Going Overboard

by L. A. Witt

  “That’s not my problem, MA1,” he growled.

  “No, but . . .” Panic fluttered in my chest. I thought fast, grasping for any solution I could find. “Look, we don’t want any fraternization or conflict of interest. Can’t we be assigned to separate sections? Different shifts?”

  The chief’s lips quirked like he was really considering it. Then he shook his head once. “No.”

  “No?”

  “Did I stutter?”

  My stomach was doing somersaults and my heart . . . fuck, my heart had stopped. “Chief, I—”

  “You’re the new LPO of the Harbor Patrol Unit,” he said coldly. “Separating the two of you means he’s moving, not you, and if he moves, it’ll be behind a desk back at the security office.”

  “That’ll kill his chances of getting promoted.”

  Lasby nodded without even flinching. “Yes, MA1. It will. And if that doesn’t, going to Captain’s Mast again will.”

  My stomach roiled. Everything he was saying was wrong, but it was also probably true. Lasby had the power to move us or not. He had the power to keep Dalton working for me just like he had the power to send him to one of those office jobs where careers went to die.

  “Your boy’s already got a trip to Mast on his record,” Lasby went on. “You really want him to go explain to the CO how he’s involved with his supervisor when he’s already lost rank for insubordination? He doesn’t need this. Not if he’s going to make MA1 and stay in the Navy long enough to retire.”

  As the not-so-veiled threat sank in, I stared. I’d believed Dalton when he’d told me about Lasby’s threats, and I’d been there for the tirade about the relationship that hadn’t existed at the time, but it was still a shock to hear Lasby all but say it out loud. To realize he didn’t even have to say it—Do what I tell you, or I will make sure Dalton is fucked.

  “You know the rules, MA1.” He spat out my rank as if it tasted like bilge water. “Dating a subordinate is fraternization, and the Navy has quite a few regs against that.”

  “I’m aware of that, Chief.” I tried to use an MA1 voice, but damn if the habit of being a lowly MA2 didn’t die hard. “But we were already dating when I got promoted. That’s why we’re asking to work opposite shifts, or—”

  “I can’t spare a Level II coxswain,” he snapped. “I need Taylor in this section.”

  “Understood, Chief. Then can I be transferred to—”

  “I’m not rearranging Harbor to accommodate you and MA2 Taylor. You know the regs, and you know your options.” He gestured at my lapel. “If you’d like to hang on to that new chevron, I would suggest you unfuck your situation.”

  “Chief, we’re—”

  “Dismissed, MA1.”

  “Chief—”

  “Dismissed.”

  I couldn’t move for a few shocked, silent seconds, but eventually I did, and I left the office. As soon as I was out in the hall, I winced—I could hear Dalton’s voice coming from nearby. He and MA3 Powers were talking about something I couldn’t understand, and every time he spoke, my heart sank a little deeper. He sounded down. His voice was loud enough that he and Powers were probably talking from across the room, but his heart wasn’t in it. Hadn’t been in much of anything since the results had come out yesterday. Oh, he’d given me an enthusiastic celebratory blowjob when we’d gotten back to my place, but he hadn’t wanted anything in return. I didn’t think he had the energy, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t slept after we’d turned off the light.

  I slipped down the hall and into the stairwell without him or Powers seeing me, and I headed outside. I had some time before I went out on watch, so I just walked up and down the pier, trying to think.

  We could go to one of the other chiefs, but chiefs protected chiefs. We could request an inquiry into the investigation, but there’d already been enough threats—spoken and unspoken—against Dalton and Rhodes. Any one of those could come back and bite them in the ass.

  No matter how I sliced it, we were out of options. If one of us couldn’t go to another duty section or couldn’t get a desk job in the security office or . . . something, then we didn’t have a choice. Every way I sliced it, I was dating a direct subordinate. It didn’t matter that we’d been dating already. The Navy just didn’t care.

  The fact was, I couldn’t see any way to end this without ending us.

