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It takes three weeks for Lila to break one of her terms.

Or, technically, she doesn’t break anything. Because she does not let him move in. Or use her keys.

But she does make a copy.

Because it’s practical.

Because he’s back and forth often enough now that the late-night knocking starts to feel theatrical. Because one night she’s still at work past twenty-one hundred and he ends up sitting in the hallway outside her apartment with takeout going cold in his lap and a paperback open in one hand.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

And he says, “Waiting.”

And the whole thing seems absurd, if only because he does not seem to mind.

Because he does not expect anything to change. To earn something in return.

Because he is aggressively patient and that—

That’s what gets her.

So, she makes a copy.

Two mornings later she leaves it on the counter between them.

“This is logistical,” she says.

Bob looks at the key. Then at her.

“Copy that, ma’am.”

And that is where things begin to accumulate. Not intentionally. Not dramatically.

But in small ways.

Like the toothbrush.

He doesn’t leave it there on purpose, not exactly, but at some point the ritual of packing and unpacking it begins to feel absurd even to him. He is there four nights out of seven one week, six the next, and the toothbrush keeps making the same commute he does, back and forth between housing blocks like a prop that exists solely to show that her terms are still in effect.

One morning he leaves without it.

And then he leaves a t-shirt in one of her drawers. A charger on his side of the bed.

She does not comment on it, because commenting would require acknowledging that he does, in fact, have a side of the bed.

It would require acknowledging that on the rare night he isn’t there, she no longer sleeps in the middle like she used to but on the side that smells like Bob Floyd. That she no longer changes the sheets every Thursday like she used to, because Thursdays are usually when he works too late to come back to hers, and she has discovered, much to her annoyance, that she would rather sleep in the lingering evidence of him than in clean cotton.

She comes home one night to find he’s changed the lightbulbs—the ugly yellow one in the kitchen and the sterile white in the hallway.

She stares at them for a second too long.

“I fixed the door, too,” he says.

“The door?”

“Bathroom door. It was squeaky.”

“Maybe I liked it squeaky.”

He nods. “In that case I’m sorry.”

The apology is immediate. Serious.

Like he actually means it. Like if she asked, he’d put the horrible bulbs back in and re-engineer the squeak just to preserve the original conditions of her government housing misery.

Lila drops her bag by the door and takes off her boots.

Then she walks over to where he’s sitting on the couch, climbing directly into his lap.

His hands go automatically to her waist, eyes lifting to hers.

“You can’t keep doing things like that,” she says.

“What, maintenance?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because,” she says and realizes too late that she does not know the end of the sentence.

“Interesting,” he says. “Counterpoint?”

“Go ahead.”

“I think I can.”

He’s right.

That’s not the annoying part.

He knows he’s right.

That’s also not the annoying part.

The annoying part—the fucking infuriating thing that has happened somewhere between coffee and his scent in her sheets—is that she does not have an answer to that.

That he leaves her speechless with dumb things like lightbulbs and doors that don’t squeak.

And it’s one of those things, she thinks, that makes them fundamentally very different people.

Because she is absolutely capable of switching a lightbulb. Of fixing a squeaky hinge.

That is not the point.

The point is that Lila has lived in enough temporary rooms, enough government housing, enough short-term quarters with bad plumbing and worse lighting, enough assigned spaces with beige walls and cheap fixtures and the faint institutional smell of disinfectant and previous occupants, to understand that most things are not worth improving.

You endure them.

Work around them.

You learn which door jams every time it rains outside, which kitchen drawer is glued shut, which two outlets should never be used at the same time unless you want to blow a fuse. You stop seeing what needs to be fixed because seeing it would imply some obligation to actually fix it and fixing it would imply you intend to stay long enough to care.

But Bob—

Bob is different.

He does not treat inconvenience as something one must simply live with because it’s all temporary anyway. He does not look at her apartment and deem it good enough simply because it’s functional.

He makes things better. He makes things nice.

For her.

And for one strange moment, the whole apartment feels less like a place she’s been assigned and more like a place she might miss some day.

She kisses him—not to stop that thought from forming fully, because it has, by now, fully occupied a space in her brain she didn’t even know existed, but to stop herself from accidentally vocalizing it.

But he knows.

