Stroke It (A Standalone Sports Romance)

by Ivy Jordan

  “Awful concerned about you bein’ gone so long. And I told her, ‘Kimberly, you shouldn’t be all worried. Sawyer’s a grown man now.’ But she thinks you seen somethin’ out there you can’t shake.”

  I started to open my mouth, and Pete waved his beer as means of cutting me off.

  “I’m not askin’. But she’s worried, Sawyer. Wants you to see one of them shrinks in the city.”

  “I’m not seeing a shrink.” I set my empty beer bottle down on the counter. A fly buzzed up to the rim and sat, gorging itself on whatever sugary remnant was on that little lip. “I don’t need some asshole pushing pills at me for his own profit.”

  “I wholeheartedly agree with that, now.” Pete made a small sound of agreement, too. He was exaggerated in his speech and his movements. I appreciated that I never felt the need to decode him. “But you know, with your mom so worried, you might just stop by. Just to make her life a little easier. God knows she’s had a rough six years.”

  I winced. The worst part of this was knowing I’d done anything to add to Mom’s troubles. The whole point of me going over was to remove myself from her life, and at that point, my subtracted presence was better than my being there. Now, it seemed, times were different. I’d been gone long enough, and now that I was back, she needed to know I wasn’t going to be the way I was before I left.

  “I’ll go to set her at ease,” I agreed. “I need to look around the city for a job anyhow.”

  “No big-dollar corporation is gonna have the labor of a United States hero under my watch,” Pete declared. “You can work for me, at least for a little while.”

  “You said an hour ago you didn’t have anything to pay me.”

  “I’ll have something by the end of the week,” Pete said. “Won’t be much, but it’s honest work. Better than pushing papers or scanning groceries or workin’ for the media.”

  I had to agree with him there. The idea of an office job didn’t sit well with me, and if I could work out here, I’d be able to spend hours in the silence doing something productive. “I believe you’ve got yourself an employee, Pete.”

  Chapter Six

  QUINN

  My patient sat back against the couch, hands wrapped around a mug of tea. “So I guess I just don’t know how to talk to her. I mean, she’s my wife, and I love her. I don’t want to hurt her feelings. But every time we talk nowadays I feel like she’s going to snap at me. It’s like a warzone every time she comes home. It didn’t use to be like that, you know?”

  I clicked my pen and held his gaze over the clipboard. This had been an intense session, the third with this particular patient, and now we were getting to the root of the issues that he had with his spouse. “Would you say that she threatens you?”

  “No, she doesn’t make threats. I mean, not anything explicit. I don’t think I’m in danger. That’s what you’re looking for, right, us being in danger? That’s what you have to report.”

  His nervousness had gone up to the millionth degree. I set my clipboard down and smiled at him. “I don’t have to report anything unless I believe that your life is in danger, or if you report neglect or abuse to me. Nothing you’ve said to me so far is anything I have to report. You have strict confidentiality here.”

  “If my wife calls, you don’t have to tell her?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “In fact, if I did tell her, I’d be in violation of the law. She’s not on your list of emergency disclosure, so I can’t give her your information.”

  This seemed to relax him a little, and he took a sip of his tea. “It’s good to know that. I’ll… I’ll think about it, Ms. Rodgers. I really will.”

  “You can call me Quinn,” I said, with a sort of smile on my face. In all honesty, I would prefer ‘Dr. Rodgers’ to ‘Ms. Rodgers’ but ‘Quinn’ was the friendliest possible thing to be called. I didn’t like to build up artificial authority between myself and patients. The more they felt I could be trusted, the better their appointments would go. I didn’t want them to waste their money and time on a woman they didn’t even really trust.

  “Well, I’ll try,” the patient said. He offered me a nervous smile and stood up.

  “Oh, are we out of time?” I glanced at the clock above the door and shook my head. “Gets away from me. I’ll see you back tomorrow, yeah?”

  “Sure thing, Ms. Quinn,” he said. I opened the door for him, and he made his way out. I didn’t have any more patients for the day and had been tempted to hold him over, but if I did that with him, I’d start doing it with everyone.

