by Leigh Lennon
While I try to unscrew it, I hear a little clearing of the throat and understand right away that it’s not April. No, standing in front of me is not the woman I’ve been dating for the past month. This is the woman I’ve compared every one that I have dated against since I let her go. Standing in front of me is the woman I had loved; still love. This beauty in front of me is my Ginger.
2
Sasha
I pull onto his street. My hands are shaking. Will he want to see me? Maybe, but certainly not after I tell him what I came to share after all these years. Parking on the curb, the same one I parked on three years ago, I know he’s home. I see movement in the house and right away, I recognize his tall and slender build. My heart stammers. No one has ever replaced the void that Jake left when I read his note.
No, I won’t fucking go down that rabbit hole. I came here for one reason and one reason alone. I’ll get it out of the way and go back to my life. As much as it hurt, I know why he did what he did. I just hope he’ll understand why I did what I did.
Ringing the doorbell, it opens but he doesn’t look up. He has a fucking corkscrew in his hands, trying to unscrew the cork that got stuck in it. I knew this before but looking at the archaic corkscrew, I know he must not drink much wine or he’d have a better contraption.
When I clear my throat, he looks up at me, dropping the corkscrew. I know I have shocked him more than I did the first day of our holiday fling when I word-fucked him in the shared living space of our villa.
“Davis,” I say with a smile, and the second I do, he pulls me into a tight embrace. I’m not expecting this from him, but to his knowledge, I don’t know the whole truth. Sadly, it’s him that doesn’t know the whole truth.
“Ginger, what the fuck?” Even with his hard words, he doesn’t fool me. His tone says he’s excited I’m here. “Come in out of the cold.” Leaning over, he bends down and grabs the corkscrew, “Give me a second.” I hear something sizzling in the kitchen and I peek my head in to see what he’s doing.
Grabbing his phone, I watch him as he’s whispering. I get only a little bit of the conversation, “I know. Sorry. Family emergency.” He turns the burners off and spinning around, he catches me watching him.
“I’m sorry, I see I’m interrupting you,” I say but I really don’t care. This is more important than any romp in the hay he may be about to venture in to. But it hurts, seeing the table set and my old Davis with a great bottle of wine on the table, looking so fucking good I can eat him.
At my words, he shakes his head then runs his fingers through his hair, his signature move when he’s thinking. Taking my hand and pulling me into his living room, we stop in front of the couches. He motions to the longer one as he sits on the loveseat. “Ginger, I never stopped looking for you. It took me a good month to get my head screwed on straight. To realize I was an idiot, but there was a good reason I let you go that night.”
I don’t want to hear the sordid details. He let me go, he chose for us, without giving me an option. If he’d shared the whole truth with me after he found out, I would have chosen to stay with him, even if it meant turning my back on my family, which I had done years ago.
Leaning forward with my elbows on my knees, I start, “Jake, I know everything.”
His body slumps in the loveseat as he pulls back. “How?”
“It’s a long story that I’ll get to, but you have to let me fully finish before you jump to conclusions.”
It doesn’t take him long to invade my space as he drops to his knees in front of me, “Then, Ginge, you must know I have scoured the world for you.” His hands are now on my knees and they shake a little. I want so badly to feel them all over my body, not just on my knees.
Sighing, I begin. “I know that but when you let me go, you chose this for both of us. I had someone looking out for me and for that reason, I chose to follow her. You gave up on us.”
It doesn’t surprise me when fury scorches his eyes, spreading to his entire face. I knew Jake Davis for all of ten days. I don’t have to know him a lifetime to understand when he’s mad. “Then you must not know the whole story.”
It’s my turn to lean back, giving us space, “Yes, I know the whole fucking story, Davis.” The way in which I deliver my words, both loud and blunt, takes him by surprise. “I know it all, from Mack’s part in it, to Sylvie, to you being a CIA operative set up by Sylvie to fall for me in order to bring me in. But here is the thing, Jake, you discounted me. You didn’t give me a choice in the matter. You took the easy way out.” That last part I say in only a tone he can decipher. Just as I know Jake Davis, he knows me as well, better than anyone, considering our time together was cut short.
