Free Damage Control (Valiant Knox) by Jess Anastasi Page B

already was.
    “I’m not sorry either.” Yep, she had just said that, even though she probably shouldn’t have. But Leigh being so straight with her made it easy to face facts, and if he was going to give her the bald truth, then she would return the favor in kind. “I was just as responsible. I could have stepped away, I could have not slipped with your name. The next few weeks in the training program are going to be hard, and I need to give my all to that, not be distracted by—”
    Leigh’s expression suddenly lost some of its tension and a grin transformed his features into somewhere around the level of mind-melting. Her damned heart skipped a beat, but she leveled a glare on him. “What’s so funny?”
    He shook his head, shifting a little nearer. “I’m not laughing. At you anyway. I am finding it funny that my manly pride wants to know if I’m being dressed down, when I’d planned on doing all the lecturing.”
    Oh, so now he had a sense of humor? She hardened her fluttering emotions against him and deepened her frown. “Since technically nothing happened, no one is lecturing anyone. We’re just mutually agreeing to stay away from each other. Or, failing that, we’ll strive to maintain a platonic, if not distant relationship.”
    “Mia, you are clearly too practical for your own good.”
    “There is no such thing as being too practical. And after this, we’re not going to talk about it again, either.”
    The doors to the transit opened, and Leigh shot her a smile that bordered on intimate, making her heart skip.
    “Good-bye, Recruit Wolfe.”
    He backed out of the transit, then headed toward the gym. She walked out at a more sedate pace, feeling far better now that they’d reached an agreement about how things should stand. Next time she saw him, he would just be Captain Alphin and she would be doing everything in her power to pretend like he was simply a commanding officer she didn’t know one single thing about.

    T he messdeck echoed with dull chatter as Mia looked over the breakfast offerings and decided she couldn’t eat anything other than the meager fare she’d already picked up: black coffee and a few pathetic slices of cold toast. Despite spending an hour in the lap pool, her lack of sleep was still making her feel unsettled, without much appetite. However, after she found a table and sat down, she forced herself to eat, because with training starting today, she’d need what little energy the toast provided.
    And most of that energy would be expended mentally, trying to put Captain Alphin firmly in the past and forget she knew anything about him. At least she now knew he was on the same page, which should make it that much easier to get on with things.
    Someone sat down across from her, and she glanced up to see one of the other female recruits, Kayla Dawson, picking up her fork as the rest of the seats quickly filled around her.
    Mia shook her head slightly and forced her mind on the here and now—away from things she’d vowed to move on from—as the recruits around the table started up a conversation about what they might expect in the coming days.
    “Captain Alphin needs to get that stick out of his ass.” Steve Robinson sat a few seats down from her, a huge plate of bacon, eggs, sausages, hash browns, and other food piled in front of him. “Who does he think he is? Just coz he’s the Captain of the Fighter Force.”
    “He’s your CO dumbass,” Kayla put in. “So unless you want to spend FP training wiping the floor with your face, you better kick the attitude, Dogmeat .”
    A few of the other recruits laughed at the nickname given to FP trainees who got picked on by the instructors, while Steve glared at Kayla. Mia examined her toast. She needed a bit of Kayla’s spunk. Out of all the recruits, Kayla was one of the few sure to get through the next few weeks and make it look stupidly easy.
    Steve grinned and elbowed the guy sitting next to him.
    “Looks like Kayla will