  As I began to close the door to my office, I spotted Kimberly standing outside against the wall, peering over like she was checking to see if I was in.

  “Kimberly?” I called.

  She offered me an enthusiastic wave. “Hey, Quinn. I was wondering if you were in. I tried calling, but…”

  “I keep my phone off while I’m at work. I hate for it to go off while I’m talking to someone. Come on in,” I said, and held the door open for her. “Can I get you a cup of tea?”

  “That would be lovely,” she said, and I sat down and poured out some tea for the older woman.

  “What brings you by?” I asked, handing over the mug.

  “Well, it’s…” Kimberly sighed. “It’s Sawyer. Remember how I was talking to you at the party the other day?”

  I nodded. I hadn’t really stopped thinking about that entire event, namely the interaction with Sawyer, but also what Kimberly told me stuck in my mind. It was like an unsolved puzzle to me. “Of course.”

  “It’s been on my mind, what you said about sometimes veterans need a psychologist,” Kimberly said. She pursed her lips. “Sawyer’s been retreating. He stays in his room a good deal of the time. This morning I tried to talk to him about getting out and around and he took off to his friend’s house. Now, I know he’s got some issues with his father, too, and that…” She took a drink of her tea.

  “It’s a lot to think about,” I said, trying not to allow Kimberly to divulge too much of Sawyer’s personal information. I couldn’t imagine he’d appreciate me knowing the nitty gritty about his brain.

  “Yes, it certainly is.” Kimberly pushed a piece of hair behind her ear. “But I was thinking about it, and I know that Sawyer said he was angry about some of the psychiatrists overseas. They don’t talk; they just push pills. And I was thinking about how you said you only gave medication as a last resort.”

  I could see where she was going with this, and it didn’t sit all too well with me. I had quite the crush on Sawyer, if I was being honest with myself, and I knew that it wasn’t ever a good idea to get involved with a patient.

  “So I was wondering if you might be willing to help him,” Kimberly finally said. “You being a psychologist and all.”

  I thought about it. It would be a little dicey, but I couldn’t hardly give Kimberly any reason why not. I didn’t want to admit that I had a little crush on her son, and I also didn’t want to tell her no for no reason. I knew myself well enough to know that I could stifle a crush. There had been attractive patients in the past that I’d ignored any and all potential feelings for. I was a professional; it wouldn’t be any challenge at all to handle Sawyer.

  “I don’t see any reason why not,” I said. I fastened my ponytail a bit tighter. “You’ll just need to be sure that he comes here on his own. Forcing people into therapy never works. Patients have to be receptive.”

  “Of course,” Kimberly said. “Of course, I wouldn’t want to aggravate his condition or anything.”

  I smiled. “Right.”

  She talked to me a little about when I’d be available, and I offered her a rough copy of my schedule. I had plenty of openings, but all at strange times, since people who worked normal work days came in during the evenings or on the weekends. Finally, she left, with some tea in a travel cup and my pseudo-promise still in her ears.

  When I closed the door, I couldn’t help but mouth a small curse to myself. I’d gone and invited Sawyer to
dinner, being everything but coy with him. After such a straightforward flirting experience, it would be hard to backtrack into patient-doctor territory. Especially here, where I could be delegitimized as a functioning doctor.

  Still, I thought of what I’d seen of him at the party. He’d set himself away from the main group, a surefire sign of mental distancing made physical. If he’d been in the Navy SEALs, in combat areas, there was no doubt he’d seen some disturbing things. I’d taken entire classes on PTSD and veterans. It wasn’t my specialty. Usually, I dealt with adult issues ranging from divorce to people cracking under pressure of their job. But I was doubtlessly qualified and well-read in the area, and it wasn’t a bad idea to send him to me.

  All I needed to do was look at him as a puzzle and not as a person. I didn’t usually go to that extreme with patients. I considered myself at least relatively compassionate and wanted my patients to feel like the valued people they were. With Sawyer, though, I was going to need to set up some boundaries, and quickly. Some of those would be between him and I, and some would be things I dealt with on my own, mentally.