“You were in danger, Ginger.” Bolting from his crouch near me, he stands up. “How the fuck do you know about Sylvie?” He stops and I see the wheels connecting the dots in his mind, “Who is protecting you, Ginger?” It was going to come out eventually, during this little meet and greet. I might as well pull the band-aid off.
I stand up now, not wanting to concede, not yet. He wants to blame me for choosing this. I won’t take all the blame, I fucking won’t. In my heels, I am still a good three inches shorter than Jake but that doesn’t stop me from going toe to toe with him. “You fucking left me. You let me go.”
Cupping my face, not in the gentle way Jake was known for holding me, but not violent either, he takes my chin to bring my eyes to his when he says, “I’m going to ask one more fucking time, who is protecting you?”
Again, I take a breath and count backward from ten. I need this time to work up the courage to share all of the last three years with Jake. “Sylvie has been with me for the past three years. She has made sure I’m in hiding, from my dad and brothers. She has vowed to keep me safe. This was the deal we made.”
“You chose fucking Sylvie over me?” he accuses, loudly.
“I had no choice. When she came and found me, she was broken herself. She lost the one true friend she had in this world. Out of friendship for Hannah, she swore she would protect me.”
“And you never came to me. I could tell you everything that Sylvie says is a lie, she doesn’t know how to tell the truth.”
I laugh at the irony of his words, “That is rich coming from you.”
The anger flashes in his eyes, “Well, you are here now. I’ll take over protection. It’s what Mack and I do, we own our own security and homeland protection agency. We provide security to those that need it and we contract government jobs, too. We can pick and choose.”
I’m ignoring most of what Jake is saying. Yes, I know about his new career, but I’ll be damned if someone is going to tell me how to live. He kneels in front of me again, “Ginge, do you hear me? We don’t need Sylvie. Yes, I’ll always regret letting you go. Shit, Ginger, I made a bad choice. A fucking horrible choice.”
Still standing, I back away from his touch and I take away my support which almost knocks him over as I try to give us as much space as his house will allow. “You fucking asshole. Have you not heard a word I just said? You made a decision for us three fucking years ago. I’m not your responsibility anymore. Sylvie has quit her job to care for…” I stop before I say much more.
“You can’t trust Sylvie.”
“Funny, she told me everything but not you. She found out there was a mole in her unit. The only way to protect you was to separate you and me. She came to me to watch over me.” I stop, “To watch over us.” Our eyes meet and he understands my words right away.
Jerking his head back, the one word, us, stops him in his tracks. He opens his mouth to speak and the only thing I hear is the sound of the radiator. Nothing comes out while he squeezes his eyes shut. Standing toward me, gripping onto my shoulder, he finally asks, “What? Are you saying what I think you are saying?”
I immediately feel the inability to meet his eyes. Backing away from his touch again, with my shoulders feeling the weight of a thousand bricks, I reply, “Davis, we have a daughter and the only way to
keep her safe, to keep you safe, was to go off the books. Sure, Sylvie has done a lot of bad shit in her career, that I know for certain, but she left the CIA three years ago. She’s watching me. She’s watching us. It was the only way to protect our daughter and you.”
He steadies himself when he walks over to the fireplace, “Now who is making the decisions for whom?”
“I know and you have every right to be mad, but I did all I could do to protect our daughter.”
“Our daughter?” he asks.
“Yes, our daughter, Audrey Margaret Davis. I named her after both our mothers.”
I walk toward him and he allows me to touch his hand. “Though I just call her Little Davis.” I say.
3
Jake
The saying “My mind is racing a mile a minute,” is an understatement. She’s in my space and the love I thought was gone three years ago when she drove off is still here, in my heart. She’s still my Ginger and when I should be pissed off as all hell at her, the thought of sharing a child with this feisty redhead brings things into perspective. Our bond is still evident, especially now.
