Military Romance Navy SEAL: Dangerous Affliction (Alpha Male Bad Boy Urban Romance) (2 page)

“I-I—I guess that's okay,” I stammered.

She made me stumble on my words.

“Great,” she said in a soft voice, scribbling something on her clipboard.

I tried not to make it obvious that I was staring at her as she put the cuff on my arm to take my blood pressure.

“So what's your story?” she asked.

Her question caught me by surprise, especially since she seemed to actually mean it. Usually the nurses just told me I needed to stop drinking and didn't have much interest in me other than that. As much as I appreciated her question, I wanted to impress her and I wasn't sure being a hapless alcoholic was going to do that. I winced as she tightened the cuff around my arm and stared at me, expectantly.

“Well, I was a Navy SEAL,” I started, glancing at her to see if she was still interested. She seemed to be listening so I continued, “When I was at war, I was asked to do some, uh, pretty messed up stuff. Saw some kids die. I got back and couldn't find a job. My dad died when I was a kid and my mom died while I was overseas. I didn't have a house to go to, so I crashed on my war buddies' couches until their wives kicked me out. Ended up on the streets. Got upset I couldn't find a job. I guess I just never left.”

She gave me a sad look and removed the cuff from my arm. Wordlessly, she checked my pulse. I felt my heart beat faster as she touched me, so she probably wasn't getting an accurate reading, but I didn't care. I was far more concerned with looking at her. It was probably a little creepy, honestly. I couldn't help it, though. She was like something from a dream. It was the first time in a long time that the shakes weren't the first thing on my mind.

“I hope you get better,” she murmured, pulling the stethoscope away from her ears. “Your health isn't in the best condition.”

“I know,” I said, quietly. “So what's your story? What's your name?”

She averted her gaze and scratched the back of her head.

“I'm Ella.”

I stared at her, expectantly, waiting for her to finish her thought, yet she didn't say anything else. I frowned, a little taken aback that I had opened up to her but she couldn't do the same. My shakes were starting to get worse. She looked at the door and then reached into one of the cupboards. She pulled out a bottle of nighttime cough medicine and she handed it to me, a small smile on her face. I accepted it and took a grateful drink.

“Thank you,” I muttered, wiping the excess liquid from my upper lip and handing it back to her.

She didn't look at me.

“Have a nice day, Mr. McCormick.”

I frowned.

“Am I done?”

“You're done.”

Chapter 3 – Beauty and the Ferocity

Just like always, the mission sent me to be on my way by the following morning. I didn't get to see Ella again before I left and my shakes were acting up before I even found a cup to panhandle. All in all, it was just another cruddy day to add to my list of trauma, so I was in a rush to find some money.

After seeing a woman toss a foam cup in the trash, I made sure nobody was looking and I grabbed it. Once I had my cup, I started walking downtown to a shopping district. It wasn't necessarily a rich neighborhood, but the shoppers had cash and a lot of the time, they'd give me some just so I would leave them alone.

The best part about my spot downtown was that nobody else panhandled there. Most of the junkies didn't want to go that far, especially since a lot of them had warrants for their arrest. I was the only person on the bench in front of the strip malls, begging as though I had no shame. Begging was not something that I particularly enjoyed doing, but it was the only thing to get me by. Nobody wants to hire a guy that smells and has a drinking problem, decorated war hero or not. With very little postwar aftercare for veterans, I wasn't left with many options.

It took me about two hours until somebody gave me a five dollar bill. I remembered the woman quite clearly, because she actually dangled the bill in front of my face, asking me if I was going to use it on drugs or alcohol. I lied and said I was going to use it for food, so she gave me the money. Most people would probably say I was being dishonest, because I was, but I needed alcohol just as much as I needed food, if not more. I was at the point in my addiction that I experienced seizures during withdrawal. I needed the alcohol to survive.

I walked back towards the poorer neighborhood where I spent most of my time, and walked into the local liquor store. Ralph, he man that owned the place, knew me well and gave me a discount most of the time. I don't know if it was because I spent enough money there that it was a loyalty thing or if he just felt bad for me. It was probably a combination of both.

