by KB Winters
All I could do was hope it wasn’t a glimpse into my future. Small snippets of time with my son, ferrying him between the time spent with his “real” family. Including his soon to be little sister.
I shut the door against the thought and went to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of wine, needing something to take the edge off before I went crazy.
Luckily, before I was able to delve too deeply into that pit of despair, Hilda came over with dinner and a sympathetic ear. She’d joined us on a trip to the park the day before, with a couple of other toddlers that she babysat off and on. It had been nice to have company, and watching Jax go nuts seeing her again, we hadn’t had a chance to talk one on one without little ears nearby. I retrieved two plates, and she served up her homemade enchilada pie with smoked chili sauce, while I filled her in on my conversation with Hannah.
“She didn’t know?” She scoffed, when I finished. “My left toe, she didn’t! A woman knows. She chose to ignore, that’s what she did.”
I sat down and twirled my fork through a string of melted cheese, considering her statement. “I don’t know, Hilda,” I sighed. “I believe her. And after she left, I got to thinking about that day, when I walked in on them, and found her half naked in the closet of Mitch’s office, and it fits, she certainly wasn’t some harpy who thought she won a prize.”
Hilda laughed. “That, my dear, is because Mitch is no prize.”
“True.…” I smothered a smile and popped a bite of the steaming dish into my mouth.
Hilda joined me at the table, and smiled at me, a mischievous glimmer in her eyes. I arched a brow at her, my mouth too full to ask what she was thinking. “Heard from your man?” She asked, her smile growing broader.
My cheeks warmed and I paused to take a sip of water before I dared to look at Hilda again. I couldn’t say exactly why hearing Jace being referred to as “my man” was so jarring, especially since I’d begun to think of him that way ever since he told me he was leaving and we’d been together that last time, but something about it shook me up a little inside. “I uh—haven’t heard anything,” I admitted, realizing as I said the words… that was the reason it was so hard. I didn’t want to talk about Jace, because talking about him, led to even more thinking about him, and the fact that I hadn’t heard from him in nearly a month and a half did things to the inside of my heart, twisting it into a wrung out rag.
“I’m sure you will. That man is crazy about you,” Hilda replied, before turning her attention to her dinner.
I didn’t say anything, but couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face as we continued eating.
After Hilda left, I poured myself another glass of wine. Despite what Hilda had said, my stomach was twisted in tight knots as I took the full to the brim glass to the couch and sank down into the worn cushions. One of Jax’s action figures was sticking into my backside, and I cursed as I dug the little plastic man from underneath me, but teared up as I tossed it aside.
God. When had I turned into such a disaster?
My laptop was sitting on the couch and I tugged it towards me. I had a bunch of homework to catch up on since my weekend was drawing to a close. I set my glass aside and went to retrieve my spiral notebook from my bedside table. I’d begun reading over some notes the night before after putting Jax to bed, but my eyes had glazed over less than half a page in, and I’d set it aside to crash. When I returned to the couch, my screen had a flashing icon, loading up the email inbox. There were dozens of emails, all unopened as I hadn’t been on my computer in several days. I flicked through, deleting the copious amounts of junk mail, wondering how on earth I’d managed to get on so many marketing lists, when I stopped dead, my finger hovering above the delete button, unable to believe my eyes.
There was a message from Jace. Subject line: Hey Gorgeous.
My heart jolted to life, pounding out a frantic rhythm that knocked loose all the caged up memories of Jace, and they all tumbled through my stream of consciousness, like pictures from a movie, one after the other. Jace at the diner. His bad boy smile, his tattoos, and his bad ass Harley. Jace’s tight fitting jeans and the way he moved. Jace’s lips, thick, dark hair, the way he smelled. Jace with Jax, helping him wash his hands for dinner and cutting his chicken into tiny, perfect, toddler sized bites without being asked. Jace’s fingers in my hair. His breath on my skin. The way he felt inside me.
I shivered at the last selection of images and thoughts, warmth and pressure building between my thighs. I adjusted my position on the couch, tucking my legs up, underneath me, and let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, and opened the message, my eyes devouring each line like a starving person seeing an all you can eat buffet.
Hey gorgeous,
I’m officially in the middle of BFE and I can’t get you out of my head. I’m sorry this is so late getting to you. Believe me when I say I haven’t stopped thinking about you once since leaving. This email took me forever to write, mostly because when I think about you, I get a little lost, remembering the way you look, your smell, those enchanting eyes, and the way you taste. I don’t know how much time I’ll have before I get called away, but I had to say something. Although, now that I’m writing this, I’m not sure what to say. I knew I’d miss you, it was the first thought that came into my mind when Master Chief Jenkins gave me the news of the deployment. How on fucking earth am I gonna live without her? I don’t want that to freak you out, but you need to know. I care about you Kat, deeper and wider than you know, and I can’t wait to get back to you and show you.
