Before You: Standalone Contemporary Romance (20 page)

“I’m fine.” He lifted his beer and drained it, standing to walk around me and go and get another one. This time, he placed one in front of me too. But I didn’t drink it.

“Don’t lie to me. You wish it was you out there, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter what I wish. I could never do that to you. I changed jobs so I wouldn’t have to.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that, André. I would never have done that. I’ve seen your photos, I’ve listened to the way you talk about your adventures, and no matter how scared I felt, I would
never
have asked you to give that up.”

“You didn’t have to ask, Willa. I saw how you feel about it. I had to pull you off your brother and hold you so the paramedics could sedate you. I sat by your bedside and prayed to gods I don’t even believe in that you would wake up and be OK. How can I love you and knowingly do that to you?”

“That’s why I’m in therapy though, so I could handle it when you went away. I coped when Dave left.”

“It’s different when it’s your brother to when it’s your boyfriend.”

“I would have managed.”

“You would have managed? My god, Willa. I can’t even begin to explain to you how that isn’t enough.” He began to pace the room, muttering in German and shaking his head.

“Why do you do that?”

He stopped and looked at me. “Do what?”

“Start talking in German when you’re angry.”

He held out his hands. “Perhaps because I’m saying things that make me an asshole, and I don’t want you to hear.”

Emotion lodged in my chest. I hated seeing him upset. I hated feeling as though he was angry with me – hated that his love for me seemed to be the cause of his stress.

“Tell me. I’m not made of glass. I can handle it.”

His hands went to his hips, he muttered a little, something that sounded like
das ist verrückt.
Then he let out his breath in a rush before he spoke.

“I miss it, OK? I made a decision to change jobs because I thought it would be what’s best for the both of us. I’m making more money, and you wouldn’t need to have another...episode, because I’d be here to keep you safe. And it was working. It was fine.
I
was fine. But those models, my god, most of them are so stupid, and if they’re not stupid they’re so vain that they can’t understand that I am in love with another woman, and that I don’t want their damn phone numbers. Even the men, Willa – none of them get it. At first it was fun, but now, it’s just the same. Over. And Over. And over.”

“Is that...” I had to stop to swallow the lump in my throat to get out the question I knew I needed to ask but dreaded the answer to. “Is that how you feel about...about us? Am I finally out of your system?”

With two quick strides, he crossed the floor and grabbed hold of my face, kissing me intensely, as if he was breathing me in to his lungs. My head spun.

“No. Never. Your name is the answer to the emptiness of my soul. Don’t ever think you aren’t important to me.”

“But you blame me.”

“No. No. I don’t blame you at all. I’m angry with myself. I have this beautiful dream to wake up to every morning, and I am selfishly wishing I was over there, finishing the work I started.”

“Do you...do you miss the danger? Is it too safe for you here?”

He shook his head. “The danger? No. I mean, before you, it was this big thing for me. It made me feel alive. But now...now I don’t give a flying fuck about the danger. What I miss is getting out there and seeing a world that no one else gets to see. I miss seeing the real essence of human life. I miss watching the sun come up through the smoky haze of an active volcano. I miss finding the survivors – the people who have seen far worse things than you or I ever have – and seeing them smiling over something as simple as a bottle of clean water, or a chocolate bar.”

“Then go back. Go back to your old job and beg to go over there. If you’re worried about me, don’t be. I have Milly to keep me company, and honestly André, I’d feel better knowing the two most important men in my life were together, because you’re the reason I still have a brother. And he’s the reason I have you.”

I could see the worry shining in his eyes as he studied my face, his thumbs moving against my cheeks as his thumbs speared into my hair. “I’m afraid to leave you, Willa. You’re everything to me.”

Wrapping my hands around his wrists, I pressed my lips together in a sad smile. “I’ll be fine. I promise. I can do this.”

Letting out his breath, he nodded slowly. “I love you, Willa,” he whispered, bringing his lips to mine, working our mouths together, the tenderness of our love returning with each gentle movement of his tongue.

