by Love, B. T.
I grabbed two mugs from the cabinet and filled them with the piping-hot coffee, and then proceeded to add in the cream and sugar. James didn’t like his too sweet, and I was a master at making it for him just how he liked it, right down to how high the pile of sugar should be on the spoon before it was plopped in.
I took the mugs by their handles and went into the living room. James was sitting on the hearth by the wood stove, staring into the dancing flames, completely lost in thought.
I cleared my throat. “Here you go,” I said as I handed him his coffee.
He smiled with kindness. “Thank you,” he said before taking a sip. “Just how I like it.”
I smiled and sat down on the couch. “Thank you for making a fire. It’s really relaxing, especially in this weather.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, looking down at his cup.
The room was quiet, the only sound coming from the crackling fire and the wind and rain outside. For the first time all week I was actually relaxed. But that’s how it was when I was around James; he had a way of putting me at ease.
“So,” I began, trying to break the silence, “how’s work going?”
“I don’t want to talk about work, Katie.”
I swallowed hard, and then looked down into my coffee. “Okay. Then why don’t you be the one to start this conversation then?”
“Yeah, I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Well I’m not going anywhere.” I looked back up and he was staring intently at me. “What?” I asked.
“You sure you’re not going anywhere? Because I’ve been thinking about you leaving me all week. I don’t even know if we’re still together.”
“Yeah,” I said with a touch of uncertainty. “We’re together.”
“Well that’s encouraging,” he said sarcastically.
“Well what do you expect me to say? I’ve had a lot to think about this last week.”
“And what are your thoughts?”
“My thoughts are that you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie to you.”
“Are you serious James? Are we really going to have this conversation again?” I shook my head in disbelief. “You just don’t get it.”
“Listen Katie, when I told you the number of people I had slept with Megan was included in that number. And I didn’t tell you who each of those specific individuals were, so why is Megan such a big deal?”
“Because she lives next door to you!”
“So?”
“So?” I huffed. “All she’s done is flaunt herself around you, trying to make me jealous. I mean, don’t you remember her thong bathing suit from that night in the hot tub? I’m pretty sure that was something very calculated on her part. And to think, you’ve actually been intimate with her, that same tramp who bent over in that thong right in front of my face. That same tramp with the big perky boobs and the tanned skin and flat stomach.”
“But I don’t want her, I want you! And that was so long ago and it was only one time.”
“I don’t care if it was one time!” I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. “Do you know what the worst part about finding out about you and Megan was?”
“What?”
“Finding out from Megan.”
He nodded silently with understanding. “I’m sure that was really hard.”
“Well put yourself in my shoes. If I had sex with a man who was always trying to get me back and I never told you about him, and then one day he was the one who told you about the great sex we once had, how would you feel?”
“Humiliated.”
“Exactly. I’m glad you chose that word because that was exactly how I felt.” I scoffed at the memory of Megan’s cocky smile. “She won that day, and I felt utterly defeated. And betrayed by the man I was in love with.”
“Was in love with?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t know what you mean,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what any of this means.”
“Don’t ask me to validate my feelings for you right now James. I’m not in the mood for it.”
“Well excuse me for wondering about how the woman who I am in love with feels. I mean, do you even want to know why I didn’t tell you about Megan specifically?”
“Yes, please, go right ahead.”
“Because I was ashamed that I had slept with her. She was a mistake that I fully regret and I’m trying to move on from my mistakes. When I met you, god, you were this perfect angel of a woman. You had only slept with one man your whole life and he was someone you ended up marrying, someone you were even still in love with but lost when you shouldn’t have lost him. And there I was, a man who was completely smitten with you but had all these check marks on his sexual record, including sleeping with a particular woman who was loose and known as being a slut. I didn’t want you to think of me as a slut. All I wanted was for you to respect me, and I didn’t respect myself for being with her.” He shook his head at the memory. “I was going through my divorce and I already hadn’t had sex in months, which isn’t an excuse, but I moved into the apartment complex and Megan threw herself at me. And yeah, in a moment of stupidity I had sex with her. I don’t even think about her anymore; I don’t think about what I did with her or anything like that. She actually makes me sick when I see her, and that is the honest truth.”
“Well she made it seem like you had the greatest sex together.”
“Well maybe it was for her but it wasn’t for me. It was just a release. I mean, I’m ashamed to admit it but I was just using her.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Yeah, Katie, it is. And I hate myself for it.”
“Well I hate you for it too. Just thinking about it infuriates me. And I hate thinking about you doing all the other intimate stuff with her, the stuff you do to me.”
“I told you I didn’t do intimate stuff with her, but apparently you don’t believe me.”
“Well maybe it’s because you’re just so good at it and I figured you had to get practice from somewhere.”
