by James, Ella
When I look inside, I see a square of my thick, papyrus “GW” stationary and find myself reaching for it. I want to see Barrett’s handwriting again, but that’s not the only reason I unfold the note. I still want to know him more. Want to know what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling. Want to know his friends. I tell myself there’s nothing personal in such a short note, and open it before my conscience can kick in. I feel a pleasant jolt at the sight of his familiar handwriting.
THANKS FOR WATCHING MY BACK, BROTHER. -BEAR
I bring the note to my chest for a second, then slide it back in.
Half an hour later, I’m paying the woman at the UPS store, and she’s telling me about how her pet parrot has gotten into the habit of telling all her houseguests “Go clean those feathers, honey!” when I realize…I’m laughing. Really laughing, right here in the store. I’m laughing, and on my right side, someone tall is maybe laughing, too.
I turn my head as I get my receipt and change, and my gaze catches on a pair of pale blue eyes. Heat sweeps through me as I realize he’s familiar: his hair is red like mine; he’s tall and built, kind of like Barrett…
The guy from the moccasin shop.
I give him a small smile, more to push out of my comfort zone than anything else. He gives me a wink, and when I turn to go, I think I feel him right behind me. Then I push the door open and I see Barrett’s smiling face, and the guy is forgotten in the warmth of Bear’s arms as he pulls me to him and I melt against his body, my arms twined around my neck, until an older couple smiles at us from down the sidewalk, and we laugh and they laugh, like we’re a spectacle, and I think maybe we are.
“Let’s get lunch,” he says. We hold hands and walk to a little sandwich shop with old-fashioned, burnt-orange, plastic booths, Coke clocks with swinging hands all along one wall, and a green glass vase with a carnation poking out the top beside the napkin holder.
Barrett smiles with mustard on his lip and tells me about the inspection.
“The place is perfect.”
He’s glowing, which makes me smile, too.
His leg rubs mine under the table as he talks. We brush each other’s fingertips as we sip soda and Barrett eats his sandwich, then the rest of mine.
“How about your morning, Piglet?”
We talk through a drink refill, top our lunch off with peppermints from this adorable little glass jar by the door, and latch hands as we step into the sunlight. It’s a balmy, humid day, springtime-warm.
“How’d you find me at the UPS place?” I ask.
Barrett smiles. “I was watching for you. Want a walk to Helga’s office?”
“Yes.” I lean my cheek against his arm as we walk slowly toward her little, white brick building. “You’ll go home after?”
He nods. “Unless you want me to stay. I could kill some time down here. You need anything done?”
I smile, and Barrett smirks. “That’s some Cheshire Cat stuff there.”
“I know.” I laugh. “That line is every woman’s wet dream.”
We nuzzle each other outside Helga’s office, and Barrett agrees to meet me here in fifty minutes.
“I’ll pick up a helmet for you. Pink?” His brow quirks up.
I nod, smiling.
“Second choice neon green?”
I grin and blow him a kiss.
Fifty minutes later, I emerge, feeling lighter and holding the business card of a local therapist who works with vets.
I see Barrett’s yummy, thick back leaned against the glass window at the front of Helga’s office, and my heart does a little tap dance of excitement.
I launch myself into his arms as soon as my feet hit the sidewalk. He pushes a hot pink helmet on my head. I lean my head back. “Do I look sexy?”
“Very sexy. So damn sexy,” he murmurs, kissing me lightly, “it’s a shame you have to drive yourself back.”
“Race you there?”
He smirks. “C’mon…”
I punch his arm and dart off toward my car. When I pull into my driveway, Barrett’s standing on the porch with his arms crossed, an adorable smirk on his face and his dark hair blowing in the perpetual mountain breeze. When I get out of the car, the first thing I notice is his dick tenting his pants, a dark glaze on his eyes.
I unlock the laundry room door, but before I step inside, I unbutton my pants so as I walk, they’ll fall down.
