Nope.” Without looking at Slater, Ranger set up his next shot. “Verified by Dr. Roberson.”
“Who cares?”
“She does.”
“But to go so far as to make it legal?” Slater persisted. “I mean, yeah. She’s a fly girl and all. No doubt about it, but what are you gonna do about your problem?”
“What problem?”
“Your ADD,” Slater explained.
Ranger’s smirk had me wondering how my laser-focused fiancé could possibly be ADD when Slater said, “You can’t keep givin’ it to your side girl once you’re a married man.”
A flare of indignant anger melted the ice in my chest. I wanted to smash his white teeth out with the eight ball. How dare he make a fool of me!
“I hate to break it to you,” Slater continued, “but that’s just not gonna fly with the ladies, my man. No one wants to be the other woman . . . especially not with the egos on these cadets.”
A short, harsh laugh from my husband-to-be. “You let me worry about my love life, bro. You just worry about that twenty bucks on the table that’s gonna be in my back pocket after . . .” whack, crack , roll thunk “two more shots.”
“So, it’s really a legit marriage?” Slater persisted.
“Eight-ball corner pocket,” Ranger called. Yanking his arm back, he shot his stick forward. Whack, crack , roll . . . and miss. He duffed it.
Slater lifted a knee, laughing and covering his mouth with his hand. “You choked.”
Ranger shot Slater a scathing look. “What’s with the twenty questions? You’re worse than she is.”
“Dude.” Slater came around to clap his best bud on the back. “Don’t know if you know this, but Connelly . . . she’s your weak spot, bro.” He leaned over to stage whisper: “Kryptonite.”
Ranger shrugged him off. “Bullshit.” He took a long, aggravated swig from his bottle.
“Yeah, man. Either you L-O-V-E her ,” Slater guffawed, “or . . .”—he ran around the table out of range of Ranger’s stick—“she put some kind of voo-doo hex on you, the same way she did Davenport. Are you gonna up and run off together and get matching love tattoos?”
“Shut up!” Ranger thrust his pool stick with too much force. Whack, crack , roll—miss. “Dammit!”
More raucous laugher from Slater, followed by a flashed peace sign. “Two words, man: Weak. Spot.” He dodged the tip of Ranger’s pool stick by jumping onto a nearby couch. “I’m just tellin’ you for your own good, man. You know I love you like a brother. Don’t wanna see you go down the same rocky road as your old man . . .”
“I’m in perfect control.” Ranger slotted his next shot with perfect precision as if to make his point.
They faced each other now. The guy banter set aside with the pool sticks. Ranger rubbed a finger across the bridge of his nose—a move he did when he was getting aggravated. Finally, he broke the silence. “Look man, don’t worry about it. That’s not the case here. I’m just giving her a wedding as a means to an end. It’s a charade.”
And that’s when I felt my heart crack.
“What do you mean?” Slater leaned his elbows against the pool table. “You got something cookin’ up and you’re not sharing with your brother? I tell you everything, man. Every thing . . . all the gory details.”
“Even with all the TMI you bore me with, I’m sure you still keep some shit to yourself,” Ranger replied, re-racking balls.
“Dude, for real. I even told you that time I got crabs off that B-list actress I hooked up with in L.A.”
Ranger threw his head back and howled. “B-list actress, my ass. That redhead was a porn star, and you know it . . . you’re lucky your goddamned dick didn’t fall off.”
A couple of punches were thrown by Slater while Ranger danced around, grinning. “So, I always wanted to know . . . was she a natural redhead?”
“Fire in the hole,” Slater called out, cupping his mouth with his hand. Ranger double-over, laughing over his pool stick.
“Quit evading the question. Spill it, Commando,” Slater demanded. “What the hell are you really doing here? And don’t tell me no virgin pussy because no pussy, no matter how fine, is worth putting a fucking ring on it. Unless . . . don’t tell me—you’re pussy whipped by your Katie-Kat?”
That seemed to do it. A tinge of red darkened the ridge of Ranger’s cheekbones. “Fine.” He slammed his stick on the table. “If you really want to know . . . a gifted child.”
Slater’s head did a cartoon worthy shake. “Say what?”
“I want a gifted child, preferably a son to carry on the Nealson name.”
