Chapter Forty
Jarrett
“You can do this,” she says to me, with a voice as warm and confident as the midday sun.
I frown, look down at my hands resting on the handlebars of my bike. It’s been a draining few days. First, surgery in some hack doc’s office to close the wound in my shoulder, with only rotgut whiskey to numb the pain. To make things worse, the bastard doctor only had half a bottle, which was hardly enough to get more than a buzz going.
Today’s the first day I’ve been able to ride. Even though I shouldn’t.
And where do I agree to go? Here. A therapist’s office.
“I’m not sure I can,” I say. I never thought I’d be in a position to say those words. Or that it’d be for something so mundane as walking into a squat, square office in some strip-mall type complex on the outskirts of Tacoma.
There’s a sign above the door to the office: Full Circle Counseling.
To me, it might as well say No Entry.
She slips an arm over my good shoulder, gives me a gentle hug from behind and kisses my cheek. “I believe in you. And so does Jake. I know you’re strong enough to do this.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Strong enough to do what? Go cry to some doctor?”
“Do you know how strong you have to be to admit you’re hurting inside?” she says. “Take it from someone who’s run all her life: the hardest thing to do is reach out your hand for help. But when someone takes that hand — like when some crazy, sexy man on a motorcycle helps lift you up — life gets so much better.”
I stare at the sign, still unsure. “I don’t know.”
She hops off the bike behind me and holds out her hand.
“Come on, we’ll go in together.”
“You just want to hear me bitch and whine, don’t you?”
“That and a couple tears, yeah,” she says.
I glare at her.
Selena doesn’t wait for me to take her hand, she reaches out and grabs mine. Gently, she pulls me towards her. I slide off the bike and kick the stand down. I couldn’t make even this forward movement without her.
“What I want is for the man I love to finally be able to let go of all that pain he’s been carrying for all these years,” she says. Her lips graze my cheek. “What I want is for the man I love to be able to look back at the world without fear or anger in his eyes.”
“Where the hell did that come from? Have you been reading therapy books?” I say, looking at her with surprise.
She shrugs. “Maybe I have. Maybe I want to have a better idea of what you’re going through and how I can help. Or, maybe, I’m just talking as someone who’s seen her fair share of trauma herself.”
I’d say something back, but she gets up on her tiptoes and kisses me. Slowly, almost imperceptibly — but definitely deliberately — her hands brush my cock through my jeans. I stiffen in almost an instant.
She knows how to win an argument.
“Fine, we’ll go inside. See what it’s all about.”
“Thank you, Jarrett. Now come on, the appointments in three minutes.”
“But if things start to get weird, I’m leaving. The last fucking thing I want is more stress — we still got that charity thing to do in two days.”
She squeezes my hand. “If it gets weird, you can leave. All I ask is that you try.”
There’s no way I’m not going to try. As much as I want to fight this, I want a life with this woman and her son at my side. I feel more than myself with them, like they’re filling in gaps in to the puzzle of my life that I didn’t even know were missing. I’m more complete with Selena and Jake around.
“Give me a second, first. You’ve got me hard and I’m not shaking the doc’s hand with a raging hard-on.”
She laughs and I pull a few deep breaths and think about baseball.
The two of us step into the office. It’s a nondescript room that reminds me of the front room of every dentist and doctor’s office I’ve ever been to. Except instead of pictures of teeth on the walls or photos of happy people eating salads and being obnoxiously healthy, there’s a bunch of positive affirmation shit — people running triathlons, climbing mountains, and a whole bunch of photos of shit you’d normally find on the internet with positive quotes overlaid on them.
“If this guy turns out like some kind of wannabe Tony Robbins, I’m leaving,” I mumble to Selena low enough so the receptionist doesn’t hear.
“Take a closer look,” she answers. She motions towards a few of the pictures on the wall.
I frown and lean in. Every picture — from the guy in skiing equipment on top of some tall mountain, to the guy crossing the finish line at a triathlon — is of the same person.
“Fuck, this is going to be Tony Robbins bullshit.”
“Shut up and go check in, you asshole.”
I step up to the front desk, clear my throat so the woman behind the desk chatting on the phone looks up and acknowledges me. She smiles, hands me a clipboard, and motions for me to fill it out. I do, with a little encouragement from Selena. When I hand it back to the receptionist — who happens to still be stuck on the phone — she raises one finger to indicate it’ll be just a minute.
I sit down in a shittily-upholstered chair and look for something to read. My ass has barely settled into the chair before a man’s voice pulls my attention away from the pile of travel and lifestyle magazines on the coffee table in front of me.
“Jarrett Hayes?” he says, his voice welcoming, but clipped, military-style.
I look up. He’s an older man, with a close-cut bit of gray hair on his head and a gray goatee that outlines his square jaw. He stands with set shoulders and perfectly-straight posture — all things that get drilled into you at boot camp. “Who’s asking?”
“Markus Kellerman. This is my practice. You ready?”
I look at him a bit closer.
“Did you serve, Mr. Kellerman?”
He gestures across the room, towards a spot on the wall next to the entrance to his office. There’s a plaque there, with a purple heart set into it.
“Panama. And Desert Storm,” he says, holding out his hand. “I understand you’ve served, too, and you’ve seen your fair share. How about we talk?”
I reach out and shake his hand. I can feel my shoulders loosen and those agitations and anxieties that I couldn’t acknowledge out loud start to ease.
“Let’s talk.”