Falling in love is the easiest thing in the world, especially when the man you fall in love with is Bradley Bradshaw. He's sweet, kind, a gentleman, and the only man you thought you'd ever have to love. So imagine your surprise when you walk into h...
Rain collects in pools on the metal deck in front of you, droplets skittering into the night. It's quiet, only you, the clouds of your breath, and the drumming of fat droplets as they spatter on the metal deck. The deck roils under you, rising and falling without rhyme or reason in the undulating waves. It's storming where you are in the Pacific Ocean, not that you can place precisely what longitude and latitude the colossal naval carrier you're perched on is at.
But you're miles away from everything that hurt you and even further from everything you love. You're officially alone. You might as well be a paper boat in a tempest, at the mercy of the sea. But, as lonely as you are, those feelings are the last on your mind. Your mind is hundreds of miles away, wrapped in the sun, the sand, and a calmer, sunnier sea, trapped in a dream that turned into a nightmare. You get jolted back into yourself when an arm nudges you, and a body sinks down next to you on the cold decking.
"Heya, Bitsie." He's amused. He's always so amused, southern drawl stretching every word, including the pet name he persists on calling you by. "Whatcha doin' out here? I don't know if you noticed, but it's cold and rainin'."
"I noticed." Your voice is dull. Two weeks since you've been on dry land. You feel like a stranger trapped in a body you don't know, with a face you barely recognize in the mirror. The first morning on the carrier, you'd nearly screamed at the sight, seeing your eyes in a face you couldn't, wouldn't recognize. It shows in your actions, too, you know. It feels like your authentic self has retreated like someone is playing at controlling your body like a video game character.
"Oh! I know what it is. You miss your Chicken, dontcha? I bet you wish you were huddled up under his wing right now. Well, if that's all, you should head inside and call ole' Roostie. I'm sure he'd jump for joy at hearing your voice and seeing your face."
Hearing someone say your boyfriend's callsign, even a teasing nickname for it, shouldn't fill you with dread, seeping as cold as ice through your veins. If only he was still your boyfriend.
"He's not my anything, Bagman." Your voice is barely audible over the thunder of rain across the deck. You're not even sure he can hear you over the din.
"What happened?" His voice is more subdued than you've ever heard it.
A flash of lightning rips through the sky, glinting off two pairs of shiny boots as they're stretched side by side next to each other. But you're spiraling, pulled into the undertow of everything that happened. The joy and pain of your latest failed relationship crash over you in unyielding waves as if you're adrift in the middle of the storm.
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The dead-eye laser Lieutenant Miguel 'Fanboy' Garcia had encountered had nearly jeopardized the entirety of the Uranium mission. The Uranium mission would have failed without a stroke of near-divine luck. Everyone, from Admirals to the Secretary of the Navy, had decided unilaterally that something like that could not happen again. So you and your team, composed of mechanical engineers and computer scientists alike, had been shipped to Naval Air Station North Island to work with the squadron who'd run the Uranium Mission and improve the lasers, their targeting systems, and their software.
