A/N: This scene would have begun after this line:

Somehow, my invitation was reinterpreted to be a group thing, which made me grumble. The guys decide to see the superhero movie I want to see and I end up sitting through a rom-com. Why did I give Steph the option? She laughs at me at the end of it.

“Enjoy it?”

---

Ram’s POV

I scrunch my nose, which makes Steph laugh harder. “You realize that movie could have been 20 minutes long if the leads had just talked to each other? Honestly?”

Steph stops and the smile falls from her face. “That the difference between movies and real life, Ram. In the movies, everything has a happy ending. In real life, it’s so much more complicated than that.”

I nod and wait. If you just wait, Steph will fill the silence.

“That’s why women love romantic comedies, Ram,” she says softly. “Because everything ends happily and tied up with a pretty bow. Man and woman get together and live happily ever after. The end.”

I snort. “Bullshit.” She looks at me. “Romantic comedies end there because no one wants to see a movie about the hard parts of being in a relationship. No one wants to see the movie about the guy who goes into the Army and comes back to find his girlfriend’s ‘moved on’ to someone else.”

I stop. Getting personal there.

“Go on,” Steph says softly. I look at her. She has as many secrets as I do, so I shrug and continue.

“I came back and she’d moved on to someone else. Not anyone I knew but someone she met in college. Then she comes back three months later. He’s a bastard and he’s cheating on her with someone else, so I’m supposed to pretend that it’s all good. That I wasn’t hurt when she just dumped me for him when I came back from Basic. But I love her so I try. We get an apartment together and we fight about everything. We’re good in the sack but we can’t agree on anything.”

Steph snorts.

“But, idiot that I am, I propose and we get married. I figure ‘disagreements’ are healthy but this is insane. I get ‘Article 15’d’ a few times because of my actions.” I look over at Steph. “Military punishment. Being late, uniform not at standard, hair not cut. It’s why I’m always 15 minutes early everywhere and I live by the standards. A few nights behind bars on base will straighten your thinking real quick. It doesn’t matter that my personal life is a shambles. My professional life better be on point.”

Steph nods, a small smile on her face.

“So I start thinking about my Army career when the rat bastard comes back and she leaves, again.”

Steph stops, eyes wide. I nod and grab her hand. We start walking hand in hand down the boardwalk.

“So I’m stuck with the apartment lease and the utility bills. Every penny I have is going to a place that I hate to stay in because everything reminds me of her but I can’t afford to move. I decide that this is it. I borrow money from my folks and I file for divorce. I tell her to come get all her stuff because I’m done. She and the rat bastard come over, they pack her stuff and leave. So, when I get called up, I call her. Tell her to transfer everything into her name and she agrees because they want a place to stay. I make sure my name is taken off everything.”

Steph nods.

“So I go into the Army full time. Next time I get some leave, I run into her. They’ve broken up. Again. Our divorce isn’t final, so she promises everything under the sun for me to just drop the motion and let’s reconcile. Surprise, surprise, but this time I’m not falling for it. I wish her well and walk away. The divorce comes through a month later.”

Steph smiles and we keep walking down the boardwalk.

“Couple months later, I get a call from my mom. She wants to talk to me. She’s my ex now, so I’m curious. I go meet her.” I smile. “This is going to sound cold, Steph, but I saw her and felt nothing. Nothing at all and at one point in my life, I would have died for this woman. We sit and I talk to her. The rat bastard married someone else. He was stringing her along while waiting for another woman to make up her mind and she realizes how stupid she was. She’s crying at the table and I still feel nothing for her, not even pity. I ask her, why didn’t she try to make it work with me and you know what she tells me?”

“You never talk.”

I stop and look at Steph, stunned. “Yeah. How did you know?”

“Because that’s the reason women run. One of them, anyway. If you don’t talk to us, if you don’t tell us what you’re thinking, we leave. We hate guessing. You never talked so she went back to the man who did talk, even if he was a bastard.”

We’ve reached the ice cream parlor and I pay for my vanilla cone and Steph’s Rocky Road. I’m thinking about how she just knew that and I feel like an idiot. I’ve probably just summed up her life with The Cop and Ranger. Shit! That’s not what I meant to do. Worse? I’m kinda The Cop. I cringe. For the first time, I feel some pity for the bastard.

I concentrate on my ice cream, trying to figure out how to salvage this when Steph asks, “And now? Are you happy?”

I consider the question. “Am I happy? I dunno. I think content would be the correct word. I loved my Army career. I got a degree and I now work for a company that I love and respect, with men I respect and admire. I enjoy my job and my life.” I bite the cone and think. “Sometimes I’m lonely. I miss having someone there with me, someone to share my day with. But do I miss her? No. I’d have to say I don’t. I’m too bitter about everything that happened. But, I also know that I was too young to be married. I had no idea of what it meant to be married, how it would affect me.