  As my heart sank deeper and deeper, I wrote Dalton a text.

  We need to talk.

  I stared at it. My throat was tight and my eyes were burning. No, I wasn’t ready for that conversation. Not now.

  Fuck. I needed to think some more. Then I’d . . . I didn’t know what I’d do.

  I was on my way out of the HPU building lot when I saw Chris. He was down by the pier, leaning on a pylon and looking out at the water. My heart gave its usual happy flutter at the sight of him, and I followed the gravel path down to where he was standing. When I was close enough, I said, “Hey.”

  As soon as the word came out, he tensed. If I wasn’t mistaken, his hackles went up.

  The fluttery feeling vanished, and ice water filled my veins. “You okay?” I approached cautiously.

  He glanced back at me. Oh, no, he was definitely not okay. I couldn’t read his mind, but the tightness of his features and the way he flinched when we made eye contact? Oh, fuck.

  I stopped beside him. “What’s going on?”

  Chris pressed his lips together. He returned to staring intently at the harbor, brow furrowed and jaw clenched. I wished like hell I could put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but that extra chevron on his collar warned me against it.

  Then my stomach turned to lead. I glanced at his three chevrons. Then at his face. “Chris, what’s going on?”

  He dropped his gaze. “We, um . . .” He chewed his lip, and I gave him time to finish the thought, but he didn’t speak, and the silence was about to drive me insane.

  “Just tell me what’s wrong.” The panic didn’t seem like it was making it into my voice, but hell if I knew how long that would last. “Talk to me.”

  He chewed his lip, avoiding my eyes.

  The panic was clawing its way deeper. I’d seen Chris nervous before, seen him struggle to say something, but not like this. I didn’t know what he was about to say, but I knew—all the way to the core—that it would be bad.

  “Whatever it is,” I said. “Just say it.”

  Get it out so I don’t have to anticipate it anymore.

  Finally, he swallowed and looked me in the eye. “I’m sorry, D. We, uh . . . we gotta stop what we’re doing.” He gestured at each of us. “This, I mean.”

  My chest suddenly felt like it was about to implode. Or was already in the process of imploding. And I’d thought the anticipation had been bad. “What?”

  He met my gaze, his features taut and his eyes full of regret. “We can’t keep seeing each other.”

  “Chris . . .” The sound of his name slipping off my own lips almost broke me. I swallowed, trying to keep myself together. “We can do this. We—”

  “We can’t.” He shook his head slowly. He wasn’t looking at me anymore.

  “You . . . want to split up?”

  “I don’t want to, no. I love you, Dalton.” He winced like his own words had smacked him as hard as they’d smacked me. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know what else to do. The regs are what they are. Lasby’s making me LPO, and he refuses to move either of us to another section. He’s got us by the balls.”

  I stared at him, struggling to comprehend what was happening. Trying to make sense of what he was saying and what he was doing, and how Chief Lasby could get away with forcing us apart. “Don’t do this. We can make—”

  “No, we can’t.” He shook his head sadly. “Anyone catches wind we’re dating now, we’re fucked.”

  “We just have to keep it on the DL. We—”

  “And what happens when someone figures it out anyway?” Chris’s voice was soft, and I thought it might be a l
ittle unsteady. “Lasby was sniffing around for it even before we really were dating. If we get caught now, what happens if we go to Mast, huh? You’ve said yourself your first time at Mast has been following you around for—”

  “That was different. I fucked up that time. I deserved it.”

  “And we’d deserve it now.”

  My lips parted, but no sound came out. Horror and panic and anger were vying for dominance, but I couldn’t sort any of it into words. I was too stunned. Too fucking devastated by what Chris was saying. By what he was doing.

  Chris sighed. “Don’t think for a second that I want this. But Lasby’s right. As long as you’re working for me, we can’t date. Shit, we can’t even hang out as friends.”