I let her go three years ago. I should’ve never done it, and she’d only done what was safe for our little girl. I have a girl, named after my mom, but who Ginge calls the name she’d always called me.
“Davis,” she whispers, “Say something, anything.”
It now hits me, Ginger’s family is after her. Why break radio silence and reach out to me? Not that I’m complaining. My girl, I already love her and I don’t know anything about this little part of me besides her age and name. Going into both job mode and dad mode, which is fucking weird, I look down and we are still holding hands. “If you are in such danger, why risk it? You could have gotten to me in other ways than coming out of hiding.”
Looking down at our hands, she lets go and I instantly miss the warmth her touch brings. “Jake,” she begins and I know the shit’s going to hit the fan when she uses my name. “She’s sick. She has an immune system disease and needs a bone marrow transplant. It’s called hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, HLH for short. Long story short, her cells become too overactive and cause inflammation. Though it can be life-threatening, they think she’ll be okay since you are a match.”
Instantly, I’m hit with so many questions. How could they know I’m a match, but I don’t need to ask—fucking Sylvie! She has her ways. I fall back, glad that there is a chair near the fireplace that breaks my fall. “You’re fucking telling me, in a span of five minutes, that I’m a dad to a daughter I never knew about and that she may die?”
The words hit her, I can tell as she steadies herself. “That’s why I’m here.”
The only reason she’s here is not out of her desire to share our baby with me, but only because our little girl is hurt. I only benefit from knowing my daughter exists because she’s sick.
She continues, “I know what you are thinking.” I highly doubt it, I mumble in my head. “Jake, every month I woke up with the resolve that in the next thirty days, I would be here telling you, hoping we could piece together what we’d lost. But a new threat came in or we had to move or life and death would occur, but I never planned to make it much farther without sharing the beauty that is our daughter.”
Okay, maybe she did know what I was thinking. “Sasha,” and now it’s my turn to be serious with her, “I know I let you down but this is not an even swap, you know.”
“Sure, I kept Little Davis away from you for almost two and a half years. You have every right to be hurt, but I was left with very few options.”
I want to yell at her, ‘You could have told me, given me a choice!’ but we are back to taking choices out of each other’s hands. I was the first to do it. But all I can say is, “You know what, this is shit we will need to talk about, but for now, I want to meet my daughter.”
She sighs, indicating it’s not going to be that simple, “We need to leave for a while. You can’t come back here, and you need to make it look like you’re somewhere else.” Pausing, I understand Sylvie has taught her well over the past three years. This is all running through my mind, creating a mental checklist of items as she takes in my place. She starts toward the kitchen, “Sylvie said you would know what to do, so you take care of you and I’ll get your kitchen cleaned.”
With Ginge heading toward the kitchen, my body is still shaking from the news, all of it that she’s hit me with in a matter of ten minutes. Reaching for her slender arms that are insulated with a sweater in this cold Washington winter, I bring her back to me.
“Davis, we will have time to discuss it all once we get our girl to safety.” She tries to push off of me but her slim build is no match for my strong arms.
The words our girl breaks my heart. I have lost so much time with her and I still have not seen what she looks like. But I won’t ask for a picture right now. I need to take her in fully when I can touch her, the baby I made in love with Ginger the last couple nights we were together.
“Ginge, you are right, but fuck, I have missed you.” It’s all I know to say when I slam her body to mine. “I can have ten seconds where I hold you tight because this, you and me, I won’t be fucking stupid like I was last time.”
She looks up into my eyes and I see her tears. I assume our girl has made Ginger a bit gentler, but I still see the fire in her eyes; the fire and brimstone as I have called the package known as Sasha Peterson. She has filled out a little, still sexier than fuck in the tight sweater, tight jeans, and black fuck-me boots that I want to get off of her. Every woman I have been with after Sasha, not that it has been very many, was really a substitute for what I lost with her. No, what I fucking let go of. Even with April, there’s been nothing there. No, Ginger, she still does it for me.