That’s why I’m careful in relationships now. I’m upfront about who I am. Most women appreciate it until the reality hits. I work for a company where I work 10-12 hour days and I love it. I can be called away at any moment to go places unknown to do things I won’t talk about when I return. My last girlfriend hated it, even though I was clear with her about it in advance.”

Steph nods. I see she’s already done with her ice cream. I start licking faster.

“Why did she hate it?”

I finish the cone before answering. “Because she didn’t trust me. She thought I was sneaking around. ‘No one works those kinds of hours’ is what she’d say all the time. Plus, Ranger needed a sniper on his last two missions, so I went. I wanted to go, to see some action again. I was gone for a month each time and even though Woody kept telling her that I was on assignment, she kept calling. That’s why I broke it off. If you can’t accept the life I lead at RangeMan, we won’t make it. I love my job. I’m not giving it up.”

“Not even for the woman you love?” Steph asks softly.

I turn and look at her, face serious. “I would hope that the woman I love would never ask me to choose. If I have to make a choice, let me decide to leave because it’s my decision, not because I was forced. If I leave RangeMan and it’s not in a pine box, it will be because RangeMan is interfering in my life, not enhancing it.”

Steph nods and tugs me onto the beach. We plop down in the sand and watch the sun descend.

“Is it really that easy, Ram? To just turn your back on her?”

I think about it before answering. “For me, it was. I was bitter and angry, but also young and immature. Now that I’m older, and hopefully wiser,” I grin, “I see that I married my high school sweetheart and we were just way too young for that kind of commitment. She wanted someone to passionately adore her and I wasn’t that man. Well, not openly. I’m not Romeo. I’m not saying I’m not romantic,” she laughs, “but this is my kind of romance.”

I lean back. The sky is pink and purple and pretty tonight.

“A quiet night out doing something we both enjoy. Holding hands, eating ice cream and watching the sun go down. You live in the Army and get deployed, under constant strain of death all the time, and you appreciate the joys of quiet solitude. The gift of just being with the person you love. Just holding hands. You don’t know when you’ll get that moment next and that’s what you think about while sitting in your bunk. Not the sex. You don’t want to wake up every man in the dorm,” she laughs, “but the smell of her hair. Her smile when you’re close by. How happy you feel when you hold her hand and how envious every other man must feel looking at me and my hot wife. It’s why we all hate Hal at the moment.”

Steph falls back laughing. “Seriously! We can all tell when Hal’s spent some time with Candy. He comes back a different man. Calmer. Relaxed. More focused on what he needs to do to get the job done. When he gets that look on his face, we know he’s thinking about her and we envy him his happiness. We want that too. I’m not looking forward to the day that he decides to take a mission.”

Steph attempts to raise an eyebrow again and I shake my head. She blows a breath and pouts. “Why?”

“Because if Hal considers her his woman, like, he’s ready to put a ring on it, then his brothers-in-arms will have to make up the slack. You are the only other woman in RangeMan. Usually, Army wives band together to help each other through a deployment. When you aren’t there for her, we’ll have to be and that’s scary.” I shiver. “I don’t understand women on a good day. Trying to help an emotional one?” I look at Steph, who’s giggling. “Sign me up for the next mission.”

Steph breaks into laughter. I smile then look at her seriously. “As a sniper, you are the silent executioner. You know, better than anyone else, how easily life can be snuffed out. It makes time with family and friends precious. You don’t want to share that with others. You get selfish, wanting all the time you can get with that person. Tanya, my ex, used to tell me that I was stifling her. I never wanted to go out to the clubs or the beach. I hated dinner at her parents. But I’ve learned to try. I’m not active military anymore, so I have to make an effort. I’ve sat through some hellacious family dinners.”

Steph smiles. “Mine?”

I snort. “Yours are in an entirely different category.” She punches my arm. “But tonight? This is a typical date night for me. Movies and ice cream. Walks on the beach.” I grin. “Umm….I’m not trying to date you though. I happen to prefer my limbs where they are.”

We look at each other and fall back laughing. Finally, Steph smiles and looks at me. “Tanya?”

“Permanent mistress. Like I said, she wants someone to passionately adore her and he does, when he’s not adoring his wife and kids.” Steph snorts and I smile. “Yeah. She gets angry that he won’t leave his wife and the last time we talked I pointed out that there was no need for him to. He had the best of all worlds, loving wife and kids at home, hot piece on the side. I got slapped for that but hell, it was true.”