by Claire Adams
“When you say it like that, it sounds naïve and cheesy.”
“If the shoe fits.”
“Bitch,” Melody laughed. “I thought we had a connection, okay?”
“And…did you?”
“We did for the first hour. It sort of disintegrated the moment he came,” Melody said, with distaste. “He put on his pants, and I was expecting some kind of…conversation, I suppose.”
“And, I’m assuming he thoroughly disappointed on that front?”
“He disappointed on all fronts, my friend,” Melody said. “Even the sexual front. Basically, I was trying to engage him in conversation and was on the verge of asking him to stay for dinner when his phone started ringing. He answered it, said like three words, and then hung up. When I asked him if he could stay for dinner, he turned around, looked me in the eye, and said, and I quote, ‘Sorry I’ve got to go; that was my wife, and she wants me home for dinner.’”
“He was married,” I said.
Melody sighed. “Naturally, I got pissed off and asked him what he was doing fucking random women when he had a wife at home.”
“What did he say?”
“He assumed I was just looking for a fuck, too,” Melody said. “So I got angrier and started yelling, and he got the hell out of my apartment. I don’t think I’ll ever see him again.”
“Geez,” I said. “The guys you attract are seriously insane.”
“It’s not my fault I’m a hopeless romantic.”
“I don’t understand how you can just jump into bed with a random stranger.”
“Are you telling me that you’ve never fucked a guy you’ve just met?”
I hesitated a second. Melody didn’t need to know that I was a virgin. I knew she’d freak out if she did, and I’d have to spend the rest of the night explaining my choice to her.
“No,” I replied.
“Such a Virgin Mary.”
I snorted with laughter and Melody looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face, obviously unaware of the secret…my other secret. I realized suddenly that I was juggling a lot of different secrets all at the same time. Of course, being a virgin wasn’t such a big deal in the grand scheme of things, especially in light of my position as Jake’s assistant.
But the reference did almost made me laugh out loud, especially given that I was exactly like Mary in that I was a virgin, too—a closeted virgin, but a virgin nonetheless. I still didn’t want to admit that to Melody, though. It wasn’t that I was ashamed or anything. I just didn’t want to have to explain my reasons to her. Nor did I want to have to fend off all the guys she would undoubtedly throw my way.
“You’re thinking of your boss again, aren’t you?” Melody asked.
My eyes went wide with surprise, and I knew I had just given myself away with that reaction. “Uh, no.”
“Liar,” Melody laughed. “I can tell.”
“How?” I demanded, more than a little impressed.
“You have this look on your face when you talk about him,” she said. “It’s like you want to save him and fuck him all at the same time. It’s precious.”
“Shut up.”
She laughed. “You know, have you ever considered the possibility that he might actually share your feelings?”
“Okay, number one, I don’t have feelings for my boss,” I said firmly. “And number two, what the hell are you talking about?”
“The way he’s acting around you,” she said. “You obviously bring out strong emotions in him; maybe all the sexual tension building up inside him is what’s causing him to behave like this.”
“That makes no sense.”
“The male mind is complex,” Melody said. “Sometimes the reasons why they behave a certain way is not immediately obvious. I think Jake might have a little thing for you—otherwise, he would have behaved normally towards you after that.”
“I think you’ve had enough wine for tonight,” I said.
“You just don’t like that I may be right about this.”
“Jake is a pretty straightforward guy,” I said. “I think if he were interested in someone, he would just come right out and say it.”
“But you’re forgetting that you’re his employee,” she pointed out. “Maybe he’s scared to approach him because in the event it goes wrong, you could sue him for sexual harassment.”
“You think too much,” I said, shaking my head at her.
Just then the doorbell rang, and Melody rose to answer it. “Fine, stick to your guns as much as you want,” she said as she headed towards the door. “Go ahead and cling to denial. But I see you, Kristen. There’s more to your relationship with Jake than just superior and subordinate.”
I bit my lip and suppressed a sigh. If Melody only knew, I thought to myself.
Chapter Nine
Jake
The beach was quiet on this side. The sea stretched out for miles in curling waves of blue and green. I had already run three miles when Luis found me.
“Sanchez,” I said as we clasped hands before bumping our shoulders together in what qualified as a hug. “It’s been a while.”
Luis smiled. “You look good, Middleton,” he said, and he looked me over carefully. “It’s like you never left the army.”
“I make sure to run at least three times a week,” I told him.
“How do you even manage to find the time?”
“I drop Noah off at kindergarten, do a seven-mile run, and head into the office a little late.”
“Perks of being the CEO, huh?” he asked.
“Definitely,” I nodded.
I had met Luis Sanchez when I was still rookie in training. He was a marine and had a couple of years and a whole lot of experience on me. But it had taken one conversation to make us friends, and even though we were part of separate divisions, we had worked together in Afghanistan and had made the attempt to keep in touch after I had retired from the army.
