Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Ben
I t had been the longest week of all long weeks.
Okay, exaggeration, but if I had to read through one more operations order demanding ten soldiers to do something the battalion didn’t have the numbers for, I would scream.
But that was a big part of the job, and it would only become more a part of the job as time went on. And that thought had me feeling the same old familiar, bleak sensation as I sat at my desk in the Rambler Battalion headquarters surrounded by the musty scent of a building in disrepair despite it being occupied constantly for the last forty years.
“You need to get out of here,” Major Flint said from behind me.
I inched my feet around in slow motion, toeing the line between humor and disrespect by taking so long to address him. “Yeah. Too bad I have another hour of work before I can go.”
I sounded like a petulant child talking to his punitive father, but that was me today, at five after five on a Friday.
“Get going. Do it Monday.” His general demeanor had much improved in the last week or so. Things must have been going better with Erin, his close friend-turned-maybe-girlfriend, and also a friend of mine.
“Since when are you kicking people out of the office? This time last year, you were sleeping on a cot on weekends.” The full edge of my frustration could be heard, bare and loud, in my voice.
Most everyone had fled the building for their weekend plans, so no one would hear me being insubordinate, which I sort of was being.
“Since I’ve stopped avoiding interacting with real life.”
No kidding, he had a twinkle in his eye.
“I take it things are looking up where our beloved Erin is concerned?” I asked, then swiveled to my computer and saved my work.
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
I could hear the smile in his voice—a rare enough thing that made me quickly turn to catch a glimpse of it, but he’d already knocked his features back to his resting Major face.
“I’m glad. I am.” And it was true.
They were sickening together, so sweet. A combination I never would have guessed at until I saw them together and then saw them torment themselves by staying apart. As the haze of my depression and self-destruction had cleared last spring, I’d begun seeing just how messed up Major Flint was by ignoring Erin, and then all the more once they’d been forced together as she took care of him while he was injured .
“Are you dating my cousin?” he asked, his voice low even though no one was nearby.
I stood and took a breath. I wanted to tell him what was really going on there—if anyone could be trusted with that information, it was him. But even telling him would be a breach of contract.
“I am. I’m seeing her again this weekend.”
He looked at me—looked down at me, I should clarify, since he was a towering hulk of a man at six-foot-four. Nothing could make a guy feel dainty like standing next to this beast.
“This isn’t one of your?—”
“No. Definitely not.” My voice cut into his insinuation, made it clear I meant what I said.
“Good. I know you’ve been doing well, but I also know Jones’ birthday a few weeks ago…” He frowned.
“Yeah, it sucked. But I’m all right. Bec… she’s not okay. Maybe ask Erin if she can check on her this weekend. She’s probably traveling, but I get a feeling she’s not in a good place.” The familiar weight of dread settled in my gut at the mere thought of Bec.
Bec, Dillon Jones’ twin, had taken his death stoically. When I came back and began my two-month bender, she’d stayed steady, never letting a tear fall. Over the next year as I trekked my way back to equilibrium through therapy, routines, and anti-depressants, Bec had disappeared.
She traveled with a wealthy aunt every weekend, or close. She was friends with Erin because they worked at the education center on post, but Erin had expressed a similar concern over the last few months especially. Bec’s evasive tactics were becoming more extreme. I’d tried to talk to Erin about it, but she didn’t feel she could share any details.
I’d tried to call Bec that day, tried to ask her if she wanted to get together for lunch, but she’d shut me down. That false cheeriness in her voice had gotten under my skin—I hated there was nothing I could do to help her.
“I’ll talk to Erin,” Flint promised, and I knew he would. “Now go. And be the gentlemanly, entirely asexual being I know you to be when you’re with my cousin.”
He gave me a stern look, then turned on his heel and was gone.
I dumped all my stuff into my bag and tried to pull my thoughts up and out of myself. I’d been distracted most of the week, and today was ending in a shroud of irritability and anger. Not an unfamiliar emotional path, but it also signaled that the time had come for another visit to my therapist. I’d missed my appointment last week thanks to work nonsense and needed the stabilizing interaction of someone removed from all the swirling thoughts in my head.
Tuesday was my next appointment. I’d be fine—I wasn’t hanging on by a thread. I just felt the crush of pressure, needed someone to talk to, and was feeling more and more caged by my job.
I rolled my head side to side to stretch my neck, rolled my shoulders out to loosen them up, and started the car. The radio came on, and of course, there was Whit.
Her voice drifted through the speakers, slow and smooth and rich like warm maple syrup on a Saturday morning.
My God, her voice.
I’d heard “Call Me Back,” her song about being there for a friend, over and over again. It came from her first album—cute and a little jaunty, but the voice still hooked me. I switched the channel and let myself think about other things, fully aware that letting Whit’s voice sink into my head while I was feeling raw and frustrated would only serve to frustrate me more.
The night passed as it often did, with Thatcher coming over to play video games and eat pizza. I went for a run Saturday morning, made sure my suit looked good, and drove to her place around four-thirty. It was odd being able to just go right up to the door and knock, and yet, her house wasn’t a mansion. It was big, and nice, but not a gaudy palace occupying the space like so many houses in the nearby neighborhoods.
