Chapter 3. And so it goes….
It had progressed from bad to worse after that. McQueen had tried to apologise for whatever misdemeanour he had committed, but Dylan was too angry and hurt to listen. She felt crushed by the fact that he didn't understand why she was so angry, so it wasn't long before they were talking to each other through Cooper.
They sat in the living room drinking tea after a stonily silent lunch, during which Hawkes tried desperately to get some conversation flowing. It was a feat that defeated even his naturally cheerful temperament. The room was cosy, with pine walls and two comfortable squashy sofas. An assortment of wooden bookcases and hi-fi equipment hugged the walls, one of which was dominated by a huge open fireplace in which a log fire burned brightly, giving the room a sweet smell of pine sap.
"Cooper, will you please tell the Colonel that he will be sleeping on the sofa tonight?" she said, deliberately avoiding McQueen's eye.
"Uh, I don't know if I want to get involved in this." Cooper replied hesitantly.
McQueen just glared at her, his eyes an icy blue, angry himself. Though he still didn't really understand why she was.
"Lieutenant, please tell Dylan that I'll gladly do so. If she will tell me why." he said icily.
"Cooper, tell the Colonel that if he doesn't know, then I'm not going to tell him." She smiled sweetly at Cooper. "Please."
Cooper shrugged and turned to McQueen. " Sir, Dylan says if you don't know why, then she's not telling you"
McQueen scowled. "Lieutenant, please ask Dylan how I'm supposed to know if she won't talk to me?"
Cooper turned to Dylan, but she spoke before he could repeat McQueen's words.
"Cooper, ask the Colonel how he got to be a Colonel if he can't work out the simplest of things." she said.
McQueen had had enough. The silence all through lunch… and now this.
"Lieutenant, please tell Dylan that I'm going for a run." And so saying, he headed from the room, leaving Cooper and Dylan sitting together on the sofas.
Cooper turned to Dylan. "The Colonel says he's going for a run."
Dylan shook her head. "Well, I just hope the fresh air will blow some common courtesy into his thick skull!"
Cooper stood up and headed for the window. He stared out at the views across the mountainside, before turning and sitting on the windowsill, his face a picture of misery as he spoke.
"I know it's none of my business, but just what has the Colonel done to you? I mean, he's my CO and all, but I've never seen him talk to you like that before… like he talks to us, the 5-8, when he's real angry with us."
Dylan shifted herself, tucking her legs up under herself on the sofa. Much as she had come to like Cooper, she had recognised early on that the relationship he and McQueen had meant they came as a package, and that McQueen would always look out for him. But she wasn't sure that he would understand even half of what she needed to say.
She gently shook her head. "Oh Coop, I know I'll never come first in his life." At Hawke's querying glance, she carried on. "I know the Corps is his life, followed by you guys, but I had hoped that maybe I'd come in third place." She paused, gathering her thoughts. "It's just that, there are sometimes a girl needs to feel that she is top of the list, y' know?"
Cooper shook his head, confirming her suspicions; he had no idea what she was talking about.
She sighed. "This morning Coop, when you knocked at the bedroom door, we were… well, we were busy."
"You were doing the sex thing." Cooper acknowledged with a grin.
She stared at him, slightly taken aback, before continuing. "Yes, we were, and he should have told you to come back later, Coop. He shouldn't have told you to come in, and he certainly shouldn't have had a conversation with you. He ignored me to talk to you."
Seeing his pained expression, she carried on quickly. "I don't blame you, Coop, honest I don't. But Ty didn't consider my feelings, and that hurt me. At a moment like that, he should have been thinking about me; and the fact that he assumed he could talk to you, and then carry on where he'd left off, well… that just hurts Coop. For me to think he had so little regard for me… it hurts. It hurts real bad."
Cooper didn't know what to say. He'd had few enough dealings with women. The only ones he really knew were Shane and Vanessa, and they still confused the hell out of him.
"I don't know a lot about love and stuff, but I thought you loved the Colonel. I mean, you've sent him loads of stuff, and he's always smiling for days after the mail comes. I guess I thought that was what love did to you, it makes you smile lots. You smiled lots when we got here yesterday."
She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. "I do love him, Cooper. I know that. Hell, he knows it too. And I hope he loves me, but that's really not the point here."
"Well, Shane and Vanessa are sure he does. They say he has a goofy look after mail calls and that's a sure sign. In fact, they think he's going to…" He stopped himself from revealing what he had been sworn to secrecy not to tell.
Dylan smiled to herself. She could guess what he had been going to say. She shook her head,
"Coop, even if he did, I couldn't possibly say yes. Not after this morning. I just have to face the fact that he doesn't consider me important enough to worry about hurting my feelings. I shouldn't be surprised. I mean, after all, really, we hardly know each other. But it hurts Coop. It hurts to realise that he doesn't even know what he did wrong, and that's why I'm angry. Because he's too damn dense to realise why I'm upset."
She stood up. "Well, I have things to do I'm afraid. Will you be okay looking out for yourself this afternoon? And when that damn fool CO of yours comes back, tell him………………oh, I don't know, tell him whatever you like."
She strode purposely out of the room, stopping in the doorway to say,
"Dinner at 7?"
Cooper nodded. He was as confused as he had ever been, and was tempted to go looking for McQueen to get him to explain what was going on, but he knew it would be pointless. McQueen would never talk about such personal stuff with him. All he'd get would be that icy blue glare warning him off. Instead, he folded his long frame into the sofa and went off to sleep in front of the fire.
When he woke it was dark outside. Someone, Dylan, he presumed, had been in and turned on the lamps. He could hear raised voices coming down the hall from the kitchen, along with wafts of something that smelled delicious and he fervently hoped was dinner. Well, at least they're speaking to each other, he thought, even if they are shouting. As he strained to hear, he realised it wasn't his CO he could hear arguing with Dylan. It sounded like a woman.
Next : Chapter Four
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