It had been more than a year since I’d last seen Luis, but he didn’t look any different. Dark eyes, tan skin, and a shaved head that you could bounce a quarter off of. He was a few inches shorter than I was, stockier, and heavily built, but he was one of the finest and most disciplined fighters I had ever seen.
We started walking along the coast as waves lapped at our feet. “How’s is it?” I asked. “Over there?”
Luis smiled. “The same as it was when you were serving,” he responded.
I looked out into the ocean and imagined the dry heat of Afghanistan. Was it odd that a part of me missed it? I wondered. Maybe it wasn’t the land… Maybe it had to do with the purpose of being there. Maybe it was because I knew whom I was when I was serving. My life was straightforward, uncomplicated. I had a job to do, and I enjoyed doing it.
But now… Everything was different. I was no longer in the army, I was no longer a major, and I no longer had the same sense of purpose I had once had.
“Do you miss it?” Luis asked as though he had read my mind.
“Is it weird if I said yes?”
He smiled. “Hey, I happen to understand where you’re coming from. When I’m over there, I miss it here. But the moment I’m here… I can’t wait to leave again. But it’s different for me.”
“Why?”
“Because I have no one to come home to,” he said.
“You have parents,” I pointed out.
“That’s different,” Luis clarified. “My parents have each other. They have two other sons and five grandchildren to occupy themselves with. They don’t depend on me for anything. Having a family of your own is a whole other thing, though.”
“What if you did have a wife?” I asked. “What if you had kids?”
“I would keep serving until the day I died, or they begged me to retire,” Luis said. “I would have had to keep saying goodbye to my wife and to my children, and they would have had to live with the uncertainty of my career and the fear of knowing that every time I leave, I might never come home again. That is why I will never
get married.”
I bit my lip. A part of me wished I had been that smart when I was younger. I remembered the first few months of my courtship with Daphne. It had made me stronger; she had breathed new life into me, and I had gotten caught up in the moment. I had never stopped to think about the future or the freedom we were sacrificing in order to be together.
“You made the right choice, Middleton,” Luis said. “You made the right choice by leaving the military. Noah needed you. And, you’ve done amazing things since you left. It’s rare for a Major to give up his position like that. It’s even rarer to find him managing a whole company within a couple of years of his retirement.”
I smiled. “Some days I prefer the military.”
Luis laughed. “It’s funny,” he said. “The first day I met you, I looked at you and thought, that guy was made to serve. He was made to be a soldier. But now I look at your life now, and I think, this is where he’s meant to be. I think that’s how life works. We end up where we’re meant to end up.”
“Very poetic,” I said. “I didn’t know you were such a softie.”
“Just philosophical,” Luis laughed. “I’ve been reading a lot of Khalil Gibran lately.”
“Daphne used to read him,” I said, mostly to myself.
“How is Noah?” Luis asked.
“He’s…doing well,” I said. “He’s four now.”
“They grow up so fast,” Luis nodded. “Do you have a picture?”
I took out my phone and showed Louis a couple of recent photos of Noah. He was smiling in all of them and looking bashfully at the camera.
“He’s a looker.”
“Isn’t he, though?” I said proudly.
“I can’t see any Daphne in him, though,” Luis said. “He’s your spitting image.”
“Daphne used to say the same thing,” I nodded. “People just tell me he looks like Daphne because they think that’s what I want to hear. They think somehow that’ll make me feel better.”
“People don’t always know what to do with loss,” Luis pointed out. “They tend to react strangely.”
I thought about my behavior last week towards Kristen and felt instantly ashamed. Despite my shame, though, I still hadn’t worked up the willingness or the courage to apologize to her. In fact, I had been downright rude to her all week long. I wasn’t exactly sure what that was about; I just saw her and I would hear myself barking instructions without even bothering to meet her eye.
I had sensed her hurt the whole week, but I still wasn’t sure why I just didn’t man up and say I was sorry. She had been doing me a favor, and I had treated her terribly. A part of me wondered why she hadn’t quit already, and I realized at that moment perhaps that was my unconscious reasoning. Maybe I felt that if I treated her badly enough, then she would leave and I wouldn’t have to see her around the office anymore.
“How have you been?” Luis asked.
“Fine,” I replied.
“Is it still difficult coping with Daphne’s death?”
I hesitated a moment. “You know what?” I said. “I don’t really want to talk about that.”
He was quiet for a second, and I could feel his eyes bored into the side of my face. “So basically you haven’t been coping.”
“It’s been three years since she died,” I said. “I’ve coped and moved on.”
“Then why is it so hard for you to talk about her?”
I was starting to feel angry. When I said I didn’t want to talk about Daphne, people automatically avoided the subject. I hated the fact that Sanchez was forcing me to confront the memories that I was desperately trying to forget.
“Because she’s dead,” I snapped. “Death isn’t always the easiest thing to talk about.”
“You were in the army,” he continued, completely unfazed by my obvious annoyance. “Your wife was in the army. Surely, death is something you need to come to terms with.”
