Dalton
Fort Bragg
We’re still in our flight suits. Sweaty and dusty from hours in the cockpit and debriefs in the humid hangar. I can see the salt lines in the creases of the green fabric where the sweat tried to dry.
“This whole op is off,” Owen is saying, grabbing a basket. “JSOC is holding back. If I’m going to fly support for a Delta incursion in a bush warzone, I’d at least like the damn briefing to make sense.”
“It makes sense,” I say, distracted as I scan the produce aisle. “If your brain is wired for absolute chaos and black ops logic.”
He snorts. “Which yours is.”
“And why Mathers sings my praises.”
He flips me off. I grin.
We’re mid-banter, arguing about which kind of Oreos are the most delicious, when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. A flash of pale pink fabric, a blur of urgency, and I’m staggering half a step as someone collides with me.
I reach out on instinct, hands catching her at the waist just as she stumbles, trying to apologize and juggle her phone at the same time. Her body tenses under my touch, startled, and the phone slips from her hand, clattering to the ground between us.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I—” Her voice is sweet and soothing.
“I’ve got it,” I say automatically, already crouching to pick it up.
She bends at the same time, and for half a breath we’re too close. Eyes level, hands nearly touching, her breath sharp in the space between us.
And fuck.
The last time I saw her, her face was bruised and bloodied. She was drowning in a man's sweatpants and an Army sweatshirt so oversized it swallowed her whole. She could barely stand, drugged, broken, somewhere far away behind glassy eyes. Lights on, no one home.
It’s whiplash, seeing her now.
The last time is a stark contrast to the pink sundress that accentuates her tiny waist like it was made for her. To the expertly applied makeup on skin that looks like it’s never seen violence. To her blonde hair twisted elegantly into a clip, a few strands falling into her golden eyes.
We both reach for where her phone skittered to the floor and our hands brush. She flinches just slightly, but covers it with a half smile.
“Thanks,” she says, straightening to her full height. I’m 5’10”, which makes me one of the shorter guys in the squadron, but next to her, I feel massive in every sense of the word.
“You’re welcome.” I stand and pass the phone back. I just look at her. For a beat too long.
She offers me a small smile.
She looks like someone the world has never touched. Poised. Effortless. Like pain wouldn’t dare come near.
But it did and I saw the aftermath in its rawest form.
Her smile falters and she blinks a few times like she’s trying to place me. “Do I...know you?”
My stomach tightens. My pulse clicks once in my throat. I shake my head, soft and slow. “No. I don’t think so.”
Her glossy lips part like she’s about to question it, then she catches herself. Glances at her phone, where a call is still active: Kyler. She presses the end call button without saying a word to the person on the other end.
I look away before she sees me notice.
She exhales hard. Her manicured hand goes to her clip, adjusting it in a way that causes a few more strands to fall around her face. She’s breathtaking, but she sighs like the whole day is slipping out of her grip.
“Sorry,” she says quickly, with a humorless laugh that sounds like it’s trying too hard.
“I’m all over the place today. I forgot the ricotta and lasagna without ricotta is just wrong.
I’ve got six Army guys showing up to my house in, like, an hour for dinner and I swear I have nothing ready but the Caesar salad, which came from a kit. ”
The rambling is automatic. Nervous.
“Ricotta emergencies,” I say lightly. “Can’t plan for those.”
That gets the faintest smile out of her. Not much, but it’s something.
But then she keeps going. Like she can’t stop. Or like no one else has asked.
“I just...I don’t know how they do it. The other wives, I mean.
The ones married to the guys on his team.
They’re all so polished, so calm. Like they were born to host dinner parties and prep deployment care packages with color-coded ribbons or something.
” She attempts a laugh, but her eyes dart away.
“I didn’t grow up around this. Military.
War. I didn’t know what MREs were until like...
eight months ago. My idea of a support system was a barre class and a group chat.
Now it’s FRGs and bake sales and smiling while pretending I’m not counting down days in my head. ”
I say nothing. I can’t. Because something thick and knotted is tightening in my chest as I watch her fold herself smaller and smaller with every word.
She exhales again. Shaky this time. “I just want to be good at this,” she whispers. “Not perfect. Just...good enough to make it easier for him. And I don’t think I am.”
That hits harder than it should.
I don’t know this woman, not really. But I know that tone. That wear-it-well mask. That slow, quiet panic of trying to be everything while falling apart behind the scenes.
I reach out without thinking and touch her elbow.
Light. Steady. Just enough to make her look at me again.
“You’re doing better than you think,” I say softly.
“He’s lucky.” I don’t mean to. The words just come out.
Maybe because I know she won’t believe them.
Maybe because I wish someone had said them to me once, in another kind of war.
Her eyes search mine like she’s trying to decide if I mean it. If I see her.
But then something flickers across her face, like maybe I do, and she blinks it away, fast. “Thanks,” she says quietly. “Seriously. You didn’t have to...be nice.”
“I know,” I say. “But I wanted to.”
And that part, at least, is the truth.
Even if I can’t tell her why.
She disappears around the corner, and I’m still rooted there. Cartless, speechless, hollowed out in the middle like something important got carved out of me with her exit.
Owen walks up beside me. I didn’t even realize he had left.
His basket is somehow overflowing when we only came for three things.
“Dude. What the hell just happened? You look like you just saw...a ghost.” He smirks.
Though I know he’s actually serious, I roll my eyes because I will never live my callsign down.
I drag a hand down my face and blow out a breath. “It’s nothing.”
He snorts. “Okay. Except you went full statue mode and stared after her like you fell in love and got your heart broken in the same damn breath.”
I glance down the aisle. She’s gone. And the air still smells like her perfume, warm and light and maybe a little too good for a military base commissary.
“She was one of the hostages,” I say quietly. “South Africa. Last year. The American ballerina.”
Owen stills. “No shit?”
I nod once. “Didn’t talk to her. But I saw her in medical. She was limping. Bloody. Eyes like glass. And I remember...I remember thinking it felt wrong to look at her.”
Owen stays quiet, which is rare enough to be worth noting.
I press my fingers to the bridge of my nose.
“She was barely holding it together. Like whatever she was made of had been smashed and glued back fast, just enough to walk on her own. And I was standing there staring at her like an asshole. Not because I thought she was hot. Because she was...unignorable.”
Owen exhales through his nose.
“I felt like shit for weeks after that,” I admit. “She walked right into me just now and I didn’t even say anything. I couldn’t. Not without sounding like a fucking creep.”
“Damn,” Owen mutters. “That’s why you looked like you got punched in the soul.”
“Yeah. And she’s married now. Hosting her husband’s team for dinner tonight.”
“Damn. Poor bastard.” He grins, trying to lighten it. “Did you at least get her name?”
I shoot him a dry look.
He winces. “Right. Classified trauma history. Sorry. Forget I asked.”
We start walking again, slow toward check out, my thoughts stuck in another continent and a different version of her.