6. Visit to the Past

Katherine

Nausea sits like a ball in my stomach as I get off the elevator on the hospital floor where my mom’s room is located. Almost immediately I spot my dad. He looks older, not the kind of older that comes naturally as one ages but the kind that comes from years of stress.

He looks fragile, and not at all like the man I remember my father being. His outer appearance matches that of what I believed his inner appearance was all those years ago. Weak.

When he turns away from the nurses station his eyes collide with mine. Confusion, realization, happiness, and then sadness all flash across his eyes, one right after the other. Finally, regret settles in them as he walks towards me.

“Kat.”

“Hi, Dad.”

He moves to hug me but half way he must realize that I wouldn’t have been receptive to it because he immediately pulls back.

“I thought you weren’t coming.”

“So did I.”

We both stand in the hallway awkwardly looking at each other. My dad’s face is a contradiction of emotions; a small smile pulls at his mouth but sadness and regret are still evident in his eyes. Eyes that look exactly like mine.

“So, is Mom’s room down here?” I ask, pointing to the hallway on the right.

He confirms that it is and leads us down the hall. When he comes to a door with the number 406 he stops with his hand on the door knob.

“Kat, I - “

“Dad, please don’t,” I shake my head interrupting him. I don’t want to hear what he’s got to say right now.

I just barely psyched myself up enough to walk into the hospital and get on the elevator. I’m still nauseated just thinking about seeing my mother for the first time in ten years. I’m not ready to hear my dad’s explanation or whatever he has to say right now. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be more willing to hear him out but not today.

He drops his head reluctantly before turning the knob and pushing open the door.

The woman sitting up in the hospital bed still looks exactly like my mother. This woman just had a stroke and has been in the hospital for several days, yet she made sure that her dark hair is perfectly styled, not a hair out of place and no grey either, and her makeup is expertly done. She’s not even wearing the usual hospital gown they give every patient. No, not my mother. She’s wearing her own silk pajamas from home.

Her brown eyes widen in shock when I step through the door in front of my father. “Katherine. Well, what a surprise.”

“Hello, Mother.”

“What brings you back to the GTA after all these years?”

I’m not even sure if she wants me to answer her because she went right back to examining her nail beds after that initial greeting.

“I heard you were sick. I came to see how you were doing.”

Her head snaps up so fast I fear that she may have given herself whiplash.

“I’m not sick, Katherine. I had a stroke. And since when do you care how I or your father are doing. We haven’t heard a word from you since you left all those years ago.”

I can feel heat start to crawl up my back and my spine stiffen. “Well, do you blame me?”

“What ever are you talking about? We’re your parents, Katherine. And it seems you couldn’t have been bothered to take five minutes out of your day to call us and let us know you’re okay.”

“Excuse me? What ever am I talking about? You’re kidding, right? You know exactly what I’m talking about, Mother. Don’t try and act like the concerned parent now.”

“Oh, are you still on that? You were a child for god’s sake. If I didn’t discipline you, who knows how you would’ve turned out.” She waves her perfectly manicured hand dismissively at the subject.

“Discipline? You call beating me within an inch of my life - twice - discipline?”

“Kat, please. Keep your voice down,” my dad pleads from his seat on the other side of my mother’s bed.

“No, Dad. I won’t keep my voice down. It’s about time someone stood up to her and since you were never going to do it.”

“Katherine, please. Stop being so dramatic,” my mother says, rolling her eyes.

I honestly don’t know why I even bothered to come back. I knew that after ten years nothing would have changed. It was just a waste of time and money. I feel like an idiot for even thinking that I could come back and get the answers I was looking for all these years. I feel like an idiot for thinking that maybe she would be remorseful about what she had done and the way she treated me. But most of all, I feel like an idiot for thinking that my dad might apologize for not standing up for me and protecting me all those years ago. Jay was right; I shouldn’t have come.

Without saying another word to either of them, I straighten up to my full height, pull the strap of my purse higher on my shoulder and walk out of the hospital room with my head held high.

As I’m getting into a cab, my phone lights up with Jay’s name on the caller ID.

