Chapter 7 Gabe
GABE
I unlock my front door a little after nine and walk into the same quiet I always come home to.
No TV, no music, just the leaves of the microgreens on my kitchen sill swaying to the night's breeze and the city's noise muffled through the walls.
I drop my keys in the bowl by the door, shrug off my jacket, and toe my boots off one at a time. My knees complain and my back adds its opinion. Middle age is a very honest friend.
The day was long. Client walk-through, training a green team that thought gun safety was a suggestion, three conference calls shifted across time zones.
Private security sounds glamorous when you say it fast. In reality, it is cheap hotel coffee, exit routes, and telling rich people their doors are not as secure as they think.
I open the fridge and stare at shelves that hold a carton of eggs, an apple, half a container of takeout noodles, and a lonely beer. I grab the beer, pop the cap and take a swallow, then head for the couch.
My phone is waiting on the coffee table. One missed call from a client.
Two messages from a woman whose name I have to read twice to place.
We went out three times a few months back.
Nice woman. Smart. Funny enough.
The sex was fine. I stopped going out with her after I realized I kept thinking of someone else when she kissed me. I delete the thread and lean back.
The apartment is neat and empty. A couch, a TV, a bookshelf with more manuals than novels. I could afford nicer things, even a bigger place.
But I spend more time in airports than here, so it never feels urgent. The only thing that feels urgent is the folder I told myself I would stop opening and still do.
I unlock the phone again and tap on Photos. Scroll past the unit pictures, the landscapes, the training shots.
Land on the one I always land on. Her father's living room. Balloons. Beer bottles.
Men shouting over music. In the corner, carrying a tray, face turned half toward the camera, Lena in a floral dress.
Twenty-three then. Laugh lines at the corners of her mouth. Soft hair pinned up in a way that did not even pretend to hide her neck. Curves that made my hands itch.
The night I finally ignored every rule I had set for myself and took what I wanted.
I have gone over that decision a thousand times. The feel of her, the sounds she made, the way she looked at me in the mirror when I had her spread open.
Then the way I put distance back between us in the morning, telling myself I did it for her.
Too young. Too close to my oldest friend. Too much risk.
I told myself she deserved a man with a normal life. I told myself I did her a favor.
It has been five years and I still know that is bullshit.
My phone buzzes in my hand. A new message flashes over her picture.
Lena.
My heart misfires. She has not texted me once in all these years. I have texted her.
Birthdays, a couple of check-ins, some attempt at an apology that never got past the first line on her end.
She never blocked my number, but she never answered, either. We live in that strange place between silence and possibility.
I tap the notification and the chat opens.
The photo hits me first.
Full screen. No warning. No lead-in.
Lena, naked, one hand cupping her breast. Hair loose around her shoulders. Lips swollen and parted. Cheeks flushed. Eyes heavy and fixed on the camera.
Every curve I remember is fuller now, more grounded, more woman. She's so beautiful.
Every part of my body wakes up at once. Heat slams through my gut. My hand tightens around the phone until my knuckles go white.
I know her. I know that belly. Those hips. Those breasts.
I know how they feel in my palms, against my chest, under my mouth. I know the sounds she makes when I push her past the edge.
For five years I have carried those details in a locked room in my head. Suddenly, the door is wide open.
My cock is already thick in my pants. There is no point pretending I am above this. I drag the phone closer, swallow hard, and shove my free hand under my waistband.
I am hard enough that it feels like a punch when my fingers close around myself.
The reaction my body gives is enough to make me forget I'm a grown man, not a teenager in a barracks.
I stroke myself fast, rough, no finesse, eyes fixed on the picture of her touching herself. I hear the echo of her voice in my head, the way she said my name the first time I pushed into her. My muscles tighten.
Breath saws in my chest. It takes less than a minute.
When I come, it is sharp and hard and leaves me sagging against the couch, lungs dragging for air. I sit there panting, pants half open, phone still lit in my hand, and shame hits right on the tail of release.
I pull myself together, literally and otherwise, and head to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face.
Then I take a harsh look in the mirror.
