The stars shimmered above the desert as Captain Lucas Foster finished his nightly patrol. He was an imposing figure—tall, muscular, with a sharp gaze and an old scar above his left eyebrow. Military discipline ran through his veins, and every movement exuded authority.

On the other side of the base, between the tanks and tents, a reckless kid named Ethan was darting around. He was a fresh private, barely twenty, all boundless energy and messy hair that, no matter how much he tried to fix, always fell into his eyes. Captain Foster had first seen him when the boy had practically tumbled into the base, grinning too wide with far too many disciplinary violations in his record.

“Foster!” Ethan called out, running toward him like an overexcited puppy recognizing its owner.

“It’s Captain Foster, Private,” he replied coolly, but Ethan just grinned wider.

“Yeah, yeah, Captain, sure.”

He stood in front of him, looking up at him like the sun gazing at the moon, his bright brown eyes gleaming with excitement.

Foster groaned. “What now?”

“I saw you fight during training. You’re a freaking war machine. How do you do that? Maybe… maybe you could show me a trick or two?”

Foster sighed, but then his eyes scanned Ethan—smaller than the other soldiers, leaner, but with a strange kind of determination that refused to bend.

“You sure you can handle it, kid?”

“Hey, I may not be a beast like you, but I’m stubborn.”

And so, it began. Foster found himself teaching Ethan hand-to-hand combat after training, in the quiet darkness of the desert. Every hit Ethan took, he got up smiling. Every correction he received only made his eyes burn brighter.

But something else started burning in Foster, too.

It started with glances that lasted too long, with attempts to stay professional in front of this reckless boy who never stopped teasing him, calling him “Captain Tough Guy” in that half-mocking, half-admiring voice.

It became inevitable when Ethan dogged a hit and laughed loud with a look to his Captain and softened eyes