Chapter 6 Dear Jane
SIX
Dear Jane
This isn’t working. Look, I’ve tried. I’ve really tried to hold on to you, but I keep thinking of you with all those men.
I hate the anger festering within me. I hate that I doubt you.
I know you love me, but, Tia…I don’t feel it anymore.
I feel empty and detached, and I think I just need someone who is with me rather than a world away.
I’ve met someone. Someone who doesn’t make me feel that way.
I know telling you this in an email is a jerk move, but I don’t have any other way to get a hold of you, and I thought it would be worse not to say anything.
I mean, what kind of man would I be if I let you think everything was okay?
And I know we weren’t doing much to plan the wedding, but don’t you see, that’s just another reason this hasn’t been working?
I love you, Tia. I really do, I’m just not in love with you anymore. I need…shit, I’m just sorry. I’m so sorry. I never thought I’d be that guy, but I guess I am. Please don’t hate me.
Scott
Don’t hate him? Don’t hate him! She wanted to rip his head off. No, wait. She wanted to rip his balls off first, feed them to him, and then rip his head off. She wanted—
“T?” Lyons’s deep voice called to her, tossing out an anchor she desperately needed.
Except she couldn’t lean on Lyons for support. Theirs was a working relationship. It had rules associated with it, and while the team shared kids’ birthdays and holiday parties, the destruction of her relationship wasn’t something she wanted everyone knowing about. Not yet. Maybe never.
“Holy hell, T!” He straddled the bench and sat beside her. He leaned in close, placed a hand on her shoulder, and lifted her chin with his other hand. “What the hell happened? Is everything okay?”
The words on the computer screen blurred behind her tears.
Shit! She scrubbed at her cheeks. She didn’t need to be leaking tears.
Not here. Not in the middle of a chow hall and most definitely not in front of Lyons.
Of all the people to see her come apart, why did it have to be the one man she couldn’t show any weakness around?
Her job was hard enough, and while she never tried to be a man, she worked hard for the men in her team to not see her as weak and vulnerable.
Lyons scooted closer. Was he going to hug her? No! He couldn’t—
He put his arm around her shoulders while she swiped at her tears and yanked out of the hug he was about to lay on her.
“I’m fine. I’m fucking fine. Nobody died.”
“Then…what?” The concern in his voice pulled at her, making her want nothing other than to lean on him for support.
She pointed at the screen of the computer. “You were right, Lyons. Fucking right. Scott’s a damn douche bag.”
It killed her to admit Lyons was right about Scott.
It gutted her to admit it at all. This was huge.
Her team was tight. They didn’t spill the secrets of their lives, but this would be a bomb blowing up the integrity of the team.
They’d all be looking at her, wondering if her head was screwed on straight and worried about her combat readiness.
Well, she wasn’t some weak-as-shit female who was going to fall apart because she’d gotten a goddamn Dear John letter.
Her hand trembled as she ran it against the smoothness of her hair.
Not a Dear John letter. She was the victim of a Dear Jane email.
Shit, more fat globs of weakness spilled from her eyes.
“T? What the hell is this?” Lyons asked.
“Did you read it?”
“No. I’m not going to read your mail.”
She turned the computer toward him and pointed. “Read it. Read the damn letter, and get your I told you sos over and done with.”
Fine tremors had her hands shaking. Her stomach was in full revolt, too, threatening to bring up all the calories she’d shoveled down not moments before. The room seemed smaller. The air thicker. She couldn’t fucking breathe.
“I’m out of here,” she pronounced.
Lyons leaned in and scanned the screen. “Shit, T. That’s the worst.”
She practically vaulted out of her seat, intent on getting some air. It was hot as hell outside, but at least she’d be able to breathe. It was too stuffy in the chow hall. And she didn’t need any nosy eyes watching a major cry. Already, she was drawing stares.
Lyons closed the laptop and tucked it under his arm. He was up and beside her before she took three steps.
“Leave me alone,” she said, yanking her arm out of his grip.
