17. Merlin
17
MERLIN
My heart sinks all the way to my size-thirteen boots at Sheri’s words. It may have been couched as a question, but there’s only one answer to it, and that’s yes. As sweet and loving as she is, this woman is a bear when it comes to protecting her loved ones. And Leila is, without a doubt, that.
“Sure.” Not much else I can say.
I wait as patiently as I can while she and Leila say their goodbyes before walking Sheri to her car. As soon as we’re out of earshot, she looks up at me and hisses, “What the hell are you doing?”
Yep, there it is. Mama Bear’s done playing nice.
“If you mean why am I here, then I could say it’s none of your business. But since we both know you’d just kick my ass and make me tell you anyway, I may as well spare us both.”
“You’re such a perceptive man, you know that?”
I snort out a laugh and hug her to me. “The short version is this. This mission, saving Leila and the other passengers, made me realize some important things. There are things that are just between her and me, but I will say this. I’m here to tell Leila I love her and beg her to give me a second chance.”
“It’s about bloody time, you dimwit. Took you long enough.”
“Hey now.” I attempt to sound offended, but it’s ruined by my laughter.
“Well then, why are you still standing here jibber-jabbering? Go on, get now. Go get your girl.”
And that’s Sheri. Just that. Simple acceptance that I’m here to beg for forgiveness and a second chance. She’s not giving me crap about how badly I fucked up. Only a simple “go get your girl.”
I tug her into my arms and give her a huge hug. Damn, I love this woman. Maverick sure was one lucky son of a gun. Getting into the car, she fires it up and starts to pull out of the parking spot.
Before she pulls away, she stops, rolls her window down, and says, “You know I love you, right?”
I feel a lump form in my throat. “Yes, ma’am, I sure do. You know I love you right back, right?”
She chuckles. “Yes, sir, I sure do. Now go.” She pauses, and I wait, because I know she’s got something else to say. “And Kyle, don’t fuck it up, okay?”
And there it is.
“Now you sound like Ace. He said exactly the same thing only a short while ago. What is it with you people?”
Something moves behind her eyes, but before I can identify what that something is, she says, “Smart man.”
With one last laugh, she rolls up her window and drives away. With a sense of déjà vu, I watch her leave before making my way back to Leila. I find her standing in almost the exact same spot as when I went outside. As I close the door behind me, she walks into the living room, and I follow her.
She stops in the middle of the room, arms wrapped around herself. “So, what did you want talk about?” Straight to the point – no beating around the bush for Ms. Leila. All right then.
Truth time.
“Let me ask you this first. What do you remember about the day we met?”
I see the confusion crawl across her face. My Leila never could play poker for shit. She has the most expressive face of anyone I’ve ever met. Without saying a word, her face usually tells you exactly what she’s thinking.
“Um, the day we met?” She scrunches her nose up, clearly not expecting the question.
“Yeah. What do you remember about it?”
“It was at The Tin Moose. I was there with some work colleagues, and you came in with some of your team. If I remember correctly, it was John, Kevin, and George. I don’t remember where the others were that day.
“You rescued me from the neanderthal gym bunny who wouldn’t take no for an answer. And then you asked for my number. Why?”
I nod. “Do you want to know what I remember of that day?”
“I guess.” She shrugs, still clearly confused.
“We walked into the bar, and you were the first thing I saw when my eyes adjusted to the light inside. You literally stopped me in my tracks. There was a light directly above your head – one of those shitty commercial grade lights that makes everyone look like the walking dead. And yet, as it shone down on you , it made you look like an angel. Your hair burned like a setting sun under its artificial light. Someone at the table said something, and you threw your head back, laughing from the belly. It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. The sight of you, the sound – I was transfixed.”
Leila’s surprise at my words is obvious. Not even a blind person would have been able to miss it. And it makes me feel like a bigger ass for never having told her any of this. How many ways can a man fuck up? Let me count the fucking ways.
“I engineered it so the guys and I would have to walk past your table to get to our own. Just so I could get a closer look. Then I got a whiff of your perfume as we walked past. Sublime. But when you turned your head and looked right at me? Holy shit, sweetness. It felt like a sucker punch to the gut.
“It almost took me to my knees. You were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I couldn’t tell you what the guys talked about – I was too busy wracking my brain for a way to meet you to listen. Then that idiot hit on you and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“Yeah, I remember that moment,” she murmurs, seemingly lost in thought. “I didn’t think men paid attention to details like that,” she finally continues.
“Yeah well, when it comes to you, I remember everything.”
“What does this have to do with the reason you’re here?”
“I’m getting to that. Just a little more patience,” I say. “I loved you from that first moment I laid eyes on you, baby. So much that it scared the hell out of me. I didn’t know how to deal with all the emotions that came with loving you. The huge, overwhelming depth of my feelings for you terrified me in a way I’d never experienced before. Not even on a mission that went south.