In all my free time over the past few weeks, I’ve begun to realize how much I still don’t know about you, and how much I want to know. Whenever I’m around you, I can’t think straight, and never manage to get out everything that’s on my mind. So, I figured, for now, we could use this time apart to fix that. To figure each other out. What do ya say? Twenty questions? You game? I’ll start with three:
1. Favorite color, and, I fully expect something fancy and weird that I’ve never even heard of, all right, miss designer?
2. Speaking of, what made you pick design as a new career? Other than the obvious draw of being able to have a valid excuse to go to my apartment and frisk me under the ploy of checking out my couch. ;)
3. Tell me about the last time that you laughed your ass off. You’re too serious sometimes, you know. I know you got the weight of the world on your shoulders, but I hope that somewhere, in the midst of the shit storm, you find a moment to let loose.
Know that I’m doing everything to get back as soon as possible. I hope that Jax is there with you as I write this and that the drama is over. Hang in there with me. I can’t wait to see you again pretty girl.
Yours,
Jace
I read the email over and over again, imagining the way it would sound coming from his lips, the smile in his eyes as he stared at whatever screen he’d been looking at when he wrote it, the laugh, and maybe hint of sadness as he sent his rambling, bumbling, but altogether perfect email to me.
And then, I hit reply.
Jace,
BFE huh? Sounds like a blast. Seriously though, I hope you’re safe. I can’t tell you how happy you just made me, seeing your name pop up was a very unexpected, but happy, surprise. Things here are as good as can be expected. Jax is with Mitch and Hannah. Things didn’t go as planned during the mediation and he’s with them almost full time now. Court is in five weeks. Kirk, the lawyer, is confident I will get him back. Most of the time, I try not to think about it…
Anyways, twenty questions sounds fun. I’m definitely game.
Here are your answers:
1. Indigo. I don’t know how fancy that can really be considered though, since it’s technically available in a Crayola box. It’s a deep, soulful color, and something about it resonates.
2. Design is something I’ve always been interested in, and hey, it’s better than slinging fries for the rest of my life, right? Seriously though, there’s something s
oothing about the order of it, that everything has a place, and that it’s your job to find it. Maybe that’s weird…As for checking out your couch, if I remember correctly, that was your idea. But nice try. :)
3. I’m not entirely sure I should tell you this…but, hopefully it will make you laugh too…the last time I laughed my ass off was Friday actually. My next door neighbor informed me that the gossip hags in town all think you’re off on some kind of bender, or that you went on a bender, and then checked yourself into rehab. Which, I realize, is not funny, but if you’d seen Hilda’s face, I think you would have laughed too. She was freaked out cause she thought she was the reason we were together…or…whatever it is that we’re doing.
As for your questions, here goes:
1. You never talk about your family. Do you have siblings? Where do your parents live?
2. Since you asked about my job choice, I’ll ask yours. What made you start doing tattoos in the first place?
3. Do you think you want a family of your own someday?
I miss you. Come home soon.
Kat
I hesitated, reading it over again, tweaking things, wondering back and forth over my final question, and whether or not I should send it. It was pretty bold. But, it was burning a hole in me, not knowing, so I hit send and leaned back against the couch. I sipped my wine, refreshing my inbox every two minutes in between other tasks, but nothing else came through and eventually, I drifted into sleep on the couch, laptop still propped open next to me.
Chapter Six — Jace
We were on the move. It was only a matter of time, days, maybe a week, before we would be back on solid land and going into enemy territory. This knowledge had everyone on edge, with heightened senses, and had kicked my obsessing and dreaming about Kat into new heights. I was scamming Kyle’s phone off him anytime he set it down, checking my email a dozen times a day, waiting for Kat’s reply. After three days, I was starting to panic that she’d accidentally written down the wrong email address, that maybe she’d missed a letter or number. Her handwriting was clear as day, but as paranoia set it, I studied it like some kind of handwriting analyst, wondering where I could have misinterpreted.
So, when Monday came and a message popped up, I couldn’t help but let out a holler so loud that half my bunkmates shouted and threw pillows at me in the dark. It was early, the sun hadn’t risen yet— not that we would have seen it if it had, locked in the berthing compartment in the middle of the ship. I slipped from my rack, exerting every ounce of self control to not open the message, until I’d dressed and gotten out of the room where my fellow team members were sleeping. I went down the narrow halls and didn’t stop till I got to the mess hall, where the cooks had just begun prepping breakfast. I made a cup of coffee for myself at the self serve station and hunkered down at a table to open Kat’s reply.
My face broke into a smile two lines in, and by the end, when she was telling me that the entire town thought I was some kind of junkie, I laughed out loud, drawing the attention of a group of officers passing through, their expressions puzzled as they stared at me laughing to myself in the corner. I saluted them before returning my attention to Kat’s email, reading it at least half a dozen times, before I pulled up the on screen keyboard to tap out a reply. I got halfway through before I noticed a small icon off to the side, a little green circle next to her name. I clicked on it and a small chat window popped up with her picture. The sight of her, even in the miniature window, took my breath away. She was so fucking beautiful. My mind replayed the last night together, the way we’d come together, so perfect and intense, had left me speechless, having never been with any woman like that.