“What are you saying?” I demanded. “Because we were in the army, I should have expected this to happen? I should have expected to lose my wife?”
“Not expected to, no,” Luis said calmly. “But you had to have known it was a possibility. Surely, you were prepared for it?”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I reiterated firmly.
I started walking faster down the beach, almost as though I wanted to outrun Luis and get away from his questions, but he matched my pace, refusing to be shaken off.
“Have you at least spoken to someone about this?”
“About what?”
“About Daphne, about Noah, about raising a child alone after losing your wife so suddenly,” Luis continued. “You should talk to someone about it, Middleton. What about a shrink?”
“You think I need a therapist?” I demanded, stopping short and turning to face Sanchez.
“Why not?” he said, with a shrug. “It’s obvious you’re not talking to friends or family about this. It’s been three years, and you’re acting like Daphne died two weeks ago.”
“Fuck you,” I said, trying to walk away from him.
“You have a lot of anger pent up in there,” Luis said, sticking me in the chest. “That can’t be healthy for you, and it certainly can’t be healthy for your son.”
“Don’t talk about Noah,” I said fiercely. “My son is fine.”
“How can he be?” Luis demanded. “When his father is so obviously a mess.”
Before I could stop myself, before I could even think, my hand and balled itself into a fist and screamed through the air before making contact with the side of Luis’s jaw. It was a big punch, but Luis stumbled back only a few feet before managing to regain his footing.
He looked slightly surprised, but he was smiling as he rubbed his jaw. “Wow, you’ve still got some bite to your punch.”
“Fuck,” I said, taking a step forward. “I’m sorry… I… That was—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Luis said, waving away my apology. “I asked for it.”
“You kind of did,” I nodded.
He smiled. “I’m glad to see you’re at least letting out some of that anger.”
“I…” I started to say something, but then I realized I didn’t know what to say.
Luis put a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve got a lot to work through, Jake,” he said, using my first name. It was a sign that he was seriously concerned about me and wanted to help in any way that he could, even if it meant exposing me to some harsh realities.
“I know,” I admitted.
“I’m glad you’re aware of that,” he said. “Because your son is going to need you. He needs a father that’s present and happy and at peace with the past.”
I sighed. “How can I be at peace with the past, Luis?” I asked. “Especially how things were between Daphne and I those last few months before she was deployed.”
“Figure it out, Jake,” Luis said gently. “You have to—for Noah’s sake. You have to be both parents for him, and that means you have to fight harder to deal with your demons. Otherwise, they’re going to eat you whole, and your son is going to suffer for it.”
I sighed. “Serving in the military was easier,” I said, looking out towards the ocean as I tried to find a silver lining.
“This is going to be just as much of a battle for you,” Luis agreed. “But you have to keep reminding yourself that you can do this.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You were a major in the army,” he pointed out. “You have the discipline and the determination. Now you just need the hope.”
“Hope,” I sighed. “Hope is the hardest emotion to summon.”
Luis patted me hard on the back. “It’s also the hardest emotion to kill.”
Chapter Ten
Kristen
“Today’s going to be different,” I told myself, looking at my reflection in the mirror.
Giving myself pep talks while staring at various reflective surfaces seemed to be my morning ritual now. I had woken up feeling reasonably
happy, and I hoped that the feeling would last through the day. I was wearing a pencil skirt and a collared blouse with billowy sleeves. It was perhaps a little much for a personal assistant, but I wanted to feel confident today.
I had worn my hair down and added a little mascara and eyeliner for extra effect. I walked into work feeling positive for the first time in ages. I was going to take control of the situation, I told myself repeatedly as I walked to my desk. I was not going to let Jake’s attitude bother me one bit. I was going to do my job, be professional, and allow him to vent out whatever frustrations he was working through.
Jake had still not arrived when I sat down at my desk, so I took the opportunity to get myself some coffee and do some paperwork. I had just finished arranging his schedule for the day when he walked in. I saw him coming from the corner of my eye and stood up for no reason.
Take control of the situation, I told myself. Don’t let him ignore you. With that refrain reeling in my head, I made direct eye contact and gave Jake a smile that was perhaps a little wider than it needed to be.
“Good morning, Mr. Middleton,” I said, in a cheerful voice.
He barely glanced in my direction. His eyes flitted to me for a short moment, he nodded once, and then he disappeared into his office and slammed the door in my face.
Irritated and angry, I could feel my good mood slip away from me. He had no right to treat me this way. He hadn’t even offered me an explanation for this bizarre reaction the night I had babysat for Noah. I took a deep breath and went over to the lunchroom where I got together a special blend of cinnamon coffee for Jake and headed to his office with fresh determination.
I knocked on the twice, short, sharp raps that indicated I meant business. I was met with only silence, so I was forced to knock again.
“What is it?” Jake’s annoyed voice sounded from the other side.
I pushed the door open and walked in without an invitation. I could tell from Jake’s expression that he was not happy with the intrusion. I rarely came into his office without reason.