by Scarlet West
He looked at me, and I felt as if those blue lakes of his eyes were drawing me in, forbidden pools that would pull me into the depths and never let me escape.
I felt him lean forward and, almost as if I had expected it, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, his lips met mine. His hand gripped my own, and I leaned closer. He reached for my shoulder, pulling me toward him. His tongue came out and pressed between my lips and I parted them, feeling my body ignite as he started to kiss me with probing insistence.
I was melting against him, my arms around his wide shoulders, his knee sliding between mine, his lips glued to my mouth, when I felt him sigh and draw me closer. I was truly melting, then; my body aching for him with an urgency I would never have dreamt about.
I felt him gasp and draw me to him roughly. Then he moved.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, pulling away. “Sorry.”
“What for?” I frowned.
He had stood up and was looking at me with fear and desperation mixed together.
“I should go.”
“Wait, Reid.”
He gave my hand one last squeeze and then, before I could ask him what was happening, he’d lifted his coat and shut the door behind him.
I went to my seat, feeling dazed.
As I cleared away the things on the kitchen table, a trace of a grin still on my face, I tried to figure out what just happened. My body still tingling from his kiss, my knees and legs unsteady below me, and I wondered, more than anything, why he’d run away from me.
17
Reid
I lay in bed, listening to the sounds of the road outside as the neighborhood started coming to life. It was eight A.M. and I was confused.
What the hell happened?
I felt like I’d just been hit by a truck. The events of the previous night circled round and round my head, making as little sense now as they had when I’d gotten home the night before.
The dinner. The kiss. Hayley’s lips.
I felt myself getting aroused just remembering how sweet her body had felt against mine. Her lips were as soft and dreamy as I’d anticipated, and the feel of her kiss even more exciting than anything I could have dreamed of.
The way she leaned against me, her body melting into my arms had been enticing. I’d wanted her so badly. I wished I could have pressed her back onto a big soft bed and taken off her clothes right then.
I winced, feeling my cock respond to my recollections.
“Not today,” I told myself firmly.
Not today, and probably not ever. I was in no fit state to embark on any kind of relationship. Especially not with a kid involved. And even without a kid – I was unpredictable and that made me dangerous. I knew myself well enough to know that there was no way I should be involved with anybody just yet.
I had times when I would panic – my fight-or-flight overactive, making me strike out at anything. Once, when I’d first gotten back, I’d almost attacked Brendan. I recalled the incident vividly.
We’d been out drinking, and we’d gone back to his place. We’d been talking, and a car backfired outside. I’d jumped and flattened myself against the couch, knees drawn to my chest, sitting on the carpet.
“Hey,” Brendan had said, laying a hand on my shoulder.
I’d whipped round and grabbed him, shaking him so hard he’d cried out. His pained yell had brought me to my senses. We’d talked about it a lot, and he understood what had happened, why I’d done what I’d done. I think it had scared both of us, though. It certainly shocked me.
After that, I’d been scared to be alone with anybody, even Mom.
“No, Reid. Not yet – you’re not ready for a relationship yet.”
Not yet, and maybe not ever. I didn’t know if I was going to get any better.
I stood, rolling my shoulders, and headed to the kitchen.
As I made coffee, I found my mind drifting back to the night before. Aside from the recurring memories of Hayley – which were giving me the bluest balls of my life – I also recalled the dinner, the evening, and the kid.
I grinned thinking of Joshua. I recalled him showing me the soldier, and felt my throat choke up.
“He stands next to my bed at night,” the child’s voice said in my ear. “To keep away the bad guys.”
I swallowed hard.
If only he knew I was one of the bad guys. I felt myself start to cry soundlessly and one tear at a time, scalding traces down my cheeks. Tears of shame and rage. I wished, more than anything, that we could all keep that innocence.
I had been like him when I was a kid. I’d lived in a delineated world; we were the good guys, and the bad guys were some vague imagined threat; a faceless, soulless enemy.
But when you see them and see that they bleed and scream and die like you do; they yell for their mothers, for their God, for the pain to stop, then you know they’re just like you.
That was the worst thing. I didn’t blame our enemies for what had gone down. That was their job. They were there to shoot us, and that was what they did and we all knew that, and accepted it. I had been the one who had put our unit there, in utterly the wrong place. It was my fault. All mine.
“Damn it!”
I threw the saltshaker as their faces blurred together in my mind, staring up at me from the past. It shattered on the floor. I shuddered at the noise and leaned on the pantry, gasping for breath.
I was going to lose my mind.
As I sniffed, slowly gaining control of myself, I heard my phone.
I looked at the screen and saw my mom’s name flash. I answered it, feeling myself calming down.
“Mom? Hi,” I said. “What’s up?” I had a sudden horrible thought. “You okay?”
“Reid!” she sounded happy. “Sure, I’m okay.” She paused. “How’re things?”
