by June Gray
I nodded as I pulled away. “Yes, Dad.”
“How about we all have dinner tonight?” Helen asked, standing up from the table. “I have to meet a client in an hour, but I’ll be free for dinner at around five.”
My mom nodded. “That sounds like a good idea. These kids are not getting away this easy.”
Henry squeezed my hand. “We’ll be there.”
* * *
I met up with Henry at Cannery Row after his therapy session and we had lunch at Louie Linguine’s Seafood Shack. We sat at a table by the large windows with an unobstructed view of the dark blue ocean.
“How did the session go?” I asked as we ate. It felt good to be spending time with him again, just the two of us.
He took a bite of his sourdough burger. “Can’t tell you,” he said with a smile.
“Well, are you making progress?”
He made a noncommittal shrug. “I think so.”
I shook my head and ate a spoonful of clam chowder. “You’re really not going to tell me?” I asked. “The person who is most affected by all of your issues?”
A shadow of a grin crossed over his face as he shook his head, and I knew, even without his saying, that therapy was working. It didn’t look like he’d shaved since he’d arrived in California and his hair was curling a little at the ends from not having it cut for so long, but underneath his scruffy appearance was the light behind his eyes that I was afraid had been extinguished in Afghanistan.
I let out the sigh of relief that I’d been holding for so long.
He raised an eyebrow. “What are you looking at?”
“I’m looking at you, Grizzly Adams.”
He rubbed the hair on his cheek. “It’s been nice not having to shave,” he said. “But I do need a haircut.”
I chewed on a piece of the bread bowl as I studied his hair. “I like it. It’s a little less military. The whole look is very sexy.”
He stared at me for a long time, those intense blue eyes twinkling as they flicked about my face. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
“Thanks,” I said in surprise. “Where did that come from?”
He leaned back in his chair and shrugged. “I mean, you’re here,” he said, motioning to me. “You didn’t tell me you were coming to California. You just snuck into my bedroom in the middle of the night and had your way with me. If that isn’t amazing, then I don’t know what is.”
I glanced around, hoping nobody was within hearing distance. “That was pretty awesome,” I said with a wide grin.
“So you managed to get some time off?”
“I just took half of Thursday and all of today off, then I fly back home late Sunday night,” I said. “What time is your flight on Sunday?”
“One o’clock, so I have to go to the airport right after my final session with Doc Gal.”
“Doc Gal?”
“Her name is Dr. Galicia, but I’ve called her Doc Gal since I was ten. It kinda stuck, I guess.”
“Did she help you when you were younger?” I asked, leaning closer.
“Obviously not if I’m back. But she did help me through some tough times, steered me away from juvie, that’s for sure.”
My eyes widened, finding it hard to picture Henry as a delinquent. “That bad?”
“I was always getting into fights, stealing, anything that would get me attention from my parents.” He grinned then. “Doc Gal told me that my destructive tendencies were just a cry for attention.”
“Was she right?”
“On the nose.”
I took a big drink of my water before asking, “So how is it now, with your parents?”
He shrugged but his eyes were not so nonchalant. “Getting better, I guess,” he said. “It might be too late.”
I reached over the table and gripped his hand. “When it’s about forgiveness and love, it’s never too late.”
He suddenly stood up, leaned over the table, and planted a kiss on my lips. He sat back down with a satisfied smile, crossing his arms across his chest.
“What was that for?” I asked, feeling my cheeks heat up, not from embarrassment but from arousal.
“I was just wondering how I got so lucky.”
I bit my lower lip and gazed at the man before me, glad that Henry was finally making a recovery. “I was wondering the same thing.”
* * *
We met up with my parents at the Monterey Aquarium. Henry offered to leave to give me some time with them, but my parents just looked at him as if he were crazy.
“Are you kidding?” my mom asked, linking her arm through his as we walked through the members’ entrance. “You’re coming with us. I am grilling you until the sun sets.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Henry said with a smile on his face.
I walked ahead with my dad, giving my mom a chance to talk to Henry.
“You happy?” Dad asked, putting his arm around my shoulders.
“Miserable,” I said with a straight face. “Absolutely miserable.”
“Yeah, I see that,” he said, ruffling my hair. “Henry’s a good kid.”
I raised an eyebrow and glanced back at the man who towered over Mom. “Kid?”
Dad chuckled. “He might be taller than me, but he’ll always be that kid with the braces and the crazy hair,” he said. “He almost ate us out of our home.”
I laughed. “He wasn’t that bad.”
“He was so intense at the beginning. I was worried that he was going to be trouble, but Jason asked me to give him a chance,” Dad said. “And look how that same kid turned out: captain in the Air Force. A war veteran,” he added with pride in his voice.
I wrapped my arm around his side and squeezed. “You were his hero, you know.”
Dad smiled ruefully. “I like to think I had a hand at raising that nice young man.”
“You did,” I said. “More than you know.”
