The Lieutenants' Online Love

Building Six’s mailboxes were grouped together in the stairwell. So were several of his male neighbors, all checking their mail at the same time, all in the same uniform Thane wore. At least one person in every apartment here was in the service. Everyone left Fort Hood after the American flag had been lowered for the day and everyone arrived home around the same time, an army rush hour. Everyone checked their mail before disappearing behind their apartment doors. They were all living off post in a civilian apartment complex, but the military influence of Fort Hood was impossible to escape in the surrounding town of Killeen.

As Thane used a key to open his little cubby full of two days’ worth of junk mail, he exchanged greetings with the other men. To be more accurate, Thane exchanged silent lifts of the chin, the same acknowledgment he’d been exchanging with guys since the hallowed halls of high school. That had been eight years ago, but still, that was the level of closeness the average guy reached with the average guy. A lift of the chin. A comment on a sports team, perhaps, during the NFL playoffs or Game Five of the World Series. Maybe, if he saw someone at the mailboxes whom he hadn’t seen in a while, they might acknowledge each other with a lift of the chin and actually speak. “You back from deployment?”

The answer was usually a shrug and a yeah, to which the answer was a nod and a yeah, thought so, hadn’t seen you around in a while, followed by each guy retreating to his apartment, shutting a door to seal himself off from the hundreds of others in the complex, hundreds of people roughly Thane’s age and profession, all living in the same place.

He had no one to talk to.

Thane started up the concrete stairs to his apartment, each boot landing as heavily as if it were made of concrete, too.

He lived on the third floor, a decision he regretted on evenings like this one. Thane hit the second-story landing. One more flight, and he could fall in bed. As he rounded the iron banister, an apartment door opened. A woman his age appeared in the door, her smile directed down the stairs he’d just come up. Another man in uniform was coming up them now, a man who wouldn’t be sleeping alone.

“Hi, baby,” the man said.

“You’re home early,” the woman said, sounding like that was a wonderful gift for her. “How was your day?”

“You won’t believe this, but the commander decided—” The door closed.

Thane slogged his way up to his floor.

Bed. All he wanted was his own bed, yet now he couldn’t help but think it would be nice not to hit the sheets alone. He had an instant mental image of a woman in bed with him. He couldn’t see her face, not with her head nestled into his shoulder, but he could imagine warm skin and a happy, interested voice, asking How was your day? They’d talk, two heads on one pillow.

Pitiful. What kind of fantasy was that for a twenty-six-year-old man to have? He was heading to bed without a woman, but it wasn’t sex he was lonely for. Not much, anyway. He wanted someone to talk to, someone waiting to talk to him, someone who cared what he thought after days full of people who broke laws, people who were hurt, people who were angry.

Better yet, he wanted someone to share a laugh with.

He scrubbed a hand over the razor stubble that he’d be shaving in less than twelve hours to go back to work. Yeah, he needed a laugh. There was nothing to laugh at around here.

His phone buzzed in his pocket—two shorts and a long, which meant he had a message waiting in his favorite app. The message had to be from his digital pen pal. The app had paired him up months ago with someone going by Ballerina Baby. He didn’t know anything about her, not even her real name, and yet, she was someone with whom he did more than nod, someone to whom he said something meaningful once in a while. He could put his thoughts into words, written words in blue on a white screen. He got words back from her, hot pink and unpredictable, making him feel more connected to the woman behind them than he felt to anyone else around here.

Thane took the last few stairs two at a time. He wanted to get home. He had twelve hours ahead to sleep—but not alone. There was someone waiting to talk to him, after all.

He unlocked the door and walked into his apartment, tossing his patrol cap onto the coffee table with one hand as he jerked down the zipper of his uniform jacket with the other. He tossed that over a chair, impatient to pull out his phone from his pocket the moment his hand was free. A real friend, real feelings, conversation, communion—

Today, I was desperate for tater tots.

He stared at the sentence for a long moment. What the hell...?

And then, all of a sudden, life wasn’t so heavy. He didn’t have to take himself so seriously. Thane read the hot-pink silliness, and he started to laugh.