“I love you too.” I let out a sigh as my body sang with the memory. I’d missed his gentle love.

His hands moved down to my waist and pulled at the sash that held my robe closed, causing the silken fabric to slide open and expose my nakedness underneath.

“André,” I gasped as his hands moved over my skin, and he lifted me up onto the counter.

“Willa.”

I parted my thighs as he reached between us and readied his cock before gliding his tip up and down my center, from my clit to my opening, back and forth, back and forth. The silken feel of my juices as he rubbed me with the smooth skin of his head had my eyes rolling back in my head as I came hard, my arms wrapping around him as he pushed inside me, thrusting to keep my orgasm going.

I moaned, I trembled; I slid my fingers into his hair and held on as we kissed, and kissed.

Kiss. Thrust. Kiss. Thrust.

So deep.

Then he shuddered inside me and I gasped, wrapping my arms around him tightly and burying my face in his neck, trying not to cry as I came to terms with that fact that he wanted to leave.

And I needed to let him go.

––––––––

“I
wonder if this is what army wives do?” Milly mused as she sprawled out on my couch and tried to catch popcorn in her mouth. We were having a movie marathon, but neither of us wanted anything emotional, so we were going with the whole Terminator franchise. Going out on a Friday night on our own when our men were in a war zone just didn’t feel like fun, so we’d decided to keep each other company instead.

“Maybe.” I shrugged and grabbed a handful of M&Ms, tossing them in my mouth before grabbing the remote and hitting play on the third movie in the series, Rise of the Machines.

The opening credits played before a nuke hit the city shown on screen.

“Are you scared?”

I tried to focus on the voice of the actor playing John Connor as he spoke about the machines and rode a motorcycle along a darkened road, crunching on the hard M&M shells as I formed my thoughts.

“Yeah, Milly, I’m scared. But I’m used to it. It’s my state of being.”

“How do you get past it?”

The tightness in my chest warned me to keep my calm and focus on something that wasn’t the memory of the moment I lost my world, and the fear of losing it again. I took a mouthful of wine and mixed popcorn with the chocolate to force myself to think about the contrast of the salt and the sweet.

“I don’t know. It’s not something I’ve ever gotten used to. But, distracting yourself helps.”

“What do you distract yourself with?”

I reached across and took her hand in mine, giving it a squeeze. “Best friends, movies and popcorn.”

She looked at me, her cornflower eyes clear and serious. “I don’t know if I’m built for this,” she admitted.

“They’ll come back. They have to.” My words sounded more confident than they felt.

In truth, I hated having both André and Dave overseas at the same time. Since they’d moved to LA, they’d become such a huge part of my world that nothing seemed normal with them gone. And then there was Milly – she was so lonely without Dave that we’d become joined at the hip. It was a good thing, because I needed the company to help me get through my time without André, but at the same time, her presence reminded me that they were gone. And I existed with a lump of fear sitting solidly in my chest.

I just needed them to come back.

***

C
ommunications weren’t easy for them. There was cell service in Afghanistan, but they weren’t always within range of a functioning tower. Whenever they were at the army base they could call home, but sometimes we were lucky to hear from them once a week. I hated imagining what was happening over there. Milly was the same. She’d taken to sleeping at my place in Dave’s bed. She was my rock when I started to panic, and my sounding board when my worries got the better of me, and I needed to talk it out. We were generally together when the calls came through, and we’d run to our rooms excitedly to talk in private, hear the voice of the men that meant the world to us and try to fill ourselves up with that all too brief connection.

After the phone calls, we’d sit and stare at some mundane show on the TV, wishing things were different.

“At least they’re together and looking out for each other,” one of us would always say.

Then the other would add, “Just like us.”

Then we’d drink a bottle of wine and try not to let the emptiness inside us fill up with our fear. But it was hard. We could hear the strain in their voices growing wearier each time they called. We wanted to do something to help them, but we couldn’t.

