When I See You (12 page)

"We don't have to meet in person," I say quickly. "I just wanted to ensure we set up a time to talk in the next couple of days or so. I've sent the documents to you. If you could look them over and then we could talk. Does that work?"

"Okay, I'll look around for them and then we can talk in the next couple of days and I might even answer your call." Her attempt at humor should make me laugh, but I hesitate too long and it comes out as a forced tittering sound.

"Is there something you're not telling me?" Jordan asks.

"There are some things with the estate that we need to talk about. You haven't returned my calls."

She laughs at my accusation. This soft laugh that causes my heart rate to speed up. "Don't feel bad. I haven't returned anyone's calls, except Ashleigh's. I've been pretty pissed off at the world, at Ethan, at you."

"I'm sorry, Jordan."

I hear her take a deep breath. "I know. Me, too," she says after a minute.

Closing my eyes, I imagine her standing right in front of me. My free hand reaches out as if to touch her face. I smile despite the circumstances. The irony of it all. My being attracted to her is probably the reason Ethan is dead. Guilt attacks me with a full frontal assault with this thought.

"Jordan." I speak her name with this unbelievable reverence. I shake my head in an attempt to get a grip on the emotions she stirs up in me in just talking to her. "If we could just be friends," I say with diffidence.

Another silence.
A long one. I shift my weight, trying to maintain my balance as I wait for her answer.

Her exasperated sigh says it all.

"Truthfully?" Her voice trembles. "I'm not ready to be friends with you." There's another long pause. "Brock, I've really got to go. I'm picking up Max from preschool. I can't be late."

"Sorry," I say without attempting to mask my disappointment with her answer. I shake my head and silently curse the darkness. "Okay. I''m flying home to Austin, tomorrow. I'll call you in a few days."

"I thought you'd be back in Afghanistan by now."

"Yeah. Me, too." Bitterness seeps into my voice and she must hear it.

I need to end this call before she starts asking me too many questions. Instead, I'm hanging on to every word she utters.

"Why aren't you in Afghanistan?"

"I'll talk to you soon," I say. "Take care of yourself, Jordan."

"Why aren't you in Afghanistan?"

"It's a long story," I say. "They can't use me right now." I wince at my excuse, hoping she doesn't pick up on its faulty reasoning.

"That doesn't make any sense. You have to finish your tour."

This is spoken like a true military wife. Tours, obligations, contracts. I'd underestimated Jordan's familiarity with all of it.
Shit. Hang up the phone, Wainwright.

"None of it makes any sense," I say.

"Where
exactly
are you?"

"I'm still at Walter Reed. They'll be releasing me in the next day or so. Then, I'll be in Austin for a while."

"What? Why? You were at Ethan's funeral. How can you still be in the hospital?"

"There were complications. I had a few more surgeries."

She takes a shaky breath. I strain to hear her and discern the tapping of her shoes, and, finally, the start of a car's engine.

"What's going on, Brock? What aren't you telling me?"

There's a hint of worry in her voice and, like a fool, I savor it. "The flight back from Austin to D.C. with the cabin pressurization dislodged a bullet fragment and entered my lung. That took some time to recover from…" My voice trails off.
I'm telling her too much.

"A bullet fragment? Were you
shot
that day, too?"

"A few places." I hold my breath as I crave her sympathy while at the same time I cajole myself to reject it. "I'll call you, Jordan."

"What happened that day? If you could just tell me."

I close my eyes at hearing her desolation, realizing she just wants to make sense of it all, too. So do I. But I don't have any answers for her. "I wish I could, but I don't remember anything about that day." I breathe deep and let it out slowly, feeling light-headed by the action. "Take care of yourself, Jordan. I'll call you in a few days. Give Max a hug for me."

I end the call before she can respond, berating myself for saying too much. I don't want Jordan to know I'm blind because the last thing I want from her is sympathy.
What do I want from her?
I don't allow my mind to answer. Being blind is one thing, but having Jordan Holloway know about it is quite another.

≈ ≈

Awash in conflicting thoughts about Jordan Holloway, I fail to hear the opening and closing of my hospital room door, until Kate's seductive voice stirs me from my reverie.

"I've got your final paperwork to sign that essentially makes you an out-patient at Criss Cole. Did they tell you that you're being awarded the Medal of Honor?"

I grimace, while pushing myself away from the window ledge, unseeing. "Doesn't matter."

"Oh it does," she says, touching my hand and placing a writing pen in it. "Sign here, just like we practiced."

"How do I know what I'm signing?"

"You can trust me."

I nod. Right now, Major Kate Richards, famed psychiatrist, is the only one I trust. She touches my hand, the signal we worked on a few days ago, indicating where I should be signing. I hear the shuffle of papers and wait for her next move.
I could be signing my life away. But then, what is my life these days?
Blackness swims at me.

"There. All done. You're officially no longer a patient of this hospital. You are officially an out-patient with Criss Cole in Austin, Texas. It's all arranged."

"I'm packed, ready to go. I guess my mom will be here soon enough to cart me home."

"There's been a change of plans," Kate says softly.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's your last night in town. I thought I would cook you dinner. At my place. Your mom is meeting you in Austin tomorrow morning."

I swallow hard, knowing we may have just crossed over to a different threshold in defining our relationship. There are a lot of things to consider about this. I'm not looking for anything long term. I'm not looking for anything short-term. I''m not looking for anything because I can't fucking
see
.

My mind races with all these competing thoughts, but I remain silent, even as she takes one of my hands and clasps it between both of hers.