I typed out a message: “Hey gorgeous, what are you doing awake?”
I hit send, and waited a few minutes, before deciding that she wasn’t really online, that she’d accidentally left her chat window up. I went back to the email, combating the disappointment, and was about to hit send, when the chat window flashed. I clicked back and saw she was in fact, there.
“Well, I was attempting to do homework, but something is distracting me…”
I laughed at the little icon shaking its finger at me, and typed back, “Can’t help myself.”
“I’m sure,” she replied. “What time is it there?”
“Almost six. I’m at the mess hall, working on a cup of Joe... Missing the diner’s coffee. Believe it or not, there aren’t any hot waitresses here.” I smirked when I hit send.
Seconds later, she replied, “Poor thing.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m a sad case. Thanks for the email, you made my morning. My whole month actually. I was beginning to think I had the wrong email addy.”
“I had Jax this weekend, so not a lot of down time. It was good though.”
I stilled, hating that she only got to see Jax once a week. I asked her about it and we exchanged a series of messages as she explained to me what had happened at the mediation, beyond what she’d shared in her email, and concluded with what her lawyer had told her about the upcoming trial. She also told me what Hannah, her ex’s new wife, had said.
“Man, talk about a mind fuck,” I said in response to the mistresses confession. I still had trouble believing there was a man alive that would betray Kat and leave her for another woman. What an idiot. I shook my head.
“It’s been a little crazy, for sure. Enough of all that, what’s going on over there?” She wrote back.
I looked around the interior of the ship. Grey and beige as far as the eye could see. It was like living in a very bland Cracker Jack box. I’d done it a dozen times before, not for as long as this mission was turning out to be, but life on a ship wasn’t new, and yet, it felt new. In the past, it had been an adventure, and I’d overlooked the cramped quarters and terrible food, because I was doing what I loved. Things had changed. I still loved being a SEAL, and didn’t regret my choice to be in the reserves, but somewhere along the way, my focus had shifted and my life wasn’t only my own anymore, a piece of me belonged with Kat.
“I can’t say too much,” I typed. “But, we’re on the move. After today, I’m not sure how much I’ll get to be online. But I’ll try my best every chance I get to write you.”
There was a long pause before the cursor indicated she was typing again, and I wondered what she was thinking.
“I understand,” she wrote at last.
“I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
My heart swelled and a lump formed in my throat. “All right, back to these questions,” I started, needing to shift the topic before I lost it in the middle of the mess hall. “You wanted to know about my family. My parents live in Charlotte. My dad is a retired SEAL, he does woodworking now and sells his stuff at bazaars and fairs. My mom was a high school teacher for thirty-five years, English Lit, and spends most of her time dragging my dad out of his shop to go hiking. I have two brothers, younger, in college. We’re close, but don’t talk as often these days. I’m kinda a black sheep I guess. My dad was super proud when I joined the Navy, and even more when I became a SEAL, but when I got done and opened my tattoo shop…let’s just say, that didn’t go over too well. My parents are pretty conservative and don’t like my ink, and certainly don’t like the idea of me being a tattoo artist. My dad especially hates it, thinks I’m throwing away my life. My brothers don’t care what I do for a living, but they’re busy with their own lives.”
I paused before sending. It was odd to go into such detail about my family life. It wasn’t something I really shared with anyone else.
“I’m sorry they don’t see you for who you truly are, an amazing man,” Kat replied. “Did you move around a lot when you were younger?”
“Yeah, part of the military life. I guess that’s why I’m kind of a loner these days, I got used to change and moving.”
There was a long pause on Kat’s end, and for a moment I was afraid the internet connection had dropped out. After a few minutes, the cursor started moving again. “Where
do you want to put down roots? Or is that not something you want?”
I quirked my lips, thinking about the third question in her email to me, about whether or not I saw myself having a family. “The truth?”
“Please.”
“Before meeting you, it wasn’t something I could picture. I only moved from Chicago because I needed to get out of the limelight for a while, a little hard to do when you’re on TV. I figured a small town was my best shot for a normal life. You know…minus the cameras that follow me around all day…”
“Why did you sign up to do the show if you don’t like cameras?”
“Ha! Great question…” I stopped typing, my fingers hovering over the keys. “When I started my business, I got some local press and when the studio came with an offer to be on TV, I was pretty deep in my party phase and didn’t really think it through. I saw dollar signs and fame and signed the contracts before I even asked anyone for advice. I don’t necessarily regret it, but it’s not what I want to do forever.”
“So what’s the plan then? Finish the contract and move back to Chicago?” Kat asked, and I imagined her questioning look, her green eyes wide, waiting for my answer.
“I’m not leaving, Kat. You don’t have to worry about me bailing out on you.”
“That’s good news,” she typed back.
I smiled, and looked up at the filter of people coming into the mess hall. I’d been so absorbed in writing back and forth with Kat that I hadn’t noticed the smells of breakfast flooding the room. Bacon frying, eggs cooking, burnt toast somewhere in the mix, and the over arcing smell of fresh coffee. Kyle came into the room and made a beeline to my table.