“Hey.”

“How’d it go, Kat?”

“Well, I’ve been here all of five hours and I’m ready to come home,” I sigh into my phone watching as the city buildings morph into highway outside the window.

“When’s your scheduled flight out?”

“Day after tomorrow. Jay, you were right. This whole trip was a waste of time. I was never going to get the answers I was looking for. Hell, I was barely in the same room as them for more than ten minutes.”

“Are you staying in Toronto?”

“It’s not like I have a choice. I can’t afford to change my ticket. It’s fine though. Just because I’m stuck here doesn’t mean I have to see them again. I could go exploring. You know, do the whole be-a-tourist-in-your-town thing.”

He laughs. “You could. You always wanted to go up the CN Tower but were never able to.”

“This is very true, sir. And I could spend a day at Casa Loma.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Oh, tons,” I grin.

He and I talk until the cab drops me off at my hotel and I’m in the elevator heading up to my room. When I get off on my floor there’s someone leaning against the door to my room. As I get closer, realization dawns. I would recognize this man anywhere.

“Jay?”

He straightens up, slipping his phone back in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

“What are you doing here?” I ask confused. I had just gotten off the phone with him and he never mentioned being here. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in a suit other than at Danielle and Parker’s wedding. But he looks sexy as hell. My mouth waters at the way he fills out the suit.

“I had a last-minute business meeting in Toronto. I thought I would take you to dinner.”

Oookay, Jay was RCMP so I wasn’t sure what he meant by business meeting, but I figure that if he wants me to know he’ll tell me so I shrug it off.

“How’d you know I’d be staying here?” I ask, sliding the key card into the reader and pushing open the door.

He doesn’t say anything just smirks and raises an eyebrow.

“Dani,” I guess.

He chuckles. “There’s very little that woman doesn’t know.”

“It almost scares me how much information she can get in a short amount of time. Water?” I ask, opening the small bar fridge and offering him one of the bottled waters. He takes it and sits down on the end of the king size bed.

“So, dinner?”

I groan. I want to do dinner with him, I do. But that meeting with my parents took a lot out of me and I was honestly just looking forward to getting back into my pajamas, ordering room service, and gorging myself on chocolate and ice cream, only to slip under the covers afterward and not emerge until late the next morning.

But if Jay was offering, then who am I to deny him?

I kick off my heels and sit in the office chair pulling my knees up in front of me. “Fine, you can buy me dinner on two conditions.”

“Okay, shoot.”

I hold up a finger, “one, we order dinner and eat in here. And two,” I hold up a second finger, “you order a couple bottles of wine to go with it.”

He raises a questioning eyebrow and I’m sure he’s not going to agree to my first condition. I’m not even sure of the last time he just ate dinner in front of the TV, but he surprises me.

“Deal.”

“You serious?”

“I have one condition though.”

“What’s that?”

“You let me do the ordering.”

“I can live with that. I should warn you, though. I’m a picky eater.”

He tips his head back and laughs. “Fairly sure I’m already aware of that.”

“Great, I’m going to go shower.”

 

***

 

When I walk out of the bathroom I’m stunned speechless. Various takeout containers litter the desk, both night stands, and a pizza box sits on the bed. It’s like a Gilmore Girls dinner.

“What’s all this?”

“There’s Chinese, pizza, sushi, Thai, and Indian,” he smiles, looking impressed with himself.

“Did you buy out a buffet?” I tease, looking around at all the food.

“Oh, and the most important part. A white zinfandel and a moscato,” he says, pulling two wine bottles from behind his back.

“I think I love you!” I grab the Moscato from his hand and waste no time in prying the cap open and filling one of the wine glasses to the brim.

“Long day?” he inquires, watching me.

“You have no idea,” I respond after taking a healthy sip. God, that tastes so good. And he managed to get my favorite brand. too. This was why we’re best friends.

“So where are you starting with food?”

I glance at my glass of wine and then to all the take-out containers. While I normally love spicy food, tonight is not one of those nights so I automatically veto the Thai and Indian food. “I’ll start with sushi. The pizza will come in handy to soak up all this alcohol later.”

