Beth
The sun is already up when I finally slide out of bed. It was a long night. I’m not sure why I called Noah last night, but I’m glad I did. I try to picture him dancing on top of a shipping container and can’t quite create the image but it makes me smile.
I slip a sweatshirt on over my tank top and head into the kitchen.
I stop in the doorway. “Dad?”
He’s upright, standing over the stove, cooking something that smells like a mixture of heaven and awesome. Because it is really hard to screw up just-add-water pancake mix out of a box. And I’m not entirely sure the mix isn’t expired but I’m not about to say something and ruin the morning.
He waves a spatula in my direction. “I was hoping you’d be in bed a little longer.”
“How are you upright?” He could barely move last night and now he’s cooking breakfast?
“I have no idea what was in that shot last night but I’m mobile. I thought I’d cook my little girl some breakfast for taking such good care of her old man.”
I walk over and put my arms around his waist. He kisses the top of my head and it feels good, so good to have my dad hug me. To have him fully in the room at the moment and not spaced out on pain medication.
I lean my head against his shoulder for a moment, hoping that this isn’t a dream. “Last night was kind of rough,” I finally say.
“Yeah.” He leans his cheek against my head and I want to stay there forever. “Maybe this time, the meds will last a little longer and I’ll actually get the surgery.”
I pull away then. What I’m about to suggest is basically financial suicide but I can’t come up with any other options. “What if we pay for the doctor and the surgery outright?”
He flips the pancake he’s managed to mangle in the pan. It’s a disaster, but I don’t care. I sneak a look at the date on the box. Not expired. Winning all the way around.
“We can’t afford that, sugar bear. And we probably don’t have the credit, either. Something like that would break us.”
We’re already broken, but I don’t tell him that. I’ve been handling the bills since Mom left. Dad’s been too in and out of things to do it reliably, and after the first couple of times the electricity had been shut off while I was still in high school, I took over.
I don’t tell him about the stack of unpaid bills in the box near the kitchen table. It doesn’t do any good to make him worry about them.
I’ll graduate in another year. Hopefully, get a job. Grad school was a possible option, but I’m pretty sure it’s a long shot. A job is a better choice. Hopefully one that will enable us to pay down some of the debt. That will keep him from running out of medication.
“I don’t like seeing you hurting like this, Dad.”
“I know. Trust me, I don’t like you seeing me like this, either. No parent wants their kid to have to take care of them.” He slides the disaster of a pancake to a plate then starts another one. We don’t have much by way of food, but we try to make what we’ve got last. Eggs, potatoes. There are about a dozen different ways to prepare them so that you get multiple days of food out of them.
You only get sick of certain foods when you have options. Most of the time, though, we don’t run out of food. We have to be careful, though.
I’ve got to meet Noah for our tutoring appointment in a few hours. That’ll be money I can use to pick up the rest of Dad’s medicine on my way home from campus today.
“What are you going to do today?” I ask.
“See if the guys at the shop need any help.”
When he’s able, my dad works part-time for a computer repair shop near campus. It’s an under-the-table job because he’s not reliable enough to be there full-time, and he doesn’t want to take a payroll slot away from someone who can.
He likes fixing things. Our kitchen table is a score he’d rescued from a yard sale several years ago. Before he’d gotten hurt, he’d stripped it down, patched it and refinished it. It is still in our kitchen, a little more worn than when I’d been little.
It’s a reminder of what life had been before my dad went to war because he’d transferred his G.I. Bill to me and had incurred a service obligation. What life would be like again, once I figured out how to get his back fixed.
Breakfast is one of the few things he cooks and does well. The mangled and slightly burned pancakes are extra special today because it’s been so long since he’s been able to get up. I take my time, not wanting the morning to end.
Afraid that when I come home tonight, I’ll see him once again on his back on the couch, unable to move because of the blinding pain.
I clean up after we eat, washing the dishes by hand and setting them to dry in the rack. It’s an easy thing, spending time with my dad. We talk about nothing in particular.
I want to tell him about Noah, but I’m not sure how to broach the subject. Or what to even tell him. We aren’t a thing. Yet. I don’t think. Maybe we are.
Maybe some other time. Right now, Dad asks about my classes and I tell him I’ve got a job tutoring.
“Are you still working at the Baywater?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a lot on you, honey.”
I shrug. “It’s okay. I’ve got an easy class load this semester.” Which is only partially true. Writing papers is easy for me, and my two main classes require weekly reaction assignments and an end of term assignment. No exams, which is nice. I’m TAing Stats for Professor Blake and earning credit in my minor.
It isn’t terrible. And besides, I think I’m going to enjoy tutoring Noah a lot more than I thought I was going to.
