S.O.S. Perk (S.O.S. #6)

CHAPTER NINE

Sloane had been silent for far too long. Perk wondered if he’d done something wrong. He’d only been being polite, sending Sloane’s question back to her. But clearly there was a problem.

“Listen. Sloane. You don’t have to answer anything. It was me who agreed to give you details about my life. I had no right to turn the tables, so ignore what I said and get back to questioning me.”

Perk held his breath, hoping he hadn’t inadvertently ruined things.

“No. If we’re going to be…friends, this has to be a two-way street,” Sloane finally heaved out. “It’s just that my past is going to be a lot sketchier than yours. My family is…difficult to explain.”

Perk snorted. “You may not think I understand that, Sloane, but things in my family aren’t exactly what I assume you’re imagining, either. I can guarantee they are not.”

She let out a clipped laugh. “Oh, are we going to compare childhoods and how they fucked us up as adults? Because I guarantee you, I’ll come out on top.”

“Why don’t you try me. But only if you really feel like sharing,” Perk quickly amended. This was all going to be done on her agenda.

“Okay then. I’ve been divorced,” Sloane started out, which because of her first question to him, Perk had already figured out.

“It wasn’t pretty. My self esteem took a huge hit because my ex had vowed to love, cherish, and accept me for me, but pretty much as soon as the ring was on my finger, he was all over getting me to quit my job with the Bureau.”

“What the fuck, Sloane?”

Seriously ? A guy who’d purported to love her hadn’t seen that Agent Vessers was a huge part of Sloane’s identity? “Why?”

“He said it wasn’t a job for a woman, and that I was going to ruin my life if I kept pretending to be something I wasn’t; that I had to stop being so…aggressive. But I think the real problem was that all his friends teased him that he was married to a dyke.”

“Then he wasn’t just a clueless asshole, Sloane,” Perk growled, “he also didn’t deserve you. I’ve known you for what? Like, three months? And I already know that you kick ass at your job, and it doesn’t compromise who you are in the least. I hope you set him straight, and were the one who walked out on that relationship.”

“Well… I did. But for a different digression.”

Sloane took a moment to regroup.

“After I refused to contemplate a career change, things cooled between us, and because I wouldn’t bend to his wishes, he found other women who he—righteously I might add— deemed ‘more feminine’. I actually caught him making out with his latest in our driveway one night when I came home from the job earlier than usual.” She made an exasperated noise. “Thank God I found them at it, because I know his next move would have been to fuck her in the bed we still shared. And that would have pissed me the hell off.”

Perk was furious on Sloane’s behalf. Being an agent was a tough line of work for anyone to be in. The FBI was constantly being shoveled crap by politicians and the media. Which meant that when the one person who was supposed to have your back treated you with disrespect, it was a huge middle finger on top of an already large pile of shit.

“Tell me where I can find the asshole, and I’ll make sure he knows how badly he fucked up,” Perk snapped.

Sloane laughed, which was not what he expected.

“Uh, that all happened seven years ago, Perk. Ancient history. I’ve moved on, and so has he. He married and divorced the driveway woman, and is now tied down to wife number three who seems to have read his number correctly. She got—I believe purposely—knocked up right away, and now they have three kids. If he walks out on her, he’s on the hook for a lot of child-support, so my guess is he’ll stick around and do his cheating a little more covertly from now on.”

“I don’t think he deserves anything that good, but—”

Sloane cut him off. “Oh, I’m sure he’s miserable. Since he’s always been a player, this has to put a crimp in his lifestyle. If only I’d known back then…” She caught herself. “My only excuse for falling for his charm was that I was young and flattered that someone as good looking as him would seek out plain-Jane me.”

Perk growled. He hated when Sloane made blanket statements like that, reinforcing her self-doubt.

“What is that supposed to mean, Sloane? I’ve told you before, you’re absolutely beautiful.”

Another silence ensued, but this time Perk wasn’t worried. He knew Sloane was digesting his words, and he gave her time.

“Why me, Perk?” she finally asked.

That was easy.

“Why not?” he quickly responded, but knew he needed to go into detail. “I remember the first time I set eyes on you at the Jakes’ house. You came in all professional-like, dressed in your regulation black and white, barking orders at your team as your gorgeous brown eyes were taking everything in.”