“Sushi, it is then.” He moves the pizza box to the table and grabs the sushi containers before sitting on one side of the bed scooting up to lean against the headboard. He inclines his head to the side in a silent invitation for me to join him. And after grabbing the TV remote, I do.

“Do you mind if we watch the hockey game?” I ask settling in against the stack of pillows.

He shakes his head. “No, I almost forgot there was a game tonight. Who’s playing?”

“Vancouver and Edmonton.”

We sit in silence for the next three periods just eating the sushi he ordered for us and watching the game. The Vancouver Canucks win with a 3-2 lead over the Edmonton Oilers.

I’m not usually much of a hockey fan - I know shocker for a Canadian to not be a hockey fan - but I needed those two and a half hours to get back to a somewhat normal version of myself after that interaction with my parents earlier today. The next best thing to getting into a ring and punching out my anger and frustration is to watch hockey, and it isn’t a hockey game without a couple fights thrown in for good measure.

“I don’t remember the last time I did this,” he casually announces next to me while he turns the TV off.

“What’s that?”

“Had a dinner that wasn’t at my desk, at a pub, or at Parker’s with the whole gang.”

“You’ve never just eaten dinner lounging in front of the TV?” I can’t imagine that anybody doesn’t do that at least once a week. Hell, it’s a regular occurrence at my place.

“I never said never,” he smirks and shrugs one shoulder, “but it’s been years. I probably haven’t since before I joined the military.”

“I find it a little hard to believe that you never eat dinner at home.”

“I never realized it before now but yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve spent any time at home other than to sleep, shower, and change.”

His eyes find mine and his mouth quirks up in a small smile.

“And you’re not tired of it? The long days and nights?”

“It’s what I always wanted to do, even as a kid. And there was never really anyone to come home to.”

“Never a girlfriend?”

He smirks shaking his head. “There was one. We were together for a couple years but she couldn’t handle my constant absence. I didn’t exactly beg her to stay either.”

“I don’t know how you do it.”

I couldn’t imagine the kinds of things the teams see every day, let alone the types of things Jay saw when he was on deployment.

“When it’s something you love, something you’re passionate about, you’ll do anything to see it succeed and when it does there’s no other feeling like it.”

“Do you regret it?” my voice is barely above a whisper.

“Do I regret what?”

“The long hours. Not having a family or even a girlfriend.”

“No.”

We spend hours just sitting on the king size bed in my hotel room talking. He tells me a bit more about his time in the military, and his special ops unit. He tells me about his parents and how close they were as a family, and how a car accident left him and Steven orphans. A distant aunt and uncle ended up adopting them both, but they were forever changed after their parents were taken away so suddenly.

He threw himself into his school work and was determined to make his aunt and uncle happy by getting high grades. His brother Steven rebelled, getting into drugs and drinking at the age of fifteen. Thankfully, after he graduated high school, Steven cleaned up and is doing well for himself now.

I tell him a little more about my childhood. There isn’t a whole lot left to tell since Jay arguably knows me better than anyone else. I hate the way people’s behavior changed towards me when they found out my mother used to hit me. I hate their sympathetic looks and how they think I can’t hear them when I turn away and have my back facing them.

I’m not some fragile thing. Yes, my mother was abusive and for a while I was depressed and angry. You could even say I was a little revengeful. I wanted her to get whatever she had coming to her. In the end, I made myself sick over it. Still, I couldn’t change my past. I couldn’t change what happened to me and what I had to endure for my entire childhood until I was sixteen and she realized she couldn’t beat me anymore.

But I could change my future.

That’s where my crazy need for control came into play. I couldn’t control my past but I could control my future. Or I could try. I know that some things are just going to be out of my control. I couldn’t, and didn’t want to, control what others did or didn’t do. But my actions, my thoughts, my circumstances, those were all things I could.

That was a joke. I needed to be in control of those things yet I wasn’t because of a little thing called anxiety. It was a bitch.