  That last part hit me harder than anything. It was true, and it was also . . . fuck. Losing my boyfriend was one thing. Not being able to spend time with my best friend? Losing Chris on all fronts? No. Fuck, no. But the regs were clear. Now that he outranked me, now that he was my boss, we couldn’t hang out. At all. Even if we weren’t dating.

  “Chris . . .”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I fucking hate this too. But I don’t know how to get around it.”

  I stared at him, unable to speak. This couldn’t be real. No way. No, no, no, no, no. Not happening.

  But it was. I could feel it in the distance that seemed to be growing between us even though neither of us was moving. He’d made up his mind, and to him, it was done. It was over. I was still reeling, but he was already gone.

  As if to emphasize that, he finally took a step back. Rubbing his neck and looking anywhere but at me, he said, “I’m gonna go. I’ll, uh, see you after I come in off the water.”

  My mouth had gone dry. My lungs weren’t working. So I didn’t say anything.

  I just stood there.

  And watched Chris walk away.

  Working with Chris after that was hell. We both kept our military bearing, and we were civil to each other, but God . . . it hurt. Every time I looked at him, my chest felt like it was going to split open. It was even worse whenever I caught him glancing at me. Halfway through our second shift together as exes, I decided this would have been a hell of a lot easier to swallow if we couldn’t stand each other. If one of us had cheated or said something that couldn’t be taken back or done something to nuke this thing and turn our friendship and relationship sour.

  Except we hadn’t. We wanted to be together. Being apart—especially when we couldn’t be apart—was killing me, and if I was reading him right, it was killing him too.

  But our shifts weren’t the worst. Neither were the nights spent alone in my own bed.

  It was our days off.

  I didn’t know what to do with myself. My best friend and my boyfriend were gone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone or go anywhere, but the walls of my barracks room were closing in and the sympathetic glances from my roommate were driving me insane.

  Thank God for Diego. Hanging out with him meant getting the hell away from the base, and if there was anyone on the planet who didn’t want to talk about the Navy’s bullshit, it was him. In fact, with pretty much anything, Diego tended to leave well enough alone. He could read me as well as Chris always had, and he usually knew when I didn’t want to talk about something.

  Today, he probably knew it, but he didn’t leave it alone this time. We’d barely settled onto his sofa, drinks in hand, before he said, “Hey, man.” His forehead creased. “What’s wrong?”

  I flinched, and it took all I had to keep my shit together. I stared down at my soda, and when I was sure my voice wouldn’t break—or at least I wouldn’t break—I told him everything that had happened recently. After it was all out, I ran a shaky hand through my hair. “It’s like the night I went off the boat, everything started coming apart. I’m a wreck as a coxswain. I blew one of my last shots at getting promoted. And now . . . Chris.”

  Diego shook his head. “That’s some bullshit. You need to go above your chief.”

  I eyed Diego. “What?”

  “Everything that’s going on? It’s seriously bullshit. Plain and simple. That chief is covering for someone who almost killed you, and his homophobic crap is keeping you from the man you love.”

  “The Navy’s doing that,” I muttered, thumbing the label on my Coke bottle. “Fucking fraternization.”

  Diego huffed, pulling his knee onto the sofa between us and facing me. “The chief doesn’t have to keep you in the same section. The only reason your relationship is a problem is because Chief put Chris in charge of you.”

  “Because Chris outranks me,” I said bitterly.

  Diego sighed, rolling his eyes. “How many duty sections are there?”

  “Four.”

  “Just in harbor, or all of security?”

  “Just harbor.”

  “See? So there’s no reason they can’t put your ass in another section so you’re not working for Chris anymore.” Inclining his head, he looked right in my eyes. “It isn’t like you started dating your supervisor. You were dating him, and then he became your supervisor. You shouldn’t have to break up just because your fucking chief won’t shuffle some shifts around. They did it all the time when I was in.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Man, you gotta do something. Especially if they haven’t even sent you for the psych eval yet.” Diego frowned hard. “What the fuck kind of chief keeps you in Harbor without waiting to see if the shrinks say you need to be off the water?”