The night before his deployment she picks a fight.

Because of course she does.

It starts somewhere between dinner and packing, when she begins picking apart things that should not warrant the effort, and he begins recognizing the pattern with the weary acceptance of a man who has loved her long enough to know that if she is criticizing the number socks in a deployment bag, she is almost certainly upset about something else entirely.

Bob sits cross-legged in the middle of her bedroom, methodically working through the things he’s laid out. Folded uniforms. Paperwork. Things that need to be packed and things that don’t but will somehow end up tagging along.

Lila leans her shoulder against the doorframe. Watching. Lurking, he might even say.

“You’re taking that sweater?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “I like it. It’s warm.”

“It has holes.”

“Just a few.”

“Robert.”

“Lila.”

“You are an officer in the United States Navy.”

“Last I checked.”

“Act like it.”

“What—”

He pauses. Takes one look at her face. Serious. Official. Like she’s seconds away from formally reprimanding him for his choice of recreational attire.

Then he takes the sweater out. “I’ll leave this here.”

“Good.”

“Do you want it clean or do you want it to smell like me?”

Lila blinks.

Doesn’t answer.

The corner of his mouth twitches. “Got it.”

And he folds it, neat, before placing it on the little bench at the foot of the bed. Like he knows she’ll wear it the very first night he’s gone.

He’s right.

He keeps packing. Charger. Kindle. Logbook.

The beat-up paperback he’s been carrying around for a month and still hasn’t finished.

Everything disappears into the bag without a fuss.

He’s done this before.

She shifts on her feet. “How many calls do you think you’ll get?”

Bob looks up. “I don’t know.”

“Approximate.”

“I genuinely don’t know.”

“You should know.”

“They don’t put that information in the brief.”

She exhales, sharp. “They should.”

“Lila.”

“What?”

“You’ve deployed.”

“Yes.”

“Several times.”

“Unfortunately.”

“You know how it works.”

“Yes, I do.”

The room goes quiet. Bob folds another shirt. And another. Then he gets up, hoisting the bag up onto the bed to tighten the drawstrings shut.

“When I get back—”

“You don’t know that,” she interrupts, sharp. Sharper than intended.

He frowns. “Lila.”

“You don’t.”

And he looks at her for a long moment, head tilted to the side. His gaze flicks to the scar on her thigh, just barely but long enough for her to clock it.

“I know what you’re talking about,” he says.

“Yeah, well.” She folds her arms tighter across her chest. “I’m not subtle.”

“No,” he agrees.

And it feels a little overly dramatic, maybe. Except that it doesn’t.

Because tomorrow exists.

Because the apartment that’s been slowly, accidentally turning into theirs is going to become hers again overnight.

For six months.

Six months of morning coffee made for one and not two.

Six months of waiting.

For messages. For emails. For a call window that inevitably gets delayed and eventually cuts out through the static just as his voice starts to sound real.

Six months of bad timing.

Of his name on her screen when she’s walking into a briefing she can’t leave. Of her phone lighting up in the middle of a meeting.

Because that’s the thing. She knows how it works. She’s seen it happen. 

She has been on the other side of it. On ships, at airfields, in temporary quarters with bad mattresses. She has watched grown men go quiet over photographs tucked into wallets. Watched pilots stare too long at videos of babies taking their first steps months after the steps happened. Watched people schedule their entire day around a seven minute call window.

And she has understood it, technically. She has not been unkind about it.

Mostly.

But she has found it inefficient.

Because it’s the job.

You do the job. You eat the food. You sleep when there is time.

And everything else is secondary.

That is the life.

She had been very good at the life.

She had never, ever cared enough about another person to miss them before they had even left the room.

Until Robert fucking Floyd.

“When I get back,” he says again, slower this time, like he is not going to let her ruin the sentence just because she’s trying to do whatever the hell she’s trying to do. “I want you to meet my family.”

“Oh, come on.”

“What?”

“I’m trying to prepare for the possibility that something goes wrong—”

“Lila—”

“—and you’re planning for family dinner at the Floyd house?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because the last time I scared you, you ordered me not to do it again.”

She stills.

Quieter, he says: “So I’m trying very hard not to, ma’am.”

Her throat tightens. She hates that.

“You’re infuriating sometimes.”