“Well thank you for the compliment,” he replied sarcastically, “but how about giving me a little bit of credit? We made out, I put on a condom, I was done, and then she went home. It wasn’t hours spent rolling around under the covers and I don’t even understand why she says it was so great. She was probably just trying to make you as upset as she possibly could.”
“Well how did you have sex with her?”
“What do you mean?”
“What position did you use?”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
His eyes rolled. “I don’t see why that matters.”
“It matters to me.”
He let out a heavy sigh. “Let's just say she was in control . . .” I glared at him from across the room. “Seriously?” he spit out.
“I want to strangle you right now,” I confessed with an incredible amount of calmness.
“Go ahead. Get it out of your system because I want to get past this. You can slap me, punch me in the face, whatever. Just do it so I can have you back.”
I relaxed my drilling stare and took a sip of coffee. “I’m being serious. I’ve never wanted to hurt you more in my life than right now.”
“I completely understand. And like I said, go right ahead if it will make you feel better.”
“I might just take you up on it.”
“Good.” He sat his cup next to him and laced his fingers together, bringing his hands up to his mouth while he drifted away in thought.
My curiosity was killing me; I had to know what was on his mind. “What are you thinking about?” I asked.
“A million different things.”
“Well what are you thinking at this exact moment?”
“I don’t even think I should say it.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll just think I’m trying to pass blame onto you for something
.”
“How is Megan my fault?”
“I’m not talking about Megan; I’m talking about hurting each other.”
“When have I hurt you?” I asked with a little more attitude than I had planned.
“Well, you said me keeping what happened to Seth from you was like lying to you, and the same with the whole Megan thing. But what about you keeping the fact that you were on birth control pills from me for all those months? That really hurt my feelings, and you never once stopped to ask me how I felt about that.”
He was right. “Yeah,” I nodded, “I can see your point.”
“And it’s nothing to be compared to what I’ve kept from you, but it still hurt me. It made me feel like you didn’t trust me to handle that information. I almost felt like a little kid or something, not your man.”
“But that’s not why I kept it from you, I told you that. I said it was because I wasn’t sure when I was going to be ready and I wanted them to be in my system.”
“I know, but whether or not you meant it one way or another that was the way I felt. I felt like you just didn’t want me to assume we could have sex since you were on the pill, when you knew I would never have sex with you until you were ready, whether you were on the pill or not.”
My whole demeanor softened. Even though he had kept something from me that was such a big deal, I was finally seeing his point on why he did it. And I knew he was truly sorry, just as I was sorry for keeping the fact that I was on the pill from him. I never meant to hurt him by doing that; I thought I was protecting his feelings by keeping it to myself.
“Do you want to know what really crushed me?” he asked softly.
“What?”
“When you said you couldn’t believe that you slept with me, and that you should have had me get tested before we had sex in case I had an STD.”
I looked back down at my cup. “Yeah, I’m sorry I said that. I was just really angry.”
“Yeah, I know you were. But I want you to know that I am so much in love with you and I would never ever do anything to you that would harm you, and that includes giving you an STD.”
“I, I know.”
He stood up and grabbed a piece of wood from the small pile he had stacked on the hearth. “I’m really sorry for keeping Megan from you. I was wrong, and I promise there’s nothing else that I have to hide.” He opened the wood stove and threw the log on the flames. “You can ask me any question you want about my past sexual history and I’ll be completely honest. I don’t want any more things to come up in our relationship that could hurt it.”
“No, it’s okay. I don’t really care to know anything else. Unless there’s someone else you’ve been with that I've met that I don’t know about.”
He closed the wood stove and turned to face me. “No, there isn’t. And you know what? The most incredible sex I have ever had in my life has been with you.”
“Oh shut up,” I said with a wary smile.
“I’m being serious,” he smiled in return. “You are like no one I’ve ever met, Katie. And I don’t just mean sexually. God, this past week has been torture for me because I thought I lost you. I mean, I’m assuming I didn’t lose you . . .”
I shook my head. “No, James, you didn’t lose me.”
His face washed over with relief. “Is it okay if I sit by you?”
“Yeah, of course.”
He came over and sat down, sending a wave of his cologne drifting across my face. “I’ve done a lot of thinking this week and I’ve made some changes I want to show you.” He leaned to the side and pulled out some random papers and what looked like receipts that were folded up in his back pocket. “The first thing I want you to see is this.” He unfolded everything and handed me two sheets of paper.
I sat my cup on the coffee table and took them from him. “What’s this?”
“My lab results. After you left I went to the doctors as soon as they could get me in and got a complete STD screen. Everything you can think of that’s sexually transmitted is on there, including AIDS. As you can see I’m all clean.”