  And that wasn’t even the biggest problem with everything. The biggest problem, as far as I could tell, was that I was quite directly related to his ex-girlfriend, Stacy. My aunt, whom I was very close to, was her mother. And while Stacy wasn’t one of my patients and I didn’t need to worry about a conflict of interest in that regard, it still didn’t sit well with me.

  I could have referred him to someone else. I picked my keys up off the desk and started turning off the lamps and candles in my office while I turned that over in my head. I could have referred Kimberly to a different psychologist and saved myself a lot of stress and trouble. Now I was in a mess I wasn’t sure I knew how to get out of.

  Still, I knew I couldn’t. I wanted very much to talk to Sawyer. At this point, I was curious, and my own curiosity led to trouble. I wanted to know what had gone on in his life and figure out what was going on inside his head. If I sent him to someone else, there would be a million questions running around unanswered in my head.

  As I walked out of the office, I sighed to myself and shook my head. That was all well and good to think of it as a puzzle, but I had to be sure to not get too attached.

  Chapter Seven

  SAWYER

  The hum of the lawn mower engine buzzed loud in my ears, and I adjusted my cap to keep the sun from beating down on my neck. Pete had assigned me to mow his front lawn for the morning. I got the feeling he didn’t trust me with some of the farm work, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t looking for anything specific, rather something to keep my mind off the world and everything in it. I rode the lawn mower around until I’d covered every inch of grass and checked back over my shoulder to make sure I’d done an even job.

  “Sawyer! Hey, Sawyer!” Pete shouted at me from up by his house, waving.

  I cut the engine, worried I’d done something wrong. When I came up the hill, though, I could see Pete was grinning. “What?”

  “Thought you could use a break,” Pete said. “I finished doing my work, so I figured you’d finished yours.”

  “Just about.” I could still go up the sides of the hill; I’d only done the front lawn, but then, that was all that was assigned to me.

  “Looks good, man. You did a clean job. You want a beer?”

  I shook my head and sat down on the porch.

  We stayed quiet for a few minutes, and I contemplated getting back on the mower and finishing up the sides of the lawn anyway. It might bother me that I hadn’t done it otherwise. Before I could get up, though, Pete was talking, as he was prone to do.

  “You thinking about the psychiatrist stuff?” Pete asked.

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “I know you talked to my mom about it. I told you, I’d think about it for her sake.”

  “Thinking about it?” Pete sat back in his chair. “Last I heard, you were set on goin’ to put her at ease.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I’m just not sure it’ll really help anyway. It might just confirm that something’s wrong. If I go, she’ll think something actually did happen.”

  “Well, I think something did,” Pete interjected.

  He was right, of course. Something had happened. I didn’t know how to talk about it, didn’t know how to feel about it, and would have preferred to stay quiet until I died. I didn’t see why that was such a bad thing. I didn’t understand this mentality of opening up and blabbering about feelings. None of it helped anyone. It certainly wouldn’t help the people affected.

  “In any case, I believe you gave me your word that you’d go,” Pete said.

  I turned to look at him. “I did no such thing.”

  “As I recall, you told me you’d go for your mother’s sake. That sounds like your word to me.” Pete spat off to the side, and I wondered if he’d taken up dip while I was gone.

  “You’re not going to hold me to that,” I said. “Honestly, Pete, I’d rather drop the whole thing. Let it be done and over with. Nothing good can come of prying into what I’ve already gotten over.”

  “Unless you haven’t gotten over it, and you need help wrestlin’ it back into whatever hole you stuffed it down,” Pete countered.

  He had a bit of a point there. I could shove it away, lock and key, and then leave it there. But the fact was, what happened was still at the forefront of my mind. I hadn’t successfully shoved it down yet.

  “Third parties are always good for that sort of thing,” Pete said. It reminded me of the time he’d nearly run for governor of our home city outside Austin on account of that he didn’t like the big businesses coming in. He’d run for a week as a third-party candidate before going broke and forgetting the whole thing.