The rest of his clothes came off easily. Off with the tan T-shirt that clung after a day of Texas heat. Thane had to sit to unlace the combat boots, but he typed a quick line to let Ballerina know he was online. You crack me up.

And thank God for that.

He brushed his teeth. He pulled back the sheets and fell into bed, phone in one hand. He bunched his pillow up under his neck, and he realized he was smiling at his phone fondly as he typed, I’d miss you. It was crazy, but it was true.

The little cursor on his phone screen blinked. He waited, eyes drifting idly over the blue and pink words they’d already exchanged. You killed them? he’d written, followed by words like murder. Jail.

He was going to scare her away. She’d think he was a freak the way his mind went immediately to crime and punishment. Did normal guys—civilian guys—zing their conversations right to felony death?

She must think he was a civilian. His screen name was Different Drummer, after all, nothing that implied he was either military or in law enforcement. They weren’t supposed to reveal what Ballerina called their “real, boring surface facts,” things like name, address, job. During one of those marathon chat sessions where they’d spilled their guts out, they’d agreed that anonymity was part of the reason they could write to each other so freely.

He hoped the way he used so many law enforcement references didn’t give away his real profession. It wasn’t like he was dropping clues subconsciously. Really.

He read her words. She made him smile with ketchup, mustard and salt. He wondered if she’d kept a straight face when she wrote that, or had she giggled at her own silliness? Did she have a shy smile or a wide-open laugh?

Then she told him she had to go. He had to act like that was perfectly okay. They’d talk some other time. But before closing the app he remembered the couple downstairs—Hi, baby, how was your day?

Ballerina Baby was the woman who’d greeted him after a long day of work.

Looking forward to it, Baby.

A subconscious slip? He’d never called Ballerina Baby just Baby before.

She didn’t reply. All his exhaustion returned with a vengeance. If Ballerina couldn’t talk, what good would it do to go out to exchange nods and grunts with everyone else?

He tossed his phone onto his nightstand and rolled onto his side, ready for the sleep that would overtake him in moments. But just before it did, he thought what he could never type: You mean more to me than you should, Baby.

Chapter Two

“Friday night. Almost quitting time, Boss.”

At his platoon sergeant’s booming voice, Thane tossed his cell phone onto his desk, facedown. He should have known that if he decided to check his personal messages for the first time in twelve hours, someone would walk in.

Thane could have stayed on his phone, of course. This was his office, and he didn’t have to stop what he was doing and stand when a noncommissioned officer, an NCO, walked in. But he didn’t want his platoon sergeant to see any hot-pink words that would encourage him to start giving Thane hell about women. As a commissioned officer, Thane outranked sergeants and other noncommissioned officers, but Sergeant First Class Lloyd had been in the army more than twice as many years as Thane. A platoon sergeant was a platoon leader’s right arm. The platoon didn’t run well without either one of them—and no NCO let his lieutenant forget it, either.

Sergeant First Class Lloyd was older, more experienced—and married, too. In other words, he’d enjoy razzing his bachelor platoon leader about his love life. Thane wasn’t going to give him a pink-fonted excuse to do it.

Thane kicked back in his government-issued desk chair and put his booted feet up on the gray desk that had probably served all the platoon leaders who’d come before him since Vietnam. Maybe even further back. The battleship-gray metal desk was old but indestructible. He liked it.

“I take it you didn’t come here to tell me the CO went home.” Retreat had sounded, the flag had been lowered, all the enlisted soldiers dismissed, but the lieutenants were still here because the company commander—the CO—was still here. It wasn’t a written rule, but Thane was old enough to know that it wasn’t wise for platoon leaders to leave before the company commander did.

“It’s Friday, sir. I wouldn’t still be here if the CO had left.” Just as the platoon leaders didn’t leave before the company commander, the platoon sergeants didn’t leave before the first sergeant did. Since the first sergeant didn’t leave before the company commander did, here they all were, waiting for Friday night to begin.

Thane watched his platoon sergeant head for the empty desk next to his own. Was the man going to take a seat and settle in for a chat? It wasn’t like him. Sergeant First Class Lloyd was a man of few words.

