We order our meals, and once the food is brought over, we dig in. Katie eats her chicken burger ravenously, taking huge bites and closing her eyes as she chews. As she pops the last piece of the burger bun into her mouth, she gives me a grin reminiscent of college Katie. Young,carefree, and unguarded. My heart pangs in longing for a girl who used to enjoy my company, who relished in our competition, not our rivalry.
She wipes her mouth and takes a sip of her soda using the straw. Her pouty lips sucking makes my cock ache, and all it is is her lips wrapped around a straw. My phone ringing saves me from the embarrassment of panting like a dog in front of her. I check the caller ID and see the base camp number show up.
“Jones.”
“Give me an update,” the colonel demands, forgoing any niceties. He sounds pissed off already, so I jump straight to it like the good little soldier I am.
“We interviewed the parents today. They were shocked.” A slight understatement. Mrs. Maddox was keeping her husband on a short leash, as far as I could see. He would have happily kept his mouth shut and said nothing if not for the fact that his temper had him moving swiftly past boiling point.
“Did they give any indication of a violent past?” he quickly asks.
Katie is watching me. I know she can’t hear the colonel, but with the scowl on her face, she may as well. I know he wants this wrapped up as soon as possible, but surely finding the right person is more important than finding the wrong person guilty just to tick a box.
“Not particularly. Nothing that was of anyconcern to myself or Dr. Murphy.”
“I don’t care about her opinion. The police will have their own agenda. I want to know what you found out that will get this resolved.”
“Sir...there is a process that we’re following. There isn’t going to be one thing that resolves this. It will take time.” I don’t usually speak back to superiors, and I carefully watch my tone with the colonel. He has the power to move me anywhere he likes, and I very much like my life in Seattle. I’m planning on staying here for my whole career. I’m not going to jeopardize that to get in a quick shot at him.
“Give me information. I want a report of everything you have on my desk by Monday morning.”
“Yes. Si—” He hangs up before I can finish my sentence, and I sigh, tucking my phone back into my pocket, ready to tackle the she-devil and the obvious intrigue the phone call has garnered.
“Your boss has a serious stick up his butt,” she quips, stealing one of my fries.
“Tell me about it,” I mutter, watching her sip her soda again.
“Why is the army involved in this?”
The question dangles in front of us like an overripe fruit on the cusp of falling from a tree. She was bound to ask...eventually. Hell, I’ve been thinking the same thing as her. What the hell is the colonel so irate about? Because it can’t just be that the army has had some bad pressrecently.
I shrug. “It’s his job to keep the military base out of the press, and recently there’s been a string of bad news.”
“Yeah, Seattle seems to be in a bit of a dark period at the moment. I can’t blame him for wanting things to be cleared up, but he seems emotionally invested in this. It makes me wonder why that would be.”
“I didn’t ask.”
She rolls her eyes as if I wasn’t smart enough to think of the question that’s been rattling around her brain. I’m not dumb. It’s just not how military hierarchy works. If they want me to know something, they will tell me. If I don’t have clearance to have a certain piece of information, you’ll bet your ass they’re not gonna tell me shit. Do I think the colonel is withholding information? Yes. But I can’t force him to tell me what he knows, and it would be insubordinate to demand it from him.
“Are you gonna tell me about your nightmare?”
Her eyes widen like a deer in headlights. She tucks her hands into the sleeves of her sweater, another trait from our college days when she used to snuggle into herself. But this time, she looks worn out and secretive.
“No.”
“Then I guess the colonel isn’t the only one who’s hiding something,” I snip before catchingthe attention of the waitress to grab the check.
Katie looks out the window at the parking lot. Our rental is a small car amongst a sea of trucks, and I almost chuckle at how out of place it looks. But the sun has set now, and we’ve secured our flights home, so we’ll both be available for Mia’s birthday dinner tomorrow. If we can get through the night without Katie having a nightmare, we’ll be able to have a relatively easy day tomorrow. It’s curious that she didn’t have one at Lottie’s house. She was curled up against me the whole night. I wouldn’t have been able to miss it.
“How long have your nightmares been happening?” I ask, mostly out of curiosity, but also to see if she would tell me.
She sighs heavily, the exhaustion clearly weighing on her. Usually, she has more fight in her, so when she actually answers, my eyebrows damn near hit my hairline. “Nearly a year.”
She pulls the strap of her purse over her shoulder as she shuffles out of the booth, heading toward the exit.
“And you have them every night?”
“Yes,” she huffs.