“Fucking hell, Gwenna. I hope that pussy wants a dick inside.”
I lean over slightly and wiggle my ass at him. Barrett tackles me. We fuck on the rug beside the couch like dogs, my pussy stretched around his steel-hard length, his body heaving as he pants and pounds me.
It’s not until after our bath that I manage to get the card in his hand. I’m making chicken salad at the counter when he strokes his hand over my hair.
“Be back, Pig,” he murmurs.
My walls are thin enough that I can hear him calling from my office.
Sean Eddins, PhD. His card says he does PTSD Recovery, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Brainspotting, and Exposure Therapy.
My stomach twists a little at the thought of Barrett going somewhere. Talking to someone.
So when his appointment rolls around, two days later, I can’t help offering to drive him. I sort of expect him to say “yes,” so when he shakes his head, picks up his helmet, and says, “I’ve got it, Pig,” I slap his arm, pretending I’m offended by my silly, new nickname. In truth, I kind of love it.
“Okay, Bear.” I plant a kiss on his scruffy jaw. “Be careful for me.”
“Will do.” He wraps an arm around my shoulders, drawing me in close against his chest. His lips brush the crown of my head. “He said this time will be an hour and a half. I’m going to do something right before, so it might be more like two hours.”
I squeeze his hard waist, kiss his chest. “I hope it goes well.”
“Me too.”
I frame his face with my hands, thumbing his cheeks. “You know I think you’re brave for trying it.”
His eyes cut down before he raises them for mine. They burn a little. “Thanks.” I get the small half-smile, the one that lets me know he’s nervous.
“Love you.”
“I love you more.” He wraps me tight against his chest and shuts his eyes. I feel his heartbeat for an awesome moment. Love fills me. I hope he feels it, too.
Chapter Ten
Barrett
“How much you want for it?”
“Won’t take less than nine hundred.”
The guy behind the counter peers down at my .380, shaking his head. “It’s real nice,” he drawls. “I’ll give you that. I can do nine hundred—if you tell me where it came from.” His eyes meet mine.
“I had it over in Iraq,” I tell him, shifting my weight. And a lot of other places, but it’s easier to stick to places troops were stationed for long stretches.
The guy nods slowly, knowingly. His Braves cap casts a shadow over his face, but I can see his chapped lips tighten. He touches something I can’t see behind the counter, and I hear a jingle. His hand lifts up dog tags on a chain that seems to be hanging from a nail in the back of the counter.
“I get that,” he says, nodding more. His hazel eyes meet mine. “I might keep this one for myself.” He looks down at the gun. “If you change your mind and not much time’s gone by, you let me know.”
I smile, because that’s kind, but I won’t need it.
“No worries,” I tell him.
We share a hard handshake—it still feels odd with my right hand—and the guy reaches over the counter to clasp me on the shoulder.
“Take care,” he tells me. As I head toward the door, he says, “Hang on.”
I turn to find him holding out a business card.
Gatlinburg Veteran’s Association is embossed in black across the front.
“It’s mostly younger guys,” he says. I look at the lines on his face, putting him at maybe mid-30s. “Me and a couple Marines. One Ranger. Just got started
up.”
I look from the card to his eyes. “You work out around here?”
He steps out from behind the counter, lifts his pants leg. I see metal. “Not much working out these days.”
“I’m opening a martial arts place. Free for vets,” I hear myself say. “How long have you had the prosthetic?”
“Not long, man. About four months. Just got done rehabbing it around the end of summer.”
I look down at the prosthetic, trying to figure out if it’s transfemoral or transtibial without lifting the leg of his pants. I settle for asking him, “Knee, too?”
He nods. “Lost the whole thing from the thigh down.”
I nod. That does make it harder. “Ever ran on it?”
He laughs. “Hell no. Barely even walk on it.”
“You got another card?”
He grunts, not meeting my eyes as he moves back behind the pawn shop counter.