  “You’re really going to be on my ass about this, aren’t you?” I shook my head and squinted up at the sun. It was well past noon, which meant I could get maybe an hour of work in before I needed to get back home.

  “Yep.”

  I didn’t want to be on the other end of Pete’s firm opposition. “Shit. Fine, I’ll go. You got my word—for real, this time, not by some bullshit.” I shook my head.

  On the way home, I considered what exactly I’d do about a therapist. Getting one tied me to Austin, for sure, and I’d wanted to have options. I wanted to be able to branch out, leave town if I needed to, but I supposed therapists were available pretty much anywhere with a city.

  When I got home, I darted off to the shower to get the smell of sweat and bug spray off my person. I pulled on a pair of pants and a t-shirt just as Mom rang the bell for dinner. I always got a kick out of that bell. We didn’t live on a farm or any big piece of property that might make that bell necessary, but she liked to ring it all the same.

  I took my time walking back through the house. I’d been darting to and from my room so often that I’d taken a little time to appreciate where I was. The fireplace was just where I’d left it, the couches still aligned the same way, facing the smallish TV in the corner. Our family was never big on television, save for some sporting events. One of our neighbors had a big screen, and we’d crowd around at his house for the Super Bowl.

  Just like my room, the house was untouched. I passed by one of my middle school photos hanging in the hallway, and I stared at it for a second. Same dark hair, same bright eyes. Adults had been off-put by my eyes when I was a child, either commenting that they were the loveliest blue or the most frightening color. On a child, two big light-blue eyes were unnerving.

  “Sawyer? Are you coming to dinner?”

  I blinked myself back to the present and started down the hallway. I could see my father sitting at the kitchen table, just like he had been the day before, and prepared myself for another awkward exchange. I didn’t want to subject myself to this, but it seemed I had no choice, and we’d need to talk sooner or later.

  Instead of talk, though, Dad stood up with his meal and walked away. He went to the backyard to eat, touching his hand to his Bluetooth as though any of us b
elieved he had a phone call to make. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the nerve he had. I’d done nothing to him. Nothing, at least, that I hadn’t remedied.

  “Oh, don’t let him bother you, dear,” Mom said. She brought me a plate of food, and I thanked her, managed a smile. She deserved better. She always had.

  When we sat to eat, she made the conversation. “Did you go to work with Pete today?”

  “Yeah, a little. He just made me mow the lawn.”

  “Well, you could mow the lawn here!”

  I looked up from my plate. “Does it need mowing? I’ll do it tomorrow morning.”

  Mom laughed and took a sip of her water. “Oh, I’m joking. Your dad hired a lawn crew to come by on the weekends. We don’t have to worry about it anymore. Terribly expensive, though.”

  “You let me know if you need me to do it,” I said.

  She nodded. We fell quiet again, eating, and I thought that would be the last of the conversation. She had one more thing to bring up, though.

  “Did you talk to Pete about anything?” she asked.

  Something in her tone brought back memories of her asking me if I was in trouble in class. It was the tone she took when she knew something, but she was asking to see if I would tell the truth. I wondered if she’d talked to Pete since I left his house; I doubted it, but at the very least, she’d have gotten some kind of promise out of Pete to talk to me about it.

  “Yeah, we talked about therapists,” I said.

  That was the right answer. Mom’s eyebrows went up, and she smiled. “Oh, I’ve heard that they’re absolutely wonderful for some people.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. She wasn’t being particularly subtle, and she had to know that Pete would have told me about their conversation.

  Sure enough, she sighed. “Shoot. I suppose you know I talked to Pete. I just… I just think it would be good for you, Sawyer. I can’t expect you to tell me or Pete or your father everything about what happened, you know?”

  “I know,” I assured her. And it was true that I wouldn’t tell her or Pete or Dad anything. Least of all her or Pete—I might tell my father, just to get back at him. The stories I had weren’t just gripping tales; they were deeply fucked-up and disturbing. I didn’t want to burden my family with the content, nor did I want them to carry the guilt that came with knowing I’d been through that. I’d seen other people from my SEAL team have families fall apart over guilt like that.