He nods. “I know.”

“I love you.”

His face changes. Not in an overly exaggerated way, not like he’s hearing something that’ll profoundly change his life—but like he’s hearing something he already knew and was just waiting patiently for her to put it into words.

“Copy that,” he says, because he knows she’ll throw something at him if he says it back.

She nods.

The next morning he deploys.

The world does not stop spinning because he is gone. The sun does not dim. Coffee remains constant. Planes go up and come down.

The Navy remains the Navy.

They have both done harder things than distance. They have both survived worse conditions.

They are both fine.

At sea, Bob does his job. He eats when he remembers. He sleeps when the ship allows it. He thinks about Lila at perfectly normal intervals: morning, night, bad coffee, good weather, dull briefings, and any moment in which someone says something stupid enough that he knows exactly how she would respond.

On land, Lila does her job. She works too much. Wakes up earlier. Runs more miles. People continue to ask her questions they should have the answers to. She thinks about Bob at the most inconvenient times: sunrise, sunset, and every moment in between when she finds herself alone and her brain starts to look for someone to fill the space and the silence.

They fall into routines so easily that the distance begins to feel manageable.

The calls are few and far between.

Weeks stretch into months.

Lila doesn’t mark the days, because that is civilian nonsense.

Bob doesn’t mark the days, because counting them does not make them pass faster.

Four months in, Lila becomes a captain. Officially.

The ceremony is small. Lila insists on small.

Small, in Navy terms, apparently means forty people, two flags, one podium and a terrifying amount of horrid coffee.

And Hangman, who arrives alone because Payback and Fanboy are less fortunate in their assignments, and Lila wonders if she should’ve added an addendum to the invite to make sure he would arrive with some sort of buffer or not at all.

Her dress whites are immaculate. Hair pinned. Shoes polished. Every visible inch of her in order. Every invisible inch, too.

Maverick is there, obviously. Retired, technically. Civilian, allegedly. His hands are steady when he pins the first silver eagle to her collar.

Phoenix’s are not, when she pins the second.

Lila notices. Says nothing.

She did not ask for this—Phoenix did. After it was made official. After the date for the ceremony was set.

Lila had almost said no.

Not because she wanted to, but because no was easier.

No was clean. No made the ceremony the same as every other one before it. No meant Maverick could do what Maverick had always done, standing in for everyone who should’ve been there and wasn’t.

But Phoenix had asked. Had called it an honor.

And Lila had looked at her and thought, with irritation, that this was what happened when you let people matter.

They started asking for things because they knew you never would.

When the official part is over, Maverick hugs her.

“Looks right,” he says.

“You think?”

“I know, kid.”

And the look on his face is so full of pride you’d think he gave birth to her. She hates that.

She likes that.

“I did this myself,” she says.

Maverick nods. “You did.”

“But—”

“Don’t.”

“I want to.”

He meets her eyes. Reluctantly.

“I did this myself,” she repeats, “but I didn’t do it without you.”

Maverick looks away. “Not gonna cry in front of you, Monroe.”

“You did once.”

“Yeah, well,” he says. “Funny things can happen when you think you’re sitting at someone’s deathbed.”

“Don’t get emotional,” she says. “It makes you look old.”

Maverick laughs.

Bob sends an email about three hours before Lila gets pinned. She doesn’t open it until after. By choice.

Because whatever he has written will not change what she is capable of doing without him. It may, however, remind her how badly she wishes she did not have to.

I wish I could be there.

I know you don’t need me there.

I still wish I was.

I’m proud of you.

—Bob

Lila reads it twice.

That night, because she invites herself, Phoenix comes over with two bottles of wine and a hairbrush.

“If I hear the words girls night—” Lila begins.

“Then you are fully justified to court-martial me,” Phoenix says.

They don’t talk about Bob.

Until the first bottle is empty.

And then they talk only about Bob.

It happens so slowly Lila doesn’t even realize it’s happening at all. Phoenix asks a question. Lila answers. Curls a piece of hair. Phoenix asks another.

And another.

And by the time all of Phoenix’s hair is curled and set with rollers, Lila begins to finally hear her own voice, suddenly foreign in her head. Not gushing or giddy. Not like she’s waiting for a promise ring or a goddamn invitation to homecoming. Not like a girl with a crush.