Some days were okay and others weren’t. Most days it took everything in me to just get out of bed or to leave my house. To the rest of the world I looked and acted normal. I never let on to anybody that I struggled to leave my apartment on a daily basis. Or that going out and being social took a huge toll on me, emotionally. People thought that the only reason why I couldn’t come out one day was because I had a lot of work to do. But that wasn’t it at all. I needed that day to myself. I needed that day to be alone, to give my anxiety a reprieve.

It sucked and I hated it.

When the alarm on my phone goes off, he and I are shocked to learn that we stayed up until seven just talking. I’m even more surprised to see that the wine bottle I had opened only had two glasses poured from it and I hadn’t even touched my wine glass since the hockey game ended the night before.

The minute realization dawns as to why that alarm was set, I quickly turn it off and shove it back into the front pocket of my jeans. I try to hide my pain and disappoint but he catches it.

“What did you have planned today?”

“I was supposed to go back to the hospital and spend some time with my parents,” I sigh, “but that’s not happening. I think I may go do some exploring though.”

“Need a guide?”

“Don’t you have a team to get to?”

He shakes his head as he gets up from the bed. “I had planned on heading back to BC this afternoon but I think I can postpone it.”

“No,” I protest, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, “don’t stay because of me. If you need to get back, you should go.”

He walks around the bed to me and cups my face between his palms, “There’s nothing scheduled that couldn’t wait a couple days. Get some sleep. I’ll be back to pick you up around noon,” he places a soft kiss on my forehead before moving to the door.

 

***

 

Jay picks me up from my hotel room at noon, as promised. We walk down the street to a small Italian bakery to grab a quick lunch before starting our exploration of the city.

I love the big city. I love how insignificant it makes me feel with its tall buildings and fast-paced lifestyle. I don’t miss living in it but I miss the feel of it.

He starts us off with two tickets to the double-decker, hop-on hop-off red bus tour. We take it to the Hockey Hall of Fame and get a picture with the Stanley Cup before hopping back on and taking it to the Bata Shoe Museum.

Yes, I did drag this man into a museum filled with shoes and I didn’t feel guilty about it. He got hockey, I got shoes. It seemed like a fair trade.

We spend hours exploring Casa Loma and its grounds. This was probably my favorite thing about Toronto. During my mom’s endless beatings and degrading remarks, I would picture myself living here before it became a museum. I would picture what it would’ve felt like to run around the grounds outside without a care in the world. I would imagine the dances they would have in the ballroom and picture all the women in their fancy dresses. It was the only thing that got me through those dark years.

Jay and I take a ton of pictures along the way and then head to the CN Tower as our final stop before taking a dinner break. Since it’s still early September and most of the summer tourists have already left, the line isn’t as ridiculous as it would normally be. But we still wait in the line for an hour before we’re able to take the elevator up.

My jaw drops when we walk up to the window and see downtown Toronto spread out under us. The city looks gorgeous from up here. I can’t believe I used to live here and had never made it up the tower until now.

I feel Jay walk up behind me and slip his arms around my waist as I look out over the city.

“We could eat dinner at the restaurant up here.”

At the mention of The 360 Restaurant my stomach does a summersault and I get queasy. Suddenly, looking down more than a thousand feet isn’t so appealing anymore. I have to take a couple steps back forcing him to do the same. The restaurant got its name because it revolves 360 degrees. It’s just not something I could see myself enjoying.

“Nah, I’m good. We can head down now if you’re done.”

I’m trying to act normal, like the thought of rotating three-hundred-sixty degrees more than a thousand feet in the air doesn’t scare the crap out of me. But Jay isn’t buying it. In fact, a knowing grin appears on his face.

“Or we could check out the EdgeWalk,” he teases.

My arms fold across my chest and I give him my best not-impressed look but it makes him laugh harder. The bastard.

“All right, don’t scowl so hard. Your face might get stuck like that.”

“Ha ha, very funny. Guess you missed the day when they were handing out a sense of humor,” I throw back at him while we try to make our way through the small crowd that has gathered and back to the elevator.

“I guess so,” he responds placing a hand on my lower back and guiding me through.