My perceptions of him as a former soldier were completely off base. Now, though, I don’t know how to get back on normal footing with him.
Maybe we established a new normal last night. It was certainly going to be interesting. I get ready and kiss my dad good-bye. Hoping that the medication will last more than a few hours. Because it was nice, really nice, having my dad back, even if it was only for a little bit.
It is a reminder of why I am working so hard.
Because I want my dad back.
Noah
I’m nervous and the anxiety medication isn’t doing its trick today. I double up an hour before I’m supposed to meet Beth, after picking up my truck before it kicks in, so I’m not driving while fuzzy. It doesn’t get me high but sometimes, my reaction to a double dose isn’t what I expect. I find a parking spot off campus on the side of the road near some luxury apartments. I suppose if you’ve got the money to pay for school at this place, you can put your kid up in a nice place, too.
Not the kind of problems I ever expected to have. I’m not broke, but I damn sure don’t have two grand a month sitting around for a place like that. Besides, I’m not sure I’d want to live this close to other people.
I shoulder my bag and head out at a good clip toward campus. I’m not far from the business school but it’s about a twenty-minute walk to the library where I’m supposed to meet Beth.
I want to know how she’s doing after last night.
I’m dying to see her again.
I woke up this morning, my body tight and tense. I’d drifted into that space between sleeping and waking, and damn if I hadn’t imagined pulling Beth into bed with me. I wanted her hands on my body, her head on my shoulder. I wanted to feel her beneath me. Her breath on my skin.
Hell, I’m already reacting to the idea of seeing her again. I need to get my head straight before she thinks I’m some kind of walking erection.
I keep circling around the thought that she called me last night. It was a call that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with something else. Something a hell of a lot more powerful than a quick screw.
I pass beneath a bridge. In the shadows, I see a couple pressed together in the darkness. An erotic, hidden embrace. My brain detours to thinking about Beth like that. Open in my arms in a stolen moment. Letting my hands caress her skin.
I rub my hand over my mouth. It’s a good thing I’ve got the walk to try and pull my thoughts together. I can’t get the couple out of my mind, though. They’re burned into my memory. His hand had been just there at the front of her pants, his thumb caressing her hipbone. There had been an eagerness in the way she’d arched into his touch.
Would Beth let me touch her like that? Would she make that little sound in her throat that I loved if I kissed her neck? Christ, I’m a disaster. At this rate, the walk to the library was getting me more wound up, not less.
I stuff my hands into my pockets, wishing the medication would kick in to distract me from the aching need that is growing harder to ignore. It’s been too long since I’ve gone out and gotten a little bit wild. I stopped hooking up when my phone started ringing in the middle of the night with my troops’ problems. I mean, I’m not a saint by any stretch of the imagination but it’s been a while for me, to say the least. I need to build up my stamina up before I see about taking Beth Lamont someplace alone. There is something about Beth that makes me want to make sure I do things right, and being quick on the trigger isn’t going to leave a good impression.
Just tasting her made me want more than I’ve allowed myself to want since I’ve come home. I’ve been going through the motions since I started school. I am here because other people want me to be here, not because I think I belong.
LT helped get me here. I owe it to him to finish and I will. I met Josh and Caleb and Nathan because he would have wanted me to, and I am glad I did. They are people who speak my language. I don’t know where else I might have wanted to be, but I am here now for whatever reason.
And that reason is starting to feel like Beth.
I pause at a crosswalk and sway on my feet a little bit as the meds slam into me. Finally, the blurry, familiar feeling is back. The nervous knot in my belly loosens, and my thoughts stop racing around the hamster wheel in my head like I am on some kind of crazy hyper loop.
Things slow down, and it feels like they are back to normal.
Back to Beth.
A slow smile spreads across my lips as I walk into the library. She’s waiting for me near the circulation desk. She’s wearing a simple black sweater and slim pants that make her legs go on for miles. Her hair is pinned at the base of her neck, and her small hoop earrings are guaranteed to drive me wild through the entire session.
Her lips part a little when she sees me. I hope that’s a good thing.
“Hi,” I say. And how’s that for eloquent and charming?
“Hey.”
“How’s your dad?”
“He’s good.” Her voice is throaty and low. I want to take her someplace private. I’m not sure I can be alone with her in a public space.
I want to run my hands down her thighs.
Fuck, how am I supposed to concentrate on statistics?
“I reserved a carrel for us to use.”
“What’s a carrel?”
“Study room. I figure we could use it as a place to keep your books and such, now that you’re walking to campus.”
My mouth is suddenly dry. “Is this like a private space?”
Her eyes darken a little, and she offers a slight nod.
I’m speechless. And more than a little aroused.
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