15

Ghosted.

Chase had been ghosted.

He’d heard of it. He’d just never done it or had it done to him.

Vivien Brooks was MIA.

Her training had ended and now they all had two weeks of leave time before they returned for final EOD specialization certification testing.

Apparently she’d decided to spend her final few weeks completely ignoring him. Chase had texted, called, and gone by her place. But each and every attempt at contact received no answer.

A large part of him was pissed. If she was over it, she could’ve told him to his face. He’d happily have taken a “it’s been real and it’s been fun, but it ain’t been real fun so we’re done here,” over her just up and vanishing into thin air. Well maybe not happily, but he would’ve sucked it up and swallowed his damaged pride. But this . . . this fucking sucked.

The part of him that wasn’t pissed was outright worried. Night after night he lay in bed wondering if it was possible that something bad had happened to her. Could she have been hurt? Some of the guys in her infantry didn’t love how outspoken and intelligent she was. And she’d already tried to transfer out once. He knew it was possible someone was bullying her. Possible but not likely.

No, it was much more likely that she’d gotten spooked the night she’d almost busted them by walking in and saying something dirty in front of his CO.

As scary as that was, it was a fleeting fear as far as Chase was concerned. Like when you almost stepped off a ledge but caught yourself just in time. His heart had maybe skipped a few beats when he’d tried to convey telepathically to Viv not to say anything inappropriate because he had high-ranking company. But she handled herself just fine and it was over. He’d expected to be laughing about it in bed with her later that night.

But there had been no such event. She’d never responded when he’d asked if he could come by, so he hadn’t. But when she hadn’t responded to his calls or messages the following days about seeing her, he’d gotten the hint. Or what he at least thought was the hint.

That was the problem with being ghosted. You came up with a million possibilities for what was really going on, yet never got any concrete answers.

Once again, Chase felt like a chick, speculating on whether or not Vivien had lost her phone or been apprehended by a weirdo or abducted by aliens when in reality she was obviously just avoiding the hell out of him.

If he weren’t her CO, he would’ve parked himself outside her place and demanded an explanation. But since he couldn’t do that, all he could do was stare at his phone waiting for messages that never came.

***

“You’re in a lovely mood,” Luke pointed out when Chase growled at him for changing the television from ESPN to CNN. “You and Red having issues?”

Chase leveled him with a warning glare.

Luke raised his hands. “Thought things were going better, is all. My bad, man.”

Aiden stepped into the living room with his rucksack. “You ready, Foster?”

Luke nodded and stood. The two of them were going camping with a few other guys for the weekend near a lake they often fished at. “Be right there.”

Aiden glanced at Chase. “Sure you don’t want to come? Might be good to clear your head or whatever.”

Chase shook his head and grabbed the remote, flipping the channel back to mindless scores he didn’t truly care about.

Once they were gone, he was thankful to be alone.

He needed the quiet to think.

Well, to drink and think.

He opened a bottle of bourbon he’d been saving for a special occasion. By the time the sun had set, he’d put a sizable dent in the thing.

The cable box had shut off on its own because he hadn’t changed the channel in four hours.

It had grown dark outside and he hadn’t turned on any lights.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there drinking alone in the dark, but Mother Nature was calling.

Chase stood to head to the john to take a piss and wavered on his legs for a moment.

Righting himself, he made his way to the bathroom and relieved his alcohol-filled bladder. While washing his hands, he made the mistake of looking up into the mirror above the sink.

His father stood there glaring at him.

Don’t be such a pussy, Chase.

Can’t go cry to Mommy this time.

He stepped back to avoid the head slap or gut punch that was likely to follow before he realized it wasn’t his father’s reflection staring back at him. It was his.

He splashed his face with cold water and rubbed the hand towel over it.

She’d done this to him. Given him a taste, gotten him addicted to her flavor, and then just up and disappeared.

Who did that?

Seriously?

The part of him that had been concerned for her well-being was too wasted to care anymore.

Now he was just good and pissed.