The interrogation began on the drive home.
“What the hell was going on between you and Josh?” Sloan asked as soon as we pulled out of the fire station parking lot in her crappy Corolla. “Since when do you get offended because a guy looked at your ass?”
I didn’t. Nothing offended me except for cauliflower and stupidity. I just didn’t want this particular ass-man anywhere near me because if he looked, I was going to have a very hard time not looking back.
Josh was the human version of ice cream in the freezer when you’re on a diet. He was my type, and I was sex deprived and not a particular glutton for punishment. Few men could spar with me when I was at my saltiest, and running that gauntlet was practically foreplay for me. I didn’t feel the need to torture myself unnecessarily by subjecting myself to it on a daily basis.
“If I tell you the truth, will you tell Brandon? Where do your loyalties lie now that you’re engaged?”
She laughed. “Tell me.”
I came clean about the spilled coffee and the shirt.
“Oh my God,” she said, turning on Topanga Canyon Boulevard. “Brandon can never know. Like, ever.”
I scoffed. “Yeah, no kidding. He loaned me his truck for five minutes for an emergency tampon run and I manage to spill coffee in it and get into a minor accident with his best friend.”
I’d have taken Sloan’s car, but it was impossible to start. It came with a
volley of instructions. Jiggle the key while pumping the gas, put your shoulder into the door to get it open, don’t let the screeching belts startle you. I hadn’t wanted to find myself bleeding to death in a grocery store parking lot because I couldn’t get the engine to turn over. I could have spilled coffee and gotten into an accident in her car and nobody would have been the wiser. I could have totaled it and it would have probably been an improvement.
“Why does Brandon get a new truck and a motorcycle and you have to drive this piece of crap?”
“I like my car.” Sloan twisted her lips up on one side. “Josh’s cute, huh?” “If I didn’t have a boyfriend, I’d get under him.”
She gasped and looked over at me, wide-eyed. Sloan was a lot more sexually conservative than I was. Shocking her was one of my favorite hobbies. I never missed an opportunity.
I shrugged. “What? I haven’t gotten laid since last year. And this shirt smells incredible.” I dipped my nose back inside the neckline. “Like testosterone and cedar. And did you see him washing those dishes? He looked like Mr. February in a sexy firemen calendar. Guys like that are the exact reason why my grandmother always told me to wear clean underwear in case you get into a car accident.”
She shook her head. “I swear to God you’re a man.”
“I wish I were a man. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with all this faulty plumbing.” I cramped again and winced, rubbing a hand on my stomach.
She looked over at me as she stopped for a red light. “Is it getting worse?”
It was getting worse. “No, same as always.”
Sloan didn’t need to know the truth. She was the kind of person who carried other people’s problems on her shoulders—especially the problems of those she loved. I had no intention of telling her what the doctor said until she was back from her honeymoon. Let her be ignorant and happy.
It didn’t need to ruin both our lives.
* * *
Tyler called while I was going through my emails, an hour after Sloan
dropped me off at home. I was still cramping and feeling generally like shit. I stared at the chiming phone for four rings before I picked it up.
“Hi, babe.” I put more enthusiasm into my tone than I felt. That was the thing about military relationships—you didn’t get a lot of calls. Maybe one a week. You had to take them when they came, whether you felt like taking them or not.
And today was a not.
“Hey, Kris,” he said in that sexy accent of his. A little French, a little Spanish maybe? All his own. “I got the care package. You’re a lifesaver.”
I set my laptop on the coffee table and went to the kitchen with Stuntman trotting behind me. “Good—I worried it wouldn’t come in time.”
“Got here Friday. I can’t wait until I can get chocolate-covered espresso beans whenever I feel like it.”
“Yeah.” I grabbed a bottle of Clorox and a rag and opened the fridge. Usually I paced when I was on the phone. But I cleaned when I was stressed.
Stress won out.
I started pulling out Tupperware and juice cartons and setting them on the floor, holding my phone with my shoulder. “I’ll buy some so you’ll have them in the pantry when you get here.”
The pantry. It would be our pantry. I don’t know why this weirded me out so much. I dragged the trash can next to the fridge and began tossing old take-out boxes.
“It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow,” he sang, poking me.
I made a dismissive grunting noise into the fridge. I hated Valentine’s Day. He knew that. Total waste of money. “I hope you’re not planning on sending me flowers,” I said dryly.
He smiled through the phone. “What would you like me to send you then?”
“Something practical that I’ll get use out of, like a dick pic.” He laughed. “So what’s going on at home?” he asked.
I reached to the far end of the top shelf to pull down a two-liter bottle of flat Sprite. “Not much. Hey, do you know anything about working with wood?” I opened the bottle with a pith and turned it upside down in the sink and waited for it to drain.
“No. Why?”
“Oh, it’s just Miguel quit,” I mumbled. “What? Why?”
“He got another job. I need a new carpenter. I have this one guy, but he’s not the best option.” I muscled the rack filled with condiments from the door. “He doesn’t have a workshop like Miguel so he has to do it out of my garage.”
“I don’t know the first thing about woodworking, Kris. Hey, if you put an ad out, wait for me to get home before you do interviews. There are a lot of perverts out there and you’re home alone.”
My mind went to my 911 call this morning. I wouldn’t tell Tyler about that. It would just worry him, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.
I carefully unloaded the mustard and ketchup bottles and started washing the empty rack in the sink. “So what’s the game plan when you get out? How long until you get hired, you think?”