“Anyway, let’s talk about you,” my dad said as we entered my favorite part of the aquarium, the jellyfish exhibit. “Tell me about work.”
I talked about work, about the award I’d received for The Oklahoman website, about the upcoming promotion boards. “They want to make me a senior art director, which pays more,” I said, mesmerized by the tiny jellyfish illuminated pink by the blacklight. “But that means I won’t get to do any actual hands-on design.”
“Is there a way to do both?”
“I’m going to talk to the execs, present them with the idea of my overseeing projects while also working on projects of my own. And then I’m going to convince them to pay me more money.”
“That’s my girl.”
We entered a large, dark room illuminated only by the bluish glow from the gigantic glass tank. We stood in awe in front of the glass and stared at fish, giant turtles, even sharks that swam by. I turned to my dad but found that Henry had taken his place.
He nudged me. “Hey.” His warm hand reached out and took mine.
“How did it go?” I asked, mesmerized by the bluish glow on his face, how his eyes were nearly black in this light.
“Your mom threatened to cut my balls off if I ever hurt you,” he said, then his serious façade fell away and he grinned. “She just wanted to talk about how we were getting along. She asked me why it took so long for me to tell you.”
“She knew?”
“Apparently, everybody did.”
“So, what did you tell her?”
“I told her I was too chicken.”
I laughed. “Sounds about right.”
* * *
Afterward, we visited Jason’s grave, which was a somber experience until Henry kneeled by the grave and said, “So, hey, man, I hope you don’t mind my boning your sister.”
“Henry,” my dad warned.
My mom snorted and then laughed. I c
ouldn’t help it either, and soon her infectious laugh also carried over to my dad and Henry, until all four of us were standing at my brother’s grave, with tears of sadness and joy in our eyes.
3
ENEMY CONTACT
Dinner with the parents at P.F. Chang’s was not nearly as awkward as the impromptu meeting that morning. The dark ambience of the restaurant lent itself to pleasant, mellow conversation.
At least, until Henry’s wayward hand landed on my leg under the table.
I flashed him a warning look but he just gave me that impudent smile that made me want to smack him and kiss him at the same time.
“They can totally tell, you know,” I whispered to him, glancing over at my dad, who, thankfully, had no clue what was going on less than three feet away from him.
Henry just winked and pushed his hand higher up my thigh. I finally had to grab him when his fingers inched under my skirt. He just grinned again and ordered his meal.
It was cheesy but we held hands under the table while we waited for our food to arrive. We tried to participate in the conversations around us, but our parents, having realized Henry and I were in a world of our own, just began to ignore us and talk among themselves.
Henry’s fingers drew circles around my palm, then he took two fingers and started pulsing them into the web between my thumb and forefinger. He bent close to my ear and said, “This is what my fingers wish they could be doing inside you right now.”
I squeezed his fingers, giving him a meaningful look.
He breathed into my ear and said, “It’s so hard sitting here next to you, pretending to be the good little boyfriend when all I want to do is throw you on this table and fuck you senseless.”
The breath hitched in my throat, my panties instantly moist. “So do it,” I taunted.
He bared his teeth. “Oh, you don’t know what you’re asking.”
“. . . if only our children could stop flirting and pay attention.”
My mom’s words snapped me back to reality. “What was that?” I asked.
My mom had an amused smile on her face when she said, “Our food is here.”
Henry and I looked down at our plates in surprise. “When did that get here?” he asked, flashing me a grin.
His dad groaned and rolled his eyes. “You guys are fucking gross.”
* * *
Later, Henry and I attended a party for his friends from high school at the Cannery Row Brewing Company. Kelly and Hass had been a couple since high school, and only now were they getting engaged.
“What have they been doing all this time?” I asked as we walked toward the bar hand in hand.
“I guess they broke up for a while,” Henry said, holding the door open for me. “And then decided they were better together than apart.”
We stood at the entrance, looking through the crowd for a familiar face. “Maybe they were too young and needed to figure out who they were first.”
“Maybe so,” Henry said and waved at someone across the room. I held tight as we waded through the thick Friday night crowd, making our way toward a small group by the back of the bar.
“Logan!” a tall guy with sandy blond hair said, looking very much like the same boy I knew in high school. Hass was softer around the edges, with a little more padding all around, but his warm smile was the same. He clapped Henry on the back and turned to me. “Little Elsie Sherman?” he asked with wide eyes.
I nodded as he gave me a hug. His eyes flicked back toward me, then Henry, then back to me again—which, I would later find out, was the normal reaction from people from our high school—before asking, “You two?”
Henry grinned and threw a possessive arm over my shoulder.
Hass turned around and brought forward Kelly, a girl that I didn’t have fond feelings for back in high school. Still, I kept in mind that people changed and sometimes they outgrew meanness and their bitchy tendencies.