“Do you have any big plans for the weekend, sir?” asked the noncommissioned officer of few words.

“Just the usual.”

“Kicking ass and taking names?”

“Not tonight. Lieutenant Salvatore has duty.”

The man started pulling out desk drawers, then slamming them shut. “Whiskey and women then, sir?”

“Also not happening tonight.” Thane leaned back a little more in his chair and tucked his hands behind his head. “Sleep. Nothing but sweet sleep.”

His platoon sergeant spared him a quick glance. “You pulled another thirty-six hours, sir?”

An affirmative grunt was enough of an answer.

Without further comment, Sergeant First Class Lloyd sat in the desk chair and started testing its tilt and the height of its armrests.

“What are you doing?” Thane finally asked. “You planning on buying that chair after this test ride?”

“No, sir. Just seeing if I should permanently borrow it before the new platoon leader arrives.”

Thane sat up, boots hitting the floor. “Don’t get my hopes up, Sergeant First Class. Is there a new platoon leader coming in?”

“Yes, sir. In-processing on post.”

“About damn time.” Thane didn’t like the look on the sergeant’s face, though. “Let’s hear it. I can tell you got more intel.”

“Brand-new second lieutenant, fresh out of Leonard Wood.”

Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, was the home of the Military Police Corps. All new second lieutenants had to go through the four months of BOLC, Basic Officer Leadership Course, there. If that was all his platoon sergeant had on the new guy, it hardly counted as intel.

Thane leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head once more. “It’s that time of year. The college boys all graduate in May and complete BOLC in the fall. It would be too much to hope for to get someone with experience. It’s butter bar season.”

The term butter bar referred to the yellow color of the single bar that denoted the rank of second lieutenant. As a first lieutenant, Thane’s rank insignia was a black bar on the camouflaged ACUs he wore almost every day, or a silver bar on the dress uniform.

“Sergeant First Class Ernesto has broken in his fair share of lieutenants,” Thane said. “I’m sure he’ll handle this one. I just want someone to throw into the duty officer rotation. A butter bar will work.”

Sergeant First Class Ernesto was the platoon sergeant for fourth platoon. He’d been running fourth platoon without a platoon leader for three months, attending all the first sergeant’s meetings for NCOs and then the commander’s meetings for the platoon leaders, as well. Thane would bet money that fourth platoon’s sergeant felt the same way he did. Even a wet-behind-the-ears butter bar would be better than nothing.

“Well, sir, you’ll get to update that duty roster soon enough. The new LT already had one ride-along. A couple more ride-alongs this weekend, and you can add that name to your schedule.”

“Do you have a name yet?”

“Second Lieutenant Michaels. I’ll be right back.” Lloyd rolled the office chair out the door. Each office in the headquarters building held two desks. While fourth platoon had no lieutenant, Lloyd had been using the desk next to Ernesto, two NCOs doing their NCO thing, but the new platoon leader would be in Ernesto’s office now. Thane would have to get used to having his own platoon sergeant sharing this room again.

He picked up his cell phone and unlocked the screen. Pink words awaited him. Something came up, and I won’t be able to be by the phone tonight. There goes our Star Trek marathon. I’m sorry. The best-laid plans of mice and men...

They’d planned to write each other while watching the same channel tonight—so he knew Ballerina Baby lived in the United States somewhere and got the sci-fi channel on cable—but it looked like his evening was suddenly free. And more boring. The disappointment was sharp, but he had to play it cool. He wasn’t her boyfriend. He couldn’t demand to know why she was changing her plans, and he shouldn’t demand it. If Ballerina said she couldn’t make it, he believed her. Thane frowned. He also wasn’t sure who’d said the mice and men line.

Shakespeare? That was right nine times out of ten.

Gotcha. Robbie Burns. You’re not a fan of Scottish poetry?

Damn. She’d gotten him last week with Burns, raving about how she loved her new sofa that was the color of a red, red rose. No, but I’m a fan of Star Trek and I’m a fan of you. Now I only get one of those two things tonight.

His platoon sergeant came back in, pushing a chair with squeaky wheels ahead of himself. Thane turned his phone screen off. With all the pink and blue letters, it practically looked like a baby announcement. Lloyd would have a field day with that.