“I’m gonna give you my number, man. Let me know if you want to work out sometime. I could help you with it. Used to train a bunch of guys.”
He jots my number down and slides the card into his pocket. “Thanks, man. Means a lot.” He holds his hand out. “Patrick Rice.”
“Barrett. Drake,” I tack on. No reason to be evasive. Not anymore.
* * *
Sean Eddins is an old Ranger. He’s short and round around the middle, with a brown comb-over and delicate, silver wire-rimmed reading glasses. His office is on the second floor of a downtown office building where he’s the only mental health professional in the unit. To get to it, I have to walk by the offices of two CPAs, a masseuse, a pediatric dentist, and a cosmetic salesperson. There’s a small, gold nameplate on his door.
“Doc” it says. That’s all.
The door opens before I close my hand around the handle. I can’t help laughing.
“Good ears.”
He gives a deep, belly laugh, slaps me hard between the shoulder blades, and waves to a lumpy, corduroy couch in the small, dimly-lit office.
When he asks about my background, I say spec ops, and after a minute cop to Delta Force, newly known as ACE.
“I could kind of guess that way,” he tells me. Like most other people around here, the guy has a drawl. His voice is low and always kind of soft, I find. We spend the first half-hour talking like two new acquaintances, which he tells me in the second half-hour he did for my benefit, because he knew I’d want to know a lot about him.
“Just makin’ it easier for yeh.”
I find out he’s 53, an Army brat who graduated high school in Daytona Beach and went to boot camp as soon as he could to escape his dad, a Vietnam vet who had a drug problem.
When he says, “My mom had died when I was younger,” I feel chills race over my arms.
“Yours too?”
I manage to nod. He gives me just a second to say more, and when I don’t, he doesn’t miss a beat. I find it easy to tell him I’m here to get help with nightmares.
“Can you tell me more about them?” he asks.
My throat seizes up, and I’m stunned to find I can’t.
“Not the fun kind,” he says, jotting something down on a notepad.
I shake my head. My jaw is clenched. I haveto unlock it and take a slow, careful breath so I can say, “About my friend. He…” I swallow hard, fisting one hand on my knee. I shake my head.
“It’s okay. I’m not timing you.”
I feel my eyes get hot. My face feels hot too.
“I got myself into a bad situation. Stupid,” I choke out. “He got hit after he put me in the Bradley.”
I can tell by Sean’s face that I like him. He doesn’t look falsely upset, like he knew Breck, but he’s not wearing a poker face, either. I can tell he cares. I feel like maybe he gets it. I don’t know. I can’t seem to say anything more. There’s an awkward few seconds where I try to think of what else I could say, and can’t.
“What’s his name?” he asks evenly.
“Breck. John,” I add. “We called him Breck.”
“Breck from Breckenridge?”
I nod, impressed he knows. Most people wouldn’t think of Breck as a shorthand for Breckenridge. Most people probably haven’t been there.
“Great slopes,” he says quietly.
I grit my teeth. What is it about this place that makes me want to fucking cry? I decide as I tell him superficially about how I knew Breck that being here makes me feel like a fuck up. I knew it anyway, but this makes it seem official. I can’t control myself. I can’t stop the dreams. Not even with Gwen beside me.
“How long has this been bothering you? The nightmares?”
I take a deep breath. Let it slowly out. “A while.” I rub my head, remembering. “Breck used to wake me up.”
“Bunkmates?”
I nod.
“Long gun?” he asks, arching a brow at me. I’m impressed he knows the Operator term for sniper, though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
“Yeah. Both of us.” I tell him about Dove and Blue as well. How I met Breck and Blue—“his real name’s Michael”—at basic. They joined together. Families knew each other. They both went to boarding school at Carson Long.”
“John Ferrara?”
My throat locks up. I can’t even nod.
Doc nods, his features soft. “Good guy, I heard.”