Not even, really, like a woman in love.

But more so like a woman deeply irritated by logistics. By time zones. By unreliable communication windows. By the Navy.

And the goddamn sea between them.

Phoenix stares at her through the mirror.

“This is not going to be a thing,” Lila says.

“What?”

“Me talking to you about my relationship.”

“Okay.”

“But—”

“Yes?”

“He wants me to meet his family.”

“And?”

“That’s it. He already booked the flights.”

“Economy?”

“Not anymore.”

“You upgraded them.”

“Of course I did. I need the leg room,” Lila says. “But that’s not the point.”

“Oh, I know. The point is you’re terrified.”

Lila glares.

“Meeting the parents is, like, the most normal thing, you know?” Phoenix asks.

“I’m aware. I have had other relationships. I have met parents before.”

“You have?”

“They all want me to meet their parents. I am, unfortunately, the kind of woman people want to introduce to their mothers.”

“Yeah, but Bob isn’t just people.”

Lila’s mouth forms a tight line. No, Bob is not just people. Bob is not taking her home after a few dates because he wants to impress his folks. Bob is not trying to speed run a relationship by taking the next step too fast.

Bob is just doing what Bob does.

And maybe she is terrified. Or maybe she isn’t.

Maybe that remains the terrifying part.

After that, they stop talking about Bob.

Mostly.

The Hard Deck offers nothing new, but the news of her promotion has traveled wide and fast and every Navy officer with a pulse seems keen on offering their congratulations.

Phoenix buys the first round and Lila buys the rest. Hangman calls her Captain Barbie, for which Phoenix flips him off.

He looks delighted.

In the early morning hours Lila crawls into bed. His side no longer smells like him. The sweater has had a much needed wash, too.

Her dress whites still hang from the closet door; silver eagles catching light spilling in from the lamps outside.

And because there has been wine and there has been tequila, there is no longer enough self-restraint to stop. The tears roll down her nose and her temple.

It is the first and last time she cries about the deployment.

Two months pass.

Lila is asleep when the door carefully opens. She does not wake as Bob quietly sheds six months of deployment in the hallway—boots first, then uniform, then the duffel bag that can wait until morning—and slips into bed next to her, stripped down to his underwear because he knows she does not approve of dirty uniforms in clean sheets.

She stirs. He wraps his arm around her waist, nuzzling his head in the crook of her neck.

“You’re back early,” she whispers, still half-asleep.

“Schedule moved up.”

“You didn’t call.”

And then she turns to face him, like she’s upset, and he doesn’t know if it’s the not calling part or the arriving three days before he was supposed to or both combined, but then her fingers wrap around his neck, pulling him in for a kiss that feels like coming up for air after six months of pretending drowning is the same thing as breathing.

He falls into it.

Into her.

Into the warmth of the bed and the grip of her hands and the scent of her skin. Into the wanting, longing and needing that’s been building for six months.

By morning, his bag is still sitting untouched by the door.

In Virginia, the table is set like a ‘Better Homes & Gardens’ photo shoot. There’s a lace runner. There’s a centerpiece that might be older than Bob.

Every part of the Floyd house looks like there’s a story behind it and enough people to tell it for generations to come.

Somewhere down the hall, children are running at full speed on hardwood floors.

Bob looks comfortable.

Like he belongs.

Shirt sleeves rolled, no tie, one hand already reaching for whatever dish needs passing before anyone asks.

Lila does not look comfortable.

She looks composed—which, to an untrained eye, might appear to be the same thing.

Navy dress, bare arms, tanned skin and her hair smooth and blonder than ever. She looks like someone who has prepared for this, who is used to being evaluated, who has buried any sign of nerves so deep down that people wonder if she’s had them surgically removed.

And he knows she’s nervous. Not because she doesn’t think his parents won’t like her, or because she doubts her ability to make a good impression.

But simply because Bob matters enough for this to matter.

Bob’s grandma loads up Lila’s plate with a creamy potato casserole before she has a chance to refuse. Then, grandma leans in.

“Tell me, sweetheart, are you really a captain or is that just what Robert calls you because he likes a strong woman?”

Bob closes his eyes.

“I am really a captain,” Lila replies.

“Land or water?”

