Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,41
“I really don’t want to do the long term relationship thing while I’m still in the military, either. I know some people make it work, but man…” I shook my head. “Life is a lot more portable and adaptable when it’s just me, you know? Especially if I met someone, and then I got orders someplace else. Because then it’s a choice between splitting up, doing a long-distance relationship, or getting married so he can go with me.”
Tristan made a face. “Yeah. I dated a guy for a little while at one command, and it was stressful as hell because I knew I was PCSing soon.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “The thing is, we hadn’t been together very long. There was no way in hell we were ready to get married, but we also hadn’t, like, established ourselves enough as a couple to make the long distance thing work.”
“So you split up?”
“Yep.” There was a note of bitterness in his voice, and a hint of sadness in his eyes. “Maybe if we’d had another… I don’t know, six months? A year? We could’ve been in for the long haul. Or we could’ve broken up for our own reasons.” Shaking his head, he added, “Guess we’ll never know.”
“How long ago was that?”
He exhaled. “Right before I transferred to Providence Point.” He turned to me, and a wry but somewhat sheepish smile curled his lips. “Might’ve had something to do with my attitude when I checked in.”
“Oh. Huh. That, um… That explains a lot, actually.”
He chuckled, blushing. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“Nah, I get it. Happened to me early in my career too.”
“Did it?”
Nodding slowly, I sighed. “I started kinda dating a guy while I was in A-school. Screwing around a lot, but also sort of thinking there might be something else there. And this was like right after DADT was repealed, so I still didn’t quite know how people would take it if a gay Sailor was openly dating, so we had to keep it quiet too. That was stressful as fuck, and then I got my orders to San Diego.”
“Broke up?”
“Yep.” I laughed bitterly. “We didn’t even have the option of getting married then, and there was no way in hell we could afford for him to move with me. Kind of the same deal as you and your guy—we’d only been seeing each other a little while, so the long distance thing…”
He nodded. “I swear I don’t know anyone in the military who doesn’t have a story like that. Either a relationship gets torpedoed, or it gets rushed into something it’s not ready to be and then falls apart later.”
“You’re not wrong,” I muttered. “But people wonder why I don’t want to mix love and the Navy.”
“Yeah. I get that.” He gave a dry laugh as he cut off some more lasagna. “I don’t know why I bothered trying.”
“Hope springs eternal?”
“Something like that. Or I’m just too stubborn to admit that something isn’t feasible.”
“Hmm, yeah. That sounds more likely.”
Chuckling, he rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”
We both laughed and ate in comfortable silence for a moment.
Then he said, “You know, as much as all this pandemic bullshit sucks, I gotta admit—I kind of like this.”
“What? Eating in the car?”
“Yeah.” He glanced at me. “No noise. Nobody trying to rush us out the door so they can seat someone else.”
“No waiters singing an obnoxious rendition of Happy Birthday to someone at the next table.”
He groaned. “God, right? No flagging anyone down for the bill. No one coming up and asking how your food is right after you stuff a bite in your face.”
I burst out laughing. “That is the worst. Seriously.”
“Isn’t it?” Tristan took another bite of lasagna. “Honestly, I like getting out and going places, but… I don’t know. Maybe working at the convention center killed off any desire I had to be around a lot of people.”
“Hmm, yeah, seems like that would do it.” I chased a piece of tomato around in the sauce. “So what are you looking forward to when this is over?”
“Besides Tinder?”
I almost choked, but managed to not inhale the tomato. And why did I have a sudden flash of jealousy at the thought of Tristan logging back on to Tinder? God, I was losing it during lockdown. I took a drink, then said, “Yes, besides Tinder.”
He chuckled, so he must not have caught on to my brain short circuiting. “I don’t know. I think just being able to go out and do things without worrying about getting sick