—EIGHTEEN —
“WHAT?” Faith couldn’t have heard that correctly. Not after her silent treatment and hysterical meltdown.
Zander cleared his throat. “Maybe you’re right.”
“No, say it again,” she whispered, her pulse was flying.
“You sure? Because even a guy like me can be sensitive about—”
“I just meant you shouldn’t joke about going AWOL.” She couldn’t breath. “Say it again, Zander.”
“I love you,” he repeated, more roughly this time. “And I wanted to wait until we were on the same page and in the same province to spring that on you, but it needed to be said. I don’t want you to run scared because if you do, I’ll just chase you, and like I say, there are consequences to that. So…don’t be scared. I’ll wait forever for you to be on the same page. But I’m done waiting without action, you know? I’m going to tell you how I feel, because you deserve to hear it.”
“You love me.” She felt faint. And warm, suddenly, after days of being cold to her bones.
“Very much. What did you think I was going to say?”
Her first instinct was that no way was she telling him the truth. But that flew in the face of everything he just said. She closed her eyes and winced. “There might be a small part of me that worried you might think this is all just a bit much. Want to take a break or something.”
He laughed.
Laughed!
And not gently, either.
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny, because…” He sighed and laughed again. “You know what? I think we’ve had enough for one night. Tell me about the plans for Eric’s birthday party.”
“Wait.” She swallowed. “I love you, too.”
“You don’t need to say it just because I did.”
“But I do. And you deserve to hear it, way more than me. You’re lovely, Zander. And I’ve missed you.” As soon as she said it out loud, the truth of that statement released so much tension from her body. “I miss you, actively. And this is hard, because I love you.”
“You don’t know how good that sounds.” His voice poured more of that delicious warmth straight into her veins.
“Feels good to say, too.”
“I miss you too, babe. Both you and Eric.”
A pang of guilt sliced through her for keeping them apart the last few days. She’d lied to Eric—another pang, not the first she’d felt about it—and told him Zander had to work away from his phone.
“He’s been sleeping with the helmet every night.”
“Seriously? That’s awesome. I’d love to talk to him in the morning, before he goes to school, if there’s time?”
“It’ll be early for you.”
“I’ll be up. It’s fine.”
“Then we’ll do that.”
He yawned. “I was up at dark o’clock to do my annual fit test. So I want you to crawl into bed and tell me about the birthday plans and anything else that I’ve missed in the last few days.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. Can we switch to video?”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Sure.”
She ended the call and switched to Skype. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, which she found really distracting. And she wasn’t wearing makeup and her hair was a mess, but on her preview screen it didn’t look that bad. And it didn’t really look like Zander was perusing her outfit, either. His gaze was locked on hers. “Hi.”
She wiggled her fingers and gave him a small smile.
“Birthday party?” he prompted, and she nodded. She told him about the ten kids that would descend on her place in another week, a few days after Eric’s actual birthday. They talked until they were both yawning.
“I don’t want to say goodbye,” Faith whispered, her head on the pillow.
Zander gave her an almost smile, but his eyes were impossibly warm and full of love. “Then just say goodnight.”
“Night,” she murmured. “I love you.”
“Love you too, babe. Always.”
— —
Zander’s phone rang at half past five the next morning. He jackknifed out of bed and hit answer. “Minelli.”
Eric’s little giggle made the heart attack totally worth it. “Hi Zander.”
“Hey, bud. Getting ready for school?”
“Yep. You back from army work?”
Zander shook the cotton out of his head and tried to figure that one out. “Pardon?”
“Mommy said you went to army work.”
Ah. “Yeah, I’m back at my base.”
“I went to my base yesterday, too.”
“Did you?”
Eric explained how they’d gone to the park and met Dani, and on the way back, he’d stopped in at his spy base and done some training.
Zander lay back down on his bed and listened to the story. It was fantastical and innocent. Never grow up, Eric. He was perfect just the way he was.
“What kind of tank do you drive?” Eric asked.
Zander held off on the lecture about how infantrymen didn’t drive tanks, that was the artillery. “If we go in an armoured vehicle, it’s called a LAV. Not a tank, and I don’t drive it, but close enough.”
“We have spy LAVs. I think we do, anyway.”
“That’s great. Do you by any chance have spy rations? Because if I get cabbage rolls again, I’m going to scream. So if you have a better food distributor, maybe we could tell the Canadian Forces.”
Eric giggled. “Okay.”
“Okay.” Zander grinned. “Time for school now?”
“Yeah.”
“Miss you.”
“Miss you, too.”
He heard that little voice over and over again all day, and it kept him calm until he got home and got to hear it again.
He was just marking time now. Worst kind of soldiering, but he had trouble caring.
His heart was in Tobermory, as simple as that.
If duty actually required his attention, he’d shift it, of course. But as long as he could get through his tasks on auto-pilot, he’d leave his focus where it belonged.
When Faith called back that night, after Eric was racked out, the last thing he wanted to talk about was work.
“Tell me about your writing instead,” he said as he settled on his bed. Talking to Faith had become his anchor. He’d talked more in the last two months than in the twenty years before that, and it felt surprisingly good.
Sharing for the win.
But tonight he just wanted her to share.
