She had a boyfriend on the other side of the country. A mess of a previous relationship to clean up. A job to return to tomorrow morning.
And a pile of laundry to tackle at home.
First things first: she needed to make sure she had a clean t-shirt to wear the next day.
Then she’d find takeout for dinner and wait until Logan landed and gave her the heads up he was safe.
New normal. How hard could it be?
* * *
Logan’s new alarm went off, like clockwork, at four-thirty in the morning on Thursday. Day Four, he thought to himself.
It wasn’t getting easier. And it was early days yet, he knew that, but still. Fuck.
The darkness didn’t bother him. The early hour was fine. The problem was that when he called her, he’d have maybe five minutes before she had to head out the door. And then her next window to talk, on her lunch break, was invariably right in the middle of him receiving orders for the day. They had more time to talk in the evening, but she went to bed at his dinner hour.
Lots of couples don’t talk morning, noon and night.Sure. He got that. In theory.
In practice, he missed Tori more than he’d imagined possible. After years of repressing his feelings, now he was painfully aware of time ticking by.
On the other hand, she needed space to process the collapse of her engagement, and figure out how she wanted to move forward.
They would do this at her pace. Slowly, carefully.
Achingly.
He grabbed his phone and tapped on her name in his phone log.
A happy, dorky smile spilled across his face. He could feel it. It was huge.
“Morning,” she purred as she answered. “Or happy middle-of-the-night to you, my beloved freak.”
“Ah, I need to get a workout in before work, anyway.”
She laughed. “My hat is off to you.”
“And the weekend is around the corner,” he said, his voice husky. “Lots of time then for us to talk at length. Reminisce about how much we both like my head between your thighs, for example.”
“Mmm. Yes please.”
“And by the end of the day today, I should have my calendar, so we can plan a visit soon.”
She gasped, a happy inhale at the other end of the line. On the other side of the country. And then, unexpectedly, her voice cracked. “Really? I thought everything might be up in the air for a few weeks.”
He’d said that. Mostly to protect her and keep her expectations low. But now he was kicking himself, because of course she had complicated feelings about the distance too. “That’s sometimes how it goes with the military. I don’t ever want to get your hopes up. But things are looking good for us to be sticking around on base for the next month.”
“Oh, Logan.” Her breath wavered in his ear. “That’s wonderful news.” In the background, something dinged. “That’s my get-out-the-door alarm. I gotta go or I’ll be late. Talk more tonight?”
“Yep. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
And then she was gone.
He stretched out on his cool, empty bed and closed his eyes.
Love you, too.
Those three words would sustain him. They had to.