  I flinched. The thought of being taken out of the harbor unit still made my chest hurt. Not as much as losing Chris, but enough. “The guy’s an asshole.”

  “No shit. All they gotta do is move you landside,” Diego went on. “Or just put you in a different section and under another supervisor. Then there’s no reason to fuck with you and Chris.”

  “And that’s exactly why they aren’t moving either of us,” I growled.

  He knocked his knuckle on the back of the couch. “That’s bullshit.”

  “Yeah, it is,” I snapped. “But what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

  “Grow some fucking balls and use your chain of command, Dalton,” he threw back.

  I blinked, startled.

  Expression softening, Diego took my hand and squeezed it. “I know it’s hard, and I know you’re scared of reprisal, but don’t fucking let this chief kill your relationship.”

  “He already has.” The defeat in my own voice made me cringe.

  Diego shook his head. “No, he hasn’t. Chris didn’t cut you loose because he wanted to. He did it because he was backed into a corner.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “Get rid of the corner.”

  “How?” I exhaled, shaking my head. “Chief Lasby’s got all the cards here. Everything he’s told us is fucked up, but he’s not wrong. And what good will it do to go to a chief or a senior chief?”

  Diego watched me silently for a long moment, still gripping my hand. Then he released a breath and sat back. “I don’t know. Wish I could tell you. But man, there’s gotta be a way. When the Navy fucked me over, it was my word against a damn computer’s. You’ve got a chief who isn’t even trying to be subtle about screwing you. So I guess what you gotta figure out is how to show that to someone who can do something about it.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Except even if I have bulletproof evidence, it doesn’t change the fact that the only people I think I might be able to trust are chiefs too. How do I know they won’t bury this to protect him?”

  “You don’t,” Diego said simply. “Question is—is your career and what you’ve got with Chris worth the risk? And I think we both know the answer is yes. Well, when Chris isn’t jerking you around.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “He’s not jerking me around. He’s backed into a corner as much as I am.”

  “And he’s failing you as a friend, a boyfriend, and a shipmate. He’s got the rank to do something about what’s going on, and he’s taking the easy w
ay out by dumping you. That ain’t cool.”

  “It’s not that simple. You know it’s not.”

  “No, but neither is cutting you loose. He’s a fucking idiot for that.”

  I blinked, not sure how to take that from a man who’d also cut me loose. Even if it had been more of a mutual thing with us, Diego had been the one to initiate it.

  Diego closed his eyes and let out a long, resigned breath. Neither of us said anything for a while. When he finally did, he looked at me, his expression serious and sincere. “Listen, I’ve got nothing against Chris. But I care about you, and I hate seeing you hurt because he won’t step up and be the man you deserve. Especially since it’s so fucking obvious he’s got you wrapped around his finger.”

  I straightened. “What? No, he doesn’t.”

  “Please.” Diego laughed, but there wasn’t much humor behind it. “I don’t mean you’re his doormat or something. I just . . .” He paused. “Let’s put it this way—if things could’ve been different between us, I’d have done just about anything so you’d look at me the way you’ve always looked at him.”

  My heart dropped. “Really?”

  Diego laughed and gave my arm a gentle squeeze.

  I rubbed my eyes. “I’m sorry. I . . . Shit, now I feel like kind of a dick for—”

  “Dude, no.” He shook his head. “What kind of asshole would I be if I got pissy over you being into another guy? I’m the one who called things off with us. I want you to be happy. I want us both to be happy—that’s why we broke up. So we could be happy with other people instead of making each other miserable.”

  “True. But still . . .”

  “Don’t. I’m not bitter, okay? We couldn’t have made it work. No way in hell am I doing the Navy-wife thing, you know? And I’ve got you as a friend, so I can’t complain.” He smiled sadly. “There’s a Chris out there for me too. I just gotta find him.”

  I put a hand on his forearm. “He’ll be a lucky man when you do.”

  Diego’s smile turned a bit more genuine. “Ask him how he feels about that after he’s put up with me for a few months.”