“I don’t know, how much do you want to know?”
“All of it. What are you writing?”
“Well, that book that I was writing while you were here, that’s done, and I’ve gotten edits back on it. I added…” She stopped and blushed.
“Added?”
She scraped her teeth over her bottom lip. “Um…”
“Is it dirty? I approve.”
She laughed. “Not really. A little. I added a new guy to the story, and instead of him being a secondary character, I think I’m shifting the series into the urban fantasy romance category.”
“So Vera actually gets to keep a guy now?”
She stared at the screen. “Have you been reading my books?”
He grinned. “You’re a good writer.”
She squeaked and buried her face in the blanket.
“Faith?”
“Go away!”
He laughed and she peeked one eye up at the screen. “How many books have you read?”
“All of them. Can I have an advance copy of the new one? Who is this guy, anyway?”
— —
Faith couldn’t look Zander in the eye. “He’s…well, I started writing him that night we met in Greta’s.”
“The notes you were taking while we talked?” He sounded…proud.
She glanced up. “Yes?”
“What’s his name?”
“Deacon.”
He made a noncommittal noise and rubbed his thumb along his jaw. “Does he have the power to make Vera do things like…give him a blow job?”
So he’d read the second book, with the wizard who cast an uninhibited spell on Vera, great.
He winked at her. “I’m definitely hoping that the next dirty blow job Vera gives someone will be Deacon. I have to admit I don’t much like the idea of her with anyone else.”
Oh God, she was going to die from embarrassment. “She’s only just met Deacon. Anything she did before he stormed into her life can’t be held against her.”
“I said I didn’t like it. Deacon’s a cool guy. He might even like to hear about some of those stories.”
“It’s not that kind of book. I mean, their relationship will grow, and Vera likes sex, but my readership doesn’t like long sex scenes.” Now she was just babbling. Nerves were shoving useless bits of information out of her mouth and she couldn’t stop it.
Zander gave her a pointed look. He’d rolled onto his back and propped a second pillow behind his head. “Faith. Focus. I’m trying to suggest… you know. That I might like to hear some of your stories.”
Oh. She blushed and dropped her face into the blanket again.
She’d never get enough of the sound of his laugh, even when she was burning up inside because he saw inside her filthy head.
“So that’s a no to the video sexting?”
“It’s not a no,” she mumbled. Her breasts were already heavy and aching, responding to his voice and missing his touch. “It’s a…give me a minute.”
“Should I go first?”
She rolled onto her side and propped her tablet against the headboard. “Depends on what kind of stories you want to share.”
“Fictional ones, of course. Bedtime stories about a beautiful writer and the handsome soldier who inspired one of her characters.”
“Sounds like a cliché.”
He laughed. “Take your pants off.”
She did as she was told. “What kind of stories do you want me to tell you?”
“Did you do any experimenting in college?”
She laughed so hard she snorted. “I kissed a girl at a house party once. Maybe twice? Truth or dare was a popular game.”
“Where did you go to university?”
“Toronto. My dad was a professor, so I got free tuition.”
“And little did he know you were kissing girls…” Zander winked, then rubbed his lower lip with his thumb. “I can’t see all of you. Scoot back a bit.”
She moved so she was laying sideways on the bed, her bare legs curled up in front of her. “How about you, any experimenting in the army?”
“No, but I can probably make up a shower story if you want to hear one.”
She shook her head. “You know what I want to know about? Your first time. Provided it was when you were a teenager and the person you lost your virginity to is now happily married and driving a minivan.”
He howled, then gave her a hooded, heavy look. “I think she is, actually. You really want to know about that?”
“How old were you?”
An adorable wince told her that yes, she wanted to know this. She wanted to know everything about him. “Fifteen.”
“Zander Minelli! How scandalous.”
“I went through puberty early. I already had chest hair. How old were you?”
“Seventeen. High school boyfriend. No clue where he is now.”
“He was the same age as you?”
She nodded. “Wait, your first time was with someone older?”
Another wince. “It was the summer between grade ten and grade eleven, and Dean and I snuck out to a bush party, mostly seniors heading off to college in the fall, some people back for the summer. All college-aged, anyway. And we were so sure we’d be caught and kicked out for being kids, but we’d both sprouted up that summer, and they thought we were older than we were…”
“Where did it…happen?”
“Front seat of a pickup truck. It didn’t last long.”
“Awwww. Poor teenage Zander.”
“The first time. I was ready to go again pretty soon, and she had a bunch of condoms—”
“Too much information!” But it wasn’t, really. That happened more than twenty years earlier, and Faith could picture that teenage kid, so eager to be a man. It was an important piece of the Zander puzzle. “And then you left for the army two years later?”
“Yeah. Crazy to think about how much I grew up in those few short years.”
“When did you first go overseas?”
He shook his head. “This is the wrong direction for this conversation to go.”
“But I want to know!”
“And I want to watch you get yourself off, then tuck you into bed so you can sleep well and wake up early and get more writing done.”
“I’m editing now. I don’t do that before dawn. Not a morning person, remember? I only get up that early for words because I need total quiet.”
“I’ll remember that.” He winked at her. “Okay, then I’ll just have to make up a bedtime story…”