Slater openly gaped. I did too, even as my heart dropped to the floor.
“Don’t look so surprised. The gifteds are getting all the glory here. Just look at all the special treatment they get, while the rest of us are still stuck in the trenches. It’s the wave of the future here,” Ranger continued on, killing me, one word at a time. “Millions going into that program. Read the writing on the wall. I want in on it. And since Weston’s saddled me with her ever since I brought her back from New Mexico, I figure I may as well get something out of it.”
At this point, yours truly was barely breathing. Shocked stock still. Jesus himself would’ve had to come scrape me from that bit of sidewalk I was stuck on.
Shocked laughter discharged from Slater’s mouth. “Dude.” A pause. “That’s either fucking brilliant or fucking insane.”
Ranger flashed his teeth. “I’d like to think I’m a lot of one and a little of the other.”
Slater shook his head in agreement. “Word.”
“Keep your mouth shut, though,” Ranger warned. “Connelly’s skittish. And gifted. I have to stay away a lot because she likes to read me like a goddamn diary. I don’t want to spook her off.” He pulled back the pool stick and thrust it forward. The solids and stripes shot out in all different directions, shooting across the green felt. “And no sense ruining her fantasy of a tall, dark, and extremely handsome man sweeping her off her feet,” he finished with another teeth flash.
Slater laughed appreciatively. “I always knew you were a cold-hearted bastard.” He sauntered over to give his best bud a hard five and a shoulder clap. “And that’s the Ranger I know and love.”
I’d heard enough. Righteous indignation had turned to shocked hurt had turned to numbing coldness as this intel infiltrated my whole system like poison. I backed up like one does when they just realized they’ve stepped over a grave. It felt like it was my own. A shiver ran down my spine.
A gifted child. That’s what this was about?
I turned and fled. No tears blinded me. Just bald, bitter truth choking me. I hated his guts. I hated knowing this. Why did I have to be burdened with this? Knowledge isn’t power. It’s painful. I wished I hadn’t come here tonight. I wished I didn’t know Pete was injected with a super-substance that made me feel artificially bonded to him. I wish I didn’t know my mama had cheated on my Daddy with Ranger’s father. I wished I didn’t know what a colossal fool I was . . . again.
I had no memory of getting back, my mind racing faster than my feet. The first thing I did was call for a pill. A pink and white beauty that took me down to that place I wanted to be—oblivion. I woke up the next morning groggy but aware. I knew Ranger would have breakfast with us this morning before he left for South America. I also knew I would slap the handsome right off his face if I saw him. I needed to avoid that. This was still a good deal for Mikey. So I would go through with it for him, and to keep me out of Missions. The first thing I did was send Mikey off to breakfast, claiming I was sick. It was believable because I was sick. To my core. The second thing I did was remove the gold cross from around my neck. I waited twenty minutes and set off for the music hall, leaving my PAC and cell behind, so he’d know he couldn’t summon me when he walked Mikey back to check on me. If (and that was a very big if) he went to look for me, it’d be in the garden. He could track me through tech, if he was so inclined. I doubted he would do that because it would take a few minutes, and he’d be running short on time.
My plan to dodge my fiancé worked, or he didn’t even look. Two hours later, I was back in my room reading a text.
Hey Shorty, I’m sorry I missed you this morning. Little Mac said you were sicky-poo. So I cleared your schedule for the next couple of days. Enjoy the R & R. When I get back, it’s countdown to our wedding. I can’t wait to call you Mrs. Nealson . . . and for our long overdue wedding night!
Your Future Husband
P.S. Punch your brother for me.
Yesterday, I would’ve smiled. Maybe hugged myself around my waist, getting up to go punch Mikey on the arm and say it was from his brother-from-another-mother, then kiss him on his chubby cheek and say it was from the future Mrs. Nealson. Then I would’ve sat back down with a grin to whip up a flippy, quippy reply. I would’ve ended it with some Xs and Os and heart emojis and signed it the Future Mrs. Nealson.
Today was a different day. I was a day older. A day wiser.
Now when I read this note, it twisted my stomach and made me sick. I was being conned. Again. I wondered how I hadn’t picked up on it before and I began to doubt my abilities . . . again.