“Congratulations,” I said, pretending that she and her friends hadn’t made the first half of my sophomore year a living hell, that they hadn’t been the cause of many tears on my pillow.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t completely over it, but I was trying at least.
Kelly gave me a warm embrace, then said, “It’s good to see you, Elsie. I’m sorry for being such a bitch to you in high school.”
I pulled away and waved away her apology. “Don’t worry about it. That was a million years ago.”
“No, really,” she said, grasping my hand. “We were really mean. I’m sorry.”
I nodded, accepting her apology. What else could I do?
She gave Henry and me that look, then said, “I guess Nina was right to be jealous.”
The name made my stomach lurch. Nina Yates, beautiful and terrifying, who had held the title of Henry’s Girlfriend for several months back in his senior year.
Henry squeezed my shoulders. “She’s not here, is she?” he asked.
Kelly nodded, looking around. “She’s around here somewhere.” Hass grabbed her hand and she threw us an apologetic look as she was once again steered toward another introduction.
“Do you want to leave?” Henry asked.
I assessed my outfit and decided that I looked hot enough in my colorblock tube dress and black heels to face off with an arch-nemesis. “No. I’m good.”
I led the way to the bar and was stepping up onto the brass railing at the bottom when Henry grabbed me by the waist and whispered against my ear, “You weren’t planning on using what you’ve got, were you?”
“As a matter of fact, I was.” I caught the eye of the bartender and called out my order without having to resort to cleavage-baring. I joined Henry on the floor a minute later with our drinks in my hands and a grin on my face. “I think an apology is in order,” I said, holding the beer bottle out of his reach.
He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against him, a dark look on his face. “I’m not going to apologize for wanting to keep you all to myself,” he said huskily.
I gave him a wicked look. “Then no beer for you.”
He pulled me closer as he reached behind me for the beer. I gasped when I felt his erection growing, and he winked.
“Keep going . . .” I said, enjoying the feel of his hard length against me. “A little farther . . .”
“Henry?”
We both turned to see who else but Nina-freaking-Yates standing beside us with her beautiful auburn hair cascading down the sides of her face, looking more gorgeous than I remember.
“Nina,” Henry said, getting points for not immediately letting me go. He released me gently, squeezing my side as he did so. “Nice to see you.”
Nina fixed her blue eyes on him, completely ignoring me. “Henry.” She reached over and kissed him on the cheek.
He stood stock-still until she was done. “Nina, you remember Elsie Sherman?”
Finally, she deigned to look at me. God, did she have to look like she just stepped out of a fashion magazine? Suddenly my dinky little Target dress seemed so inadequate. “Elsie?” she said, pronouncing the last syllable like sea. “I didn’t even recognize you. You look so adorable.”
Adorable, my ass. I was looking pretty damn hot.
“So, how are you?” Henry interjected and kept me from saying something snarky.
“I’m good,” Nina said, brushing back a lock of her hair and flashing us the huge rock on her left hand. “I’m married with two kids.”
“You’re married?” he asked, trying to hide his surprise. “To whom?”
She looked over her shoulder, to a man across the bar in a dark blue suit. “To John Morris. You remember him? You used to play football with him.”
I stifled my snort. John, my date to the homecoming dance, who had groped me all over the dance floor right before Henry had pulled him off me in a jealous rage. That John. “Co
ngratulations,” I said with genuine glee. Really, I was happy for the both of them.
“And how about you two?” she asked, her eyes flicking back and forth. “How long have you been together?”
Henry opened his mouth to answer, but I beat him to the punch. “Since March.”
“Oh, I thought you’d been together longer than that.”
“Well,” Henry said, clearing his throat. “Technically, we’ve been together for years. It just wasn’t official until March.”
I raised my eyebrow at him, surprised by his little white lie. Why he felt the need to exaggerate was beyond me.
“You two are married?” Nina asked. Her eyes zeroed in on my bare ring finger and got her answer. “I don’t get it?”
“It doesn’t really matter,” I said. “Henry and I get it.”
* * *
The night went on and I found myself actually enjoying myself. Nina didn’t come to speak to us again, and I realized that maybe she wasn’t the big beautiful bitch that I remembered her to be. At the very least, she didn’t appear to be on some sort of undertaking to win Henry back. I wondered if, maybe, our perception of people is oftentimes tainted by emotion, that the person you hated was really just a girl trying to get through the hell that was high school.
Later, I was in deep conversation with Hass about the upcoming Joomla! Conference when Henry excused himself and headed to the bar. After several minutes of discussing the keynote speakers, I realized that Henry still hadn’t returned. My eyes searched for him through the dark room and found him still standing at the bar, involved in a deep conversation with Nina. They stood close together but nothing else about their postures said they wanted any closer. In fact, Nina’s back was straight and she was not looking at Henry as they talked.
I felt fear clutch at my heart but I kept it in check. I trusted Henry. He would never in a million years cheat on me.
I just hoped my optimism didn’t come back to bite me in the ass.