I couldn’t breathe.

It had been three miserable days since Baker told me that he was a criminal – and that he may have to lie to me to protect the oath that he’d taken.

The ache in my chest stood as a reminder that I once had a relationship with a criminal and a lair, and it ended poorly. Although I didn’t feel a relationship with Baker would be plagued with the same exact problems, I feared what might happen. What it boiled down to was whether I was willing to take the risk or not.

I stared at the Christmas flier, and wondered if anyone would even show up. I hoped so, but considering the successes of my year, I had my doubts. About the time I was ready to take it down and toss it in the trash, the door swung open.

Mort walked in, took one look at me, and paused. “Who shit in your breakfast cereal?”

I tried to put on a smile. “Excuse me?”

“You look like shit, Kid.” He took a step toward me. “Everything okay?”

I forced a crooked smile. “I’m good.”

“You look like you got shot at and missed and shit on and hit. Wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.”

He took another step, paused, and looked me over. “Let’s give it a try. I don’t know if you realize it or not, but you’re uglier’n a stack of turds when you’re upset,” he said lightheartedly.

I laughed. “Thanks.”

He sat down. “Don’t be upset if I look away. You’re hell to look at right now.” He glanced at the pictures and then at me. “What’s his name?”

I covered my face with my hands. “Baker.”

“Not surprising.”

I peeked through my fingers at him. “You knew he was going to do this?”

“I had no idea what he was going to do. Hell, I think he’s a pretty nice fella. But I saw the way you were lookin’ at him a couple of weeks ago.”

“How’s that?”

“Like you wanted to eat him.”

I lowered my hands. “Well, I don’t want to eat him right now.”

“Want to tell me what happened?”

“I can’t really.” I lowered my head until my forehead went thump against my desk. After sulking for a few seconds, I looked up. “I don’t feel comfortable telling you about it.”

His face went stern. “If he did something to hurt you, say the word. Me and my two best friends will pay him a visit. Mister Smith and Mister Wesson. I’ll see if his ass can outrun a bullet.”

“No. He didn’t do anything.”

He inched closer, studying my face the entire time. “What then?”

“What do you know about relationships?”

He grinned. “I’m like an aeronautical engineer.”

I scrunched my nose. “What does that mean?”

“I’m got some damned good theories, but I’ve got minimal success based on hands-on experience.”

“Have you got time to talk?”

He pushed himself away from the desk and flopped his forearms against the chair’s armrests. “Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?”

After thinking about his response, I laughed. “You make me smile.”

“You make me smile, too, Kid. Except for today. Let’s see if we can change that. Get to talkin.’”

I looked away. After taking some time to devise a way to say what I needed to, I shifted my eyes to Mort. “I’ve really only been in one relationship, and the guy had certain character traits. He hurt me bad in the end. Really bad. I said when it was over that I’d never put myself in that position again. I found out last weekend that Baker has those exact same traits. Now, I’m scared of what might happen.”

He let out a laugh. “You’re worried about what might happen?”

I nodded. “Uh huh.”

He slapped his hands against the sides of his belly. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“You wouldn’t know it by lookin’ at me, but there was a day when this belly of mine didn’t exist. I looked about like that Baker fella. Thin and muscular. Didn’t have a lick of common sense, either. The year was nineteen and sixty-eight, and the place was Khe Sanh, Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Army had just launched the Tet Offensive. I was seventeen at the time, and I tell ya.” His eyes drifted toward the window. “I saw more death in two months than any one man should have to see in a lifetime.”

He cleared his throat and continued. “I went to take a shit, and it happened just like that. Before I got my pants pulled up, explosions were going off, enemy fire was whizzing by my head, and people were dead or screaming for the good lord to take ‘em all around me. Brady Wiltshire and Sergeant Tom were by a fuel tank with some of the rest of my platoon, and they were shot to pieces. Every one of ‘em was alive, but they weren’t going to be for long if they didn’t get some medical attention. It was darker than the inside of an elephant’s ass, and the enemy was crawling around our base camp like ants on a candy bar. Their only hope was me, and I was a scared seventeen-year-old kid.”

He gazed blankly at the wall beyond me for a moment before he continued. “There was eleven of ‘em at that fuel tank. Somehow I gathered up enough courage to crawl over there and get one of ‘em. Then, I got another. Gettin’ ‘em was pretty exciting shit, so I got another. About the time I was getting the fifth or sixth, I got shot in the leg. Before I got the last one, I got shot again. That one still hurts.” He rubbed his left thigh and then looked at me. “But guess what?”

I swallowed heavily. “You uhhm. You got them all?”

He grinned a shallow grin. “Sure did. Guess what else?”

“What?”

“I never would have got one of ‘em out of there if I’d have been worried about what might have happened. Each one of those men lived to see another day because of what did happen. We can’t let what might happen keep us from doing what our heart tells us is right. Remember that, Kid.”

My eyes welled with tears. I wasn’t sure if it was because of what Mort went through, or because of what I so desperately wanted. I swallowed heavily and gave a mental nod. “Okay.”

“What’s your heart tell ya?” he asked. “Not your gut. And not your fear talkin’, either. What’s your heart tell ya?”

It was an easy answer. My heart wanted Baker. “My heart wants him.”

He stood. “Anything else fucked up?”

I smiled and shook my head. “Nope.”

He looked at his watch. “Take the rest of the day off.”

“Are you sure?”

He gave me a look. “Wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t.”

“Okay.” I pushed my chair away from my desk. “Thank you.”

When he walked toward the door, his gate was prideful, and free of the limp he normally walked with. As he reached for the door handle, he glanced over his shoulder.

“If we spend time worrying about the what if’s and might be’s in life, we’ll never know what could have been.”

I mustered the energy to stand. As he pulled the door open, I wiped my eyes with the tips of my fingers. “Thanks, Mort.”

“See ya, Kid.”