Caro Carson - The Lieutenants' Online Love

His company commander was another good man. More than a boss in the civilian sense of the word, but not a buddy. They shared some laughs, they were on the same page when it came to training and discipline, and they’d spent one Sunday in the field huddled over the same radio to get the playoff scores, because they cheered for the same NFL team. But the company commander was always the commander, with all the legal authority and responsibility that the position entailed. Thane was always Lieutenant Carter, no matter how many whiskeys they’d downed during officer-only dining-in events in the brigade.

Thane was pretty sure Ballerina Baby would expect him to call a close friend by his first name, at a minimum.

The only people at work who didn’t call him Lieutenant Carter were the other two platoon leaders. They were good guys. One was married, one was not. The married guy’s wife was named... Cecilia? Serena? Something with an s sound. If you couldn’t name a friend’s wife, he probably wouldn’t qualify as a close friend in Ballerina’s book. The other platoon leader was from Phoenix. Thane felt like he should get points for knowing that...okay, not a close friend. A friend, though. More than an acquaintance.

Laughter from the pool floated up to his balcony. Maybe he ought to care more that he didn’t have a friend at his own apartment complex.

He tried to put the ball back in Ballerina’s court. Do you have a real friend in real life?

Then he waited. She’d probably say yes. Jealousy reared its ugly green head again, and in that moment, he realized how selfish that was. His life didn’t allow him to make friends in a normal way. Military rules didn’t allow him to date any woman who interested him. Military schedules were demanding. Did he wish the same for Ballerina Baby? Just because he felt isolated, just because he felt lonely among the very same people whom he would willingly fight beside, that was no reason for him to wish the same for her. He wanted her to have it better.

Her reply was a question. You’re real, aren’t you, Drummer?

Poor Ballerina. She was the same as he, sharing all her emotions with a stranger through an app. It filled a need, for certain, but even she didn’t call him by his first name. No one called him by name.

Whose fault was that?

Thane looked at the pool party with new eyes. If he wanted someone in real life who would call him by name, then he should do something about it. He could start by putting on his board shorts and flip-flops, going down there and telling people his real name. “Hello, I’m Thane.” And that would be followed by...

What? Awkward small talk. He and Ballerina had moved past that quickly, months ago. He wasn’t the kind of guy who told jokes, but Ballerina answered his attempts at humor with her little pink Ha . That wouldn’t be happening in the group down there, people who were laughing between the barbecue grill and the keg of beer.

Thane Carter in apartment 601 left his balcony and shut the door against the Texas heat and the party noise.

I’m real, Baby, and I’m here for you.

* * *

Chloe Michaels in apartment 401 wriggled into a sitting position on the floor of her new living room, sitting up with her back against a moving box. She never took her eyes off her laptop screen.

I’m real, Baby, and I’m here for you.

She slid right down to the carpet again. Jeez. The most romantic words she ever heard weren’t spoken, but typed.

Drummer was the perfect man, and she was so glad to have him in her life. Normal or abnormal, she couldn’t help but spin fantasies about a man who was so open with her. Her latest was that he might be a billionaire, for example, so determined to find out who she was and where she lived that he’d buy the company that ran this pen pal app. Then he’d find her when she wasn’t expecting it. He’d stride up to her and say, “Hello, I’m Drummer. I wanted to meet you, touch you, kiss you and take you away from all this.”

Of course, even a billionaire couldn’t tell the US Army they didn’t own her for the next five years. She would stay a lieutenant no matter whom she met and fell in love with. Frankly, she wouldn’t want to go anywhere. She’d been sworn into the army as a new cadet just two weeks after she’d graduated from high school, and she’d been training ever since to be an officer. She wanted to do what she’d been trained to do.

She looked up from her laptop. Through her sliding glass door, past the edge of her little concrete balcony, she could see the swimming pool in the center of the complex. It was crowded. There’d been a flyer posted by the mailboxes about free burgers at the pool today. It looked like a full-on party to her.

This was where she lived now, and even if a billionaire named Different Drummer went to extremes to find her and then declared his undying love for her, she would not only stay a lieutenant, she would continue to be stationed right here in Texas. For years.

She ought to make friends here.

Drummer’s icon flashed, indicating he was typing. Her heart did a little happy flip. They could type back and forth like this for an hour or two or more. They’d done just that many times.

Ok, Miss John Wayne, you said you were burning daylight. Big plans?

Chloe looked out to the pool. She had no doubt she was typing to a real person, but he wasn’t a billionaire and he couldn’t come sweep her off her feet.

I’ve been invited to a party. I want to take a nap, but I think I should go.

Why?

We just established that we don’t have any close friends except each other. I love

Chloe stopped typing. She deleted the word love . They’d agreed that they were either normal or abnormal together. She didn’t want to cross that line from abnormal to freaky-girl-with-fantasies. She typed like .

I like our long chats. I would miss you, too, if we couldn’t write one another. But it wouldn’t hurt to have friends around here. I might need a ride to the airport, you know, or need to call someone to jump-start my car battery. I know you’d reach through the clutter of all these pink and blue letters to lend a hand if you could, but since you can’t, I ought to go to this party just to meet the people in my neighborhood. Could be a fireman or a postman in my neighborhood, you know? Right here on my very own street.

She hit Send. Good grief, she felt like she was cheating on the man, or at the very least suggesting to a boyfriend that they start seeing other people. She’d paraphrased what she could remember from an old song from Sesame Street, as if sounding like a cute child would soften her words. Abnormal was a mild term for her.

You should go. You’ll make friends fast, I know it.

Oh. Chloe blinked at her screen in surprise. He wanted her to sign off and go to the party. What had she expected? That he would beg her to stay by her computer and talk to him and only him this weekend? He hadn’t caught the reference to the children’s show, either. She felt lonelier than ever. She couldn’t exactly tell Drummer that she’d rather type to him than meet real people, even though it was true.

She wrote a different truth. I appreciate your vote of confidence in my ability to make friends, but I don’t go to many parties. I doubt I’ll make friends fast. I’m not really a “life of the party” kind of girl.

That was an understatement. While it seemed everyone else was pulling keggers at their civilian colleges, alcohol was forbidden in the barracks at West Point, and cadets weren’t free to come and go as they pleased on or off post. Cadets who were caught breaking those rules faced serious punishment, even expulsion. Ergo, her party experience was about four years behind the average twenty-two-year-old’s.