ROMANCE: Military Control: A Dark Military Suspense Romance (2 page)

A few minutes later, Kat found herself snacking on popcorn while watching a romantic movie when suddenly, she heard keys at her front door. She immediately grabbed the signed baseball bat by the T.V. stand. Her landlord said that she would be overseas in Korea and that she wouldn’t be back for several weeks. Kat ran toward the front hallway, closed her eyes, and started swinging wildly.

“Why are you in my house?”

Kat stopped swinging the bat and opened her eyes. Her breakup with Jin had apparently been messing with her head. Why was it that his voice sounded so sexy to her? Deep, firm, and crisp like a radio DJ. She stared at the guy standing in front of her. Since she was a lead singer in a band that played nightly at clubs, she had seen her share of good looking guys, but this guy he really was gorgeous. He looked like an anime character, complete with wide slant amber eyes, and dark shaggy black hair.

“Squatting is against the law and even worse - you've treated my house like a landmine.”

              Kat looked around at the weeks clothes she discarded on the floor the second she got home and plopped down in front of the T.V.

“I’m not squatting.” Kat folded her arms across her chest. Why did this guy come here? Didn’t Ms. Park say she'd only rent the place to her? She had fallen behind rent recently, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t quickly add a shift at Eros to make more money.

“Then do you know me?”

Kat recovered from her thoughts, looked carefully at the guy, then snapped her fingers. “It’s you!” She recognized his faded rolled up jeans and the tattoo sleeve - it was the guy who saved her. Just as she thought before, he really was good looking and not even dim streetlights could hide it. He looked less like an angel now, though, but his face was still sweet and boyish. His eyes were the problem because they were definitely the kind that spelled trouble. Any girl would be mesmerized by them, and would be able to tell he was a bad boy disguised as an angel.

“Get out.” He replied and gently started pushing her toward the front door.

Kat shook herself free. “Really— ”

“I’m not in the mood to be bothered with you so leave.” The guy said, squeezed his eyes shut, and quickly grabbed hold of the wall.

Kat looked down at the bandage on his hand and the bag in his hand that said Pharmacy.

“I’m renting this place from Ms. Amanda Park.”

“Strange since this is my house.”

“I didn't know that and if you have a problem—” Kat stopped speaking when he put his hand up and moved away from the wall. Slowly he walked over to the phone on the table in the hallway that separated the living room from the front entrance.

“Ma! Why did you rent out my house without my permission? What if I brought home a girlfriend and she misunderstood the situation.”

Ma? Kat sunk down into the barstool off to the side. What would she do if he actually did force her to leave? Since it wasn’t really his mother’s house, she could be thrown out.

Kat heard a loud thud, jumped from the barstool and saw that the guy was on the ground for a split second. Kat thought to call the ambulance, but she wasn’t sure if he'd ask her to pay for the bill. Fainting wasn’t really something to call the ambulance over was it? She quickly grabbed his arms, and with every strength in her petite body she dragged him to the living room. She wasn’t sure she could get him up on the couch.

Lifting up his legs she placed the sofa cushions under them and his head. Kat touched his forehead and it seemed like he had a slight fever. In romantic comedies, the heroine always nursed the guy back to good health. She'd take it as her chance to star in her own production. It wouldn’t be so bad to comfort this guy, aside from his sharp tone he didn’t seem so bad.

**********

Brett sat up and looked around. He thought to himself when did I get back from the hospital? He'd forgotten about his encounter with the girl he'd saved earlier that night. She really didn’t have any respect for his house, and he wondered why were the cushions for his couch on the floor?

Why did his mother always do such useless things? Renting the place out to single girls was just another way for her to play matchmaker, just in case he came back from the military. He wasn’t the type to be tied down and now he had these troubling flashbacks to war. He was prescribed sleeping pills, but he didn't always take them.

However tonight he would take his pills, eat a nice sandwich and hopefully get a good night's rest. Brett pushed himself up and walked toward the kitchen for some breakfast.

Just a few minutes later, he was lying on the floor staring at the ceiling fan in the hallway, with blood dripping from his nose. Brett held his nose and looked up at the squatter girl in his house.

“Did you hit me?” Brett asked.