"Kate," I say with a sigh. "I don't. We can't…"

"Hey," she says. "We can just be friends. Okay?"

"Okay."

I close my eyes and just nod.

"I just thought, maybe, you'd like a home-cooked meal and I was going to take you to Criss Cole, myself, in the capacity as your friend, your companion for this road trip. Nothing more." The tremble in her voice betrays the casualness of her words. Her body shakes next to mine.

"Friends," I say to another woman for the second time today. "We can be friends."

I force myself to smile.

≈ ≈

A friendship with Kate lasts through the car ride to her apartment in Georgetown, through a home-cooked meal of Le Cordon Bleu, which I suspect she's gotten from a take-out restaurant. Even the Tiramisu for dessert is suspect. She finally admits she bought it at a famous deli just down the street. The woman is mixing French cuisine with Italian, but her secret is safe with me.

Ironically, she has a love of jazz music like one of my former girlfriends and I find myself wanting her even more by the time we start in on the second bottle of wine.

I'm out of practice, out of shape, out of options, even. I long to ask her what she looks like and in lieu of actually posing this question, I begin to explore her hair, her face, and her body with my hands. This brazen touching in search of answers leads to more.

I'm selfish. Alone. Blind. Vulnerable. Pick one.
Part of me wants to have sex and just get it over with. All my insecurities about being blind and being able to still perform will finally be answered. Maybe, I'll resume my old life and fuck my way through it.

Kate is the perfect conquest. I know her. Somewhat. I trust her. Somewhat. She's the only one in the room I do trust. Because. Right now? I don't trust myself.

The blackness swirls. I get up, unsteady, and grip the furniture, only stumbling once as I feel my way over and reach out to a large glass window. I spread my hand across the glass. It feels cool to the touch even for June in D.C.

I wonder what the weather's like in Malibu?
A memory of Jordan running along the beach reaches for me.

Kate laughs lightly behind me and I feel her spread her fingers across mine. She kisses the side of my neck. I drain my wine glass in a single gulp. I turn around as she takes it from my outstretched hand and sets it down. Her fingers explore the inside of my jeans. Her boldness surprises me as she takes hold of me. I discard the thoughts about the weather in California and even the woman, I covet, who lives there.

Once the proverbial role-play of seduction begins, it's only a matter of minutes before we're both undressed. Kate explores my naked body as much as I explore hers. No words are actually exchanged between us. We acknowledge the taboo restrictions that the military imposes upon us——no fraternization between officers— in a shared silence. It slowly comes to me that unless I can see I will no longer be an officer serving and that this may be what Kate's been waiting for all these months.
Three months. Almost four?

I swim in the blackness while a part of me registers this building frustration at not being able to see her. Yet, another part of me feels liberated when I experience these unique sensations with her that are arousing and exquisitely different. I savor her touch, her scent, even the sounds she makes. Things I've never paid attention to before. I jettison the feelings of intimidation and vulnerability and become bold and more assured in my movements. If this is some kind of sick experiment with Dr. Kate Richards in fucking me, I don't care.

All my reservations about doing this are extinguished by the time we make it to her bedroom with the euphoria of foreplay.

"All the lights are off. It's pitch black," Kate assures me with a soft laugh. "I can't see anything more than you can."

"Come here," I say, harboring a need for control.

I hold out my arms. She slides into them and reaches up and touches my face. I bend my head and kiss her. Her hair falls to her shoulders. I run my fingers through it. I wish I knew what she looked like. An image of Jordan comes to me. I push my nose into Kate's hair and breathe deep. Her scent is a mixture of apple blossoms and garlic. When I kiss her, I taste red wine and Tiramisu. Involuntarily, my mind sifts through the comparisons to Jordan Holloway from food preparations to physical attributes. Jordan's hair is longer. I remember how it reaches the middle of her back. Jordan's signature scent is this mesmerizing lavender combined with the sweet sugary smell of cake batter and frosting. I barely stop myself from uttering her name as Kate's lips find mine.

"Kate," I say, feeling unsteady.

"Lieutenant."

"Hey, I'm practically a civilian."

"Almost," she says softly. "That's what I like about you."

We both laugh awkwardly at this juncture.

"We're way out of protocol," she says now.

I nod. With clear intention, I stroke her inner thigh and explore her further. She moans at my touch.
Some things never change
.

Her hands stroke my chest, she blows on my stomach and her lips travel further down. My breathing gets unsteady. I try to clear my mind of all other women before her with one exception.
Jordan Holloway.
Our phone conversation from earlier plays through my mind. I lose my concentration. I try to focus back on Kate. But, now, there's nothing. I have no physical response to her ministrations.

At this point, the blackness seems to swallow me whole.

"Maybe, this wasn't such a good idea," she says quietly.

We lay back side-by-side on her bed, not touching. Me, cloaked in blackness. Kate, reassuring me in that psych way of hers that it's okay and these things happen.

Not to me. At least, never before.

"I could lose everything, you know. My job, my entire military career," she says with a shaky laugh. "But
you
. You'd definitely be worth it."

I'm slow to answer, dismayed by her profound honesty, while persistent thoughts of Jordan Holloway invade the rest of me.

I slide off her bed and reach out into the blackness to balance myself.

"Don't fuck up your career over me," I finally say. "I''m not worth it."

This strange sensation of guilt and undeniable fear threaten to take over. I shake my head slowly and hear Kate's movements from the other side of the bed.