CHAPTER 4 – CROSSING THE LINE
Eliza
There are three ways to walk into a coffee shop for a date with your dad’s best friend, and I pick the one that involves sunglasses, a deeply strategic amount of cleavage, and pretending like this is the most normal Sunday of my adult life.
Lakeville is far enough from St. Cloud that nobody in here recognizes me, and that’s exactly why I picked it.
There are too many sets of parental eyes back home, and too much potential for high-stakes gossip.
Not that this is the type of place Gerald and Nancy would ever go to because the Riverside Café is a shrine to exposed brick and weird art, every table a different species of thrift-store orphan.
There’s a spinning wire rack by the counter labeled “ZINES & MANIFESTOS,” and the kid at the register sports a haircut so aggressive that I wonder if it took an entire tube of hair gel.
The air is aromatic with the scent of powerful espresso, probably due to the underlying note of desperation from the med-school crowd cramming in the corner.
I’m in my favorite milkmaid dress which is a style that only came into vogue recently.
It’s demure, with a blue bodice and long skirt, but the innocence only goes so far.
The décolletage is cut just low enough to highlight my big breasts, and the fabric hugs my body in a way that’s supposed to read innocent, but is actually “naughty farm girl.” Which is the whole point because that’s the effect I want.
Underneath, I’m wearing matching powder-blue lingerie that cups my giant tits and bisects my ivory cheeks, but Jack has no idea.
I hope he gets a chance to take it off me at some point, though.
I scan the room, insides going soft and gushy when I see the huge man.
He’s at a booth that offers privacy—back against the wall, view of the whole entrance, azure eyes piercing.
His shirt is crisp and pale blue, the kind that’s meant to be casual but looks like it came with its own starch instructions.
His hair is slicked back but you can see the rebellion in the few dark curls that refuse to obey.
The scar on his jaw stands out against his tan.
He looks dominating, like he could take a punch from a moving train and ask for another.
The alpha male sees me and stands, rising to his full six three with a bright white smile. The effect is instantaneous and overwhelming as my knees literally go weak. If I had any doubts about this, they melt under the blast of his attention.
“Eliza,” he growls, and I swear, my panties go wet.
“Hi, Jack,” I murmur, smiling. “You’re early. Military punctuality?”
His laugh is a masculine rasp. “Force of habit. You look nice.” He hesitates, then: “You always do, sweetheart.”
I like the way he says “nice.” Like the word could mean anything from “delicious” to “dangerous.” I slide into the booth, leaving my sunglasses on until the last possible second, then pushing them up and using them like a headband to keep my golden waves off my face.
He sits across from me, the table barely wide enough to keep us honest. I fold my hands in my lap, feeling the eyes of everyone in the café on us, even though they’re not.
Jack’s hands are huge, the veins prominent, and when he wraps one around his mug, the ceramic looks fragile by comparison.
“You want something, sweetheart?” he asks. “Coffee, tea? I heard they make a mean chai.”
“I’ll do a chai,” I say, and before I can protest, he’s up and at the counter, ordering for me like we’re in a 1950’s after-school special.
I use the thirty seconds to get my breathing under control because how can this man have such a crazy effect on me after only two minutes?
I need to start thinking like a sane person, but it’s hard when I’m with a man so handsome.
When he returns, he’s got a gingerbread cookie on the saucer, which make me smile.
“Oh I love gingerbread,” I murmur. “Especially when they’re in the shape of men.”
“Do you?” he asks, a black brow rising. “And which part do you eat first?”
I laugh merrily.
“The head of course!” But then, I take the gingerbread man in my hand and nibble suggestively at a leg before letting my tongue flicker out and swipe lightly over the cookie man’s crotch. It takes just a second, but Jack’s eyes darken immediately.
“You’re a bad girl, Eliza,” he rasps. “Much worse than I thought.”
I giggle.
“Am I?” while putting the cookie down. “Well, you’ll have to teach me a lesson then, Uncle Jack. But in the meantime, I want to get to know you. So this is weird, right? Us meeting like this? Do you feel weird?”
Jack grins, the lines at his eyes deepening. “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t weird, but actually, I feel fine, sweetheart.”
