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I ordered a pint and pulled out my phone so I would have something to look at while I waited. If I got stood up—which seemed likely, since my skills with women, especially Gwen, were nonexistent—at least no one would know. I came here at least once a week just to get out of my apartment and look at four different walls for a change. The other guys here understood me, and the owners didn’t care that I never drank much.
She hadn’t called or texted. There was an email from the construction company I worked for, asking if I would be available for some shifts next week. I stared at it, thinking it over.
It seemed like a no-brainer. Devon had given me five million dollars, and I didn’t have to work again until I chose to. If I invested it, it could last me the rest of my life. But what the fuck would I do then? I wasn’t a guy cut out for living a life of leisure. In the Marines, every minute of our day had been structured, even the minutes when you were sleeping or sitting around bored, waiting for something to happen. You always had somewhere you were supposed to be.
And then I’d been hurt, and there had been a long period with rounds of surgeries and recoveries. I’d worked as much as I could through the Bad Time, when I’d been doing physical and mental therapy, because I had my father’s debts to pay on top of my own. I’d worked every minute I was upright, taking any job that would have me, trying to pay my way.
And now I didn’t have to do that. I didn’t have to work construction with half a leg and lie awake every night worrying about money. Dad was dead, Devon had give me money, and my whole life had changed. It was incredible—Devon was incredible. My heart sped up, my blood pounding in my ears. I felt sweat between my shoulder blades, clammy and cold.
As I did sometimes when I had these attacks, I pictured Dr. Weldman, heard his voice in my head. What are you feeling right now? Describe it.
Fear, I told him. I’m feeling fear.
Here is the thing about PTSD: it’s the fear your brain has been trained to feel, and you can’t turn it off. In combat, you’re always ready; you see a possible threat in every direction. When you get home, your brain keeps it up. You can’t just leave it behind, snap out of it, because your brain has the signal that you’re about to fucking die. Even when you’re standing in line at the bank or trying to remember where you parked your car. Four years of treatment had made me better than I used to be, but it could still sneak up on me, bring me to my knees. I pictured my happy place, the path in the fall woods, while sweat broke out on me and my vision swam.
There was a whispered hush in the bar. I looked up and saw Gwen walking toward me.
She was wearing jeans and beaded sandals. She had on a white top made of flowy material that was just snug enough over her incredible breasts before dropping modestly down. Her blond hair was loose and she had only a little makeup on. Every male in Edison’s Bar looked poleaxed.
She sat down across from me in the booth. She had lip gloss on, and I had the sudden desire to taste it, lick every speck of it off her mouth. At the thought, I felt my panic spiral away like water down a drain. But it wasn’t quite gone, so all I managed to say was, “If you didn’t have to work anymore, would you?”
If my conversation opener surprised her, she didn’t show it. She just blinked at me and gave me a glare with those dark-lashed, sexy blue eyes. “Max,” she said, “Today I had to strip in front of a fucking softball team. What do you think my answer is?”
I felt myself frowning at her. In my fucked-up head, there’d been a moment when I’d forgotten she was a stripper. And suddenly, it bothered me. A fuck of a lot.
I leaned back in my seat and tried to get a grip. Gwen wasn’t my business. It wasn’t my business that guys saw her naked every day. I’d seen her naked, after all, because she was on one of her jobs. She wasn’t fucking the guys—she’d said so, and I believed her. They were just looking. And even if she was fucking them, it was none of my goddamned business.
“You’re scowling,” she pointed out.
I had too much going around in my head. But one crazy thought floated to the surface: I had five million dollars. I could make it so that Gwen didn’t have to take her clothes off to make a living anymore.
I barely knew her, but I already knew one thing: If I suggested that to her, she’d kick me in the balls.
“Sorry,” I said, hedging and trying to erase the no doubt terrifying frown from my expression. “I was just thinking.”
She raised her eyebrows, waiting for me to go on, then prompted me. “About what?”
“Quitting my job.” I looked down at my phone, and realized I already knew the answer. While she watched, I texted to my foreman that I wouldn’t be available for any more shifts, ever again, and pressed send. “In fact, I just did.”
She looked surprised, then turned and raised a hand to Jason behind the bar. Normally it took an act of God to get Jason’s attention, but the minute Gwen turned her blond head, he darted from behind the bar, came to our booth, and took her drink order. When he was gone, she turned back to me, completely unaware she’d upset the natural order of things with one painted fingernail. “Continue,” she commanded. “What is—was—your job?”
“Construction.” There was only a flicker of expression on her face, but I was attuned to it, so I picked it up. “Stop,” I told her. “I can do the work with half a leg. I’ve been doing it for years.”
She had the grace not to deny it; she just shrugged. “Okay. But you just quit? How do you afford that?”
Shit. I wasn’t going to tell her I had five million dollars. She barely knew me, and she’d just walked in. I’d sound like an asshole trying to impress her with money, instead of just the general asshole she already thought I was. “It’s just a thought I had,” I said. “I can afford to take some time off.”
Gwen narrowed her eyes at me, not even glancing at Jason as he put her beer in front of her. He wandered off, disappointed. “You are very mysterious, you know that?” She sipped her beer and looked around. “What is this place, anyway? It’s like a literal man cave.”
“I guess it is,” I said. It was true, I’d never once seen a woman in Edison’s. “It’s what I’m used to, I suppose,” I explained. “You should see the gym I go to. It’s basically some guy’s sweat sock.”
“I think your whole life is a sweat sock,” she countered, sipping her beer again. “You give off this sort of… testosterone-smell. Do you interact with any real, live women? At all?”
I pretended to think it over. “The woman behind the counter at the gas station looked at me today,” I said. “Does that count?”
She tutted in response, looking me over. “Such a waste.”
I went still as a pulse of attraction arced between us, my breath going short. The panic had gone, and now I remembered what it had looked like when I’d unzipped her dress, when she’d rubbed herself on my lap, nearly getting herself off. Do it, she’d said to me, and Harder. As if she was reading my mind, her tongue darted out and licked her glossy bottom lip.