I have gray at my temples now, deeper lines around my mouth. A chest that is still solid because I keep it that way, but the work shows.
I look like a man who knows better than to jerk off to a woman who has made it very clear she's done with him, through no fault of her own. I did that to her.
Back on the couch, I pick up the phone again. The photo is still there. Under it, the message I ignored in the rush.
Freshly creamed but starving for cock. Come over.
My jaw locks. The heat in my gut shifts into something heavier.
She did not send that to me on purpose.
I scroll up. The last entry in this thread is mine, from a few months ago. Can we just talk? No answer.
Nothing between that night and this photo.
I know how phones work.
She didn't suddenly decide to revive a dead chat for sexts.
More likely, she tapped the wrong name.
My name.
She meant this for someone else, some other man who gets to touch her now. Likely, a younger bastard who gets to see those curves in person instead of through a screen.
Someone she thought about when she spread her legs, when she typed those words.
I tell myself I should be glad she moved on. She isn't frozen in the past, and this is what I wanted for her, a full life with a young, age-appropriate partner.
My chest answers that thought with a hard, tight ache. I'm not having it because she's mine. She's mine.
I tap into the keyboard before I can talk myself out of it.
Lena.
I hit send. The word sits under the photo and her message and looks small.
Nothing happens.
I add five more words, because any more would sound weak.
I need to see you.
Send.
Those words at least are true. I needed to see her the day she walked out of my house without a goodbye.
I needed to see her when I realized weeks later that she was not coming back for anything, not even a fight.
I needed to see her when my texts dropped into silence.
I needed to see her through five years of dates that felt hollow and nights in hotels that felt even worse.
This is the first time I have admitted it to myself in a full sentence.
The message gets delivered. Two blue ticks appear under both texts. She has read them.
I wait.
A minute passes. Then another. I stare at the phone and tell myself she's thinking of a reply. Typing and deleting.
Maybe laughing at me.
Maybe shaking.
Maybe naked still, hand between her legs, because my ego is suicidal and enjoys pain.
Ten minutes pass. The chat stays quiet.
I set the phone down and scrub both hands over my face. If I sit here any longer, I'll start talking to myself, and that is the point where my brothers in arms will stage an intervention.
I stand, cross the room, and grab my go-bag from the closet. It lives there packed for emergencies.
The contents are a little outdated.
I tip it on the bed and dump it out. Shirt, jeans, socks, underwear. I change the shirts for fresher ones, throw in a second pair of boots, check that my passport and ID kit are in the side pocket.
The logical side of my brain is already racing forward.
Lena's settled in a quiet little town just outside Raleigh, a cozy spot where rumors spread faster than the mail ever could.
My more reasonable side asks what the hell I think I am doing.
She didn't invite me. She didn't answer my text.
She probably wishes that message had gone to anyone else. Showing up on her doorstep isn't smart, fair, or the move of a sane man.
I book the flight anyway.
There is a red-eye in three hours. I pay extra for the changeable ticket and shove my wallet into my back pocket. Phone in my hand, bag on my shoulder, I lock the apartment and head for the car.
The drive to the airport is a long strip of highway and bad radio. I put something on to fill the silence and kill it two songs later when the talk show host starts giving relationship advice he clearly does not follow.
I would laugh if I were not busy proving that grown men can still act like idiots over one woman.
At the airport, I move through check-in on autopilot. My body remembers lines, trays, scanners. All the years in uniform trained that into me.
The only difference is the reason my heart is beating harder than it should. I find my gate and sit near the window.
An old habit kicks in. I check exit paths and assess faces. I clock the guy who drinks too fast, the woman who keeps checking her bag, the teenager who looks one argument away from a meltdown. Then I check my phone again.
Nothing from her.
I open the chat one more time.
I need to see you.
This is the most honest thing I have told her in five years. I still dressed it as a command. Old habits.
Boarding starts. I take my middle seat without complaining, buckle up, close my eyes, and lean my head back. Sleep doesn't come. Instead, I get the usual parade of history.
The night on her father's porch. Her soft mouth under mine. The taste of beer.
