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Could he handle the kind of intensity they’d shared on a daily basis? Would it become routine, or would it remain as powerful and thrilling as their week together had been?
“You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?”
“Huh?” Damon looked up from his bourbon. “What are you talking about?”
The two of them went all the way back to their West Point days, and Marty had served with him during the special ops assignments. They’d basically been through hell together and come out alive, if not quite intact.
Marty chuckled. “Come on. I know you. You’ve met someone. I can tell. And she’s fucking with your head. Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll drop it.”
Damon snorted. “You’re not entirely wrong,” he admitted. “I mean, yeah. I did meet someone at the BDSM event I mentioned. We hooked up and spent the week together. It was a pretty intense time. She’s a highly trained submissive with a very high erotic pain tolerance.”
“Whoa. Way cool, dude,” Marty enthused. “You always did know how to pack in the fun during R&R. So, what’s next? You gonna pick up with this girl where you left off?”
“That’s the thing,” Damon said slowly, not sure how much he wanted to reveal. “We left it sort of opened-ended.” He waved a hand, attempting a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “Like maybe we’d get together or maybe not.”
It was Marty’s turn to snort. “Typical Miller. Always keeping those escape hatches open. So, if that’s the case, why have you been staring out the window for almost the entire flight looking like a little kid who just lost his puppy?”
Damon tried to scowl but couldn’t quite manage it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Marty.” Even he could hear how lame he sounded.
Marty only smiled. “Yeah, okay. Keep telling yourself that. But if what I suspect is true, you’re more than a little in love with this girl you ‘hooked up with.’” He used his index fingers to draw air quotes.
“Love?” Damon barked an incredulous laugh, ignoring the sudden clutch in his chest. “No way. We spent a week together, that’s all. She’s looking for someone who will claim her—collar her, own her, give her a 24/7 Master/slave experience. That’s not me, man. I’m too busy with my business right now. You know that. And anyway, I’m not cut out for love. I’m way too fucked up.”
“You’ve got some unresolved PTSD shit, I’ll grant you that,” Marty said. “But the rest of your excuses? That’s all they are. Excuses. You know what I think?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me whether I want to hear it or not,” Damon replied.
“I think you’re afraid of love. Ever since Liesel did her number on you, you’ve closed yourself off to even the possibility. And that, my friend, is a terrible shame.”
As Damon opened his mouth to protest, Marty stopped him with a raised hand.
“No, hear me out before you go into denial mode. I didn’t tell you about it at the time, but Jen and I nearly got divorced after that last stint in special ops.”
Damon squinted at Marty in surprise. “What?”
He had been Marty’s best man at his wedding. He’d been jealous of the love the two seemed to share, both of them glowing throughout the ceremony and every time he saw them after that. He’d always assumed everything had been great between them.
“Yeah,” Marty said heavily. “She was and remains the best thing that ever happened to me and I nearly blew it.”
“Wow, bro. You never told me.”
Marty offered an apologetic shrug. “You were dealing with your own shit, remember?”
As if he could forget.
“So, what happened?” Damon persisted. “How did you fix things?” In spite of himself, irrational hope surged through him when he thought of how he’d left things with Ellen. Maybe it wasn’t too late?
“When we got back from the mission, I tried to power through the shit in my head, just like a good soldier. But what I really did was shut myself off so I wouldn’t have to confront my own demons. I held Jen at arm’s length, ostensibly to protect her. I basically closed myself off emotionally to the point she said she didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t listen. I used work as an excuse to avoid dealing with my shit. She finally gave me an ultimatum—get therapy or get lost.”
“Wait, I’m confused. You got the requisite PTSD debriefing and therapy when we came back, just like we all did.”
“I did,” Marty agreed. “But you know firsthand that it was pretty superficial. As long as we said the right things, they didn’t really probe for any deeper issues. I guess it was okay as far as it went but, in my case at least, it didn’t go far enough. It definitely didn’t address how all that shit impacted my relationships. It wasn’t until I went to couples therapy with Jen and some intensive individual therapy on my own that I figured out I was actually using the trauma of that experience to avoid intimacy. It saved our marriage, Damon.”
“Yeah, well,” Damon hedged, uncomfortable with the emotions Marty was stirring up in himself. “You always were better at relationships than me.” He touched the scar on his cheek. “I’m damaged goods, remember?” He forced a laugh.
“You may be damaged,” Marty replied seriously. “But you’re not broken. You can drop the pretense with me, bro. I’m trying to tell you I’ve been there and done that. If you think there’s a chance, even a small one, that you might be in love with this girl, don’t fuck it up. Trust in that love. Trust in yourself. Go find her and tell her. What have you got to lose?”
Finally back in Charlotte, Damon leaned back against the seat of the Uber and closed his eyes. It was a little after eight in the evening, local time. Marty had given him a lot to think about. Maybe he would get some kind of therapy, if only to stop the nightmares that continued to plague him. But all that talk of love?
