“Uh, yeah. I think.”
“Another nightmare?” he asked.
Paxton was the only person I’d ever mentioned them to and it wasn’t like we had drawn-out conversations about it. We talked long enough for me to figure out he was struggling with them, too. Then, that was that. Sometimes, we called each other when we woke up in the middle of the night but, since I’d been at the cabin, I’d kept to myself quite a bit.
“Good thing I called to check up on you,” he said. “Wanna talk about it?”
“Not really,” I said, groaning.
“You sweating?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Aching?”
“Uh huh,” I said.
“You thought about talking to someone about them?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” I said.
Silence fell on the phone call and I sighed. I raked my hand through my wet hair, grimacing at how it felt. I wouldn’t have to change the sheets but I would have to change my pillowcase and I could feel how scraggly my hair was becoming. My beard was uneven and the hair on top of my head was growing past the tops of my ears. The Navy would’ve had a field day with what I currently looked like but, as I sat on the edge of the bed and listened to the silence on the phone, a realization crossed my mind.
I wasn’t in the Navy anymore.
I knew it had been over a month since I’d officially been retired but that had been my life for most of my upbringing. From the time I was fifteen, I knew I wanted to join the military. I enlisted before I even graduated high school and I didn’t attend my own graduation because I was too busy attending basic training. I had them send me my high school diploma and I still had no idea where the hell that thing was.
I breathed the military. I strove to do everything I needed to do to succeed. I took the classes, I got the certifications, I did the training, and I put up with the schools. I went through the terrible command heads and I trudged through the hospitals on the battlefields. I did rotations in areas of medicine I never wanted to touch again because that was all I could see myself doing.
And now the one thing I’d thought about and relied on since I was fifteen years old was gone. All I had was a cabin and my truck.
“Look, take it from me,” Paxton said. “You need to open up to someone about it. Even if it’s not some professional or whatever, you gotta talk to someone.”
“Do you talk to anyone?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “My commander sometimes. When it gets bad.”
“Why don’t we talk about it anymore?”
“Because you stopped talking,” he said. “It was just me talking at a brick wall. That didn’t help me. It might help you, talking to someone who doesn’t talk back, but for me, it didn’t do much.”
“I’m sorry, man,” I said.
“Don’t be sorry. Just find what works for you. That situation we went through was rough. Rougher than anything we ever expected to experience. You’re not at fault but you do need to talk to someone about it. Even if you just ramble and it doesn’t make sense.”
“You think a woman would listen?” I asked.
“Why the hell would you ask that?”
I sighed and I could practically feel Paxton’s grin through the phone.
“You sly dog,” he said. “Are you dating someone?”
“No, but I am trapped with someone.”
“Wait, what?”
“The storm,” I said. “You know, the one you told me to look out for? It got bad. And this woman… she was just out hiking like there was nothing wrong with the world.”
“And she found your cabin?” he asked.
“No, I saw her coming and figured she was lost. She took off running up this hill and tumbled right over it. Dislocated her ankle and rolled herself into a damn tree.”
“So, you took off running like her savior,” he said. “Is she cute?”
“What?”
“The woman? Is she cute?”
Anyone with a pair of eyes could see Whitney was a beautiful woman but that was beside the point. I couldn’t even trust myself to sleep. How the hell could I trust myself to have sex? That took more emotion, more energy, and more mental stamina than anything I was currently prepared for. “Sure, I guess,” I said.
“You’re cooped up with a woman you’re taking care of and you don’t even know if she’s hot?” Paxton asked.
“How do you know I’m taking care of her?”
“You said she dislocated her ankle and rolled into a tree,” he said. “I’ve seen you try to help stray dogs on the side of the fucking road, Canter. You’re taking care of her.”
“Well, she’s invading my fucking space. I came here to get away from people and now I’m stuck in a snowstorm with a person who won’t stop talking about herself.”
“Is she self-centered and high-maintenance?” Paxton asked. “Or has she tried asking you questions and you’re just sitting there like a dick?”
“A dick?” I asked.
“Look, I’ve known you for years, Canter. You’ve always been quiet and girls like that shit. The quiet and mysterious guy. But after what happened to us, you closed up. If this woman is just mindlessly talking about herself, then deal with it until the storm lets up. But if she’s trying to talk to you and you’re not talking back, then you’re being a dick.”
“I don’t want to talk to anyone, Paxton,” I said. “That’s why I came up here.”
“And there’s nothing you can do about this situation but make the best of it. You don’t have to tell her about your nightmares, man. But just fucking talk to the chick.”
Even though I didn’t want to admit it, he had a point. Whitney was essentially talking at a wall because I wouldn’t talk back to her. Every time she broached a subject that even remotely meant I had to open up, I’d just leave her by herself in front of the fire on a couch that was still foreign to her. I didn’t owe her my entire life story but the least I could do was make her comfortable.
Even if her version of comfortable wasn’t my version of comfortable.
“Well, I gotta go,” Paxton said. “Duty never stops calling around here.”
“When do you deploy?” I asked.
“Couple more weeks,” he said. “I’ll be out to sea for about ten months.”
“Call me again before you head out.”
“I was planning on it,” he said. “But the next time we talk, I want a story about how you talked to this girl and you finally found out she didn’t have cooties.”
“You’re a dick,” I said.
“Which means you can’t be one,” he said. “Two dicks don’t get along, so go out there and talk to her.”
“Fine, fine. I’m going.”
“I expect a juicy story later,” he said.
“I never talk and tell.”
“Wow, how scandalous,” he said, chuckling. “Talk to you later.”
I tossed my phone onto my bedside table and stood to stretch. I needed to shower but I wanted to have a cup of coffee first. Despite the weather reports, the snow was still coming down outside, which meant I’d need to check the generator as well. I couldn’t have that thing running out of gas while I was in the middle of washing my beard.
I walked out into the room and saw Whitney standing at the kitchen island. She was sipping on a cup of coffee she’d made herself but I could tell she had been waiting for me. She whipped around and offered me a weak smile and I couldn’t help but flicker my eyes down to her ankle.
“Don’t worry, I’m hopping around,” she said.
“How does it feel?” I asked.
“Not terrible but not good,” she said. “I’ll live.”
“Let me get a cup of coffee and a shower and I’ll wrap it back up.”
“Please, let me make you breakfast.”
She said it so fast, I almost didn’t understand her. I watched her dark blue eyes widen, almost like she was begging me, and that was when I realized how rigid and closed off I had been with her. I studied her body for the very first time, taking in the supple curves of her form while her blonde hair fell down her back.
Despite myself, I felt my dick twitch in response to her. “If you’d like to cook breakfast, that’s fine,” I said.
“Wait, really?” she asked.
“Really. But you sure you’ll be up to it? With your ankle?”