He took hold of her arm and steered her around a table full of young airmen. “Keep your shit together, T,” he said, lowering his voice.
“My shit is locked up tight,” she countered.
With pressure on her arm, he propelled her toward the exit. Her throat was closing up, tightening with the sobs she wanted to spill.
“No, you’re losing it. And everyone is interested in the major with connections to Angel Fire. Now, move.”
She headed outside. The ever-present dust created a haze and washed out the sun. Just past noon, they were coming into the worst heat of the day. A wall of heat slammed into her, making her stumble. She tried to shrug out of Lyons’s grip, but he tightened his fingers.
“Let me go,” she said with a growl.
“Not until we talk this out.”
“I’m not talking anything out with you.”
“Yes, you are.” The calm confidence of his voice nearly had her caving in, giving him what he demanded. Except it wasn’t a demand. The pain ripping across his face mirrored the ache in her heart.
She pulled up short and ripped her arm away from the tightness of his grip. Somehow, he’d taken them around the corner of the building. There was a little shade but no relief from the heat. And there were no people.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” she said, “but just fucking stop!” Stop being so damn nice, she wanted to scream. She needed to hate men right now, not feel their comfort, and most specifically, she didn’t need to be comforted by Lyons. “Let me have a moment alone.”
“You don’t need alone, T. You need a friend.”
A friend? Who the hell was he kidding? They were the furthest thing from friends. Teammates, they shared a professional relationship. The rigors of their job made that connection tighter and closer than family at times, but Lyons, with his insufferable flirting ensured friendship was impossible.
“I don’t need a friend. I need…” Shit, what did she need?
Scott had found someone else, and there was no doubt in her mind the reason behind his letter.
Scott was an ass. A total douche-bag. He’d cheated, probably had been sleeping with whomever it was for some time.
What had started out as a lonely fuck for him turned serious between their last email exchange and when he wrote that god-awful message.
A keening cry escaped her throat. It hurt so bad. Her heart rattled behind her rib cage, thundering with betrayal and the loss of her future. It felt like her heart was going to explode.
“T!” Lyons backed her up against a wall and behind a stack of crates and supplies.
He towered over her, his broad shoulders and rippling terrace of muscles impossible not to notice as they angled down to the V cut of his waist. And his pants outlined just enough of a bulge beneath his uniform to make her throat go dry.
These were not the thoughts she needed to be having about Lyons.
But it did give her an idea. Turnabout was fair play.
If Scott could fuck some chick while she was away, saving lives, then there was nothing keeping her from doing the same.
She needed a revenge fuck. It wouldn’t hurt Scott.
He’d already shown her exactly how unimportant she was, but it would make her feel better. For a time.
She fell back against the building and slid down.
With her butt on the ground, she folded her legs to her chest and buried her face against her knees.
Deep, sobs billowed up from her throat and crawled out into a gut-wrenching screech.
She hated Scott. She hated Lyons. She couldn’t afford for him to see her like this.
“Go away!” she yelled. “Just leave me alone.”
He squatted down, hovering over her, but when she refused to look him in the eye, he vented a deep sigh.
Without a word, he shifted. Twisting around, he mirrored her pose.
Back against the wall, he brought his knees up, but where she plastered her tear-stained face against her knees, he propped his elbows and tilted his head back against the wall.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You deserve better. You deserve to have a man worshipping at your feet. I’m sorry about what I said about him. I never meant it. I was just teasing—shit. What can I do?”
Why was he upset? She was the one whose life had fallen apart.
“Can’t you just leave me alone?” She stopped crying long enough to get a few words out.
“I’d never leave you alone, T. That’s not the kind of man I am.”
Well, she wished he were that kind of man.
She wished a whole lot of things. Right now, all she could think about was getting back at Scott.
She’d fuck the whole base if she thought it would piss Scott off.
If it wouldn’t mean the end of her career, she’d consider doing something a whole lot worse.
Except she couldn’t do that to her team.
And she wouldn’t do that to Lyons. But, with her heart breaking in two, she’d have to do something to put Scott firmly in her past.