There was a huff over the line, but she didn’t interrupt.

“When your gaze landed on me, I felt like I’d been gut-punched. You were just so dammed…compelling, but also closed up. Kind of like a package saying, ‘unwrap me, and see what’s inside’.”

Sloane snorted. “That’s very poetic of you Perk, but seriously? You got all that from me walking in and looking around?” she scoffed.

“Uh, huh. I’m dead serious,” he returned. “It was late in the day, and although you probably didn’t know it, your hair wasn’t behaving, leaving small whisps curling around your face in a stunning halo. You were flushed, like you’d just run up the walkway, and that made your adorable freckles stand out across your nose.”

“I don’t have freckles,” she grunted.

“Keep telling yourself that,” Perk chuckled, then his voice deepened. “One day I’ll prove it to you, tracing them all and kissing each one.”

Perk heard a stream of air leave Sloane’s lungs.

“You’re, uh, getting ahead of yourself, aren’t you, friend ?” she posited, but there was something in her voice that told him to keep pushing.

“Maybe, but I need you to know that you are extremely appealing to me, Sloane; both in mind and in body. And if you think I’m going to settle for friendship with you without a fight for more, you haven’t figured me out yet.”

Perk waited to see if he’d crossed a line; if Sloane was going to shoot him down for his outspokenness.

“Uh, where do you live, Perk?”

Huh ? There was a total non sequitur; a question out of the blue he certainly wasn’t expecting. Then he remembered she’d said she hadn’t run him through any background checks. Well, if Sloane needed that info, then okay. And if she was changing the subject just to ease the tension he could feel rolling off her, he’d give her whatever would help. Maybe it was even time he added some humor to lighten things up.

“My place? Why? Are you going to come visit me?” he teased, but he couldn’t keep the excitement over that prospect—even if it was all in his head—out of his voice.

“No. At least not any time soon. I’m just getting back to my original premise of finding out more about you.”

Or getting away from some truths she wasn’t ready to hear.

He’d play along. For now.

“Ahh. I see.” Perk calmed his inappropriately rampant libido. He’d had a quick flash of Sloane coming to his condo. Jumping him at the door. Maneuvering their joined bodies to his king-sized bed, and—

That’s where he cut his fantasy off and refocused on her original inquiry.

“I actually just purchased a condo in Dorchester. Well, it’s the top two floors of a triple decker that was divided into two units, but they call it a condo, and it’s my new home.”

He’d been apartment hopping for far too long, giving truth to his family’s beliefs that he was anything but settled. But with the amount Del was paying him, he’d finally been able to afford a place of his own. He just hadn’t told his folks yet. There’d be some arguments involved over that, so it could wait.

“Wow. I’m not too far from you,” Sloane responded. “My place is in Brookline,” she revealed. “It’s also a condo, but a two-story unit in an old, municipal building. I love it. It’s got high ceilings and great light, especially in the late afternoons.”

Perk immediately wondered about the great light comment. Was Sloane some kind of artist on the side, or simply a sun-lover? Regardless of that puzzle, he was pumped that she was giving over bits and pieces of herself.

“I feel like I’m getting somewhere with you now, Perk. Do you mind if I keep probing?” Sloane asked, obviously feeling the same way he was.

“Sure. I’m an open book,” he responded, but wondered how honest he would actually be when faced with some tougher questions. He had a few things going on with his personal life that always left him feeling…less than he really was.

“You said that things in your family weren’t exactly what I was imagining. Do you care to elaborate on that?”

Damn. She’d leaped on the one thing he was most reluctant to talk about.

But since this question sounded tentative, Perk assumed she was speaking from experience, and that Sloane’s family wasn’t a real Beaver-Cleaver situation, either.

“Well,” he began slowly, “My family all live in Maine; my Mom and Dad, my two older, married brothers. I’m the baby in the family, and…” This was harder than he thought since he’d never put his actual hurt into words before. Either his previous acquaintances hadn’t cared, or he hadn’t given those closest to him anything to go on, as was the case with his SOS constituents.

This was all about the bullshit he’d carried around with him since his school years; that had carried over into his stint in the Army, and his time as a cop before he’d joined SOS.