“The sky.” Lila pauses and then adds, with a hint of disappointment only Bob hears: “Though mostly land these days.”

“You’re a pilot.”

Lila nods.

“A decorated combat pilot. Easily one of the best the Navy has ever had,” Bob rushes to add, loud enough for everyone at the table to hear.

His mother nudges his father with her elbow to make sure he’s paying attention.

Lila meets Bob’s eyes. She’s been to these dinners before.

Men have bragged about the medals, the missions, the promotions. Usually with one hand resting possessively at her waist and a tone that one might use to describe an expensive car parked outside.

Bob does not touch her.

He just looks at her, flushed with pride and sincerity, like he cannot understand why she isn’t helping him make the case.

And she gets it, then. He isn’t trying to make them proud of him.

He simply wants them to be proud of her. Like he is.

“Robert is one of the best Weapons Systems Officers I’ve ever seen,” she says, and her eyes don’t leave his.

His brother laughs. “Well, that don’t count for much. We don’t know if you’ve seen one or a thousand.”

Bob kicks him under the table.

“Right now she’s overseeing training at TOP GUN,” he says.

“You sound very pleased with that,” his grandma says.

“I am.”

His grandma turns back to Lila. “You do seem like the sort people ought to listen to.”

Lila smiles. A real smile, again, not a performance.

There are too many children to keep track of—nieces, nephews, cousins and second cousins—but somehow Bob manages. After dinner, he seems to become the official child wrangler while the rest of the family cleans up or sits back with a glass of wine or disappears onto the porch for a brief window of peace and quiet.

Lila sits with his grandma in the sitting room. His mother is still in full hosting mode, making sure everyone has a drink and a napkin and a second piece of pie, and she refuses any help Lila tries to offer.

“Oh, hush, you’re a guest,” she simply says.

So, Lila sips on wine. His aunt shows her a few workout videos and weight sets on Amazon, wanting her opinion.

The children climb on Bob. Dangle from his feet and his arms. He’s a giant and they are villagers trying to protect their crops. He falls down dramatically.

“Oh, he’s wonderful with them,” his grandma notes.

“Yes,” Lila says. “I can see that.”

“You two would have beautiful children.”

“I’m not having children.”

And the answer is so automatic, so ingrained that she doesn’t even stop to think about it.

But the second Bob hears it, his eyes meet hers. He blinks.

And for a moment her throat tightens like she’s just said something she can’t take back. Because she has, and she can’t. Because it’s a non-negotiable. That’s not the part that lingers.

“Really?” his grandma asks. The look on her face is more curiosity than disappointment. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want them.”

“Good for you, sugar.”

Lila’s brows lift. His grandma pats her arm and goes back to watching the kids, who have now turned into superheroes and villains and Bob is the innocent civilian with a bomb strapped to his chest.

She can’t read his face.

But his mother has stopped in the doorway, carrying a tray of cheese. Just for a moment, but it’s enough for Lila to notice. 

Lila looks away.

The kids start getting ready for bed, eventually. The house starts settling down, but it does not become quiet. Someone cries because someone else has the wrong toothbrush. Someone has forgotten their teddy bear. 

By the time Bob and Lila go upstairs, the noise has softened into tired pleas for one more cup of water and one more bedtime story and one more song.

His old bedroom is smaller than she expected. It hasn’t changed much, she assumes. Books stacked on books. Model airplanes carefully arranged on a shelf, suspiciously dust-free. A few old school computers stacked beneath a desk. A faded MIT pennant up on the wall. A twin bed beneath the window.

“I like it here,” Lila says. “Your family is nice.”

“They like you.”

He smiles, and it seems genuine.

But he has been quiet for a while.

And she knows it may just be the long trip and the family dinner and the children who don’t run out of energy, but the thought does not leave her head.

Because things have been going well. She’s finally gotten him back from sea and even admitted to missing him while he’s been gone and flown across states to meet every person who has ever loved him, eaten various potato dishes and two kinds of pie and—

Perhaps she has missed a crucial detail. Perhaps, if she were better at relationships, she would’ve thought of this sooner.

“Your mother seemed disappointed,” she says.

Bob looks over from the closet. “Mm.”

“Are you?”

He pauses. She fills the silence.

“Disappointed?”

