13. Margo
CHAPTER 13
Margo
I ’m finishing the notes in my computer from my last client when he pops his head into my open office door. “Oh, hey, Fish,” I say, startled he’s still here. I saw him head into the locker room when we finished half an hour ago. “Can I help you with anything? I was just making the changes in our plan for next week,” I explain. While he is a new training client given to me when Tommy’s squadron left, I know exactly who he really is.
This is Tommy’s best friend, Fish. Being the stoic professional, while also needing to keep my job, I haven’t brought it up once, even though it’s quite literally killing me to not ask about Tommy. He’s always at the front of my mind and on the tip of my tongue. It’s been months since he left, and I haven’t heard from him in weeks.
Fish takes a step in and looks around the office, peering in a way that tells me he’s making sure we’re alone. “Yeah, uh, I wanted to talk to you about those changes for next week if you had a second.” Oh, thank God, finally. This is not about workout changes. I can tell by the set of his face.
Panic laces my next breath. “Of course. I’m finished here,” I say, loading my bag with things that I don’t need, but my nerves dictate the absolutely random selection of things. “Hopefully everything is okay,” I say. “I’ll tell you what changes I’m suggesting while we walk to the lot?” I press my lips together. I shouldn’t be talking about Tommy here, not with my coworker Nathaniel around. He’s been incredibly odd since I returned from Texas.
He reads between the lines, nodding. “Oh, yes. Everything is okay.”
I exhale. “Good,” I whisper mostly to myself. I go out through the women’s locker room, and Fish is waiting for me by my car, looming like shadowy death. I’m surprised he knew which one was mine. That’s the first strange thing. The second is when he bends down and takes a tracker off my car. It was hidden under the back bumper. He holds it up. I wrap an arm around my stomach. “What the hell,” I say, my mouth dry as a bone. “Was that tracking my car?”
Fish looks nonchalant as he crushes the device with an untied boot. “It was tracking you,” he deadpans. “I waited as long as I could to tell you. Tommy didn’t want you to worry, but your ex is getting bolder, and you need to keep your guard up. This has been way more work than I have time for, but I made Tommy a promise.”
I process what he just said slowly. Hollis. “Tommy asked you to babysit me?”
He shakes his head. “Tommy asked me to make sure your ex didn’t hurt you, but a little help is needed now that he’s putting trackers on your vehicle as fast as I can remove them and lurking around your apartment late at night. You need to know.” Fish is annoyed, and I can’t blame him if he’s been working and doing heaven knows what to guard my place. It’s a shocking revelation honestly, so my mind is grasping to even understand what it means. “Things would be a lot easier if one, you could move somewhere else, which I know that’s a big ask, but gates and security would really help me out and make my life easier, and two, be aware that you’re being stalked. Watch who follows you and stay alert when you’re coming and going anywhere.”
I can only imagine what Tommy told Fish about Hollis and what he did to me. For a half second, I’m pissed that he shared such personal information, then I remember the situation we’re in. I can’t fault him. Sighing, I say, “I haven’t spoken to him for weeks. He emails me two sentences here and there, but this is so hard. Is he okay?”
He slides his hands into his pockets and looks over my shoulder. “No, I don’t think he’s doing okay, but he’s alive, and the last thing he needs to worry about is this.” He gestures to the ground where the little tag is smashed. “About those asks?”
I know he can’t tell me more. “Damn it, I had a feeling something was off with Tommy. It was just like everything was normal, and he was calling me every day or every other day, and then it was like a shift, and he’s distanced himself.” I ignore his asks.
Fish sighs long and heavy. The purple bags under his eyes are almost dark enough to count as bruises. “They’re coming home soon. Everything will go back to nor…back to something. You’ll be together at least.”
“I can’t just move. Where am I supposed to go? I have a roommate.” Even as I say it out loud, it sounds impossibly crazy.
“I found you an apartment on the top floor in The Gardens. I couldn’t get you a spot in the base apartments because even though you’re a civilian worker here, they are only allowing active duty to get into that building.”
I furrow my brow. “The Gardens? I can’t afford that, or we would have moved there to begin with. It’s the nicest apartment building in town. There has to be a waitlist a mile long.”
“If you can and agree to, it’s being taken care of. I know how crazy that sounds, so you don’t have to question it. Yes, I’m serious, and no, you cannot ask questions. At least you can’t ask me questions. Ask Tommy when he gets home.” He exhales again, and the exhaustion is apparent. I just worked him over in the gym, too. I might have gone a little softer if I knew I was the cause of his fatigue.
My guilt forces the quick reply. “Yes, okay. This weekend? I might need help.”
“I can do that.” The relief is evident in his posture.
“Just me, or me and Jeannie? I don’t know if I can convince her to leave on such short notice and for Hollis. Doing something else for him may rub her the wrong way even if I understand why it needs to happen.” What the hell is Hollis up to and why now?
Fish cracks his neck side to side and rubs one shoulder. “Your ex is working with someone or a few someones, Margo. This isn’t as cut and dry as I’m making it sound, but if you make my life easier, I can promise Tommy will be happy. You’ll be safe. Win. Win. Win.”
