by Gabrielle G.
“VanHorn was a SEAL in the eighties. Of course, they are playing the card of secrecy and not telling us more, which could be flagged as bullshit, but depending on what team he was in, it’s a real possibility it’s classified. Once he retired, he joined the CIA. The thing is, at the end of the 1980s the SEALs counted three teams plus the anti-terrorist one—former team six—and the SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team on each coast. Each SEAL Team was specialized in a geographic zone. If we want to prove he’s legit, we have to find out more details, which I haven’t yet. Lips are sealed, and no one wants to betray him. He holds a lot of power and made tons of allies along the way, especially being buddies with the president himself. He started as an Intelligence analyst at the CIA and went up the ladder fast. Moved abroad and came back six years later to become Chief of Staff. Then, again climbs those steps quickly and became Deputy Executive Director, and then Director of Terrorist Threat Integration Center, before being appointed Director. Now rumor has it he wants to run for Senate, but nothing has been announced yet. Some higher level hierarchy person inside the CIA has asked us to look into it after a conversation with VanHorn’s wife set some alarm bells. It seems she wasn’t making much sense and seemed confused about his past activities in the military. Our source decided to ask us to look into it like we used to.”
“Umm,” Tessa says once I’m done my exposé. “So, what am I doing here?” I go to answer, but Mark beats me to it.
“We believe that he knows we’re sniffing around, and we want to be sure you’re in the know so you can protect yourself. Sometimes people become a little unhinged when they realize someone is closer to revealing their secrets. We will do our best to protect your mother and sister if it comes to it.”
Tessa pales, understanding Mark’s words. I can see each word hitting her hard, and it breaks my heart to see her under so much stress for something we were hired to look into.
“But I don’t understand, didn’t they look into his past when he was appointed CIA director?” I roll my eyes at her naivety. That’s some bullshit politics that I don’t miss since being out of the game and managing my bar.
“Well… Some people are very good at hiding their tracks and hire the best they can to do so. I might be able to find who took care of this for him. I just need to call a friend of Dan. I know that guy has someone he works with who could help.”
Mark gives me the go-ahead to call Dan with a nod before focusing back on Tessa, sitting on the table close to her.
“We’re sorry Tessa, we wanted to tell you before, but we believed it was better you didn’t know. But after seeing him now, his body language and how he insisted on giving you a ride, I wanted you to know and to be careful. Do you hear what I’m saying, Murdock? Be careful.” Marks taps her shoulder and looks at me over her. “I guess you two need to clear the air if you’re staying, and we’re kind of protecting her?” he smirks, and I mentally flip him the bird but answer with a smile.
“Go ahead. I’ll finish up with Tessa and come to talk to you and Jackson,” I tell him, my eyes on Blue-hair. She seems confused and pissed at the same time.
“Do you have any questions?” She flips her head in my direction as if she just remembered I was here and frowns.
“Is that why you’re staying? And why you felt bad yesterday? Because of the secrecy of what you’re doing?” I look at her confused. I didn’t feel bad yesterday, I felt good after what we did. For the first time, I didn’t feel guilty having sex with someone else, but she did.
“No,” I sigh, “I had no clue he was your stepfather until Mark told me later in the day.”
“How is that possible? You looked into his bio and his past, I should have popped up at some point. I’ve been living with him since I was a little kid. My name should be somewhere.”
I quickly look at my notes and read her what I found.
“Andre VanHorn, married to Emeline Richards, one child Suzanne VanHorn. Believe me, I looked everywhere. No Tessa VanHorn came up in my research.”
“Wait, I took his name. All my papers, everything is under the name Tessa VanHorn. It was a big deal for him at the time to erase the Fitzpatrick in me. Said it would be easier for me to come back to the States and not live in the shadow of my father. I took his name. He adopted me. There should be a trace.”
She chews on her bottom lip, her shoulders fall, and I pray for her beautiful blue eyes not to fill with tears so I can keep some restraint.
