Worth Saving(7)

“Umm, yeah,” Lieutenant Colonel Curry says softly, trying to make me feel like he actually cares. He places his boney hand on my shoulder and gives it a slight squeeze. “For those of you who didn’t know, Captain Sloan lost his copilot on his last rescue mission of the tour. The guy who was supposed to replace him, First Lieutenant Blake Weston, was shot and killed as he stood in the doorway of the rescue chopper. Captain Sloan saw something that the rest of us are very lucky to have never seen. We didn’t known Lieutenant Weston, but he was an Airman just like the rest of us, and we appreciate his service and his sacrifice. To First Lieutenant Weston.”

I don’t watch, but I hear the glasses being tapped together and then on the table again. The whole thing just seems wrong to me, but the last thing I want to do is bring the rest of the guys down. They’re happy to be home, and I don’t want to ruin that for them. So, once they’re all engaged in conversation again, I stand up and tap Colonel Curry on the shoulder as I walk away from the table.

“I’ll be back. I’m gonna go get another drink from the bar,” I tell him in his ear, and then I walk away, but I can still feel his eyes on me as the distance between us grows, and even as I take my seat on the round stool at the bar.

“Vodka and Red Bull, please,” I say to the bartender who looks way too young to be serving adults liquor in here. He brings the drink to me and sets it down, then wipes his blonde hair out from over his eye.

“Eight-fifty,” he says, his voice much deeper than I thought it was going to be.

I hand him ten dollars and tell him to keep the change—always tip your bartender if you want to keep getting drinks in a timely manner—then I take my first swig. It’s like heaven in a glass, I swear. That’s exactly what I need. Vodka to put me at ease and hopefully take away some of this stress I’m feeling, and then Red Bull to perk me up—give me the energy I’ll need to get through this night with the five other officers here with me. This night is going to be loud, and I need to be able to take it.

I take another sip just as the image of Lieutenant Weston flashes through my head again, and by the time I’m done sipping, the drink is completely gone. A quick eight-fifty—technically ten dollars—to push the thoughts away. I’ll need a few if I plan on keeping the thoughts away, so I signal to the blonde teenage-looking guy that I want another, and this time I tell him to open a tab for me so I don’t have to pay and tip on every single drink.

My second drink makes its way in front of me, and as I go to get a swig of it, someone tries to sit down next to me and bumps my arm. Some of my heaven in a glass spills into my lap and I jump up like it’s hot coffee.

“Shit,” I say, realizing I may have been overreacting, then I sit back down. The woman who bumped me doesn’t even begin to look in my direction or look to apologize as I use one of the little square napkins to wipe the heaven off my crotch. As I’m wiping, the noise of the napkin rubbing against my pants draws the woman’s attention. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her look at me, but then she faces the bar again without saying anything.

“Don’t worry about it,” I hear myself say, a little annoyed at her impoliteness.

She turns to look at me again, and this time we make eye contact, and I suddenly don’t feel so annoyed anymore.

“Excuse me?” she says, her voice low and indifferent, but somehow sexy.

She looks at me, and it’s like I’m frozen. Her beautiful brown eyes grab ahold of me and turn me into stone like Medusa, except with much more beauty and a lot less snaky hair. Her skin has a golden tint to it, darker than white, but not so dark that I can figure out what her race is, and her wavy brown hair falls perfectly all the way down to the middle of the back of the dark gray sweater she has on, which hugs her body tightly like they’re at a family reunion. I’m stuck. I’m staring—and now I’m embarrassed.

“What did you say?” she asks again, and her forehead gets little wrinkles in it like I’m the one annoying her now, which is what snaps me out of the embarrassing trance.

“Umm, sorry. I said, uh, don’t worry about it.” The words king of tumble out of my mouth like I never had any control over them, so I try to play it off by continuing to wipe off my crotch, even though I’m sure I’ve gotten as much of the drink up as I can.

“Don’t worry about what?” the woman asks as the bartender sets a drink in front of her. Long island iced tea, maybe?

“Umm, the drink. Don’t worry about the drink,” I say again.

She squints those dazzling brown eyes at me like I just disrespected her mother.

“I don’t need you to pay for my drink,” she snips, then turns her head and faces forward, cutting off all communication.

Now I feel little lines in my own forehead.

“I’m sorry, I, uhh,” I try to explain, but she quickly turns and cuts me off.

“Look, I’m really not in the mood. I said you weren’t paying for my drink. I don’t know why men seem to think that all they have to do is just swoop in with their wallets and credit cards and bar tabs, and say ‘put that on me’ to the bartender, and that’s all it takes to get a woman to go home with them. You guys seem to think things like hello and how are you doing today? are phrases that are worthless and somehow make a man less of a man, when it actually does the opposite. You think swooping in with your money makes us think of you as our saviors and our protectors, when all it really does is make us feel like you’re trying to buy your way into our lives—like you’re trying to buy us—and that’s the last f*cking feeling I want to have. I’m so sick of it. So, like I said before, I don’t need you to pay for my drink.”