It wasn’t like he had to worry too much about finances. Tyler came from money. But if he didn’t have a job to go to every day, I didn’t know how I’d handle all the togetherness.
We’d been dating for two years, but he’d been deployed the whole time. I’d met him at a bar when he was on leave. Long-distance was all we’d ever known. Two weeks of leave every year, full of sex and eating out, was one thing. Having a live-in boyfriend who was going to sit around and hang out with me for an indeterminate amount of time was something else entirely.
The whole damn thing triggered me. I was going from having a man who was almost invisible to having one that would be here 24-7.
And this was my idea.
He’d wanted to reenlist and I’d told him if he did, I was out. I couldn’t do another deployment. But lately I was afraid I couldn’t do this either. It’s not that I didn’t love him. It was just a huge change.
“I’ve got an interview with the State Department as soon as I get back,” he said. “Might take a while before I get in. And I’ll get to spend lots of time with you until I’m out of background checks.”
My lips pursed. I put the shelf upside down to dry. “Yeah. Maybe we can rent a cabin up in Big Bear or something while we wait. Catalina Island. Make it fun.”
“Think bigger. Why stay in Cali when we can go somewhere we’ve never been?”
He loved to travel.
I smiled, weakly, and went in for the next rack. Stuntman barked. He got excited when the fridge was open. I never fed him human food, but I think Sloan had been sneaking him pieces of turkey whenever she was here.
“Is that my little arch nemesis?” he asked. “That dog better not bite me again.”
I pulled on the shelf. It was stuck. “Or what?”
“Or he’s going to the pound.” He laughed. He was kidding. But it annoyed me just the same.
“How do you deal with armed insurgents when you can’t handle one four-pound Yorkie?” I gave the shelf a hard yank and it came away from the door with a clatter of condiment jars.
“If that fat ass is four pounds, I’ll eat my helmet.” He chuckled. I laughed and felt myself soften a little. “He’s just fluffy.”
“I know. I’m just playing with you. You know I love your dog.” He paused for a moment. “Mi amor?”
Our game. My lips twitched into a smile and I stayed silent. I set the condiment rack down on the kitchen table and closed the fridge door.
“Amore mio?” he said in Italian.
Still, I waited. I wanted one more. Maybe two. “Meine Geliebte?”
German maybe?
“Mon amour?”
Ugh. That did it. The French always got me.
Tyler had been a military brat. His parents were diplomats and had been stationed all over the world. He knew four languages by the time he was old enough to talk. Now he knew nine. He was an interpreter. He was also one of the most intelligent men I’d ever met.
He specialized in simultaneous interpretation, a skill set all its own. He knew Arabic and Farsi too, which made him a particular asset in the Middle East. They’d lobbied hard to keep him in service. It said a lot about his feelings for me that he was willing to leave all that.
I put my back to the fridge door and slid down to the floor, a grin on my face. “Yes?”
“I know you’re nervous about me coming home. I can hear you cleaning.”
He knew me too well. “And you’re not? I mean, let’s be honest here— this is a little crazy, right? We’ve never spent more than fourteen days together at a time and now we’re moving in together. What if I drive you insane? What if on day fifteen you want to kill me in my sleep?”
What if I want to kill you in yours?
On paper it made perfect sense. He didn’t have a place of his own. Why get one? He’d be over here all the time anyway. And if he was going to be over here, shouldn’t he pay rent?
This move-in thing had been in the works for six months. Tyler and I had decided on it back when Sloan and I moved out and I got my own place. It was hardly a new development. It just felt like it was barreling toward me all of a sudden.
“Kris, the only thing insane would be me spending another two years half a world away from you. It wasn’t just you who couldn’t handle it anymore. It’s going to be great. And if it’s not, you’ll tell me to go fuck myself and make me move out.”
I snorted and put my forehead into my hand. God, what the hell was wrong with me? “Tyler, do you ever see yourself acting crazy, but you can’t stop because you’re not a quitter?”
“You’re the least crazy woman I know. It’s my favorite thing about you. It’s normal to be nervous. It’s a big step.” He changed the subject. “How are you feeling? Do you have a surgery date?”
“Two and a half months from now. The week after Sloan’s wedding. I’m not anemic anymore,” I added.
“Good. I wish I were already there to take care of you.”
“Oh yeah? Are you going to buy me pads when I need them?” I asked wryly, knowing this errand was an affront to his very manhood. Men were so dramatic about buying feminine products. I never understood what the big deal was.
“Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
I rolled my eyes with a smile. “Lucky for you, there’s only one need I want you to take care of. I’m climbing the walls.”
He laughed. “As long as you’re not climbing anybody else.” My mind flickered traitorously to Josh.
Tyler didn’t have anything to worry about. I didn’t cheat. Never had, never would.
Cheating was a completely avoidable scenario as long as you operated with the barest amount of common sense.
Like not putting yourself into vulnerable situations, such as hiring a hot fireman-carpenter to spend hours working in your garage.
Josh would be an endurance test of my willpower.
“Look, Kris, I gotta go. I’ll try to call you again in a few days. No more stressing. I can’t wait to see you. And I’m gonna tear you up when I get there,” he added.
Now he had me in a better mood. Of course, how much he could tear me up depended entirely on where my wacky cycle was at the moment. But I liked the offer. “I can’t wait.” I grinned.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
We hung up and I surveyed the chaos I’d pulled from the fridge. Stuntman sat in the middle of it, looking up at me. His little white chin looked like the beard on a nutcracker.
This is fine. It’s all going to be fine.
But I spent the next three hours scrubbing the kitchen just the same.
