Page 36 of Playing With Love

Though technically inaccurate, seeing as I was at most five or six years older than Carter, and when I first met Lenox he had to be in his forties, putting him at least twenty-something years older than me. It was a guess, however I figured a good one since I’d heard him tell one of the infantry boys that was his last deployment before retirement. And everyone knew those Unit Guys were crazy and didn’t stop until their body broke or it was time to get out. Age was but a number to them. Which meant he could’ve fathered me, though I wasn’t about to rudely point that out.

His lips twitched, cutting through the heaviness that had fallen over the table.

“Okay, I am old enough to be your father. Your first deployment was my last.”

There you go, I was right.

“My boys were thirteen and eleven. Had a shit feeling that day. I thought I was being superstitious. I was almost done, closing in on the finish line, thinking I just had to stay alive another few months then it was over. But Jasper felt it, too. That’s why I said what I said to you that day. I saw you nervous, which made me twitchy you were going out with us. I had a wife and two boys to get home to. I was being a dick forgetting each of us had families to get home to, not just me. What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry I was an asshole that day.”

“Lenox, you weren’t an asshole. You said exactly the right thing. I was nervous and scared. I’d never been outside the wire. Hell, that was my first time in theater. I needed to get my shit together but I didn’t know how. I’ve used what you told me that day throughout my career. Your wisdom has gotten me through a lot of hard situations and not just that first day.”

He took a moment to take me in. I missed another change in him, though I didn’t miss him laying it out.

As in straight out.

“Then staying in that vein, here’s some new wisdom: pull your head out of your ass. Not a week from now, not when you’re ready, not when you think the timing is right. Now. Right now. Tonight. If you let this fester it only gets worse. The longer you wait to tell Tucker the truth—all of it—the harder it’ll be to break through. This. Here. Now. Is when you fear up. Or don’t. But if you decide to keep living this lie, I promise you, Liza, every night for the rest of it you’ll close your eyes and taste the bitterness of regret. I reckon you and I have walked a similar path, denying ourselves what we wanted, what we needed, out of fear we’d never be what the other person wanted. Your father taught you that, then your husband cheated and he reinforced what you knew; you weren’t good enough. But see, you have that twisted, darlin’. Your father’s a jackass. No man, no father, treats a child that way, blood or not. And your husband’s issues with keeping his dick out of women who were not his wife…” Lenox pinched his lips and shook his head. “Damn, I was doin’ good until that last part and I forgot I wasn’t laying it out for my boys.”

With my heart pounding in my chest, my throat dry, and my palms sweaty I told him, “I can’t blame Arnie for cheating when I was in love with Tucker.”

“I hear what you’re saying and I get why you think that. But here’s the truth. A man, a real man, honors his promises. If he wasn’t happy with his life, with what you were giving him, then he should’ve manned up and left you, not fucked around on you. Don’t know the man, but my guess, he was perfectly happy to have a beautiful wife on his arm and in his bed. What he didn’t care about was if you were happy. He didn’t care if the life the two of you shared was a happy one. Men who cheat don’t give a shit about stuff like that. They say they do. They lie and blame their cheating on unhappiness. But that’s never the truth. A man who is unhappy, truly unhappy, leaves. A man who loves his wife works through the rough patches and fights to get back to what makes her happy and if that’s impossible, he leaves so she can find what she needs. A man who is a punk ass bitch stays and cheats. You’re sitting there holding guilt for not loving him; newsflash, darlin’, he didn’t love you either.”

After delivering that, Lenox picked up his knife and fork and commenced eating his Porterhouse. I picked up my Bloody Mary and took a healthy sip—read: I slurped half of it down in one go.

“Thank you,” I whispered as I picked up my fork.

“Anytime.”

One word full of so much meaning I found it hard to swallow.

Then I wondered what kind of life I would’ve had if I had a father like Lenox.

“Just so you know, you’re good at that. You could’ve been a girl dad.”

For a moment Lenox looked horrified, then he roared with laughter. Through his hilarity he explained, “Jasper’s got four girls; I lived that nightmare at his side. Levi’s got one and no matter Liberty’s got her head on straight and always did, that doesn’t mean her teenage years didn’t cause him more than a little drama. Thankful I got boys. Never thought myself a girl dad, but if my girl grew into a woman like you, I’d be damn proud.”

I felt wet hit my eyes and decided heartfelt conversations with Lenox rocked, and at the same time I decided I wasn’t going to ever have another with him if they left me fighting tears and rethinking my life.

Three hours later, I took Lenox’s declaration of ‘now’ literal. I did this with a fair amount of liquid courage. Thus I did it drunk and without a filter.

Big mistake.

CHAPTER TEN

“We’re gonna have to find another way in.” Carter stated the obvious.

I scowled at my phone on the counter, grateful Carter couldn’t see me, and fought the urge to pick it up and throw it against the wall. He’d just finished telling me an email had been sent out from Nu Dawn, the seminar had been rescheduled. Mackenzie Archer and the whole community was in mourning. They’d lost a member to a tragic act of violence. Out of respect for their fallen member the seminar would be pushed back two months.

We didn’t have two months to wait.

Liza needed in now.

I needed to get this assignment done.

“You and Liza need to talk to Allyson,” Carter went on.

You and Liza.

There was no me and Liza and never would be.