She’s not resisting me. I feel every muscle of her relaxing in my touch. The second she’s in my arms again, I can only say, “You and me? We’re not over.”
Looking back, I see a little of the old Sasha. “We were over the second you let me go, Jake.” Again, I fucking hate when she calls me Jake. It’s one of the connections that make us, us.
Tilting her head back with the same pad of my thumb that could make her orgasm long and hard, my eyes hit hers when I reply, “Keep trying to tell yourself that, cupcake, but you and I both know the truth!”
Pulling away from me hard, I only see the back of her as she retreats into my kitchen, her ass is still hot as hell. Calling back to me, she yells, “We have thirty minutes tops. Sylvie says you will know what to do, how to leave, and what people will track.”
Being in the business as long as I have, I still have fake passports and identities. I make my way into my office to send an alert to Anna, who set up a private network for this reason. In the past three years, I have learned quite a lot concerning her alter ego, Infirmary, and it’s very impressive. She, of course, is our eyes and ears in the hacking world when our other clients need a shit ton of information. Logging on to the network, I sense another person in the room with me. Now, being on high alert, I turn quickly with a gun in my hand.
“Fuck, Davis,” she says, with two bowls in her hands. Putting one down and leaning against the door, she starts shoveling my ravioli in her mouth. “Fuck, this is good. I was hungry.”
Still not acknowledging the fact I could have killed her, I ask, “In the three years you have been with Sylvie, has she taught you anything?”
“Well, yes,” she says in between bites.
“We are on a lockdown, Ginger. Don’t sneak up on me. I’ll take down anyone who is a danger to you or our daughter.”
She laughs when I turn around to finish my SOS to Anna.
“She has a name, you know.”
I have got to get this done and technology is not in my wheelhouse so I stop, sighing, knowing we don’t have long.
“You have the kitchen picked up already?”
“No, but I was starving. I thought I’d throw up before seeing you so I haven’t eaten. By the way, why haven’
t you asked to see pictures of our girl? And why are you not referring to her by her name?”
Standing, I know I need to address this right now, though we have to hurry the fuck up. Breaking the distance between us, I stand in front of her, taking her bowl of ravioli. I tilt her head to see me as I did less than ten minutes earlier. “Now you listen to me, Ginger. I can’t wait to meet our daughter. I haven’t asked to see pictures of her because I want to take her in, live and in person. I can’t wait to finish this packing shit and then meet OUR DAUGHTER for the first time. And nothing can keep me from our little one. And this whole, you and me not getting back together thing, you can just fucking stop that now. We are back together, official as of now, cupcake.” Shaking her head at me in disagreement, I now address the next subject, “As far as what to call our daughter, it’s hard to know what I’ll come up with. Sure, she’s Audrey Margaret, and you call her Little Davis after me, that’s great. But you call me Davis, too, and since we are officially back together, it will be confusing.” She rolls her eyes at me and boy, do I want to smack her fine ass, but that will start us on a downward spiral and when I make love to Sasha again, it will not be rushed. “So, for now, I am not sure what to call her, until I see her and come up with my own name.”
“You’re full of yourself, Davis,” she says, standing in the doorway, good enough to eat. Fuck the ravioli. I want her, all of her. I ignore her, because she’s fucking lying to herself if she thinks I’m letting her go again. She finally says, “What are you doing?”
“I’m sending Mack a message via a network created by a world-renowned hacker we know as Anna.” I turn to her, “Ginge, sugar, I’m not sure where we are going and I can’t wait to be with you and our daughter. So, can we discuss this on the road?”
I think she’s about to leave when she gets in my space. “Listen, we both did what we thought was right to keep the ones we love safe but don’t think for one second this clears you, Davis.”