“No.”

“Surprised?”

“Not really.”

He pulls an extra duvet from the top shelf, shakes it out once and starts spreading it across the narrow bed.

“You’re very good with children,” Lila says.

“They’re easy.”

“They’re not.”

He smooths one corner of the duvet. Lila watches him.

“What are you trying to say?” he asks.

“That you would be a wonderful father.”

“Probably.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

“You are allowed to want things.”

His hands stop. “Jesus, Lila.”

“What?”

“Just stop.”

He’s not loud. He doesn’t need to be.

“We should’ve had this conversation months ago,” she says.

“We don’t need to have it. Because it has always been very clear to me.”

“What has?”

“You.”

“Me.”

“Yes, you.”

“This isn’t about me,” she says. “This is about the fact that your niece crawled into your lap and stuck her sticky little jam hands on your cheeks and you looked—”

“What, happy?”

“Yes, exactly. Happy.”

“And that means I want children?”

“I’m just saying. You would be a wonderful father.”

“I would’ve been a damn fine aerospace engineer, too.”

She tilts her head to the side. “Bob.”

“No, seriously,” he says and gestures around the room vaguely. “I would’ve been good at a lot of things.”

“You still have time for those things.”

“Sure.”

“And kids.”

“Lila.”

The frustration in his voice does little to deter her from continuing.

“You do.”

“Can you stop?”

“No.”

“I’m tired, Lila.”

“Okay.”

“The kids have gone to bed.”

Her brow furrows. “Okay?”

“That means we’re having pie.”

“We just had pie.”

“We’re having bourbon, too.”

Lila does not know what is happening when they go back downstairs.

The house is quiet now, but not silent. It’s too lived-in for that. The stairs creak under their feet. Floorboards settle. The fridge in the kitchen hums loudly. Bob’s siblings are laughing on the porch, the sound muffled by glass. His grandmother has gone to bed. The children are asleep or at least contained behind closed doors.

Bob takes two low glasses from a cabinet without asking where they are kept. Then a bottle of bourbon from behind a stack of cookbooks, as though the entire arrangement has been waiting for him.

There’s an apple pie on the kitchen counter with plates stacked beside it.

“Family tradition?” Lila asks.

“You could say that.”

Bob cuts two narrow slices of pie and carries them to the kitchen table. He pours bourbon in both glasses. Lila sits across from him, watching.

He hands her a fork. She takes it.

“You’re changing the subject,” she says.

“Yes.”

He does not elaborate.

Lila waits. He takes a bite of pie, chews, and looks at her like he knows what’s going on inside her head but refuses to go there.

“We’re not finishing that conversation here,” he says.

“Because your parents are in the next room?”

“Because you’re looking for a reason this can’t be as good as it is.”

“I saw your face when I said I don’t want children.”

“What did you see?”

“I don’t know.” Her mouth tightens. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“Could’ve just asked.”

“I did.”

“No, you asked if I was surprised or disappointed. I’m not,” he says. “But in that moment, whatever you saw… I was thinking.”

“Thinking?”

“Yes. I was thinking most people probably wouldn’t tell a room full of near-strangers something that personal so quickly. I was thinking I should’ve prepared my mother better. And I was thinking you were going to see her face, look at mine, and decide we were both disappointed.”

Lila picks at the edge of the pie crust with her fork. “I hate when you’re right.”

“I know.”

For a moment they just sit, drink, and eat. The bourbon and the apple pie fit together well, and Lila starts to think it’s a tradition she can get on board with, but makes a mental note for next time to not eat so much during the actual dinner portion of the evening.

“And also—”

He reaches into his pocket. Lila stills.

“I was trying to figure out when to give you this.”

He places a small box on the table between them. Lila looks at it. Then at him.

“Open it.”

She does, but only because she knows it’s not a ring. Because he would not propose so soon. Not here. Not like this.

He would—

No. She has not thought of it. But she knows this is not how it happens.

Inside the box is a simple, delicate gold chain with a single letter hanging from it.

“B,” she says.

“For Barbie.”

“Or Bob.”

“Huh,” he says. “Hadn’t crossed my mind.”

“So, I belong to you.”

“No.”

Her eyes lift to his. “No?”

“I belong to you.”

Lila stares.