Birds flap in my stomach at the mention of him, the rest forgotten. “Have you talked to Tommy?” I cannot help myself, I have to know anything I can. These months have been tortuous and confusing. I get why people break up and say distance is too hard. I feel single in all ways except my heart and body. I do life alone with a bare minimum of communication.
Licking his lips, he shakes his head. “There was a bad mission. They’re keeping it out of the media to protect the families back here, but he was on it, and it was his first.” The wings flapping in my stomach turn to dread in a millisecond when I think about the snippets of conversation I’ve heard around the gym. No one has outright said anything specific, and there are multiple squadrons deployed to multiple places, so I didn’t immediately assume it was Tommy’s.
“Damn it. SEALs died?” I whisper, then close my eyes. With absolute resolve, I continue. “Tell me how exactly to make your life easier other than moving, which by the way is absolutely insane, and I won’t let him pay for that, but I will take it up with him when he gets back. He’s not even talking to you?”
“He’s working,” Fish says, staring me dead in the eyes. “I don’t want him to worry about anything back here, and unfortunately whenever I talk to him, he asks about you. It’s hard to lie about the fucking tracking devices and shady characters waltzing in and out of your personal space without you even knowing.” He leans against my car and sweeps his gaze around the parking lot. “So, I’d like to keep not talking to him, honestly.”
That last sentence knocks the wind out of me. “What do the shady characters look like?”
“We can’t do this here, okay? I told you the important stuff, and I’ll meet you at The Gardens at eight on Saturday morning. Just keep your eyes open and scan this car for trackers before you drive it. I’ll tell you more later. Your roommate can come or not, I really don’t give a shit about her.” Classy. “If you think you’re being followed, call the number programmed into this phone.” He hands me a burner phone from his pocket. Like a criminal in a movie or something. I look at it in my palm and know without a doubt that whatever Hollis has gotten himself into this time is deep. “If anything comes up use it. And Margo?”
“Yeah?” I don’t recognize my own voice through the terror.
“I’m fucking sore from that workout.”
My laugh catches me off guard. “Glad to be of service.”
“Take out the shoulder press,” he returns, a sly smile curving his mouth.
“When does he get home?” I ask desperate, knowing he can’t tell me the answer.
He starts walking away from me. He speaks over his shoulder, “Soon, but not soon enough. Got me running all over the place, and it ain’t even for my girl!”
My stomach flips when I think about Tommy calling me his girl, but it’s only momentary after everything I just found out. Hollis wouldn’t hurt me, I don’t think, but why are other people with him? I drive home and don’t remember driving at all. Which is not fantastic seeing as I just told my proxy bodyguard I’d be careful and watchful of my surroundings. A million curse words stream through my mind. No one is parked next to my car on either side, and I’m on alert as I head up the stairs into my apartment.
Clicking the door closed, I lock it and deadbolt it. Jeannie is on the phone in her room, her fake voice carries from here, and I know to stay quiet. I peer out the living room window that overlooks the parking lot. I don’t see anything nefarious, but I’m rattled, shaken, and terrified that I have to move. I’m hunched over drinking water from the sink like a zoo animal when Jeannie comes in.
“Have you heard from him today?” It’s always her first question when she sees me. My mood is dependent upon the answer.
I swing my head left and right. “I’m moving to The Gardens this weekend, Jeannie. I have some stalkers, and it will give Tommy peace if I’m in a gated community, or I guess until Hollis gets locked up. I know it sounds insane, but I don’t have to pay for it, and I’m going to do it. You can come with me or stay.” Ripping off the bandage quickly is easier when it has to do with this topic.
She sneers, tilting her head down to look at me through her bangs like a superhero. “Hollis,” she seethes. “How did you know he was around?”
“You know something I don’t?” I quirk a brow. “I didn’t know Hollis was lurking around. Fish told me. You knew he was around and didn’t tell me?” Does the whole world have some sort of special stalker sense I don’t?
She deflates, and that’s when I know it’s as bad as I suspected. “Margo, I talked to him once because I ran into him. Crashed into him when I wasn’t paying attention coming home. I had my nose in my phone. He promised he’d stay away when I pulled out my phone to call the cops. I thought it was a one-and-done thing. Well, he promised it was.”
Biting my lip to keep in the aggression, I stare at my friend, directly into her twinkling eyes. “That’s the same thing as lying. What does Hollis want? He has others involved, you know. The restraining order is still in effect. Why don’t I just call and get this taken care of right now? You call him and have him meet me here, and I’ll have the cops waiting for him.”
Her shoulders slouch. “Others involved? What does that mean? Who? He said he was stopping by because he knew the restraining order had ended, Margo. He wanted to apologize to you in person.” Ended? How did I lose track of time with something so important? I know how. I tried not to think of him at all, and it screwed me. I pull out my phone and scroll through old emails until I find what I’m looking for. Yep. Expired. Jeannie is trying to explain to me why she didn’t mention it, and it’s a lot of bullshit about not wanting to destroy my progress. Something she says piques my interest.
I hold up one hand. “You said he was sober?”