Thane stood up. “I’ll help you move the rest of your stuff. You prefer the squeaky wheels, huh?”

“No, sir. That’s why I just upgraded. I’m going to leave this chair here.”

“You’re not moving back in?”

Lloyd had that grin on his face again, the one Thane didn’t trust. “Well, sir, maybe an experienced lieutenant like yourself ought to show the new lieutenant the ropes. Maybe we should keep one office NCOs, one office lieutenants.”

“No. No way. You’re not sticking me with some fresh college kid. He’s Ernesto’s problem to deal with, not mine. That’s what a platoon sergeant is for, to keep the rookie LT out of trouble.”

Lloyd only grinned wider. “It’s not my idea. Seems like the CO thinks you’d be the best man for the job. He told the first sergeant who he wants in each office. He wants you to babysit Lieutenant Michaels. I mean, train Lieutenant Michaels.”

Thane cursed and rubbed his hand over his jaw and its five o’clock shadow, suddenly feeling each one of the thirty-six hours he’d been working. He’d wanted a fourth platoon leader to come in to lighten his work routine, but he hadn’t wanted that new platoon leader to impact his daily routine this much. “That explains the grin on your face. I don’t suppose there’s any chance this lieutenant is OCS?”

OCS stood for Officer Candidate School. It was the quickest way for an enlisted soldier who already had a college degree to become an officer. Thane had only had a high school diploma when he’d enlisted, so he’d applied for an ROTC scholarship. After he’d served two years as an enlisted man, the army had changed his rank from corporal to ROTC cadet and sent him to four years of college on the army’s dime. His prior two years as an infantry grunt made him a little older than most first lieutenants. He thought it made him a little wiser as well, since most ROTC grads were entering the army for the first time. If this butter bar was coming to them from OCS instead of ROTC, then he’d have some prior service, and he wouldn’t be as much of a rookie. But Lloyd was still smiling. Not good.

“No, sir. Not OCS. Not ROTC, either. The word is that Lieutenant Michaels is fresh out of West Point.”

“Are you kidding me?” The third way to become an officer was by attending the United States Military Academy at West Point, one of the country’s oldest and most elite schools. Elite meant there weren’t very many West Pointers in the army in general. Thane had worked with several, of course, and he couldn’t honestly say he’d ever had a problem with a West Point graduate, but anything elite was automatically met with suspicion by everyone else, including him.

“Monday morning, sir, you get to share all your special secret lieutenant-y wisdom with a brand-new West Pointer. I’ll be over in Ernesto’s office if you need me.”

“You’re so helpful.”

“You’ve been up since yesterday morning, sir. The CO hasn’t. You should go home now.” But as Lloyd left the office, he stopped and turned around. “Oh, and one more thing. Your new butter bar West Pointer office buddy? Word is that Lieutenant Michaels is a girl. See you Monday, Boss.”

* * *

I wish I could sleep another four hours, but I’m burning too much daylight as is.

Thane glanced at the pink words as he poured raw scrambled eggs into a cast-iron skillet. Ballerina was going to have to dig deeper than that if she was going to stump him today. He’d slept until noon. The duty schedule had finally coincided with the right days on the calendar, and Thane had a whopping forty-eight hours off. He’d left the office Friday evening and didn’t have to be anywhere until he took over at the police station on Sunday evening.

He typed on his phone with one finger while he kept his Saturday morning eggs moving around with the spatula in his other hand. John Wayne. (Too easy. Really.) Why so tired?

Late night.

His flash of jealousy wasn’t easy to laugh off. A single woman out late on a Friday night? Thane knew, somehow, that Ballerina would have no shortage of interested men around her. He had no idea what she looked like, but she was so full of life, so fun and quirky, men must find her as attractive in real life as he found her online. She must laugh and smile a lot with her real friends; there was nothing more attractive. Or maybe she was shy, making intelligent wisecracks under her breath only to the one friend standing next to her. Also attractive.