My eyes scanned over the negative results. “Wow, James. You didn’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I did. I mean, you were right; I should have been tested before I had sex with you. Even though I’ve been safe with the women I’ve been with I’ve still had more partners than you have had.”
“Well I’ll get tested too then.”
“No, that’s not why I did it. This is about me, not you. And I’m not worried about you having anything.”
“But Matt was with other people before me.”
“Trust me Katie, I’m not worried.”
A flicker of excitement hummed throughout my body. He really was my everything, and now that we were on our way to a reconciliation I was warming up to him again.
“Well thank you for doing this.”
“I would do anything for you.” He smiled sincerely and looked down at the rest of the papers. “You know, I’ve been really depressed this week and I’ve spent a lot of time at my brother’s house. But in between work and going over there I did some other things as well.” He handed me a receipt. “I bought a new bed; it’s already all set up at my house.”
“You bought a new bed?”
“Yeah. I want you to be the only woman to ever be in it with me.” He handed me another receipt. “And here’s the receipt for my new comforter set. I even got a girly purple and white one because I know you like those colors.”
I smiled and looked down at the receipts. He spent a lot of money, especially on the mattresses. My eyes clouded with tears. “Oh James,” I said, reaching over and giving him a hug. “Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
He hugged me tightly. “That’s not all.” He released his hold on me and handed me the last paper in his hand.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a copy of the thirty-day notice I gave my landlord. I’m moving out of my apartment.”
I looked up at him in disbelief. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, I am. I should have done it sooner; I’m sorry I didn’t.”
I couldn’t believe everything he had done to make up for his mistake; I lunged forward, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I love you so much. Thank you for doing this.”
He wrapped his arms around me as if he was relieved that I was touching him. “I would do anything for you, baby,” he whispered next to my ear. “And I’m so sorry I messed everything up.”
“No,” I said, pulling back to see his face. “We both have done things wrong. Let’s just start over from this point on, okay?”
“I want that more than anything.”
I brought my hand to his cheek. “Where are you going to move?”
“I’ll figure it out. As long as you’re coming with me that’s all that matters.”
“I’ll always come with you. I love you.”
His cheeks lifted with a handsome grin. “I love you too.”
Thirteen
“Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
“Well, that is my gun, actually. But I am really happy to see you.”
“Good,” I said, smiling before kissing him softly.
He wrapped his arms more tightly around me. “Mm, we still haven’t christened my new apartment yet.”
“I know.”
James was able to find an apartment to move into pretty quickly. He had great credit and references so the new place welcomed him in without much of a second thought. Man, the weekend we moved him out of the old place was heaven; it was like leaving the past behind, the past being Megan. It was hilarious, actually, because she watched us almost the whole day from her second floor window. Every once in a while I would see her peek through the curtains as we loaded up our vehicles with all of James’s packed things. She really needed to get a life.
“I like this place,” I told him.
“It’s small.”
“Yeah, but that�
��s okay.”
“I’m looking at it as a temporary thing anyway. As soon as I get my transfer to your town I’ll be moving again.” He released his grip on me and unfastened his duty belt, setting it on the kitchen table. “God I have to get out of this uniform.”
I watched in silence as he unbuttoned his shirt, taking it off along with his bullet proof vest and undershirt. “You are so sexy,” I complimented him.
“Why don't you show me how sexy I am?”
* * *
Life was perfect. Everything was going so smoothly in my life. I was in love, James was settled in his new apartment, the kids were getting along wonderfully, and spring was in the air.
My day at work was also going great. I didn’t have one grumpy customer the whole day, which was an amazing occurrence in itself.
And then the phone was for me.
“Kate, phone call,” Julie called across the room. “Line one.”
“Thanks.” I picked up the phone and hit the flashing button. “Hello this is Kate.”
“Kate it’s Mark. I’ve been calling you on your cell for the last fifteen minutes. Why haven’t you answered?”
“Oh, hi Mark,” I said with surprise. “My phone’s in my purse. What’s wrong?”
“It’s James.”
“James? What’s wrong?”
“He’s been shot.”
In that instant my whole world fell apart. “Shot? What do you mean he’s been shot?”
“I don’t have time to explain but you need to go to Elmswood Hospital. They took him there by helicopter.”
“Helicopter?” I choked out. “Mark, no. Please tell me this isn’t happening.”
“It is,” he said, his voice a shaking mess. “And I’m sorry Kate but it’s bad. It’s really bad.”
I put my hand to my forehead while my eyes frantically searched the counter in front of me; I couldn’t even process what was happening. “You said Elmswood Hospital? That’s almost two hours from here.”
“Yeah I know. That’s the best place to save his life.”
“Save his life? What—”
“Kate, I need you to listen to me. Leave work now. Drive straight to the hospital. We’re already on the road and we’ll be there when you get there.”