There was a pregnant pause before he confirmed, “In the bathroom?”
“I’m very busy, Calvin.” I opened the book at random and turned pages before the corner of one caught my finger just right and sliced it open. “Shit.” I slammed the book shut before sucking on the torn skin. Tears that had nothing to do with the paper cut stung my eyes. I sniffed a few times as I struggled to maintain control.
The bathroom door opened very quietly. Calvin stood there, sans suit coat, tie loosened, still wearing his shoulder holster. I glared at him, but he stepped inside and eased himself down into the tub beside me. For some reason, the sight of his trousers and oxfords dangling over the edge like me—like a kid—made me laugh. Then cry.
Calvin eased an arm around my shoulders. The heat radiating from his bigger, bulkier body should have been a discomfort in the still-too-warm apartment, but I found it oddly reassuring. Sort of like I’d been half-expecting his touch to be ice, as if body temperature was regulated by mood, and it’d have confirmed he was still livid beyond reason. Calvin stroked the side of my head absently as I collected myself.
“It’s only a paper cut,” I said at length.
“Hey.”
“A flesh wound, really.”
“Seb.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry.”
I hesitated before glancing sideways.
Calvin’s pretty, monochromatic face looked tired and drawn. The glow of contentment that had pooled just under the surface nearly three years ago, that sparked a warmth in his fair skin and gave those gray eyes a twinkle like sunshine catching the sharp corners of a cut gemstone, seemed to be gone.
His eyes were wet and he swallowed roughly. “I want to tell you something. About my final tour in Iraq. We lost Ahmed, an interpreter, under my command. This is a guy I’d known for years…years…. He wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t trained to fight. He depended on us—on me—to stay safe. And that didn’t happen. He was smart—like you. Just wanted to help. And I let him down. I let his baby girl down. I had to tell her, through a fucking translator, that her daddy wasn’t coming home.”
Calvin was my favorite topic. I was a connoisseur of all things Winter-related. In fact, I prided myself on knowing everything therewasto know. Like, his middle name was Liam. Or that he stayed away from wine because it gave him an alcohol blush. And when he was six years old, he’d broken his ankle while roughhousing with his older brother, and Marc lugged him around in a Little Red Wagon for Halloween so Calvin didn’t miss out on trick-or-treating. I even knew about his string of casual hookups, and how he’d been too deep in the closet to consider anything more serious than screwing around for a long time.
But that decade in the Army? Even now, married ’til death do us part, that time in his life wasn’t ever open to discussion. He kept all those years inside a mental vault, as if leaking any of it was akin to disclosing details of national security. What I knew of Calvin’s military career was what I’d mostly gleaned on my own time. He’d retired at the rank of major, and had been awarded the Medal of Honor, Silver Star, and Purple Heart—those were still kept in a box under the bed and he didn’t want to discuss them—and he’d seen enough violence and death that he’d returned home with irreparable PTSD. At least now,thankfully, he saw a therapist on the regular, but I’d long ago resigned myself to simply never knowing more than that.
So was I surprised by this story of Ahmed? Yeah. Understatement of the century. And I think… I think Ahmed might have also explained that heart-wrenching photograph Calvin kept alongside his medals: himself, dirty and missing his helmet, holding a crying girl in his arms. A different kind of casualty of war, but one he considered his fault.
“Calvin—”
“I know that my responses are trauma-related,” he continued. “I know that something this morning triggered memories of Ahmed and I’m superimposing him on you. And I know that the risk versus reward for people with PTSD makes me choose a minimal loss today over a larger loss in the future, so I chose a fight with you over you dying—”
I shifted in the tub to take his face in both hands.
“But knowing why,” Calvin finished in a whisper, “doesn’t always make it easier.”
I leaned close and kissed his mouth, so gently, like his lips were butterfly wings that’d break under the slightest pressure.
“I don’t want you to die,” he finished.
I nodded and kissed him a second time, which gave me an extra moment to collect myself. “Thank you for telling me about Ahmed. I mean that. It helps me understand. And I’m sorry that I yelled at you.”
Calvin wiped his eyes and said in a tone that was a little too casual, as he attempted to pack away his distress and was now overcompensating, “You apologize for the sleuthing too, right?”
“I’m now referring to sleuthing as ‘polite inquiries.’”
“Uh-huh.” Calvin sighed heavily and scrubbed his face.
I moved my hands to his shoulders and rubbed gently. Up and down, up and down. It was almost hypnotic. “Hear me out.”
“I think I have an ulcer.”
I awkwardly maneuvered myself fully into the tub, sat on my knees, and faced Calvin’s profile. “I’m not going to lie. I was mad as hell with you back at Marie’s apartment. And I know you think I don’t understand your viewpoint, but I’m telling you, I do. I’m acknowledging that you’ve seen the very worst of humanity—not only in war, but here, at home. I’m acknowledging that you’ve got experience with crime and violence and have been schooled and trained accordingly. I’m acknowledging I’m not LEO.”
Calvin propped his elbow on the corner of the tub and leaned his head against his hand as he stared at me.
