Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,3
shit about settling down anymore.”
“Oh. You think… You really think that’ll work?”
I laughed. “Well, she won’t be giving me a hard time about settling down if I’m married, right?”
“I, uh… I guess.” He shifted in his seat, seeming to sober up as he watched me uncertainly. “Is that the only reason?”
“No.” I drummed my fingers beside my drink. Hell, why not show all my cards? “Okay, look. I feel really bad about what happened. And like if I’d done things differently, you wouldn’t have been fucked this hard.”
He eyed me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, if I hadn’t lost my shit at you when I brought up the post, then Chief wouldn’t have overheard us, and things wouldn’t have happened the way they did.” I sighed heavily. “I was trying to handle it in-house, at our level, but then—”
“To be fair, I flipped out first.”
“But I’m the MA1. I’m the supervisor.” I thumped my knuckle on the table. “I was supposed to keep it together and be professional. And if I had… I mean, look. The bottom line is that you wouldn’t have lost your benefits if I’d done my job. I’m sorry for that. If we get married, then you can get back some of what the Navy took away from you because I failed as your MA1. It doesn’t fix it all, it doesn’t make any of it right, but maybe you won’t fall on your face, and maybe I can sleep at night.”
He stared at me, his lips apart.
“You don’t have to do it,” I said. “I’m just putting it out there.”
“Right. I’m just… I’m trying…” He shook himself. “How would that even work?”
I thought about it for a moment. “We can work out the details, but I figure we go do the Justice of the Peace thing, we tell everyone we’re married, you get signed on as my dependent, and I transfer my GI Bill to you. And when you’re finished going to school, we can just ‘not work out,’ split up, and move on with our lives.”
“But we’d… I mean, we’d still be married. For like four years at least.” Holloway inclined his head. “I like to get laid as much as the next guy, so…” His eyebrow arched.
“So we keep getting laid.” I shrugged. “You go do your thing. I go do mine. We basically just live like roommates.” I paused, considering it. “I mean, I guess we have to put on the married couple thing for family functions and stuff, but it’s a few days here and there. Doesn’t seem so bad, especially since we’re both this far from everyone we know.”
Eyes unfocused, Holloway nodded slowly. “Man, I don’t know if I’m drunk already or what, but it makes sense. And you’d…” He met my gaze again. “You’d really do that? Get married so I can use your benefits?”
I thought about it again. I really did. Because it sounded great off the cuff, but now that it was out there, it wasn’t something we should just impulsively dive into. And the more I thought about it… Hell, the guilt alone had been killing me ever since this debacle had started, and now he’d lost his whole career. All because I’d lost my head just long enough for Chief to overhear and grab the reins out of my hands. Would I really do this for Holloway? Fuck yes I would.
“Yeah,” I said. “Long as you do something part-time or whatever to help out with bills and stuff.”
“Oh yeah, I can do that,” he said quickly. “I don’t want to be a freeloader or—I mean, really? Don’t get me wrong, dude, I appreciate it, but I was shocked as shit when you offered to take me out tonight. This?” He whistled. “This is big.”
“I know it is. But it’ll help us both out.”
“Me more than you. By a longshot.”
“Eh, it’s not such a bad deal for me. Trust me.”
“Are you sure? Shouldn’t we both, like, think about it?”
“Probably.” I shrugged. “But we might want to get a move on before your pay and benefits get yanked.”
“That’s probably two months.”
“Okay, so let’s give it until the end of the month. If one of us comes up with a better solution, or one of us wants to bail, then we don’t do it.”
Holloway stared into his beer for a moment. Finally, he exhaled and met my gaze. “Okay. End of the month, we’ll decide.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
And something told me that when this month was up, we’d