Fitzpatrick.
The way she drives — the car racing.
I put two and two together and scribbled the information onto my pad.
She’s the daughter of Garrett Fitzpatrick, NASCAR legend. I come closer and sit in the chair next to her. Without asking permission, I take her hand.
It feels so right.
“Look,” I say while caressing her knuckles, “you might be the solution to a lot of things. If he can hide you from files, if you don’t show up when we look into him, if we can prove there is something fishy, maybe I can find a trail leading me to prove that he’s full of shit. But maybe it’s nothing. I always start any investigation on neutral ground. Only the facts can influence me. Okay?” She nods, her brows furrowed. “Now, want to explain the sudden therapy?”
She scoffs and removes her hand from under mine. I feel the loss in my heart right away — fucking hell.
“I lost my shit while behind the wheel yesterday and one thing led to another. I promised Quinn to go meet the doctor, he set me up with an emergency appointment.” She shrugs, but I can feel there is more than she wants to share.
“Want to talk about it? I’m a great listener.” I offer her my best smile, but she doesn’t take the bait.“ Look, you have your reasons for what happened yesterday, and I can almost understand it has more to do with you and your grief than with me. So let’s move on, and if you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”
“Thank you,” she says with a smile. My fucking heart melts and I know I’m a goner more than I want to admit when the next words pop out of my mouth. “By the way,” I tell her while standing up and walking back to where I was sitting before, “I told Mark about Elaine last night.”
I need her to know I’m working on my shit, that yesterday got to me. Maybe I didn’t lose my shit to the point my friends sent me to therapy, but it had shaken me too. I felt guilty she left, I felt guilty for not feeling guilty for fucking her, I felt guilty I didn’t try to call her and check on her and now I feel guilty knowing us having sex drove her to lose her shit.
But telling Mark helped me and maybe we both needed to come together to take the next step.
This morning, for the first time since I arrived, I didn’t have to count until one hundred before getting up. I just got up ready to fight the day.
And for a good ten minutes, I didn’t think about Elaine as soon as I woke up.
I thought about Tessa, about how I wanted to see her and know how she was. I thought of us dating—something I haven’t done in a while.
It’s easy to fuck a one-night stand or get married on a whim, but dating, knowing someone, opening up and telling the stories that made you who you are, and being vulnerable in front of someone else isn’t something I’ve done in a long time. And maybe I could give it a try.
“Good. I’ve learned this morning that it’s important to share how they died to be able to heal. I need to tell the story every day for the next week. Maybe you should do the same?” I stop in my tracks toward the door.
“Coffee?” I ask, hopefully. “A way for me to apologize for whatever happened yesterday, and help you with your therapy.” Smooth Oliver. Seems like asking a woman out isn’t like riding a bike. You can lose your swoon.
“Okay,” she simply answers with a small lift of her lips. I fall into her blue eyes and see everything I feel. The fear, the hang-up, and behind everything else, a sparkle of hope I believe I put there.
“Show me the way, Tessa.” I open the door for her to go first. Shyly, she walks in front of me. I t
hink I preferred her strong-headed and ready to pounce on me. On an impulse, I take her hand and squeeze her fingers. She turns away and looks at me once more. “I’m sorry if anything I did yesterday made you lose your shit, Blue-hair. Really sorry.”
“I know Green-eyes, I know.” And just like that, she lets my hand go and walks toward the stairs. A good decision, knowing what happens when we ride elevators together.
Chapter Seventeen
TESSA
I’m not sure the coffee date with Oliver would be Dr. Saman approved. Shouldn’t I focus on being better before sipping hot beverages with an even hotter guy? Shouldn’t I have told her about the mind-blowing sex and the remorse that followed before seeing the said guy again? I look at him, really look at him from the table he told me to wait at, while he’s talking with the barista and ordering our drinks. He’s naturally gorgeous, but something doesn’t add up in his behavior in the last twenty-four hours. Why would he want to spend more time with me after shutting down after we had sex? I know the grief, and the guilt still eats at me as much as it devours him daily, but I thought he would have more empathy toward me knowing he broke the seal of a very dry spell since the love of my life died.