Her body opening for me.
The sound she made when I pushed all the way in.
The trust in her eyes when she called me sir and let me take everything I wanted.
Then the morning I handled like a coward. Making her coffee, warming her brownie, leaving a note instead of a plan. Telling myself I would sit her down, explain why I was wrong for her, walk away before I ruined her life. Telling myself that hurt now would save her more later.
She beat me to it. She walked first. I came back to an empty room and a folded note. I sent a text that got no answer. Then another. Then a third. After that, I told myself the decent thing was to stop.
I have built a life on reading threats and taking action before they land. I watched one land on both of us and sat in my own fallout for five years.
The plane touches down in the gray edge of morning.
My muscles are stiff from pretending to sleep.
I collect my bag, find the rental counter, and pick up the keys to a car. Her city is waking up as I pull onto the main road. Shops lifting shutters.
People in suits and sneakers, coffee in hand. Traffic lights blink through patterns that I obey without thinking.
I know where she lives. I would love to say I do not, but I am a security professional and a stubborn bastard.
After she went off the grid on me, I checked public records to make sure she was at least alive and not in any visible trouble.
New address. New lease. Her name alone.
I filed that away and never used it.
Until now.
Her street is small and lined with houses that remind me of the one she grew up in.
I spot the number, park a little way down, and sit with the engine ticking as it cools.
I'm about to knock on the door of a woman who has every reason to tell me to go to hell. I am operating on the back of a misdirected sext and my own unresolved guilt.
This isn't rational or strategic.
All it is is instinct.
I get out of the car and squint up at a flat, pale blue sky. Her front yard has a narrow strip of grass and a couple of potted plants. The curtains are drawn.
No sign of movement. I walk up the path.
My heart thuds heavier with each step. I breathe once, twice, and raise my hand to knock.
The sound echoes for a second, then fades. I hear the faint thud of feet on the other side of the door. Small feet. Running.
The handle turns. The door opens.
A little boy stands there, looking up at me.
He wears dinosaur pajamas. His hair is a soft brown mess, his eyes are wide and a warm brown that is painfully familiar.
His nose, his mouth, the line of his jaw. Every feature hits me in a line.
My brain supplies the math on reflex.
Five years. Her silence.
The way she vanished after that night. The timing doesn't just work. It lands squarely.
My son, my mind says.
The words do not pass my lips, but they land in my chest with full weight. My knees feel loose under me. For a second, I forget how to stand.
"Hi," he says. "Are you here for Mama?"
His voice is clear. Curious. Trusting. It cuts deeper than any accusation.
I open my mouth. No sound comes out. I grip the doorframe so I do not reach for him. I want to.
God, I want to. I want to pick him up and hold on and apologize for every minute I was not here, even though he does not know me from any other stranger at his door.
Footsteps sound behind him. Adult ones. Hers.
"Jace, honey, we talked about this," she says from inside. "You don't open the door without me. You check first."
He glances back at her, then at me. "It is a big man," he reports. "He has a serious face."
Under any other circumstances, I might laugh at that.
Lena appears in the gap, hand wrapping around his shoulder to draw him back.
Her hair is pulled up, a few strands loose.
She wears a soft T-shirt and sleep shorts. Her eyes meet mine and go wide.
Everything in her expression hits at once. "Gabe," she says, barely louder than a breath. My name in her mouth after all this time does something ugly and raw to my ribs.
I still can't form a full sentence. I glance at the boy again. At her. At him. There's no room left for doubt. He's mine. He has my eyes and my mouth and my serious expression.
All color drains from her face and her hand tightens on his shoulder. She shifts, body angling in front of him. "Jace, sweetheart," she says quickly, "go inside and eat the rest of your yogurt. I left your bowl on the table."
The boy looks up at her with trust so open it almost floors me. "But Mama, I wanted to show you something."
"You can show me in a minute," she answers. "Inside, please. Now."
He hesitates for only a second before nodding. He steps back, pushes the door wider with both hands, and disappears into the house.
Lena turns her full attention on me. "Gabe," she repeats. "Please do not."