“Same as usual?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

I nodded and he sighed, shaking his head. He grabbed the cheap bottle of whiskey from the bottom shelf and put it on the counter. I seized it and tossed the money on top of the counter. In my desperation, I began to unscrew the lid and Ralph scowled.

“Easy, now! Not in my store! What do you think you're doing?” Ralph scolded, shooing me. “You know better than that!”

He pushed me out the door and I quickly went around the corner, sitting on the ground in the alley and shakily opening the bottle. Usually, I at least put it in my flask so the open container was not so obvious, but I was in too much of a rush. I chugged a good portion of it and felt the warmth in my stomach. My body ached, both from withdrawal and from years of alcohol abuse. My organs were not in good shape, but I didn't know what I was supposed to do about it. Part of me didn't even care.

The sound of screaming echoed throughout the neighborhood. The piercing sound send a chill down my spine and made my head ache. Groggily, I opened my eyes to see why there was so much commotion. My vision was blurry. That was something I was accustomed to, though. I peered around the corner, rubbing my forehead.

Nothing seemed entirely out of the ordinary. Christmas was across the street, speaking with one of his many street dealers. There were a few people walking down the street, but I couldn't tell where the scream was coming from. I didn't think that it was a hallucination, though I had been wrong about that many times. Post-traumatic stress disorder mixed with my alcoholism was starting to drive me to madness.

Just as I was turning around to walk towards the alleyway, I heard the scream again. Quickly, I looked across the street to see if Christmas and his drug dealer reacted. Indeed, they did. It wasn't something in my head. They heard it too.

“Hey Christmas!” I called. “You know where that came from?”

Christmas pointed to his left, which was my right.

“Sounded like it came from that way, homie!” he yelled. “Yo! You gonna let us freeze out like that again, man?”

I didn't feel like arguing with him, so I just ran down the street to see what the noise was. After I had made it a few blocks, despite my drunken stupor, I heard crying. It sounded like it was coming from the alleyway beside the old factory, so I quickly peered around the corner. What I saw made my blood boil.

Ella was on the ground in the alleyway with a lanky, dark-haired man. He was towering over her, a hand raised. Her face was bloody and she was in the fetal position, sobbing. Although I was drunk, my Navy SEAL training was still very much inside of me. Instinctively, I bolted into the alleyway and tackled the man. He yelled and tried to fight back, but even with all the damage that I'd done to my body, I was still much stronger. I couldn't even remember how many times I hit him, even if I wanted to, but I remember that Ella was screaming. She kept crying and asking me to stop, so I did. I didn't think that I could ever stop hitting a man that hit a woman, but her words were the most powerful thing I'd ever encountered. They made me weak.

Trembling, I got off of the man and backed away, looking at her, apologetically. Ella shook as she got to her feet and pulled a cell phone out of her pocket. Hysterical, she called emergency services. My eyes widened as I realized that I may have just given myself a one-way ticket to prison. I checked his vitals and he was breathing, but he was pretty bloody. I gulped and looked at her, mortified. I knew that I probably didn't have a chance with her in the first place, but I thought whatever chance I did have was definitely gone.

“Let's go,” she whispered.

I raised my eyebrows. I had certainly not expected that, although it didn't matter. No matter how far away I was, the cops knew that they could find me and as soon as the man described me, I was going to jail. Even though I was glad that I saved her, I couldn't help but think about the consequences I was about to face.

“Go?” I asked. “Where am I going to go? I don't have a house.”

She chewed on her lip and took a deep breath.

“Just follow me.”

Chapter 4 – Mistakes

Ella pushed me into the passenger's seat of dented vehicle and got into the driver's side. She was driving us somewhere. I had no idea where. I was glad to be away from the situation in the alleyway, but I didn't know what I was supposed to say to her. We sat in an awkward silence as the effects of the alcohol began to wear off and my shakes started. She pulled into a parking lot and glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. After parking the car and turning off the ignition, she took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. I shifted, uncomfortably. She made me so nervous.

