“Sorry.” There was a thread of tension in his voice. “I couldn’t wait any longer. I was just ... I’ve been thinking about this—about you—all week long.”
I straightened, the glass cylinder in one hand and the flowers in the other. Derek was still just inside the door, and his eyes were burning as they followed my movements.
“Nothing to be sorry about.” I tried to keep my tone light. “But you know, you can come further into the apartment. I won’t bite.”
“Yeah, but I might.” Even from about ten feet away, I could see the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I don’t trust myself to be alone in here with you right now. If you give me the slightest opening, I just might convince you to say fuck dinner. Let’s skip right to dessert.”
My breathing hitched. “You’re assuming you’d be able to talk me into that.”
He smiled, and his eyes lit up. “Baby, trust me. I’d be able to persuade you.”
Oh, I don’t want to test that claim. I cleared my throat. “Then I’ll take care of the flowers, and we’ll go before we both decide to miss what we know we should do.” I ran water into the vase, not even trying to disguise the fact that my hands were trembling, and slid the flowers into it. “We both know duty comes first, right?”
His brow creased. “How is this duty?”
“Well ...” I dried my hands, picked up my purse and sweater, and went to stand in front of him. “This dinner ... it’s about us getting to know each other better.” I paused. “Maybe particularly you getting to know me. I learned a lot about your background when I began working with you at the clinic, but how much do you know about me?”
“I know you grew up in the Army. I know you’re good at your job, and that matters to you—it’s important to you that you’re able to help others. I know that you give all of your heart and then some to your patients. I know that green is your favorite color, you eat pineapple and garlic on your pizza—which, ewww, but whatever—and you’d rather have ice cream than cake.”
My mouth dropped open. “How on earth do you know all that? I mean, the last things.”
Derek tapped my nose, his expression smug. “I pay attention, even when you think I don’t. I listened when you ordered food at the clinic. And you talk more than you think you do, when you’re trying to distract me from doing something hard.”
“Huh.” I ran my tongue across my lips. “I guess I stand corrected. But I still think it’s important that we talk before ... we do anything else. Before this goes further or deeper.” I leaned up, lowering my voice. “Besides which, getting to know each other is the best kind of foreplay.”
He brushed my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Now that’s the kind of duty I can get behind.”
* * *
The restaurant was in downtown Richmond. We talked all the way there, speeding up I-95; Derek filled me in on how he’d done on his return to work, and I chatted about what I’d been up to during the week. He’d reached across the console and threaded our fingers together as he drove, and every now and then, he tightened his grip or traced circles on the back of my hand.
The food was as good as he’d promised me. As we ate, Derek told me about his parents and his two brothers, all of whom still lived in Oregon. His brothers were both in the computer industry, as was his father, and his mother taught ballet. They still lived in the same house in which Derek had grown up.
After I’d enjoyed my filet mignon and Derek had polished off his pork chops, we ordered coffee and cannoli.
“I can’t even imagine it—that you can go back and sit in the same bedroom where you lived when you were eight. I lived in ...” I thought for a few seconds. “Four different houses between the time I was eight and eighteen. I can’t even remember what my room looked like back then.”
“Did you go away to college?” Derek sipped his coffee.
“No ... not right away.” I licked a crumb of cannoli from my thumb and took a deep breath. I’d known I was going to have to share some of my past if I had any true intention of moving forward with Derek. And despite all the reasons for us not to be together, I found myself drawn to him, to his steady honesty and straightforward ease. I owed it to him to be just as open.
“Actually, about a month after I graduated from high school, I got married.”
Derek’s eyes widened. “Married? Was he ... in the Army?”
“Yeah.” I fiddled with my fork, lining up the tines with the edge of my plate. “I met Wes at the start of my junior year. He was an E-5 by the time I was finishing high school, just twenty-two years old, and I was madly in love. We’d snuck around at first, and then Wes said he didn’t think it was right. I was afraid my father would be angry and Wes would lose rank—or worse, because I’d been underage when we’d begun seeing each other, and technically, Wes could’ve gotten kicked out.
“But Daddy agreed to at least meet him and keep an open mind. Wes was very polite and respectful, and my parents said that as long as I followed the rules, we could continue seeing each other. I think they knew I was headstrong and willful, and I’d have found a way around any restrictions. And they probably thought that if they gave me permission, Wes would lose some of his forbidden fruit allure. I don’t know.”
“I’m assuming that plan backfired.” Derek’s eyes held only compassion, and I was grateful.
“It did. Wes asked me to marry him at my prom in senior year, and I said yes. I thought he was my dream come true. My parents asked us to wait until I’d finished college, but I refused. I got so angry at them that I refused to let them have any part of planning the wedding—not that they really wanted to, I guess, but it was my way of shutting them out. We got married at a little chapel in Georgia on the way to Wes’s next duty station, which was Fort Benning.”
“I can’t say I like where this is going.” Derek leaned forward and gripped my hand. “What happened?”
“Well ... at first, not much. I loved the idea of being a housewife, and my life wasn’t too different, because we were still in the Army, after all. I knew how to play the game. But then I got bored. We lived on post, in a tiny little apartment, and cleaning it took me about an hour. So I decided I’d start taking some classes, thinking I’d earn my degree as my parents had wanted. Wes seemed okay with the idea, and my mom and dad were thrilled, but ten days into the first semester, he began to hit me.”
Derek’s face darkened. “The hell, you say.”
