“Not at all,” she replies with a thin smile. “I’m telling you as a woman that Anna won’t put up with it for long. You want to do something nice for your girl, then you have her on your arm proudly. Let Anna have the full experience of falling in love again.”
That hits me deep.
Is Anna falling in love with me?
Pretty sure I’m falling hard for her, and I don’t want her to ever doubt me. We’re both good communicators. We’ve talked through some majorly heavy shit. But despite it all, she’s going to judge me by my actions as well. Does the fact I’ve been shy about letting people know about us somehow convey a message that she’s not good enough? Not important enough?
Something to be ashamed of?
The thought horrifies me.
“Fuck the bro code,” I announce as I pop up out of the chair and head for the door. “I’ll hire the goddamn Goodyear blimp to blast a message.”
“That’s sweet,” Corinne says with a laugh. “But I’m pretty sure Anna’s not that high maintenance.”
I stop, turning slowly to face Corinne. “She’s not. Anna is far more appreciative of the subtle overtures.”
“You’ve really come to know her well,” Corinne murmurs with a slow blink of her eyes.
A satisfied smile plays at my lips. “I recognize so much of myself in her, how could I not?”
Inclining her head, Corinne merely says, “I’ll send you an email with a date for us to meet next month. I can’t wait to see how well you and Anna are doing at that time.”
My responding grin is all she needs to know about how I feel right now, but I still say, “Looking forward to it.”
?
I briefly wonder if I should schedule an appointment, but my excitement to get back to normal outweighs professionalism. I tap on the door to Kynan’s office—a brief glance through the glass walls tells me he’s alone. Not necessarily interruptible as his head is bent over documents on his desk, but again… too excited not to come to his office unannounced.
His head lifts when he sees me through the glass and beckons me in with his hand. “What’s up?” he asks as I open the door.
I slide in, shut it behind me, and take a seat before his desk. “Corinne has released me to full duty.”
He seems neither surprised nor delighted by this, his face an impassive blank canvas.
“And so,” I drawl, waiting for him to come to the same conclusion I’m going to put forth. “I’m ready for an assignment.”
Kynan straightens in his chair, then immediately sinks back down into it. He puts his elbows to the armrests and steeples his fingers together in contemplation, his eyes never leaving mine. “And you believe you’re ready to get back in the thick of things?”
“I’d prefer you not coddle me on my next assignment,” I reply, not quite answering his question but putting forth my own expectations. “I need you to trust me.”
“And do you trust yourself?” he queries.
His question irritates me. It’s something Corinne would want to know as part of her assessment, but he’s the boss and I get why he’s asking.
“All I can tell you is that after a lot of reflecting, listening to you and others, and talking things out, if I were in the same exact scenario as I was in Syria, I would trust my training and my gut instincts, and I’d act in the same manner as I acted then.”
The point being, even knowing I could have probably saved Jimmy and Sal by moving to their rear and being vigilant, it wasn’t the right move and I know it now. I would have battled the clear fight in front of me as my training and instincts told me to do.
Now Kynan has to believe that.
He gives me a solid nod of acceptance and leans forward again, flipping through a stack of folders on his desk. Finding what he’s searching for, he opens it up and scans the first page. “I’m sending a group down to Ft. Bragg tomorrow. The Army is going to let us join them in some MFF training operations. I want you to go as, given your background, you’ll be a good resource for leadership.”
I struggle to not let my face break out into a wide, goofy grin because the part of me that thrives on danger, speed, and adrenaline is already chomping at the bit for this opportunity. MFF, or military free fall, is a tactic used to insert Special Forces troops into enemy territories in as covert a way as possible. It allows for aircraft to fly above the range of where surface-to-air missiles can shoot them down, but it provides added danger to the men who must jump out of said plane at extremely high and dangerous altitudes. We’ll most likely be practicing both HALO jumps—high altitude, low opening—and HAHO jumps—high altitude, high opening.