Variation on a Theme, Book 6
Copyright© 2024 by Grey Wolf
Chapter 137: Pre-Finals Relaxation
Saturday, May 10, 1986
Amy joined the six of us for breakfast and also joined in the usual morning banter. She was still ‘different,’ but everyone knew who she was now, and she fit in. Cammie and Mel made a point of again mentioning how much they were looking forward to having her around over the summer. It was a big house and I’m sure it felt fairly empty with just two people. Or even with four, since two of them lived in the basement apartment and often didn’t share meals with us. Three upstairs, plus two cats, would definitely change things.
As of now, it felt like Jas, Angie, Paige, and I would be up in College Station more often. The Nguyen trip wasn’t going to be a month-long thing like England had been, and we didn’t have big plans for the other weeks, either.
We couldn’t reasonably take summer school classes this year (nor next year, for that matter), but we might hang out in College Station more than we had before. If we stayed in Houston, Mom, Dad, and ‘the in-laws’ would eventually get tired of us. We never wanted to reach the point where that actually happened.
After breakfast, Amy helped us get ready for the party. We’d done our best to time it so everyone would be here and studying for a while before the party, which meant we had to be party-ready before people started arriving.
Once we were, Amy grabbed her books and started studying, while the rest of us found places to meet with our study buddies. She didn’t have a study group, but she’d brought her books and didn’t feel like it made sense to go back to the dorm just to come back tonight.
The rest of us did have study groups. Since it was a pretty spring day, the Journalism Junta took over the backyard, while the rest of us spread out inside.
The Business Brigade was meeting both days this weekend. They pretty much had to, given how many business classes most of us had. Mel’s Engineering Ensemble was also meeting on both days, as was the Junta. The Math Mercenaries were only meeting one day, though.
We shifted from studying to partying around six. As with the December party (and unlike the allegations about the December party!), this wasn’t a wild party by any stretch of the imagination. We again refused to serve alcohol (though BYOB was just fine), but provided plenty of food, both snacks and more substantial fare (burgers and hot dogs, for the most part).
Despite a lot of teasing about the police, some of which seemed rather nostalgic for Friday the 13th drama, everything was completely quiet on that front. We had heard nothing out of the College Station Police Department since the settlement offer. Nothing from the city, as well. The agreement was holding just fine.
No graffiti, either. I imagined that was over and done with, but we had left the camera setup in place just in case. We had just switched to a cheaper, less capable camera — one that would be ‘good enough’ but not much better than that. The alarm and lights might be enough deterrent by themselves if anyone triggered them.
We had never heard a name for the graffiti artist, but we also had no particular interest in knowing it. There were probably also solid legal reasons for us not to know, given that the culprit was a minor. In any case, everyone doubted he would be back. Far too much risk of trouble if he were caught in the act. That probably also applied to his friends. If anything were traced back to him, I imagined it wouldn’t go well.
As with everything else, the clock was running. Odds were that we were about as vulnerable now as we were ever going to be. Less of a target, too, but we’d been a target even so. With money came risk, but it also bought security and seclusion, something we would probably need, whether we wanted it or not.
Honestly, we were very lucky. The biggest running clock right now was the Dell IPO, and that would probably sync up well with graduation. I hated to think of how college might have gone if the IPO had been in my sophomore or junior years. Earlier, and I might simply have always have been viewed as a really unusual rich-guy student. But having to go from being a mostly anonymous guy in a sea of fairly similar students to being outed as a board member of a public corporation early on would have been weird all around.
I wasn’t at all sure ‘rich Steve’ could have dated either Darla or Amy, either. Would Amy have accepted that a guy who was not only handsome and well-spoken, but also rich, was really interested in her? Would Darla have treated me like ‘Steve, her friend from debate,’ or would it have changed everything? And would we have been constantly fending off people wanting gossip photos? Favors? Money? Or intending harm to us?
I was pretty sure both of them would be fine with it now. They knew who I was. It might get in the way of future relationships, but I likely had a year to a year and a half before that clock was ticking so loudly it started drowning out my formerly normal life.
Hank came over to me around eight-thirty and said, “Got a minute?”
“Sure!” I said.
We headed off to my bedroom. I figured this needed privacy.
Once we were alone, he said, “Darla and I have been talking. A lot, really.”
“Hopefully, that’s a good thing,” I said, chuckling.
He laughed.
“It’s a very good thing! I really like her. Talking ... it’s good. Meaning, I think it’s doing us more good than anything more would be, right now. You know why.”
“I do indeed.”
“So... if I understand things right, and I’m pretty sure I do, you would have to step back if Darla and I started actually dating.”
