Page 89 of Angels & Whiskey

“So I’m not sure how much you know about the army or military for that matter.”

She shook her head. “Rich barely told me anything about the army other than he was a major.”

“Figures,” Jackson mumbled.

“I’ll try to tell you this in a way you’ll understand. Major Dick moved up in the ranks quickly because to his commanding officers, he was always respectful to them. He manipulated everyone and people loved him.”

“Like he did to me and my family and friends,” she sighed.

“Sounds like it. And to the soldiers under him—”

“He was a dick,” Jackson chimed in.

“But that doesn’t mean you hate the guy so much you want to kick his ass,” Autumn said, cutting another piece of her pancake with her fork.

“Right,” I agreed. “Like I was saying …” I glared at Jackson, silently telling him to let me tell the story. “Before we were deployed to Afghanistan, we were stationed together. Our whole crew. Me, him, Jackson and everyone else.” I left out Cochran, not wanting to talk about her just yet. At the time my story took place, Alyssa and I hadn’t started dating yet. We were only training together as a crew. “On Fridays we had what we called a safety breach during final formation. Major Dick would give his speech saying don’t do this and don’t do that over the weekend. There were also places where we weren’t allowed to attend and they were on what was called a blacklist—”

“Why?” Autumn asked.

“In Afghanistan, they were places that could potentially have enemies lurking around. At Fort Hood, they were mainly places soldiers could get into trouble.”

“Like?” she asked, leaning back in her chair.

“Like strip clubs.” I smirked.

She smiled and nodded. “Right.”

Jackson cut his eyes to me and I continued. “So on this one Friday, Major Dick said to not go to this particular strip club in the area. I can’t remember the name.”

“Sweet Tarts,” Jackson recalled.

“Yeah.” I laughed. “That was what it was called. Anyway, we weren’t supposed to go there because it was on the blacklist, but it was the only one in the area and we were a bunch of soldiers who had already been to war a few times and didn’t think some random ass strip club would be a problem. I mean, we wanted to see tits and ass like most guys.” I chuckled.

Autumn shook her head and laughed. “So you guys went?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “We went and watched a few strippers do their thing while we drank our first drink and then this guy,” I pointed to Jackson, “wanted to get a lap dance—”

“Oh, shut up. You wanted one too, asshole.”

I laughed. “All right, fine. We all wanted a lap dance. So we go to the semi-private room where they do them and when we walked in, guess who we all saw getting one?”

“Rich,” Autumn whispered.

“Yep. Major Dick, getting his very own lap dance,” I confirmed.

“So he’s a dick because he went to a place he told you all not go to?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No. We all backed out of the room, but he saw us anyway. Seeing as though he saw us, we figured we should enjoy the time before we got into trouble. So we watched more of the pole dancing while Major Dick stayed in the room and got his dance. Afterward, he left, not saying a word. We thought he didn’t say anything because he could get into trouble too.

“Thinking we were in the clear, we all got lap dances and then decided to call it a night. When we walked out into the parking lot, Major Dick was standing by our car. We walked closer and then he let us have it. He started going on and on about how he was driving by and saw our car in the parking lot and he couldn’t wait to tell his commanding officer.”

“He said he wasn’t there?” she asked.

Jackson snorted. “Asshole denied it and said no one would believe anyone but him because he was a higher rank.”

“It was his word against ours,” I continued.

“So what happened? Did you get into trouble?”