I don’t even plan it. I just stand up and walk out of his office, right down the hall, jog down the stairs, and outside where I stand with my back against the wall and wonder what would stop the pain inside my chest, what sort of damage I could do outside that might ease the hurricane of pain inside.
Good guy…
He was. He was.
Breck was a good guy. Breck should be alive.
“Aw now, I thought I had lost you.” Sean’s right there, his hand on my back, tapping. I blink, turning to him.
“Sorry.” I look down at my feet. He must think I’m such a fucking loose cannon. Not much of an Operator if I can’t even—
“Want to come back up? Tell me what set you off?”
I swallow back the urge to snap at him—or turn around and run the other fucking way.
“I don’t,” I say stiffly.
“You don’t have to.”
“You said he’s a good guy. How’d you know that?” I look him in the face because I want to see his eyes.
“Read the obit,” he says.
“And the obit told you he was a good guy?”
I can see the hesitation on his face. “Just heard in certain circles. People talk, you know.”
“When an Operator dies. Yeah, they talk.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“People talk. Opinions, assholes…”
He chuckles. “Opinions are like assholes, and most of them stink. Come back upstairs with me, and tell me what the talk was about Breck’s death.”
I look him up and down. “How long were you a Ranger?”
“Thirteen years,” he says. He lifts his shirt up, revealing a long, jagged scar along his ribs.
“Blown up around the time that Baghdad fell. IED our bomb guy couldn’t get.”
I nod, forcing myself to look at the ruined skin. Because I know how much it sucks when someone looks away. If they can’t see it, how can you live with it?
I nod.
“It blows.” He chuckles. He heads inside, and I follow him up. Not because I have to, but because I know I need to try. For Gwen, and maybe me as well.
I feel like shit the whole walk up, and when I sit back on his couch, I feel that detached cold come over me.
I see him roll his chair over and feel him tap my forearm.
“Hey, guy. Look up here at me, will yeh?”
It takes some effort, but I do it.
“I’ve got white eyelashes. Blond, really. Since birth. Can you see them, or does it just look like I don’t have any?”
I look down at my hand, where his finger is tapping, then back up at his eyes. I can see eyelashes. I nod.
“See them?”
“Yeah.” Embarrassment moves through me, followed by a wash of prickly heat. Somewhere distant, I know I should say something to explain my weird behavior, but I can’t think of anything. My brain feels like it’s wrapped in cotton.
Sean moves away. “Can you tell me how many blue things you see in this room?”
I frown. Did he say blue things?
“Just look around the room and point if you see something blue?”
“The clock,” I manage. Then it’s just too hard to shake it off. I feel too numb.
I see him reach into his pocket. That makes me flinch.
“Oh, okay. No reaching into the pockets. I think I can handle that.” He hands me something small. “Can you open this?”
I feel a pinch of panic through the cool blanket that’s over me. I hold up my left hand, shake my head.
“That’s right. Let’s see…” He opens it and holds it out to me. “Smell that?”
It smells like peppermints.
My head starts to hurt. I’m startled when I look around, at where I am. At— Who is— Oh. Sean.
“Doc,” I murmur.
“How do ya feel? I think you took a little trip. Dissociated. People do that often here. Must be the décor.”
I give a shaky laugh. Is this guy serious?
“I’m going to guess you didn’t start doing that yesterday,” he says. “Keep that peppermint oil up by your nose. Smells can help. I want to ask you a few questions about your body, how it feels right now. They’re easy ones. Then we can talk about football.”
“Cold and…foggy. Like I’m under a blanket. Or a cloud.” I rub my forehead.
“Hard to talk?”
My chest feels heavy and numb, even now, but I manage, “Yeah.”
Doc’s face is kind without pity, blunt but not exaggerated. “Look,” he blinks and leans forward, “it’s not unusual. It’s a learned response to trauma. Anyone who’s been to war, they’ve got some trauma.” He lifts a shoulder, like we’re talking about sports. “It’s something I see all the time. Something we can work on.”