Page 163 of Major Love

When we pulled up at the drive-thru and the server asked what we wanted through the comms, Case had to repeat himself three times before she realised that he wasn’t kidding about wanting everything from the menu. And by ‘everything’, I’m being literal. He wanted one of each, with the only duplicate being the drinks, and the only reason for that is because one of them is for me.

But if my coffee spends one more second cuddling his dick, I’m going to be off of caffeine for the rest of my fucking life.

“You see that cup-holder?” I ask him, jerking my thumb at the circular space in front of the shift.

“Yeah?”

“Use it.”

A smirk touches his mouth but, after a moment, he deposits my coffee, flipping the cap off his own and then downing half of it in one go.

“That’s good,” he rasps quietly, before gulping down the rest of it and replacing the cap.

“Have mine, too,” I tell him automatically, because I remember what it was like to be in his shoes. To have had six months of tasteless meals that all went by in a rush because of the job, and then you get home from deployment and it’s like everything’s moving in slow-motion.

It’s why he’s getting through his food like it’s about to be taken away from him – he eats neat but fast, just like everyone else in the Army. Your perspective is so widened that only the highest stakes matter, and everything else is just peripheral until you get the gig done.

And always eat when you can, because you might need the energy sooner than you think.

“Thanks,” he says, reaching for it and taking a drink. But this time, as if he was just having the same thought that I was, he sips maybe a third of it and then just holds it in his hand.

Trying to remember how to savour it after six months of high-stakes rushing.

We stay in silence for a while, listening to the country song and watching the road, Case instinctively checking my mirrors every minute because old habits die hard.

What can be seen as paranoia to a civilian can save your ass when you’re a soldier, and I know that he’ll dial it down once he’s been back home for a couple of weeks.

“So,” he says slowly, shifting in his seat and flicking a glance at me, his thumbs hooking in the loops of his Army fatigues.

They’re clean and pressed, because they won’t be what he was wearing when he was out there, and they’re probably all he could get his hands on once they got him out of hospital.

“When did it happen?” he asks.

I glance over at him. “When did what happen?”

He looks out of the windshield and sighs, dragging his palm down his dark stubble. His cheekbones are as tanned as mine, and he looks like he’s been in the sun for six months straight.

And, judging by his silence, I understand exactly what he’s trying to ask me.

Sunday.

He’s asking me about Sunday.

“We started hanging out as soon as I knew she was back in town. And then I arranged stuff every week because I didn’t know if she planned to stay.”

Casey’s eyes bore into the side of my face, his expression serious. “Does she?”

I give him a look and he eventually recomposes, but I know that he’s secretly wanted Sunday to move back to Phoenix Falls for years now. Ever since she first told him that she was thinking of selling her bar, Case immediately started working on how to get her to move back.

And he’s going to tell her exactly what he did when they finally see each other today.

Case stares out of the windshield for a long moment, brushing his thumb against the coffee cup as we ride beneath the pines.

Then he takes another sip.

“We should head to the range,” he says. “Just the two of us.”

I don’t even bother sparing him a glance, chuckling quietly as I flick the indicator. “Good luck getting clearance on that with ten bandages around your biceps.”

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