This old app had no photo features. It didn’t matter what she looked like, anyway. She was attractive to him in a way that went beyond blonde, brunette or redhead. Not only did it not matter, it would never matter. Other men would compete to get her smiles and hugs. He had no chance of being one of those men, the one who would pursue her until he was her favorite out of them all, until he was the only man she wanted to be with.

He should be satisfied that he was the man who got her thoughts and words, at least for now. When she found someone to love, he wouldn’t even have that. Thane grabbed a fork and started eating from the skillet, standing up. Jealousy over a pen pal was stupid and he knew it. But...

She hadn’t been able to chat with him last night, because she’d gone out somewhere.

He stabbed the eggs a little viciously. All right, so Ballerina had a life. He could keep this in perspective. She’d said something last night about working off that bag of tater tots she’d eaten. Maybe she’d had a rehearsal or even a performance. If she wasn’t a ballerina, he still suspected she was involved with dance, maybe a dance instructor, or a choreographer. Like him, she often mentioned going to work out or being tired from a vaguely described workout.

He shoveled in more eggs and began to type. Out late for work or play?

There was a bit of a pause before she answered. Is this a trick question to see if I’ll give you a clue about what I do for a living? Do I work at night?

Busted. Of course it was.

Of course not. How about this—did you enjoy your late night or were you gutting it out?

I loved it. I’m a natural night owl. I wish more of the world was. Even as a little kid, I hated going to bed for school. Kindergarten is misery for night owlets. Owlings. Whatever the term is. Why couldn’t school have been from 8pm to 2am, instead of 8am to 2pm?

He put down the fork to type with two thumbs. You should’ve been a vampire. Do they have school-aged vampires? A kindergarten full of little ankle biters—literally, biters—who want school to start at 8 at night.

That doesn’t seem right, she answered. I think you have to be a grown-up and choose to become a vampire. I don’t think I would, though. I feel isolated enough already. If I became a vampire, I’d be so sad, watching everyone I know going to bed and knowing by the time they woke up, I’d be done for the day. I’ll just have to stay a human night owl. (Is that an oxymoron? A human owl?) I don’t have many night owl friends, though. In fact, you’re the only one I can chat with at 3 in the morning. And because I know how to follow the ground rules, I’m not going to ask why you’re sometimes awake at 3.

I’m a vampire.

Ha ha. I’m just glad that you’re a night owl, too. You really are the perfect pen pal for me.

Thane finished his eggs and left the iron skillet to cool. At least one woman out there thought he was perfect because of his crazy military schedule, not despite it. His last girlfriend, a civilian he still ran into too often in the small world of an army town, had pouted every night and weekend that he had to work. Pouting wasn’t as cute as it sounded.

Do you know the longest amount of time I’ve gone without talking to you? Ten days. And by talking, I mean writing to you in hot-pink letters, of course. Stupid app. It’s so cliché, pink ink for girls and blue ink for boys.

I know. I’m so used to it now, I get startled when I type anywhere else and the words are black instead of blue.

I love this app, though, because it made us pen pals. I enjoy talking with you as much as with any friend I’ve ever had.

Thane smiled down at the phone screen. After a long pause, more pink appeared.

Do you think that’s normal?

He stopped smiling. The answer, of course, was no. It wasn’t normal. He took the phone out to his balcony, all four feet by two feet of concrete perch, three stories above the earth, and looked down to the complex’s central swimming pool. Management had posted signs by the mailboxes that there would be a party today with free food. That party had started without him.

He didn’t care. There was no one down there he’d rather be talking with. If it isn’t normal, then we’re both abnormal. It’s easy to talk to you.

Agreed. Real people are hard.

I’m real, he wanted to write. But he didn’t.

Do you have a close friend in real life? she asked.

Define friend.

I think that means no. If you had a close friend, you’d just say yes. You wouldn’t ask me what a close friend is.

She had him there.

But I think you’re normal...for a blue ink person. I read somewhere that the majority of married women will say their female friends are their best friends, when asked. But the majority of men will say their wife is their best friend. I remember that because I thought it was sad that there are apparently a lot of husbands out there who think their wife is their best friend, but she prefers a female buddy. Are you really best friends with someone if that person doesn’t think you are their best friend, too? It’s too much like unrequited love.