7. Fletcher
Fletcher
Nash
L ast night, I had only messaged her good night. From the time Blake dropped me at home and from the lack of sleep from the night before, I hit the bed like a rock, and now it is ten the next morning. Finding Fletcher on top of me and body drenched in sweat, leads me to know that I had a rough night. I am sure it’s nightmares from my time overseas. The day too many of my squadron were killed, when too many civilians, including innocent children, were murdered and lined the streets as the smoke cleared.
How I survived, along with just two of my men, is something I will never understand. I was not the one who had a newborn to go home to or even a spouse. Let alone have anyone outside my immediate family waiting on me. Not saying they were not enough, because they were, they are enough. But to the men and women I lost that day in a secret ops mission, I feel like they had so much more to live for.
It took months to physically recover from the shards of metal being removed from my whole right side, which ripped through my muscles, leaving scars all over. I was told I was one of the lucky ones that day, but even now, I do not feel lucky. Never have and not sure I ever will come to terms with being alive.
For the first few months of being home and staying at my parents house recuperating, I would fly to the ground at the sound of a pan falling or a loud bang. I would try to stay awake at night for the fear of the nightmares that awaited me. I lived in a constant state of panic and stress. Therefore I was gifted my golden retriever, Fletcher from a wounded PTSD Veteran fundraiser in our town, and he has been my trusted companion for the past three years. It took me months to come to terms that I had him as I felt there were others more deserving.
He eventually won me over, and I am so thankful for him. Even my worst days are not as horrendous as they once were. I am now able to function in an almost “normal” capacity now, which leads me to this feeling Willa gives me. She makes me feel alive, to want to be alive, to push out of this hell hole I have lived in for years. I just hope my time being with her goes as smoothly as I need it to.
Once I finally make it to the office, I am grateful to see all is fairly calm for a Monday. I ignored all calls this morning, knowing I needed to be in the right headspace to deal with whatever bullshit was going to be thrown my way. Now, sitting at my desk, I pull my cell out and turn it on. Just as all the notifications start to populate, my assistant Judy walks in with a stack of paperwork and her sticky notes of return calls. As soon as I realize there is not one message from Willa, I feel my mood shift instantly, and it seems so does Judy. As she politely sets down her hand full of items on my desk, she smiles and backs out quietly, leaving me to ponder my next step. I did just shoot her over a quick text late last night.
Me: Hi, Beautiful.
Five minutes go by and nothing. I’ll take it that she is busy so I decide to go about my day. Two hours later, my phone finally dings with her distinct text tone assigned to her.
Willa: Hey, Cowboy. Just saw this. It has been a crazy morning at work. Just now on a short break.
Willa: Hope you got some rest.
Me: I did. Was even late getting to the office.
Willa: Hope your boss is cool about that, I know mine is not. I won’t even tempt it.
Me: He is pretty cool about it.
Me: I take it your dad is a hard-ass?
Willa: He can be, but no. LOL! The Principal of my school is.
What? Now I am even more confused, so I decide to FaceTime her.
“Hey. Nice to see your face there, Cowboy. Digging that five o’clock shadow you have going on.”
All I can do is smile, seeing her face light up on the other end. “Adding to my notes.” She laughs as I scope her background. I see she is sitting at a desk with a bulletin board behind her, but it is hard to make out the letters.
“I assumed you worked at the ranch, so please enlighten me about your profession, Miss Willa.”
“I am a teacher, Sir,” she says as she winks and gives me the biggest grin. Every time she says ‘Sir’, I just want to spank her and give her every reason to call me ‘Sir’. As if she has caught on to my thoughts, her smile morphs into a wicked grin. “I am a teacher at the local high school.”
Then the realization hits me that she just said she was a teacher, and I cannot help but laugh “You are a teacher?” When I notice her facial expression does not change from her glare, I stop and apologize.
“Is that so hard to believe?” she asks
“That was the farthest thing from the list of jobs I had picked out in my head for you.”
“Why is that?” I sense she is trying hard not to be offended and hang up. My ass needs to back-track quickly.
“Well, with your beautiful uncanny dictionary of words and brass comments, a teacher was not what I was expecting. Sorry if I offended you, Willa.”