Perk took a deep breath and went for it this time. “None of my relatives take me seriously.”

“Excuse me?” Sloane came back. “I think I heard you say that your family doesn’t take you seriously?”

“That’s right,” he confirmed. “And I know it sounds ridiculous, but… I’ve always looked far younger than my years, as you well know, and that means I haven’t ever been treated as…an actual adult by those closest to me. I seem to be stuck in teenage-time to them, and I can’t seem to fix it.”

“Seriously, Perk? Wait. Didn’t I hear that you were in the Army at one point? That didn’t convince them you could take care of yourself?”

“Nope. I was on active duty in the Middle East, but it didn’t change my standing within the fam because the ops I went on were classified, so they had no idea what I was doing. And before you ask, joining the Orono PD when I got out didn’t help, either. They thought it was nothing more than a stop-gap measure, and it still wasn’t enough to convince them that I’m a fully functioning, grown-ass human being.”

“That’s fucked up, Perk.”

Like he didn’t know that.

She probed deeper. “How do they feel about your job with SOS?”

“I, uh, don’t really talk about it. They’d find a way to make it…less than it is because they still believe I’m just messing around with my life. They think that if they can simply get me back to Maine where they can ‘watch over me’, they can make sure I choose the right direction for my future.”

“What is it they do for a living?” Sloane asked.

“They’re all in finance, one way or another. In my father’s firm. Brokers, money managers… That’s what they want for me.”

A quiet sadness came to Sloane’s voice. “So, they don’t really know you at all.”

“Not as anyone other than the clueless youngster I was twelve or fifteen years ago.”

“I’m sorry, Perk. That’s got to suck.”

“Yeah.” He forced a laugh. “Especially at Christmas where they still gift me with calculators or actual toys… Not that I’ll complain about the Lego sets I get,” he added on a playful note. “Those are the bomb.”

Perk purposely downplayed the amount of hurt he felt, not actually being “seen” by his family. It was, and always had been the cause of many of his insecurities which were only now, with SOS, being assuaged. In the Army he’d been treated like a greenhorn. In the OPD he’d been subject to so many verbal head-pats he couldn’t count them. But with Del’s team, he suddenly found himself taken seriously for the first time in his life, and it had been confidence-changing.

Sloane huffed. “I don’t know which of us have it worse, then. You, sleeping in what I imagine is a far too short childhood bed when you go home for holidays, or me not having an actual home left from my early years to even visit.”

“You want to explain that?” Perk asked gently.

Sloane gave a wry laugh. “Well, my parents went through an acrimonious divorce when I was eight years old, and since neither would budge on their demands of the other, the only home I’d ever known ended up getting sold so they could split the proceeds. Just like they split up our family.”

There was another pause, but Perk remained patiently quiet.

“I ended up living with my mother—who was terrible with money—in a series of stark, rooming houses. She never much cared where I was or what I was getting up to while she went through a wild phase of drinking and partying; not caring how fast she bled through her nest-egg until we ended up in really crappy subsidized housing.

“My two older sisters went with my father, and they didn’t have it much better. They lived in a run-down cottage, one that was always a mess, and had to watch as a string of questionable women passed through the place, gracing my father’s bed. Dear old Dad was a little better at giving my sisters what they needed with a modicum of hands-off attention, but not anywhere near what they should have received.”

“That all sucks, Sloane,” Perk commiserated.

He might still be treated as a wayward teenager by his folks, but at least it was all done with love.

Sloane wasn’t finished with her story. “I think it’s why my sisters and I all chose relationships with inappropriate men; ones who talked the talk, but paid little attention to what we really needed from them. We just didn’t have the right role models to know what was good and what was bad. My sisters have long since been divorced like me, but they, along with my mother, remain man-haters to this day.”

Which Sloane, Perk knew, was not. But she was judicious in who she let into her life. Perk had seen that.

And now he got it.

He finally understood where Sloane’s barriers and insecurities stemmed from. She’d had bad examples of what parents were supposed to be, had subsequently trusted the wrong man to love, and now—even though she didn’t despise the opposite sex—she was suspicious of every male who came within her sphere, along with their motives.

Could he use that information to give Sloane what she needed?

Yes. Perk was certain of that.

If she’d give him a chance.