“Okay,” I said carefully. My mom didn’t know much about my demons since coming back from the field. I had been careful not to tell her too much. I didn’t want her freaking out. I didn’t want her thinking her only son was a shattered mess of the man he’d once been. “Great,” she said. “Listen, I’m sorry to bother you, but I was trying to clear out the attic and the light’s gone and I can’t figure out what’s happened to it.”
“Gone?”
“It’s not working. I changed the bulb – which was difficult – but it’s still off. Can you help?”
“I’m on my way.”
I pulled up at Mom’s cottage twenty minutes later with my stomach twisting with nostalgia. It looked exactly like it had my whole life. The creeper was still growing on the front wall, the fence was peeling here and there, and the upstairs window was propped open – it never shut properly, not ever.
She’d told me to move back in when I’d come home from the Army, but the memories were still too strong in the house for me and I didn’t want her knowing about my nightmares. So I’d gotten an apartment closer to town where I could wrestle my demons in private.
I sprang up the steps to the front door.
“Reid!”
“Mom.”
Holding her in my arms, breathing in the scent of her – she always smelled like Dove facewash – I became aware that she seemed to have shrunk. She was always petite, but her bones felt smaller too, a birdlike fragility to her shoulders I’d not observed before.
“It’s good to see you Mom,” I whispered.
“It’s good to see you son.”
We looked at each other. I blinked back tears. My mom was older than I’d realized, I thought, feeling stupid. I was thirty which meant she must be almost seventy. She and Dad had me quite late – I was a surprise.
“How are you?” I asked, looking down into her face.
“I told you I’m just fine,” she chuckled, putting a motherly hand on my shoulder. “It’s just this light. Come in. Did you have breakfast?”
“Not really,” I said, breathing in. I could smell the scent of baking. Mom had clearly prepared a breakfast anyway and my stomach cle
nched with hunger.
“I made scones,” she said. “Should we have them now?”
“Let’s go up first,” I said, indicating the attic steps. I presumed it wouldn’t be hard to fix the light.
It took half an hour. Standing by the fuse-box, a fuse in my teeth, a screwdriver in one hand and a flashlight in the other, I discovered that my ability to focus – learned while being trained to fire rifles – was useful.
“Can I hold something?” My mom called from the top step.
“I’m fine,” I grunted.
When I’d managed to clean the dust off the fuse box and get the screwdriver to actually turn, the job became easier. Soon the fuse was in, and Mom had confirmed from the attic that all was repaired. We went together to the kitchen for breakfast.
“These are good,” I sighed, drinking the rest of my coffee as I wolfed down my third scone. My mom made scones the way my grandma had taught her, a recipe brought from England. With jam and cream and baking soda, they were the familiar and delicious taste of my childhood.
“I’m glad you like them,” she said. “It’s good to see you.”
I grabbed another scone and looked up to find her gaze studying me. I felt discomforted.
“What?” I asked, awkwardly.
“You have been eating, haven’t you?”
“Sure,” I shrugged. “Why?”
“Well,” she ran her tongue over her teeth, a habit when she was thinking. I waited tensely for the bomb to drop. “Well, I do sometimes wonder. I know you can look after yourself quite adequately. But, well, I wonder sometimes if you should have a girl in your life.”
I barked a laugh. “Geez Mom. Really? How old-fashioned of you.”
“Why are you laughing?” she frowned. “It’s perfectly reasonable. I’d feel better knowing you had someone…” She trailed off as I cleared my throat.
“Mom, I’m sorry. But really. There’s nobody I’d feel comfortable letting into my life just yet.” I admitted, looking down at my plate.
“Are you sure about that?” she asked, her keen eyes pinning me to my chair.
I raised my gaze to meet hers. “Why do you ask that?”
She smiled. “Because I’m your mother and I know you,” she replied. “There’s something on your mind and I haven’t seen you this fidgety since before you asked Mary Ellen Gallagher to the Prom.”
I shook my head. Dammit, I never could put anything past her.
“Well, I have met someone,” I started.
“Good!” My mom beamed at me over her eyeglasses, clapping her hands together. “Well! Why are you hesitating?”
I shifted in my seat, feeling like I was fifteen and had been caught staring at a nudie magazine Brendan and I had found at his house.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I was just wondering, is all.”
“It’s just that I’ve only just met her and I think I really like her,” I finally confessed.
“And?” Mom was watching me, her brown gaze missing nothing. I felt myself relax.
“Well, she has a son. And I think she’s had a hard time of it.” I hadn’t realized that was my impression, but it was. Something bad had clearly happened to her, or why was she so distressed, that day in the parking lot? I’d caught similar expressions on her face before. And that other night, when we’d been talking, there had been a moment when she’d looked – to me, at least – like she might cry.
“I see,” my mother said. “Well, I understand if you’re not sure about her.”
“It’s not her; it’s me,” I said. “I just,” I paused, propping my elbows on the table, chin resting on my linked fingers. “I think I’m not ready. It’s too soon.”
“I understand,” Mom said kindly. “But, son?”
“Yeah?” I felt wrecked. Talking about this sort of thing made me feel emotionally drained. I couldn’t conceal the truth from my mom forever, but I didn’t want to have to tell her how much I was struggling to make it back in the real world.