I love the way his hand feels there; it’s subtly possessive but comforting all the same.

By the time we make it down to the main floor and back out to the street, the last double-decker red bus is just pulling up to the stop so we hop on and make our way up to the open second floor.

He photobombs the selfie I’m trying to take then grabs my phone and slips it into the front pocket of his jeans, refusing to give it back to me when I ask for it. Instead, he cups my face in his palm and leans in to kiss me. I instantly melt into him. Just like that, we slip into our own little world as the bus drives through the downtown core.

When we get in the elevator of the hotel, we’re a tangle of limbs as our lips lock together. He backs me into the back wall and raises both my hands above my head, holding them there with one of his and pinning me in with his hips. The kiss is possessive and full of promise.

I wrap my legs around his waist as he carries me out of the elevator when it stops on my floor. The lock on my door disengages when the key card in the back pocket of my jeans bumps against the handle.

He lifts his head and grins. “Did you just open the door with your ass?”

“Sure did,” I laugh, kicking the door closed with my foot before my back is pressed against the wall and he continues his exploration of my body, slipping his hand up and under my tank top.

Right about now would normally be the time where my mind starts racing and I start talking myself out of going further with Jay but it’s silent. There are no racing thoughts, no self guilt trips.

Jay’s tongue suddenly flicking across my nipple pulls a moan from my throat, causing the fingers I had sliding through his hair to fist, pulling his mouth closer to my body.

“Easy, tiger,” he chuckles, grabbing both of my hands and pinning them to the wall with one of his, while the fingers of his other hand trails up my jean clad thigh, and around to grip my ass as his hard cock presses harder against me, eliciting another moan from my lips.

He releases my hands, moving us away from the wall and dropping us on to the neatly-made bed. Jay slides my tank top up until it’s just barely above my breasts before his mouth is back on my skin trailing sweet kisses down the middle of my chest, stomach, on either side of my belly button. His fingers expertly undo the button of my pants before his mouth is back there, following his hands as he slowly thumbs my jeans down my legs and off.

My breath hitches when he places a soft kiss on my clit over my panties before slowly removing those too. A groan escapes when his tongue runs over the sensitive bud.

“Ah, fuck!” My fingers grip the sheet on either side of me as my back arches slightly when he slides two fingers into my wet pussy.

Jay’s mouth finds mine in a heated kiss, only breaking away when he lifts me up slightly to pull off my shirt and bra, and his shirt follows. I can’t get enough of his kisses as my fingers fumble with his belt buckle and then his zipper.

“I need you inside of me, Jay,” I pant as I push his jeans off past his round ass.

As soon as his jeans are off, he’s on me again and entering me. My legs wrap around his waist, and I use my feet on his ass urging him to go harder, faster. Jay groans and fucks me harder when my nails dig into his shoulders, his teeth pulling at my nipples before his tongue licks away the sting.

The only thing going through my mind right now is how much I love having this man’s hands and mouth worshiping every inch of my body.

When he looks at me it’s like he only sees me. We walked around a crowded downtown Toronto today and I never once caught him checking out another woman. When we were together, I didn’t feel like a second choice, or like he was only spending his day with me because he had nothing else to do. It was the complete opposite; he cancelled things so that he could spend his day with me. This man who, to my knowledge, hasn’t taken a day off in almost ten years took one off so that I wouldn’t have to do the tourist thing by myself.

I think I’m becoming addicted to the way his eyes light up when he sees me, and his easy laugh when we’re spending time together. Or the way he gets my sarcasm and gives it back to me in spades. He subtly takes control but not in a way that makes my anxiety ramp up, or makes me want to flee for safety.

I have never stayed up all night talking to someone who wasn’t one of my best girlfriends. It was different. Refreshing. And when he wrapped his arm around my shoulders while we were on the tour bus I felt safe. Like nothing could ever touch me when he was near.

My body detonates when Jay hits that spot a few more times, then I’m free falling from the best high there ever is while still sober.

“Holy shit,” Jay mutters as the walls of my pussy convulse around him, and he comes.