“Pretty much, under the default rules about dating relationships,” I said.
“That’s where I was going with this. If we both say it’s fine for you to not step back...”
“Then I don’t have to unless I think I have to. Which ... well, so far, I don’t think that. Yet.”
“From my perspective, you don’t need to,” he said. “I want to make that clear. That’ll change as our dating changes, but ... well. We’ll be physically apart for most of the summer. I plan to get up to Houston a time or two, and she might come visit me, too. Maybe, anyway. That might well just be for dinner and a movie and...”
After a second, he waved his hand.
“The thing is, sometimes dates surprise you, and I don’t want there to be this thing where a spur-of-the-moment decision makes a big difference. I think she needs you in her life until the fall, honestly. Once we’re both back here, it’s probably different, assuming things go the way we both hope they do. But, until then...”
“Got it,” I said. “We’re good. And that doesn’t change if a date surprises everyone, unless it also changes her mind, or yours, about how open you are to my staying in the picture.”
“Makes sense! This is weird to talk about, you know,” he said, chuckling.
“It is. I’m the one with the relationship that makes it possible, but this is ... mostly a first. Stepping back has just been the plan. We’re getting a bit more nuanced here.”
He chuckled a bit more.
“The Uniform Code of Military Justice has things to say about ‘nuance.’ But ... like I said before, they really only want to bust people if it’s a discipline issue. It’s just ... well, it’s not like there aren’t officers who are swingers or whatever. Keep it quiet and all’s well. But, if it’s not quiet, they have a really big hammer to either scare you with or hit you with, as needed.”
“The UCMJ isn’t exactly friendly to open relationships,” I said.
“Adultery is a pretty serious charge,” he said, nodding. “But that’s if they go after you. Which, again ... it’s not like they have the adultery police out looking. It’s much more ... if there’s a discipline issue, you’re in big trouble.”
“Just to say it again — I hope this goes really well. I like you, and I care deeply about Darla. I’ll be the first in line to offer congratulations and best wishes if things go the way we’re hoping. Darla will always be compromising on what she wants as long as she’s with me, and that’s no way to live your life if you don’t have to.”
“Which would strike me as odd coming from most people, but ... well, it’s still odd. It’s just a really good sort of odd,” he said, smiling. “And ... if you two hadn’t dated, I’m probably never in the picture at all. Which is ... also odd.”
“My life is full of that,” I said, chuckling. “If Angie hadn’t suggested I date Jasmine, the odds are really high that she would never have wound up with Paige. There’s a whole cascade of other things that don’t happen without Jas and me dating, either. I likely have a very different group of friends. Darla is one of the people I might barely know, without that nudge to date Jasmine.”
“Kinda ... mine’s not that complicated, but I had thought of going to the Air Force Academy or even straight into the service. Do either of those, and none of this happens for me. Maybe the other stuff’s good, but...”
“But you’re happy with the path you’re on.”
“Even leaving Darla out of it, I love the path I’m on!” he said.
“Life is full of that sort of stuff. I can go on, and on, but I think the big thing is ... it seldom makes sense to regret even the small stuff, because you never know if what seems like a little thing might not have changed something big.”
“Yeah,” he said. “And, heck. I want a career in intelligence. That’s often about how the little things can mean a lot more than they appear to at first.”
“Definitely!”
We shook and headed back to the party. I was glad for the positive news. Hank seemed like a good guy, and I thought there was a real chance for things to work for him and Darla.
Completely unsurprisingly, Darla pulled me aside less than ten minutes after Hank and I wrapped up. Back into the bedroom we went.
“Hank caught me up,” she said, grinning. “Just for the record, it’s the same. Officially. We’re good with dating, for now, even if he manages a sneak attack and overwhelms my defenses. Which, honestly, is possible.”
I chuckled.
“Probably not a sneak attack, if you’re considering it this far out.”
“The Wolf worked hard to get some milk from the proverbial cow! I’m not going to just give Hank free samples,” she said, grinning. “That said ... if he’s a wolf himself — and signs are that he can be — he’ll figure that out and know how to charm the pants off of me. Or demand them off. Either way! Especially since that’s what I want him doing, sooner or later. And I don’t want that to mean something for you and me. We get to decide when we’re done, pretty much. I hope it’s maybe the end of the summer, or so, but that’s presuming he’s Mister Right. I can hope, but I can’t really presume that. We’re still figuring each other out.”
“As you should be,” I said, nodding. “I want it to work, because — like I said to him — you’ll be compromising what you really want, and deserve, as long as you’re with me.”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.