Free 11 Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by Heather Long

toasted her with his beer bottle and took a drink. The dinner was simple, but tasty. Burgers and fries from a local restaurant along with a cherry cola for her and a beer for him. They sat in his apartment, with the front door wide open to the cool breeze. Seventy degrees in October…didn’t Texas know how to have an autumn?
    “I like her and it’s okay.” She raised her Styrofoam cup and touched it to his beer bottle.
    “It’s a little weird,” he teased. But having his parents right next door while he considered all the ways he might seduce his dinner date if she didn’t have emotional hang ups, a lifesaving surgery for her daughter, and his wheelchair in his way, definitely qualified for weird.
    Her gaze slid to the right and she laughed. “Yes, it is a little weird. I feel like I should walk over and check on her.”
    “You can you know. I don’t mind.” He missed the little bit, too, but he was confident his mother could handle her and they were right there.
    “I know and you’re amazing that you don’t mind my distraction—”
    “Hey, she’s your baby. That’s not a distraction, it’s a higher calling. Don’t ever apologize for thinking about her.” It came out crisper than he meant it and he regretted the tone. “Sorry, I shouldn’t snap.”
    Her expression didn’t waver. “You didn’t snap. You were very authoritative.”
    “That’s called snapping.” He grimaced. “And now I’m correcting you.”
    She propped her chin in her hand and pulled a foot up onto the chair. She looked sixteen with her blonde hair pulled back from her face. He loved the relaxed smile on her face.
    “You’re funny and you don’t have to handle me with kid gloves. I’m not going to break.”
    “Who said—” My mother . He sighed. “Melody….”
    She shook her head. “No. It’s okay. I think I needed to hear what your mom had to say, and I think I have enough courage in me from sleep, food, and velvet tanks to say what I need to say now.”
    “Okay.” He tossed the napkin onto the table and tried to sit back in his chair. He could give her space and respect her wishes.
    “We just met.” She licked her lips and the quick brush of her tongue distracted the hell out of him. “Realistically, we’re barely acquaintances. You know almost nothing about me and I know almost nothing about you—except maybe some of the important stuff. But I’m messed up, Joe. I made some mistakes, and I’ve been hiding behind a lot of lies for a long time.”
    He didn’t interrupt or say anything. Each word seemed to be a struggle to push out.
    “I met Tuck in high school. We were crazy about each other—or maybe I was plain crazy about him. He wanted to join the Marines and I wanted to go to college. When he asked me to marry him, it seemed really natural, you know.
    “My parents—they were furious. They wanted me to wait at least until I finished school, but I said four years of college can’t change my mind. And I knew he had basic and then training and might be deployed, so us getting married didn’t mean I couldn’t go to school. It wasn’t really any different.” Mouth twisting, she laughed a humorless sound. “It’s amazing the things you tell yourself when you think you know everything.”
    Joe allowed a slow nod. She wasn’t the first girl to regret a speedy marriage or a too-young one.
    “And it seemed great, you know? We got married the summer after graduation, he left for basic in July, and I didn’t see him again until almost November. I went to college locally, a good school. I could have gone somewhere else, but I like Philadelphia and wanted to be close to our families. But I had tests the day he came home and I wasn’t there to greet him and I’d been carrying a pretty heavy load in classes—so I was really tired and I forgot to throw a party. It seems so stupid and trivial now, but he was really disappointed and I felt bad. He only had the week and I had so many projects due. He went