“I didn’t mean to I am so sorry.” She replied and held her hands over her mouth.

“How can there be someone like you?” The second he got his senses back he was going to call his mother. Why this girl? If she really wanted him to settle down she should have rented it to someone with common sense. Who in their right mind would swing open kitchen doors that roughly?

“I really am very sorry, I didn’t know it was you.”

“Who else would it be? This is my house.”

“I’m used to living alone. And since it's your house, shouldn’t you know the kitchen has a door that swings out? I have been here for a year with no sign of you.”

              How could there be no sign of him? Everything in the house he carefully picked out from the time his father presented it to him at eighteen until he left for the military at twenty one. Not an article of furniture was changed - his mother left it exactly as he had five years ago. The lazy worn in brown chair that now had popcorn all over it was his first purchase. The black and white photos he'd taken of models dressed like Hollywood starlets during his time in college were still hung up on his black wall, and his collection of signed baseballs were still proudly displayed on his white bookcases.

“Whether you knew it was mine or not, it didn’t belong to you. How could you treat it this way?”

How could a girl be so messy? He'd lived in unbearable conditions, weathered through heavy rainstorms, but never in his twenty-six years of life had he ever met someone who just irked him this much.

“I’ll go get you some ice.” She said and left the living room.

Brett got up from the floor, held his head back and moved to the couch in the living room. He first had to put back the cushions that were on the ground and sat down. 

“I am so sorry.”

“What good is sorry, look at my place!”

              Wei Chang Park, his father, never spoke or saw him. The one thing he did was offer him money and everything he ever wanted. It was silly, but Brett treasured his house and saw it as a representation of his father's love.

“Okay, I know your mom shouldn’t have rented this place to me, but she did. I signed a contact so technically this is my place and I can do whatever I want in it.” The squatter girl said and put an ice pack on his head.

“Wrong. My name is on the deed, which makes it fraud. You two could go to jail.”

She stared at him wide-eyed. It was the same look he'd seen when he saw her earlier. He couldn’t place it, though, and he didn’t know her well enough. Brett flinched when she pressed the ice pack more firmly against his head. Anger. The look was probably anger.

Childish pj's and retainer aside, he actually found her cute. She had an air of coolness with her mop of blonde hair. She reminded him of early eighties rock band lead singers. Her mouth was set in a firm line and she stared at him, still holding the ice pack on his head.

“Are you going to keep staring at me?” Brett asked.

“Was I staring? Sorry, are you okay…..”

“My name is Brett Park. No, someone knocked me in the face with a door and I fell on the hardwood floor.”

“Well Mr. Park you don’t have to be so direct. I've already said sorry. You have the same name as my pen pal.”

“Is he in jail?” Brett laughed when she scrunched up her face and shook her head no. She flipped the ice pack and got a faraway look.

Brett wouldn’t be surprised at all if some of her past lovers were in jail or had spent time in jail without her prior knowledge. The guy she was with before looked like a lowlife. Even if she was his girlfriend, if she changed her mind about fooling around then, she changed her mind.

“The guy you hopefully beat sense into is living proof that I've dated way too many jerks." She said, more to herself than him. "By the way I’m not a stripper.”

“Oh.” Brett said. He couldn’t muster up anything else. What was he supposed to say congrats I was wrong?

              “Not all guys are like Jin though. The guy I’m currently pen pals with though is nice - he's in the military.”

Brett held his head to the side and tried to think. There were probably thousands of Brett Park’s in the military.

“Does he sign his name Brett J. Park.”

“Yeah how did you—”

              “Kat?”

Kat nodded her head.

So this was Kat. She looked nothing like what he imagined. From the way she wrote, he thought she'd be less attractive. What kind of beautiful girl wrote things like, another failed pickup line by yours truly.

“You’re a lot better looking than I thought you'd be.”

“So you thought I was ugly?”

It wasn’t that he thought she was ugly. He knew she was somewhat attractive from her letters about this or that boyfriend and hook-ups. He just thought she’d look different like the average looking feminist with a high sensual appetite. Instead, she was a petite blonde with wide doe eyed brown eyes, bridge nose, small face and bright full pink lips. Not once did he think he'd be attracted to his pen pal. In his head, the girl who wrote him was attractive and he liked her, but he wasn’t attracted to her.