“Oh good,” I murmur happily. “I’m glad you said that because I’m comfortable too. But how are you, Uncle Jack? We haven’t really caught up since you came back to town, so it’s been ages.”
A moment passes where we just watch the steam curl off our mugs, both of us acutely aware of the vibrations in the air between us. Then, he starts in:
“I don’t mean to dump on a young girl, but do you really want to know?”
There’s a shift in the air, and suddenly, I feel closer to this man than I ever have. I nod somberly before putting my hand lightly on top of his big one.
“Yes, tell me,” I say in a soft voice. “Tell me everything, Jack.”
The older man stares down at the table for a moment, his expression tense.
“I flew the Bagram run four times,” he says, “First two, routine. But that third trip—” and he’s off, telling me about a supply drop that went sideways, with insurgents on the ground and a storm rolling in overhead.
He makes it funny, somehow, self-deprecating, and when he mimics the sound of flak hitting the metal hull—”ka-BLAM, just like in the movies, except you hope the movie ends with a sequel”—I laugh, really laugh, and both of our spirits feel lighter.
He tells me about how he got his wings, how the guys on his team were “goons with hearts of gold,” and how he sometimes misses the discipline, the sense of knowing where you stand every morning.
“Civilian life is a constant struggle,” he says, looking at me over his coffee.
“You have to remember what mask to wear. Not a literal mask, like during the Covid era, but a mask so that people think you’re normal. ”
The words stick, and my heart goes out to this handsome, complicated man.
“It’s fine, Jack,” I murmur. “I know you’re normal.”
Something flickers in those blue eyes, but then he smiles.
“What about you?” he asks. “Gerald says you’re the brains at your law firm.”
I roll my eyes and giggle. “Not really because I’m just a paralegal. Not even a paralegal, but more the human equivalent of a Post-It note. I keep things from falling apart, but nobody remembers who did the gluing.”
Jack nods, a slow, understanding gesture.
“And outside of work?” he presses, blue eyes piercing. “What do you do for fun?”
I’m not about to tell him my hobbies include entertaining strange men while utilizing a camera and ring light, so I give the spiel I always do: “I run. Sometimes I paint. I like to watch those cooking competitions on YouTube, even though I never actually cook.” The lies are so gentle they almost feel like truths.
Jack smiles. “You always were an overachiever, sweetheart.”
I flick a crumb from the table. “Thank you for saying that, Uncle Jack. Your words mean a lot to me. More than you know.”
There’s a beat, and then the massive man leans forward, so close I can see the flecks of grey in his stubble.
“Eliza, tell me the truth. What are we doing here? Give it to me straight. I’m a soldier, and I can take it.”
The honesty is so raw I almost drop my mug. I decide to lean in too, to see what happens if I just go with it.
“I have no idea,” I say, voice barely above a whisper. “But I want you, Uncle Jack. I can’t stop thinking about you. Us. Together.”
“Your dad would murder me if he knew I was here,” he growls, blue eyes flashing. “But I can’t stop thinking about you either.”
There’s a lull, the kind that would be awkward anywhere else but here it’s thick with possibility. I wonder what he’d do if I slid my foot out of my shoe and rested it on his thigh under the table. I don’t, but the thought makes me flush all the way down to my chest.
Then, Jack leans back and the spell is broken.
What the hell? Why did his mood morph all of a sudden?
It must be something to do with his PTSD, but I lean in as he tells another story, this time about a bar in Guam where a goat got loose and the MPs had to be called in.
I lose the thread of the tale halfway through because all I can do is stare at his hands.
How they move, how they clench and relax, how I want them all over my body, making me sigh and moan.
Jack says the words “honor, duty, dignity” at some point, and that throws me for a loop.
I flinch reflexively like he’s tossed cold water in my face because if he knew about the camming, about the way I make money by showing my body—would he run?
There’s certainly nothing dignified nor honorable about what I do at my secret job.
I push the thought aside. We’re just getting to know each other, and it’s too early to trouble myself with these thoughts. There’s a time for everything, and something tells me that time isn’t now.
By the time the cookie is gone and the chai is mostly cold, the café has filled up. There’s a couple making out in the corner, and a cluster of teenage girls studying but mostly gossiping.
“It’s getting loud,” Jack says, half-standing. “You want to take a walk, sweetheart?”