But he ran away, and I fell apart.
He hid in a bathroom, and I let myself drive me to the brink of insanity.
He catches me checking him out and sends me a devilish wink.
It shakes me to the bone.
Waves of lava spread in my veins, and a swarm of butterflies takes over my stomach. I inanely smile like a teenager looking at her crush. Fuck me now; I want to shout for him to take me while my brain spray-paints a massive ‘Fuck My Life’ on my soul. I’m fucked, and I know it. So fucked, I didn’t realize he came back.
A whiff of his scent meets my nostrils, and I get wet.
If I could, I would facepalm emoji myself.
“So I was thinking…” he starts when he sits down and hands me my coffee. I had to tell him how I take it, and as horror in his eyes set in, I sent him a text to be sure he got the soy milk and vanilla syrup with a sprinkle of caramel right. “Maybe we should date?” he finishes his sentence, and I choke on my beverage. Wanting to date after the fiasco our first time together was, is incredibly sweet and a little insane.
Has he forgotten what happened yesterday?
How he barely waited for his sperm to have come out of his dick before he went and showered off what had transpired?
“Maybe,” I shrug because the teenager in me wants to date the most handsome boy from the school, ”but can we first discuss what happened yesterday?”
His eyebrows squish together while he blinks rapidly. Yeah, buddy, not letting you off the hook so quickly.
“What happened yesterday?” he asks. “Well, you should know.”
I frown.
Should I?
I have an idea why he ran away, but as my mind races to come for proper answers, it comes back blank. Maybe he needs a reminder.
“We had sex. You came on my chest. You gave me a towel to clean up without saying a word, and then you left and took a shower. Your silence said more than a thousand words.”
Oliver shakes his head and laughs a little, and all I felt before, the butterflies, the stupid crush, the warm and fuzzy feelings toward him transform into anger. I fist my hands on my thighs and count to ten not to let my impulsivity hijack the conversation we’re having.
“Hmmm, it seems we crossed our signals.” He says, and my heartbeat goes down a little. “When I looked at you after we… you know… you seemed so lost. Guilt was written all over your face, and I thought you needed space. I didn’t speak so my voice would not remind you that you weren’t with the one you wanted. I didn’t want to make it worse.”
Puzzled, I calm down. I have never heard of a guy knowing so little about women. I would make fun of him if it wasn’t so heartbreaking.
“So, because I looked lost and confused, you thought the best thing to do was to walk away and leave me alone in your bed? Taking me into your arms and comforting me wasn’t an option?”
Bewildered… that’s how he looks right now.
“Okay, said like that…” He takes my hand and looks deep into my eyes. My body temperature goes up a couple of hundred degrees, and my vision becomes tunneled on Oliver. Nothing more exists except him. “No bullshit, right?”
I nod. “No bullshit,” I repeat. He interweaves our fingers and rubs his thumbs against my knuckles. Something he does a lot, and something I like more than I should. It electrifies and melts me at the same time. I become a puddle of desire.
“There was nothing more I wanted than to take you in my arms, have your head on my chest, kiss you softly, and show you how much what had happened was important to me. I’ve slept with a few women since Elaine died—my sister would tell you I have manwhore tendencies—but with you, time always stands still. Yesterday, while in between your legs, my heart stopped bleeding, and I’ve found an inner peace I never thought possible to reach ever again. I realized that your kisses are the best therapy for me.”
Arrow to the heart, hook into my soul, Oliver reels me into his realm, and I can’t fight the pull anymore. Thunderstruck, I mutter the only words that I can think of after such a declaration.
“Yes.”
“For?” His eyes are darker, and I want to disappear in them.