“It doesn’t have to be anything serious. You can just get to know each other. Make friends.”
“Friends?” I said the word as if I’d never heard it. She raised a brow.
“Yes. Men and women can be friends, you know,” she said with some asperity.
“I know, Mom.”
She grinned. “Good. And, while we’re on the topic, would you like more scones? I baked two batches. I figured fixing the attic would be hungry work.”
I chuckled. “It’s nice to know some things haven’t changed.”
“Nor have you,” she said, bringing a plate to the table. She regarded me levelly a long moment. I squirmed in my seat, feeling that weird sensation again, as if she was trying to read my mind.
“I have,” I protested, distracting myself by putting butter on a fresh scone. I was ravenously hungry this morning, but I didn’t know why. If I thought about it, I was sleeping better, too, and with less nightmares.
“No, you haven’t,” she said insistently. “You’re still the same kind, loving son I raised. A good boy who rushes over to help his mama fix a broken light.”
I looked at my plate, feeling my throat close up. I wished that was true, but I knew it wasn’t. She hadn’t seen the rivers of blood that divided who I was now from who I had been. I pushed the crumbs around on my plate, not wanting to look up and meet her eye.
“Maybe,” I said.
When I looked up, she was still watching me.
“What, Mom?” I asked.
She just smiled. “You should really ask her out.”
It sounded like a challenge. I raised a brow. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”
Because we just want to see you happy. Maybe everyone was right. Maybe it was time I got out of my head a bit after all.
As I drove back home, I thought through the idea. I recalled the night before and that kiss. I really wanted her – more than I could imagine wanting anything, if I was really honest about it. But what could I do? I’d probably screwed up already.
What’s she going to think about you kissing her and running out like some scared kid?
I had no idea if it was possible to come back from that. And, if it was, how was I going to do it? I had no way of contacting her. I had an address, but not a phone number and I wasn’t going to be the guy that just showed up at her home. An idea came to my mind. What if I went to the coffee shop where she worked, and invited her out?
A hundred misgivings came to my mind. What if she was angry about the way I’d left? What if she thought I really was the asshole that she’d first suspected me to be? What if…“And what if she doesn’t?” I asked myself as I walked past the mirror in my apartment. It was eleven on a Sunday and I knew Melissa’s was open on Sunday morning. I also knew that Saturday was Hayley’s day off, not Sunday.
“You’re not getting out of this,” I told my reflection firmly.
I showered and dressed in jeans and a soft blue shirt. I gelled the front of my hair a little; enough to make it stand back from my face. Then I took another deep breath.
“Ready?”
I shrugged. I had to be. It was now or never and I wasn’t letting myself chicken out.
I sprayed on deodorant and headed down to my car.
18
Hayley
“Hayley? Hayley!”
I was leaning on the counter in the back of the kitchen, a cup of coffee by my side, looking at nothing. I blinked as somebody called my name.
“What?” I turned around and found Ryanne standing next to me. She was frowning at me curiously.
“You have a rough night?”
“Not really,” I said. I had some difficulty sleeping, if the truth be known, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. That kiss! It had touched me deeply, sinking right into my body and making me toss and turn.
I wanted Reid so badly, but I was a little was unsure of him – he was so changeable, so unpredictable. I had no idea how I felt, but it was something big and confusing
and I was desperate to either find out more or start running and never stop.
I also had no idea if I was staying here, or if I had to leave again soon.
She eyed me like she didn’t really believe me, but she wasn’t going to push. “It’s a slow morning out there.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, jerking my head at the main room of the restaurant. We were usually on Sundays, which was why it was only Ryanne and I working there today. We could usually manage more than adequately with just two of us waiting tables.
“I’ve just taken Table Two their orders.”
“Great.” I ran a hand through my tousled hair and stretched. I really was tired. I had no idea what the time was when I’d finally gotten to sleep, but it must have been around one A.M. I’d woken to take Josh to the sitter at eight and started work at nine.
“So?” Ryanne asked, looking me straight in the eye. “What’re your plans?”
I closed my eyes, feeling exhausted. “I don’t know,” I said. I still had no idea. I kept on seeing Josh’s face in my mind as I told him we might leave. Could I really do that again, transplant him? I shook my head. “I don’t want to think about it right now,” I said. “I’d better go check on the customers.”
I went out sleepily into the dining room and stopped in my tracks. In the front door, with a hesitant grin on his face, stood Reid. I froze, studying his wide chest, his reddish hair, gelled back from his face.
“Ryanne,” I whispered, ducking back into the kitchen. “He’s here!”
Ryanne craned round the door, and then looked back at me, nodding. “Yeah, it is. Keep cool.”
“I’m trying to,” I whispered back. “What the hell’s he doing here today?” I honestly hadn’t expected to see him again after he’d practically sprinted out of my apartment the night before. “What’re you going to do?” Ryanne asked. “You want me to go out there?”
I shook my head and swallowed hard, trying not to be nervous. “No. Let me go.”