“What you did back there—you didn't have to,” she said, closing her eyes.

Tears ran down her cheeks and all I wanted to do was wipe them away, but I knew that would probably just upset her more. She didn't want me to touch her. I still didn't understand why she even let me in her car.

“He could've killed you,” I murmured, scratching the back of my head. “I couldn't just leave you there. You did check my blood pressure after all.”

Ella sniffled and laughed a little, wiping her tears from her eyes. She gave me a sad smile.

“Listen, do you want a shower or anything? Maybe something to eat? I do have beer if you need to, you know,” she offered. “I mean, is that rude? I don't want to make you feel like—”

I shook my head. I would never say no to free alcohol, food, and a shower and I especially could not say no to spending more time with her.

“No, no, it's not rude. I'm very gracious and I'd appreciate it,” I replied, smiling at her through my unruly beard.

She nodded and opened her car door. I did the same thing and followed her. She pressed the button to an elevator and we waited. Taking a deep breath, she rubbed her temples and I watched her, sadly. Finally, the elevator doors opened and we stepped inside. Shakily, she pressed a few numbers and I noticed a ring on her left hand. I cursed under my breath.

“What was that?” she murmured.

“Nothing.”

Once we got to the eighth floor, she opened a door and I followed her inside. The apartment was small with very few decorations, but it was quite nice. Hell, any apartment is nice when you don't have a roof over your head. It was hard for me to believe that a married couple lived in such a small space, though. I couldn't understand why a woman on a nurse's salary was living like a drug addict.

“It ain't much,” she noted, her face flushing, “but it's home. Uh, the bathroom is there. There are towels hanging next to the shower. If you wanna shave, there are disposable razors under the sink. I'll go find you some warm clothes and uh, just don't drink the mouthwash, 'kay?”

I nodded and chewed on my lip, waiting for her to return with the clothes she thought were going to fit me. Even after years of drinking on the streets, I was still a fairly big guy. As I expected, the clothes she returned with did not look like they were going to fit me.

“Little small,” I muttered. “It's no problem, I can just put my old clothes back—”

She frowned.

“I'll wash them,” she replied. “Just wear the towel after you shower and I'll wash them. You can't go back out smelling like a wet dog. You aren't an animal.”

Surprised, I nodded, and went to the bathroom for my shower.

By the time that I finished, I felt refreshed. I had probably spent an hour and a half underneath the warm water, reveling in the feeling of getting clean. The mission let us shower, yet they didn't seem to have enough clothes for everyone there, so we just got dirty all over again. Plus, they only let us use them for five minutes. It seemingly defeated the purpose of taking a shower, but I didn't think about it for very long because I was just excited to feel clean. My face was freshly shaven. My thick, dirty brown hair was combed. Then I went to reach for my clothes and I remembered I had agreed to let Ella wash them. I wasn't prepared to let her see me in a towel.

I sat in the bathroom by myself for a little while, hoping that I could get away with waiting until she finished the laundry. I knew that plan wasn't going to work when I heard a knock on the door.

“Hey, I have food for you!” Ella yelled through the door. “Listen, you can't stay here all night so I really need you to eat and get your things and go!”

With a heavy sigh, I wrapped the towel around my waist and emerged from the bathroom. Her face flushed and surprise was etched into her expression. I couldn't tell whether she was embarrassed to see me virtually naked or if she just didn't recognize me.

“You look—I mean—you look like a different person!”

I scratched the back of my head.

“Yeah, homelessness will change a guy,” I muttered. “Sorry, I don't mean to be holding you up or anything, I just didn't—”

“It's fine. I made grilled cheese,” she said, grabbing my arm. “Come on!”

She pulled me towards the small kitchenette. There was no table, but there was a small island with bar stools. A grilled cheese sandwich was on a paper plate on the counter-top. Beside it was an open beer. I sat down and took a sip of beer before biting into the sandwich. I had forgotten how good a grilled cheese could taste.

“This is amazing,” I said, my mouth full. “Thank you so much.”

“You're welcome,” she replied, smiling, pulling herself onto the edge of the counter-top.