“You never wanted to send a picture.”

“Neither did you.”

As shallow as it seemed, Brett didn’t want to send a picture to a girl he liked as a friend and had no interest in. He knew he was good looking and he knew this ever since he was a kid and received love letters at his desk from secret admirers. “It’s a little hard to take pictures in the middle of a war.”

“You must be tired. I’ll let you rest.” Kat said, handed him the ice pack along with a kiss on the top of his head.

Brett watched her hurry upstairs. Now that he knew this girl was Kat, he didn’t want to kick out his friend. She'd actually kissed him on the head. He could still smell French Vanilla in the air even though Kat was gone. French Vanilla was Brett's last thought before he drifted off to sleep.

**********

As soon as Kat kissed Brett, she hurried back to her room as fast as possible. She even tripped on one of the top stairs in her rush to reach the second floor. She hoped Brett didn’t see it though because she'd had enough embarrassment for one night. 

Kat leaned against the door and held her heart. Why did the military guy have to be him? She had a massive crush on her mysterious military man ever since she started writing him four years ago. His words were always filled with encouragement and made her forget about every rotten jerk who mistreated her. And because of him, she had the courage to not stay stuck in a poor relationship. Just like his letters said, don’t bother with stupidity, move on and don't waste your time. 

Only she could make this kind of a first impression. She wanted to finally meet the military man on stage under the spotlight. How was he ever going to see her as a sexy if he thought of her as the nerdy girl who trashed his place?

She felt so bad for Brett. There he was on the way to his own kitchen, just trying to get some food and then she came along and knocked him out. Now he had a black eye she hoped he wouldn't mad in the morning when he would see it. He wouldn’t directly say he was angry, but knowing him, he would be. 

Ow. Kat rubbed her hands on her stomach, realizing that she never got any food. She couldn’t go back downstairs because Brett would be down there and she didn't want to face more embarrassment tonight. Or was he down there?

Maybe he went to his room unless she was in his room and the room next to hers was the guest room. Ms. Park never said anything about what rooms she could and couldn’t use. She only asked if she could afford to pay eight hundred a month and for her astrology sign.

Kat shook her head, realizing that she should have known rent was too cheap for such a nice place.

She quietly and slowly opened the bedroom door, walked to the stairs, and looked down to try to see if she could still see Brett. She craned her neck to be able to see better, but she went a little too far.

Suddenly she was tumbling and rolling down all the stairs, landing with a loud thud on her butt at the bottom.

When she landed at the bottom of the stairs, Brett jolted up to see what happened. The panicked look on his face wore off the minute he glanced over at her. He was probably reminded of the war and Kat felt terrible for waking him up in such a manner. In his last letter, he mentioned that he was being discharged after being shot near his heart and now he couldn’t sleep.

“Are you okay?” Brett asked looking at her curiously. He didn’t seem to know how she ended up on the floor. He looked so cute just lying there with his hair all messed up and his black eye.

“Yeah, Yeah I’m fine I uh I… I’m fine how about you?” Kat asked.

“I’ll live. What are you doing down there?”

“Oh um I…I fell down the stairs.” Kat replied and turned as red as the nail polish on her feet.

“Oh, are you sure you’re okay?” He asked getting a worried expression on his face and starting to get up off the couch so he can come check on her.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine I tripped on my Pajama bottoms when I was coming to check on you.” Kat lied and got up.

Just then her stomach made such a loud growl, all of Northern California may have heard it.

“Sounds like you’re famished, let's get some grub I’m a bit hungry myself. I never did get anything to eat.” He said with a little smirk.

Kat looked down at the ground.

“I really am sorry. Have you seen your eye?”

“No, but it wouldn’t be the first time I got knocked out and ended up with a black eye. Believe me, I’ve gotten plenty of beatings - these things happen while you're relaxing at bars. Soldiers are unpredictable.”

“Are you going to say you got it from a bar fight?”

“If someone asks that's the way I'm remembering it.” Brett said, winked at her with his good eye, and put out his arm for her so they could walk to the kitchen together.

Kat smiled and took his arm.

“That’s the way it happened.”

**********