Bob shrugs. “I thought that was pretty obvious.”

Lila looks back down at the necklace for a long moment. Then she lifts the chain from the box and turns her back to him.

His fingers are warm at the nape of her neck as he fastens it.

They don’t talk about children for months to come.

And then, about three months before his next deployment, Bob brings Lila to a house in Coronado. The mailbox is leaning off to the side like nobody has bothered to care about it in a while. The yard is mostly dirt and the paint in the windows is peeling off.

Lila looks at the house.

At him.

At the keys he’s holding now.

“You rented a house?” she asks.

And he shakes his head.

“You bought a house.”

“Yes, I did.”

They walk in through the front door. It makes a creaking sound before closing behind them.

“You don’t know how long we’ll be here,” she says.

“I know.”

“What if I get reassigned?”

“Then I’ll sell it. Or rent it out.” He shrugs one shoulder and leans up against the doorway separating the living room and kitchen. “Either way I’ll follow you the first chance I have.”

She goes quiet. It’s different—hearing the thing said out loud. She’s thought of it, sure. Of the possibility she’d get reassigned.

Of the hope he might follow.

Because he’s done it before. Because he seems committed.

But there’s something unsettling about the certainty of it.

If she leaves, he’ll go too.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Like his career is infinitely flexible and hers isn’t.

And she hates how much she likes hearing it.

Because Bob Floyd is good at what he does. Because he’s too good to let her geographical location determine his path.

Again.

She hates it, because some ugly selfish part of her would let him do it.

Again.

“Don’t say it,” he says.

“Say what?”

He tilts his head.

She looks around at the walls and the ceiling. “So, what’s the point? If it’s all temporary.”

“The point is I want a real life.”

A real life.

Lila nearly laughs.

Because it’s as though the one she already has isn’t real. The medals, the command, the years spent building something nobody could take from her.

Because—

Perhaps that is exactly it.

“Do you expect me to move in?” she asks.

“I would like for you to,” he says. “I don’t expect it.”

She looks around the living room again, more deliberately now. The hardwood floor could use refinishing. There are pale marks where the previous owner’s furniture must have stood and a long scratch running from the doorway toward the stairs. The baseboards have been painted over so many times the edges are barely edges anymore.

“The plumbing needs some work,” Bob says.

Lila presses the light switch. Nothing. She glances at him.

“So does the electricity,” he adds. “And there’s carpet upstairs so that’ll have to go.”

She nods once, already making a mental list.

“The previous owner ripped out all the closets,” Bob says. “But I can build new ones.”

Lila walks through the doorway to the kitchen, running her fingertips lightly along the edge of the old countertop. The cabinet doors are a little crooked. The hinges whine when she opens one. The windows look old but solid.

Bob appears at the doorway, leaning up against it. “The kitchen has seen better days.”

“I like it,” Lila says.

“Yeah?”

She nods. “Most of this neighborhood went up after the war. Late forties, fifties. Mostly.”

The skin between his eyebrows creases, just a little. “This house was built in 1952.”

“The upstairs was added later.”

He nods. “You got all that from looking?”

“My childhood home is two streets over.”

Bob goes quiet. Then, carefully: “Is it still in the family?”

“No,” she says. “My father sold it after I left for Annapolis.”

He nods once. That is all he asks. To his surprise, Lila keeps going.

“He made sure there was nothing waiting for me but the Navy.”

Silence settles between them.

Lila turns another slow circle through the living room, taking in peeling paint and worn banisters.

Bob watches her instead of the walls. 

“So, you can do all that? Fix it up?” she asks.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How many bedrooms?”

“Four.”

“Four?” she repeats. “That’s excessive.”

He shrugs. “They’re small.”

She wants to argue that it does not matter if they’re small, because what in the world do they need four bedrooms for, but he answers before she can even ask.

“I was thinking one of them could be your office.”

“My office.”

He nods.

The words catch her more off guard than they should. Not an office. Your office.

Lila looks past him, toward the staircase. “You assigned me a room.”

“I made room for you.”

“And the other bedrooms?”

“One for guests,” he says. “And one I thought could be a gym.”

“A gym.”

He shrugs. “Just a thought.”

Without another word, she walks past him and climbs the stairs.