“She’s just finishing up, and I’m heading out. Come on in,” a woman with short blond hair and a black apron said. “I’m Amanda, Whit’s make-up artist. You’re Ben?” she asked as she walked.
I followed behind her into the kitchen.
“Yes. Ben Holder. Nice to meet you, Amanda.” I would have shaken her hand, but she wasn’t stopping. “Should I, uh… follow you?”
“Yes, come on. I’ll show you to her room.” She kept walking, her feet padding around the corner and out of sight before I could stop her.
“Um, are you sure she wants me in there?” I asked, feeling unaccountably awkward about going into Whit’s bedroom.
“Yes. Don’t worry. She’s used to having a million people in there. Damon’s finishing her hair.” Amanda stopped at a doorway. “Leaving, honey. See you in a few weeks, yeah?” she hollered, then shooed me through the door as Whit’s response bounced over.
“See ya, Mand.”
I followed the sound of Whit’s voice down a short hallway, past one doorway which led to a huge bathroom based on the glimpse of a gigantic bathtub, and farther down the hall.
“Ben! We’re in here!” This came from the room behind me.
I paced back and peeked into the bright white bathroom.
“Oh, hi. Sorry. Should I go?” I mumbled, seeing her sitting in a chair in front of a mirror while a stick-thin man with full tattooed sleeves fiddled with the hair on the side of her head.
“Are you done, Damon?” she asked, giving me a smile in the mirror.
“Almost… yes… yes . Let me spray you, and we’re good.” Damon sprayed her with hairspray, I assumed, and then stood back to admire. He walked in front of her and squinted, touched her hair in a few places, smoothing and tugging, and then gave her a pleased smile. “Perfect.”
“Thank you. Have a good weekend.”
“See you next week and hi Ben I’m Damon,” he said, all in one breath as he grabbed a set of keys and gave me a finger-fluttering wave.
“Hi and bye, Damon,” I said as he rushed past me. I shuffled out of the doorway so he could get by, then turned my attention to Whit.
And tried not to audibly express the torment building in me when I looked at her.
Good work, God , was all I could think.
“Sorry for the chaos,” she said.
Or I thought she said, but my brain was busy cataloguing her standing there. Her long hair had been pulled over one shoulder, the other side pinned back behind her ear. Her face looked typically gorgeous, eyes dark with long lashes, perfect skin and lush, expertly glossed lips. She tugged the tie on her short, silk baby pink robe tighter.
“I’m going to run put on my dress, and then we’ll get going, okay?” she said, apparently totally unaware the sight of her was causing a severe case of heart-stop.
I grunted out an “uh-huh” and shifted my eyes away from her to the counter full of tiny pots and palettes of makeup.
Two minutes later, she emerged, clothed in a short red dress that fell halfway down her toned thighs. It had cap sleeves, a thing I knew about thanks to Bridgette’s insistence on modeling her clothes when I was too young to protest. The dress fit close to her body—so close, I doubted she had much underneath.
I cleared my throat, pulling my eyes away from her, and turning to the doorway. “It’s pretty cold out—you’ll probably want a jacket.”
“I’ve got one in the closet downstairs,” she said from behind me.
“Do you have people do your hair and makeup for everything?” I followed through the hallway Amanda had brought me down, retracing my steps to the more familiar territory of the kitchen.
“No. I prefer not to, but when there’s going to be lots of press, I do. And since the purpose of tonight is to draw attention to us being together, I figured I might as well look decent.”
She pulled open a closet door in the entryway of the house and sifted through hangers until she pulled out a short black leather jacket.
“What’s this event?” I asked, noticing the lines of the wood below my feet, the smooth curve of the arching doorway into the sitting room to the left of the entrance, the intricate weave of a pillow on the couch in that room I couldn’t actually see—anything to keep from letting my eyes run over the dip and swell of her body wrapped so tightly in that dress.
“A fundraiser for a Veterans’ organization. I’m not sure what.”
My eyes jerked to hers.
“Oh, cool.” Best to keep my voice level even though my heart accelerated.
“Something like Wounded Warrior project, but it’s a local thing using music for rehabilitation of PTSD, I think. I’m sorry to say I’ve forgotten the name.” She pulled on her jacket, then straightened to her full height—a whopping five-foot-five including her heels—and studied my face. “You okay with that?”
“Yep. I’m good.” And then, to distract from my weirdly physical response to the fundraiser’s focus, I said, “Am I acceptable?” while holding out my hands and turning side to side.
She made a face like she was closely evaluating me, tapping her chin with a finger, then nodded. “You’ll do.”
I chuckled. “Good.”
“And me?” The sweet smile on her face did not betray the fact that she had to know she looked good.
I widened my stance and crossed my arms, mimicking her chin-tap thought process. “I’m going to tell you something I’m fairly certain no one has ever said to you.”
Her face fell a bit. “Okay…”
“You are incredibly beautiful, Whit.”
Her smile tugged to one side, and she clasped her hands in front of her. “Thank you, Ben.”
“And if you’re trying to make sure we get noticed, you definitely chose the right dress,” I added. Because I’m an idiot.
“Oh?” Her smile didn’t waver for a second.
I nodded, finally having learned that if I opened my stupid trap, something dumb was going to fly out of it.
“Does it look like something someone you’d date would wear?”
“No,” I said firmly.
“No?”
“It’s better,” I admitted.