“Dating, kissing, fucking, anything,” I answer, my cheeks burning like pavement in the desert. “I want to do anything and everything with you. Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe it is the biggest mistake of my life, but with you, I want to live.” Oliver smiles, and I fall deeper under his charm.
“With you, I want to live too. What happened to you yesterday?” Worries chase the desire I saw seconds ago, and I don’t answer it with the usual annoyance I feel when other people worry for me.
“Your silence told me you just wanted a good fuck and didn’t care about the consequences. I remember you had a son from a one-night stand. I remembered the mask you wore the first time I met you. I remembered you saying you didn’t want to fuck me—”
“I never said I didn’t want to. I said I wouldn’t because I didn’t want to hurt you, hurt us.”
“True, but my demons were out, and I spiraled down, and I ended up in therapy this morning.”
“Side note, I want the whole story on that. I want to know what happened.”
“I will… You might be the only one that can understand me anyway.” He smiles and slides his chair closer to me.
“I want to be there for you. I want you to never hesitate and call me whenever you need it. I want to be the one who can understand you, and everything you share with me is really important to me. Also, I want to fuck you some more… soon.” Oliver ends his speech with a kiss, and as soon as his lips touch mine, I liquefy. It’s the courage I need to tell him what I need to, to go through Dr. Saman’s exercise, and tell the story of how King died. So after taking all the bravery, I can find in the twirl of his tongue, I dive in and tell him how King died. And it’s a little easier than the first time, I don’t know if it’s because the exercise is working or because I’m telling Oliver.
“Thank you for telling me,” Oliver says once I’m done. And to my surprise, my eyes aren’t the ones full of mist.
“Are you okay?” I take his hand and rub his knuckles in the same comforting way he does to me. He swallows a couple of times and sighs profoundly before smiling.
“Yes. It reminds me of my team…” He trails off, looking in the distance.
“Do you miss it?” He still doesn’t look at me when he answers.
“I used to until Elaine died. Then I hated it. I rejected everything I learned as a frogman because it didn’t prepare me for her death. I saw brothers getting hurt in front of me. I got hurt and thought I’d lost the use of my eyes. I’ve had to do things that most men can’t even imagine, but I’ve always known how to react and what to do when facing every situation. But that day… The day she jumped…“ He swallows
heavily and sighs before going on, “when her parachute didn’t open, it was the worst and longest four minutes of my life, and I was powerless. I hated being a retired SEAL and not being able to do shit. And I could see her falling, falling, falling and when I touched down, I ran to find her and… well…“ he exhales his pain. “I’ve never missed being a SEAL since that day. But you make me think of the parts I’d forgotten. Things I’ve locked deeply, like the loss of a brother, the trust we have in one another, the family we are, the things we do for each other...” His voice trails off, and he seems far, a little nostalgic and a lot alone.
“But you’re good friends with the Darling Devils, wouldn’t you do anything for them and your family?” I know it’s not the same, but I want him to continue speaking. I love the thick and throaty sound of his voice and how he seems able to open up with me about his painful past.
“It might be the same between the three of them. But I’m just another guy on the side. We’re family, but they are so much more.”
“But you have Mark. Seeing you two together is very special. The way he looks at you is…”
“Creepy?” Oliver laughs, and my stomach flips a couple of hundred times.
“I was going to say incredible, but yeah, it might be a touch creepy,” I join his laughter.
“Since the first time we met, we clicked. BUDs wouldn’t have been the same without him. My injury, neither.” His fingers are softly drawing circles in the palm of my hand in a sensual but an attentive way, and I try my luck with one more question about his past.
“How did you get injured?”
“Explosion. Blast-related ocular trauma. Nothing these pretty eyes couldn’t survive, but it meant I couldn’t go back afterward. And there was no way I was becoming a behind the desk plant somewhere else. But I missed the thrill, missed jumping off planes and being on missions, being part of something bigger, and serving my country. I missed it every day until that Oliver died.”
His fingers stop. I close my hand around his and squeeze his knee. “What do you mean?”