We couldn’t help them.

We couldn’t hold them.

We couldn’t kiss them and make everything better.

We were too far away...

***

“I
’m sorry,
liebling
,” André sighed over the phone, almost two months into their assignment.

I adjusted slightly on the bed, curling up around his pillow as I listened to his accented voice and tried to savor every syllable he uttered.

“You’re sorry? Why?”

He took an unsteady sounding breath. “I never should have left. I’m a bigger asshole than I ever thought.”

My heart clenched tight in my chest. I wanted so much to reach out to him. “You’re not an asshole, André. There’s nothing wrong with loving your job.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t think I do anymore. I don’t know what I was thinking. I never should have left you.”

I sat up, worried there was something he wasn’t telling me. “What’s brought this on?”

I heard his breath again – in and out – a long pause before he spoke.

“It’s just this place. Suddenly, I feel the need to apologize to the models for thinking they were stupid.”

“I wish I could hold you and tell you everything was going to be OK.” Between my fingers, I played with the stitching on the duvet, pulling it loose, needing to do something with my nervous energy.

“I can’t tell you how much I wish that too.”

There was a quiet pause between us where we simply stayed connected, missing each other over sand and sea.

“How much longer do you think you’ll have to stay?”

Another sigh. “I hope not much longer. I want – ”

A strange burst of static cut through the line and distorted his voice.

“André?”

The line kept cutting in and out. I heard disjointed sounds.

His voice.

Yelling.

A rumble.

“
Willa!”
Milly’s voice hit screeching level just as the line went dead.

I couldn’t breath. Every muscle in my body locked up tight as I stared at the cellphone in my hands, knowing what I just heard, but not wanting to even think about the consequence.

Milly burst into my room. “Did you hear it?
Dios
!” Her hands went into her hair as she began to pace back and forth, muttering to herself in a mixture of Spanish and English.

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t reassure her. She couldn’t reassure me.

We’d both heard it.

There was no denying what had just happened.

That static. That noise. It was an explosion.

My body shook.

My heart pulsed.

That feeling. It was clawing its way up my chest, pulling at my throat.

I saw flashes behind my eyes.

Suddenly, a wailing sound filled the room.

It was me. I couldn’t stop.

My worst fear had been realized.

I couldn’t stop.

––––––––

T
hat heaviness. I remember it. The fogginess in my brain. I remember that too. Beeping. I’m alive.

It had felt like I was dying.

And as the memory of the night before entered my mind, I half wished that I had. I didn’t want to open my eyes and face a world that would tell me that André wasn’t in it. I had heard the explosion. I had heard the yelling. Then...nothing.

A sob choked out of my mouth, and I lifted my hand to cover my eyes as tears began to flow.

“Willa.” Milly said my name in a grief filled whisper, and I felt her cover my free hand with hers.

“Don’t. Please,” I gasped. “I don’t want to know.”

“We still don’t know for sure yet, Willa. We have to hope. I
need
you to have hope.”

I nodded. But, I couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop feeling as though the world was crushing against my chest. I’d worked so hard in therapy to be OK with André and Dave leaving, and just when I felt I could cope. It happened. What I always knew would happen did...But Milly was right, we had to hope. Until we knew for sure, we had to hope.

Shifting to my side, I curled my sedative heavy body into a ball.

“I’ve been watching the news for information, and I’ve been calling their production company hourly. But they’re going to be OK. They’re going to come back to us.”

Her voice cracked at the end of it, and I gave her hand a feeble attempt at a squeeze.

Then I opened my mouth, my bottom lip quivering as I tried to look at her through my tear filled eyes. “What happens if they don’t, Milly? What are we supposed to do?”

Her other hand closed around mine and she leaned toward me, squeezing tight as she looked into my eyes.

“They are coming back,” she insisted. “Say it and make yourself believe it. Because if they’re over there and scared then they need to know we’re here, waiting and believing that they can make it through. What did we learn from watching all those Terminator movies?”