“Not offended, I get it. To be fair, I am a physical education teacher and assistant coach of the girls rodeo team. So though my mouth is toned down for my job, I would not say my attitude always is.” Both of us are laughing now. “Trust me, I make my English teacher mama very proud.”
“I bet you do,” I say and smirk.
“She was not the happiest when I graduated top of my class in sports medicine with a minor in English then chose to teach physical education. Every once in a while I will cover for her if she needs to be out.”
“Top of your class, huh, What school?”
“UT - hook’em horns!” she yells as she flashes the symbol my way. “You?”
Shaking my head, I grimace, knowing my answer will not bode well. “My degree is for A&M.”
She gasps and then says, “Nooooo. Another strike against you, Nash. That's almost a punishable offense.”
“I know, I know. To be fair on my end, I did mostly online classes and never partook in a football game or wore the school logo or colors.” I see her trying to size me up through the phone.
“Hmmmm, you are an interesting person, Sir.”
“I could say the same for you, Miss Willa. You seem to impress me and leave me surprised at every turn. So what, are you on a teacher break right now?”
“Well, good! And yeah, I get fourth period to myself for planning and lunch. Sometimes I will have lunch with my mama, but she is doing some extra credit project with a few of her students. So I am just planning for the next month and looking at the high school rodeo schedule coming up and competition.”
“What was so busy about this morning?”
“Oh my Hades. High school boys. First period is weight lifting for the football players. They are typically great about spotting for each other, until I turn my back for a minute and have two kids on either side of the school's prized linebacker, putting more weights on either side of the barbell he was already holding in the air. My panic must have scared them because my linebacker dropped all the weight on his chest, and the other two got caught under the weights as it came down. It was a damn scene from the three stooges. All are fine, just some bruising and had to get a lashing from the football coach because of their stupidity, but whatever. Those damn boys are always playing pranks and causing chaos. All in fun, because they are good kids, but one day, one of them will seriously get hurt because of their actions. At least their quarterback has better sense and avoids their juvenileness.”
“Wow, sounds like you have your hands full.”
“Oh my goodness, between them and the girl drama, trust me, I know more scoop about students and teachers now than I ever did being a student here. Enough about me, how is your day going?”
“Much better now that I have been talking to you.” I can tell she is blushing.
“Do you always look that dapper for work?”
“Are you admiring the view?”
“Damn straight I am. Not every day I get a view like this. Though I would prefer to keep admiring you, unfortunately I do only have five minutes to scarf my turkey sandwich down before my room fills with nosy high schoolers.”
“Not a problem, Clint just walked into my office anyway. So I will talk to you later.”
“Sounds good, Cowboy.” With a wink, she is gone.
Looking over at Clint as he takes a seat across from me, I know what is coming.
“Take it you have not told her yet?”
“Not a conversation I plan to have over the phone.”
“Okay, brother. Just tread lightly.”
Cock-wad blares out from my phone with a yelling Siri. Over and over again. I rush to turn it off and realize it is an alarm setting. “What the hell?” I whisper. Clint is looking bugged eyed, trying to keep himself composed.
“You have something to explain to me, brother?”
“Shut the fuck up.” I glare as I start scrolling back through my phone to pull my alarm app up. “I can’t believe she did that.”
“Who and what?”
“Willa. When I gave her my phone the other night to put her number in, she started giggling. When she handed me the phone back, nothing looked abnormal. But look! She programmed random alarms to go off and plugged inappropriate words to all of them.” Now Clint is laughing so hard and loud it causes Blake to run in and see what all the ruckus is.
“I love this girl already. Please keep her around, and please do not turn those off.”
“Clint, what if we were in a meeting right now?”
“Even better. You take this job and life too seriously. Loosen up. For someone that stared death in the face, you came back more bearing,” Blake throws in.
Shaking my head in disbelief but laughing on the inside, I grin because she is a clever one. “Got it, brothers,” I say back. “Can I help you with something?”
“Yes, on a more serious note, I need you to fly out with me to Alabama with me. Some guys got hurt on the job today.”
“Alright, fire up the jet and let’s go,” I say as I jump up and head out with Fletcher hot on my heels. Blake is left back in my office still sniggering.