“Then when Mav died, I saw what that kind of love did – the raw, unrelenting, devastating pain that comes from loving someone that much. I saw how losing him almost killed Sheri. How it flayed her open and left her too vulnerable.
“I panicked. My brain scrambled to make sense of the senseless. What if I lost you, like she lost him? I didn’t think I could survive it, though Sheri did. I couldn’t see clearly; I was so blinded by the fear. So, instead of facing them, I told myself that if I felt like that then, surely, you’d probably feel the same if anything ever happened to me. I justified leaving by lying to myself – telling myself I was protecting you from that devastation.” Before I can say more, Leila speaks.
“Well, you didn’t. In fact, you did exactly what you were trying to shield me from. You wrecked me. It hurt worse than any other pain I’ve ever endured. And what made it worse was I had no closure. You were gone, but you weren’t dead. There was always that fear that one day I could bump into you somewhere and you’d be with someone else.
“At least for Sheri, she knew that there was a solid, valid reason for her loss and grief. Her man was gone from this world, and she got to mourn him. Me? I got to live with the realization that my man was out there, somewhere in the world and could pop up at any time. That he simply didn’t love me enough to stay.”
God, her words slay me.
“I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again because it bears saying. I’m so, so sorry, sweetness. My twisted logic was telling me I’d save you heartache by leaving, so I did. And in the process, not only hurt you unspeakably, but lost the best part of myself.
“But then, we were the ones sent in to rescue you. Of all the SEAL teams they could have sent, they sent us. It’s like God Himself was giving me a second chance – an opportunity to fix what I’d broken.
“Like it was meant to open my eyes to my own stupidity. When you crumpled to the floor and just lay there after that fucker hit you with his weapon, I died a thousand deaths.”
Swallowing, I grip the back of my neck, remembering that moment Leila collapsed to the ground.
“You just lay there, so still. I couldn’t see you breathing. I thought he’d killed you. Right then I realized how much of an idiot I’d been. You were my everything, and I was the one who’d thrown away our beautiful life together because of my fears.”
I pause before laying my heart on the line.
“With startling clarity, I knew then that the love I felt for you is infinite and eternal. I will love you until I draw my last breath. I will love you forever. If you’d give me the chance, I’d like to spend the rest of my life – this one and the next – showing you how much.”
The silence that meets my impassioned declaration is deafening.
Leila’s arms are wrapped tightly around her middle, a stricken expression on her face. Tears stream down her cheeks. The silence stretches. She doesn’t say a word, simply stands as still as if she were carved of marble, barely breathing.
“Say something, sweetness. Please,” I beg.
Still, she remains quiet.
I close my eyes against the pain that wraps its unforgiving hand around my heart and squeezes the life out of it. Fuck. I’ve laid it all on the line and she’s got nothing to say? But she does. Just when I’m ready to accept defeat and make good on my promise to leave her be, she finally breaks her silence.
“Say I were to take a chance and let you back into my life – a life I’ve painstakingly pieced back together – what assurance do I have you won’t run the next time you get scared, Kyle?
“Life is full of mishaps and accidents. Nothing is guaranteed. Bad things happen to good people – John’s a perfect example of that. How do I know you won’t run again? Because I will tell you right now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I will not survive it a second time.
“It won’t gut me, leaving me hollow, not living just merely existing from day to day, like the last time. It will kill me to have to watch you walk away a second time.”
Her words gut me .
At first, I don’t know how to respond. I mean, what is there I can say that will set her mind at ease? But the expectant look on her face tells me she’s waiting for an answer.
“All I have is my word. My word has always been my bond. You know that. I promise you, if you give me another chance, I won’t run when things get hard or scary. I will talk to you about my fears, and we can work through them together.
“I love you more than anything. You are everything to me – I am nothing without you. An empty shell going through the motions of life. Like you, I’ve merely been existing, not living.”
I see a tear tremble on Leila’s lash, watch as it tumbles over and slides down her pale cheek. And it’s like a knife blade to the heart. “Don’t cry, sweetness. Please. It kills me when you cry.”
“I can’t help it. I’m so sick of these stupid damn tears and still I can’t help it.” Another tear slips over, followed quickly by another one. “You will never understand the devastation you left in your wake, Kyle, and I’m terrified of what will happen if you do it again. Words are easy to say in the heat of the moment, thinking you mean them. But what prevents you from reverting to old behavior when panic sets back in?”
“I won’t. I promise to let you all the way in this time. Please just give me a chance to prove it to you, to make it up to you for my past mistakes.” My life is on the line here, and I’m willing to beg if that’s what it takes.