Folding her arms over her chest she exhales. “As a stone. I know him well. He was sober, I’m telling you. So sober and apologetic that if you were home, I might have let him apologize through a window or something.” She shakes her head when she glimpses my disbelief. “Not drunk. Not high. He was normal, old Hollis.”
A wistful emotion sweeps over me as I think of Hollis from before. My Hollis .
I close my eyes and clear my throat. “Maybe normal for a short period of time. I don’t trust it. I need to renew the order,” I say, feeling my heart hammer away in my chest. The old insecurities bubble to the surface and force me to consider the worst. What he might do.
“You said Hollis has others involved?” she asks.
I rub my temples. “Yes, and they are lurking in the middle of the night. Fish has photos. He’s going to show me when he helps me move into The Gardens.” I say the last two words questioningly.
Jeannie huffs. “You want me to just pick up and move?”
“You don’t have to. You’re safe here alone. You’re not safe here with me.”
“Margo, I have to ask the obvious.”
I exhale, knowing what’s coming. I jerk up my chin.
“Why can’t you call the cops? Who cares if the restraining order is expired? If you called the damn police, they’d take him away. Are you still protecting him?” Ah, the sticky, icky monumental weak spot. I’d burn my entire existence, and I bet that spot would remain in the puddle of ashes.
I sit down on the arm of the sofa. “You know I’m irrational about this situation. I’m all talk about locking him up, but, Jeannie, why are others involved this time? I need to know what’s going on before my only source leaves and goes to jail. I need to talk to Hollis, but Tommy can’t know. Hollis would tell me the truth. He owes me that.” She sets a hand on my shoulder. “He would.” Am I convincing myself? I don’t know why I think about Dani right now, but I do. What would Tommy do in this situation? How heartsick would it make me if he went behind my back to talk to her? It’s not the same, I remind myself. Dani isn’t some crazy psycho stalking me.
An email pings on my phone, and the noise scares me so much, I drop my phone. As if he senses my dishonesty and lies from the other side of the world, it’s finally an email from Tommy. My whole body gets hot, as I stand and click the new message which is from a weird email address with a bunch of numbers and letters. It’s different every time. I can’t open it quickly enough.
Margo,
The days are long and bleak the closer we get to homecoming. I’ve had nothing but time to think, and we have so much to talk about when I get home. I miss you.
All my love,
Tommy
Tears form, and I try not to blink because Jeannie is watching me with her analyzing eyes. “Bullshit!” I yell, tossing the phone onto the sofa and retreating to my room. “Nothing but bullshit. I’m back here waiting for him, and he can’t even throw me a scrap,” I yell, words slurred through my tears. “I know he can’t talk about what he’s doing, but he can definitely say something other than we need to talk when I get home.” Is he breaking up with me? After I sat here wishing for nothing except his presence. “It was too new when he left. I should have known,” I say, hiccuping. Jeannie has my phone in her hand when she comes into my room and sits next to me on my bed.
“He said he missed you. It’s a generalized need to talk, not the breakup kind of talk,” she explains away. “He also said ‘all my love.’”
“I read the fucking lame email. I don’t need the play-by-play. Why hasn’t he called me? I don’t even remember what his voice sounds like at this point. Was it ever real? Or was this all part of your experiment? To hurt me worse?” I look at my friend with tearful eyes.
With her pursed lips and wounded eyes, I know I went too far. “How could you say that? I love you and only want the best for you.” She turns away. “It was real, it is real, you’ll see. Don’t give up on him yet. You have no clue what he’s dealing with.”
“How I feel doesn’t matter at all? Regardless of what he’s dealing with, am I not owed the bare minimum here?”
“What does the bare minimum look like? Did you talk about expectations before he left?”
I swallow and wipe my nose on my thin jacket. “Of course not, neither of us knew what to expect.”
“That’s what your reply should be. Not anger or resentment because you don’t fully understand and neither does he. Tell him how you’re feeling and see how he responds.”
I feel like an absolute shrew for having needs. I know he’s at war. I know his team went through something unimaginable, and here I am upset because the email was dry. Something else I can’t control, I think. My stupid emotions.
“Food is here,” Jeannie says, patting my hand. She tosses my phone on the bed before she heads to open the door. The conversation between the delivery driver and my friend carries to my room, then the door closes.
I eat dinner with Jeannie sitting at the small table in our kitchen and plan my reply. It needs to be thoughtful, curt, and not catty. I blow out a huge breath as I lean back in my chair and begin.
Tommy,
I miss you, too. It’s been hard for me not hearing from you as frequently as I would like. I’m sure you’re very busy, and I don’t want you to think about me, too much. I wish I could hear your voice. I also wish you didn’t give me the “we need to talk” line. It makes me insecure. I love you.
Margo
P.S. I’m moving into the new apartment this weekend. F is helping me.
I could have added, “Don’t worry about me,” but I honestly don’t know if he is anymore. Maybe Fish is being dramatic. I’ll do what’s asked of me for the moment and sort the rest out later.
I will talk to Hollis, too. How do I contact my drug-addict ex? I know just where to go. Something tells me he’ll find me.