She opens each bedroom in turn. One catches the afternoon light. Another overlooks the backyard. The smallest already has the proportions of a home office, with enough space for a desk, a bookshelf and little else. The largest bedroom has a window seat. Far in the distance she can see a tiny sliver of the ocean.

She comes back downstairs.

“So, let me get this straight.”

Bob looks up from where he’s leaning against the kitchen counter.

“I can roll out of bed, hit the gym, work in my own office without ever leaving the premises…”

She studies him for a second.

“And a sexy man is going to make me coffee?”

The corner of his mouth curves. “That was the general idea.”

“And—”

It shouldn’t even come up. Not really.

She hasn’t been thinking about it, actively. At all, really. The conversation they weren’t supposed to finish in Virginia felt finished by the time the plates had nothing but crumbs left.

She should know the answer already.

“Yes?” he asks.

“And you didn’t buy four bedrooms because you expect a nursery eventually?”

“No.”

“You seem sure.”

“I am sure.”

And that is the thing about Bob, she has learned.

He does not say things he thinks she wants to hear. He does not commit to things he cannot commit to.

So when he says no, she has no choice but to believe him.

“You are not the thing standing between me and everything I want,” he says. “You are everything I want.”

And when he says things like that, she has no choice but to start getting comfortable with the fact that this rundown fixer-upper of a house is going to be her home for the foreseeable future.

“I haven’t shown you the best part yet.”

He takes her hand. Leads her through the house and out the back door. Outside they stand on a stone patio overlooking a small backyard with enough weeds to warrant the use of heavy machinery. From here she can see the tops of trees that lined the streets of her childhood home.

“You can hear the jets from here,” he says.

And Lila looks up at the same sky she spent her teenage years staring into, counting down the days until she could leave everything beneath it behind. 

Jets roar overhead, close enough to rattle the windows. For the first time, Lila looks up without wishing she were with them.

Bob’s hand settles at the small of her back.

When she moves in, she waits for the house to feel temporary.

It never does.

She never introduces him as her boyfriend.

That’s the only thing that sticks. The only rule that never gets broken.

The word simply does not fit. It is too unserious in nature, and if there is a need to label things, then the labels should fit. They should reflect the state of the relationship. The state and stature of her.

And boyfriend does none of the sort.

Lieutenant Floyd works fine.

Then, Lieutenant Commander Floyd.

Then, eventually, there is a civil ceremony.

Weekday. Courthouse.

Lila wears white, but only because she is not interested in pretending this is anything less than what it is.

Phoenix is there, acting like she’s not tearing up. Maverick in the back, his hands in his jacket pockets and the expression of a man who has seen stranger things, though perhaps not many stranger than Lila Monroe voluntarily standing in front of a county clerk in a short white dress and agreeing to become somebody’s wife.

The ceremony is short.

Bob says yes.

Lila says yes.

They exchange rings. They go home.

And life does not transform into anything unrecognizable.

Bob buys an espresso maker and learns how to make the perfect iced Americano. He builds closets and makes her pick new tiles for the patio.

Lila texts his grandmother for the pie recipe. The first pie goes in the trash. Every pie after that comes in a box.

She runs every morning. He runs most mornings.

Sometimes they pass the house she grew up in. For months, neither of them says anything. Then, eventually, Lila complains that the new owners have replaced the original windows.

Bob understands this as progress. Of what, he still isn’t quite sure.

He deploys every six months. When he’s gone, Maverick appears and fixes hinges that work perfectly fine. Sometimes Phoenix comes by with wine.

Neither of them dares to call it keeping her company.

And eventually, always, Bob comes back.

And then, months later, at some Navy function neither of them particularly wants to attend, an officer Lila barely knows gestures towards Bob and asks whether they have met.

Lila looks across the room.

Bob is standing near the terrace doors in his dress whites, listening politely to a conversation he has no interest in, wedding band visible around his glass.

He feels her looking.

Of course he does.

His eyes find hers.

And Lila says, without hesitation: “That is Lieutenant Commander Robert Floyd.”

“Is he attached to the new doctrine?” the officer asks.

“To me.”

“Ma’am?”

“He is my husband.”

The officer blinks. Across the room, Bob smiles. Not wide enough for anyone else to notice.

But Lila does.