Caro Carson - The Lieutenants' Online Love
Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Caro Carson - The Lieutenants' Online Love» — ознакомительный отрывок электронной книги совершенно бесплатно, а после прочтения отрывка купить полную версию. В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: unrecognised, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.
- Название:The Lieutenants' Online Love
- Автор:
- Жанр:
- Год:неизвестен
- ISBN:нет данных
- Рейтинг книги:5 / 5. Голосов: 1
-
Избранное:Добавить в избранное
- Отзывы:
-
Ваша оценка:
- 100
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
The Lieutenants' Online Love: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация
Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «The Lieutenants' Online Love»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.
The Lieutenants' Online Love — читать онлайн ознакомительный отрывок
Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «The Lieutenants' Online Love», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.
Интервал:
Закладка:
Drummer’s answer was kind. Anyone who quotes Sesame Street is sure to make friends. How could anyone not like a person like you?
She felt a pang in her chest. He’d gotten it. He got her . If only...
I wish I knew you’d be there. It would be so much easier to put myself out there and say hello to strangers if I knew, at some point as I worked my way through the room, I’d eventually end up next to you. I’d be so glad to see your friendly face, and we’d kind of huddle together in a corner and ignore everyone as we updated each other on who was who at the party. I’d tell you not to leave me alone with the guy who just spent ten minutes lecturing me on the virtues of colon cleanses, and you’d say “What? That wasn’t the start of a beautiful friendship?”
One swift, blue word: Casablanca.
LOL. Yes, and we’d spend the rest of the party hanging out together and talking only to each other, nonstop, and I’d be so glad I came.
Chloe looked at her little pink scenario fondly. A little sadly. This was an even better fantasy than the silly billionaire one, but neither one could come true.
If that’s what you want, Ballerina, then let’s do that. There’s an event I could go to today, too. We’ll find each other afterward, and tell each other who was who at our respective outings. I want you to have a friend to call if your car battery dies. I could use one, too, for that ride to the airport. Let’s do this together. Deal?
Chloe looked at the friendly blue words, happiness and sadness warring within her. He was the perfect guy and he’d come up with a perfect solution, but the bottom line was that they both needed to find someone perfect outside of this app.
If she went out, he’d go out. So, for his sake as well as her own, she started looking around her apartment for the box most likely to be hiding her bathing suit.
It’s a deal. Talk to you later.
Looking forward to it, Baby.
Chapter Three
Life was better than she’d expected it to be.
The realization hit Chloe as she stood on her third-story balcony, performing a recon on the party down below. The Central Texas landscape was brown and sparse when she looked in between the identical buildings toward the horizon, but if she looked down, she saw a sparkling blue swimming pool. It was fall, but this was Texas, and there was plenty of warmth and sun to be had. Maybe Central Texas was more desert than tropical, but the whole apartment complex felt like a resort hotel to her.
Life had been pretty Spartan for the past four years. Room assignments at West Point had changed every semester; she’d had no choice but to move from one end of the same barracks hallway to the other, again and again and again. She’d always had a roommate, and they’d always slept in their assigned twin beds in alphabetical order. When she roomed with Schweitzer, Chloe Michaels slept on the left side of the room, because Michaels outranked Schweitzer alphabetically. When she roomed with Chavez, she slept on the right, but always, no matter which semester and no matter what her rank, she slept on a twin bed made up with a gray wool blanket that was stretched taut and tucked tightly into hospital corners, every single day for four years.
After graduation, the Basic Officer Leadership Course had housed her in the BOQ, the Bachelor Officer Quarters, at Fort Leonard Wood. The mini-apartment had seemed like a luxury despite being furnished in institutional army style with a vinyl couch and a chunky, square coffee table that had survived a whole lot of boots resting on it. Once more, she’d had an assigned roommate, but they’d had an actual kitchen. No more eating whatever was served in the mess hall three times a day. Even better, she’d had a bedroom with only one twin bed in it and a door that closed for privacy. That was a real luxury.
But now...
Chloe surveyed her new world. The complex had been built fairly recently, so everything was current, from the fresh paint on the buildings to the fresh carpet in her apartment. It wasn’t a long drive to post, and while there were cheaper places to live, this apartment was still in her budget. She didn’t need a roommate to split costs. She had the whole place to herself.
But the biggest luxury of all was this: the army hadn’t told her to live here. She could live anywhere she wanted to, as long as she showed up for duty. She’d visited five different apartment complexes. She’d chosen this place, Two Rivers Apartments. That was more than a luxury. That was freedom.
How strange—how intoxicating—to realize she’d never have to stand at attention during a room inspection again. She’d crossed a finish line in a race she’d been running since the day she’d graduated from high school. This was it. This was the view from the winner’s circle, a blue pool that she could swim in if she wanted to, or ignore altogether. Freedom.
She went inside, making a beeline for her laptop, an automatic reflex to share her joy with Drummer, before she remembered that he wasn’t online. He was at an event. She was supposed to go to a pool party and make a friend, someone who was not him. Someone who was not whom she really wanted to be talking to. Her pleasure dimmed a little bit, but she was going to keep her word and go, and then she was going to cozy up with Drummer later and tell him all about it.
She closed her laptop and headed down the stairs. The flip-flops that left her toes bare and the sundress that left her shoulders bare felt exotic. Her hair swished over her shoulders with each step and tickled her cheek. As a cadet, she’d only had an hour or two each night before taps when, if she stayed in her barracks room to study, she could let her hair down. At BOLC, she’d been able to wear it down when she was in civilian clothes, which had been most weekends. Now, she intended to pin it up only when she was at work. Luxury. Freedom. Control over her own hair.
There was music coming from the pool. She could smell burgers on the grill. Those were things she’d be able to put into words when she wrote to Drummer tonight. But she didn’t know how to describe the change in her life, this payoff for years of hard work, for years of voluntarily subjecting herself to strict rules and a demanding regimen, all with the hope that someday, she would be done and it would all have been worth it.
Someday was today.
Today is the first day of the rest of my life. That quote would do, but she didn’t know who’d said it or in which book or movie.
I’m saying it.
Yes, she was. She’d arrived at the party—figuratively and literally. Chloe opened the gate to walk onto the white concrete pool decking. Life was good and it was only going to get better.
And that was when she saw...him.
* * *
Their eyes met across a crowded pool deck.
Thane had never seen her before. He would have remembered if she’d gotten out of a car in the parking lot or checked her mail in the stairwell. Her hair was long but not too long. Brown but not very dark, almost blond in the sunlight. She was tall-ish. And since they were staring at each other a moment too long, he could tell from this side of the pool that her eyes were as dark as his were light. She’d come through that gate smiling, like she was eager to be here, and that smile never dimmed as their gazes met and held.
He liked the way she looked.
Then the moment was over because she turned away to claim a chair, kicking off her flip-flops underneath it. She shook off a small case that dangled from her wrist by a strap and let it drop on the seat of the chair. It looked like a wallet. Thane’s law enforcement training automatically calculated the odds for a theft. She shouldn’t leave it sitting on a chair in plain view, even though this was hardly a high-crime area.
Читать дальшеИнтервал:
Закладка:
Похожие книги на «The Lieutenants' Online Love»
Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «The Lieutenants' Online Love» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.
Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «The Lieutenants' Online Love» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.