“Did Maddie just leave?” Rick asked when he watched the taillights of a small car as it pulled into traffic. He couldn’t believe the disappointment that he felt. He had hoped to spend a few minutes alone with her, but it looked like she wasn’t interested after all. Idiot! That woman had him so tied up in knots. All throughout the game, he was giddy, nervous, scared, and everything in between. He was glad that she left. He really was. Now he could forget about her and that kiss. She would just be a fellow ballplayer and nothing else. It was better that way.
“She had to run to the store before she went home,” Mary told him. “By the way, I need you to pick up something from her apartment on your way home. You’re on the way, so it won’t take you long.”
A sudden jump of excitement ran through him at the news, but he wouldn’t let them see it. “Oh, really. I know what you’re both doing, and it won’t work.” So Mary was in on it too. It figured that she and Kathy would join forces. He scowled at the both of them then walked away. Their laughter reached him as he walked, and he shook his head. Those two were a force of nature when they got together. His scowl turned into a small secret smile as he crossed the parking lot to his truck. In a few minutes, he would be seeing Maddie again and alone. At the midway point in the parking lot, he crossed paths with Donnie and Joe and told them to tell their wives to butt out of his love life.
“Not a chance,” Donnie said with a laugh. Joe wiggled his eyebrows at him as they continued on their way to where their wives waited with the kids.
Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of Maddie’s building just as she was getting out of her car. When he called out to her to wait for him, she nodded and began to dig in the back seat. After finding an open parking spot further down in the visitor spots, he locked Harvey in the truck with the windows rolled down. It had cooled down now that the sun was setting, so Harvey would be ok if he stayed a few minutes. Harvey thought otherwise and barked a few times before Rick told him to lie down.
After he reached Maddie’s side as she stood by her car, she handed him the two grocery bags then reached into the backseat again for her gym bag. It looked like she had picked up a small cake, which meant that she would offer him some. It also meant that she wanted him to stay for a while. That was good! The thought of staying for cake and coffee pleased him, and he grinned at her as she talked nervously about the weather. He knew the feeling. He was suddenly nervous, too.
“Well, here we are,” she said as she unlocked the door to her apartment. She went in first. He heard a softly spoken small cuss word escape her as he followed her in that she probably didn’t realize that she said aloud. He had to smile at it because it was kind of cute coming from her. Her red face was even cuter.
It didn’t take him long once he was inside to realize why she swore. Her apartment was a mess. There were a few dirty dishes on the small counter that must have been left there after a quick supper. The small dining table was covered with things related to school. It looked like she was in the middle of working on a project because there was construction paper, glue sticks, yarn, spilled beads, and a few other things covering the surface. Several scraps were on the floor.
“It’s almost the end of the school year. I’m trying to make a party favor that the kids might be able to make for our end of the school year party,” she told him sheepishly. “Oh, Lord!” He saw what set her off that time when he peeked into her bathroom. He could see several very sexy looking bras and panties drying over the curtain rod. He couldn’t stop the grin that came when he saw those.
“I’m not usually this messy,” she told him when she closed the bathroom door. The living room, he soon discovered, was covered in clothing. There were two baskets of clothes sitting on the couch. An ironing board was set up in the middle of the floor, and several articles of clothing were thrown over a chair and the coffee table waiting to be ironed. “Sunday is my laundry day, but...” her voice dropped off.
“I understand,” he told her. She was adorable with that embarrassed expression on her face. For heaven’s sake! He grew up in a house full of males. Messes were a part of life. “Where do you want these?” He lifted up the bags.
“Oh, give me a minute, will you?” She ran into the kitchen and quickly cleared the counter by loading the few dishes into the dishwasher. When the counter was clear, he set the bags down and watched her work nervously as she quickly started a pot of coffee. “Coffee will be ready in a minute. I hope you like chocolate cake.”
She said the words so quickly that he could barely make them out. After he nodded, she went back to the living room. He could hear the sounds of the ironing board being closed coming from the other room as he pulled the few grocery items from the bags. Once he put the yogurt in her nearly empty refrigerator, he went back into the living room, which now offered a clothing free couch and coffee table.
“Would you like to sit down?” she asked nervously when she saw him standing there watching her. He smiled then walked over to her, put his hands on her shoulders, and kissed her. It was what he had wanted to do all evening. He could no longer stop himself when she looked so adorable.
He meant to just give her a quick peck. That was all. He was nervous, too, and a quick kiss would break up the tension between them. But when his lips met hers, the electricity between them ignited, and he deepened the kiss. She responded by allowing it and by melting into his arms. She felt so right being there. The taste of her mouth on his tongue made him crave a lot more, and his body responded to her closeness.
When she rubbed herself against him, he knew that he had to end the kiss before it got out of hand and he carried her to her bedroom. They weren’t even close to being ready for sex, yet, even though his body begged for release inside of her body. If they had sex, then there would be no going back.
She would expect a relationship.
She wasn’t a “good-time” girl who was just looking for a man to kill a few fun hours with every once in a while. She would be crushed if he ended it between them after sex, yet he still had too many doubts about himself to go forward with a relationship. Reluctantly, he ended the kiss and stepped away. Her eyes were dreamy again, and her lips were swollen. She was so captivating that he forgot why he was at her apartment. His mind raced while he scrambled to remember.
There was something that he was supposed to get. What was it? He better get it and get out of there before he kissed Maddie again. Not sure what he should ask for, he watched her for clues. A happy expression lit her face, and she told him to sit down again. He did while she went back to the kitchen.
“Mary didn’t tell me what I was supposed to pick up,” he called out to her. He had to say something to break up his current train of thought. His body was still on fire, and the bedroom was only a few feet away. The way that Maddie responded to him a few minutes earlier told him that he would be able to talk her into bed, but he didn’t want a quite roll in the sack. Ok, he did, but he didn’t. He needed to get out of there. The sounds associated with cake and coffee being readied came from the kitchen. He would stay for cake and coffee first. There was no need to be rude, after all.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she said as she carried in a tray that held two cups of coffee and two plates covered with cake. “Mary is borrowing the dress.” She put the tray on the coffee table then sat next to him on the couch.
“What dress?” His eyes caught on her earlobe, and he wanted to pull it into his mouth. He wanted to start there and work his way down. Now that he knew what kind of bra that she liked, he could imagine removing it and tasting... An image of Maddie in an utterly sexy red dress with her breast exposed ran through his brain, and he had to stop a groan. That dress! What was Maddie saying?
“The red dress from the other night,” Maddie laughed and shook her head. “I hope that she has better luck with it than I did.” He didn’t know about that. It hooked him on the line pretty quickly. Joe was in for a treat if Mary wore it.
“Maddie, don’t talk about the dress,” he told her. Talk about anything but that, his mind screamed. “Tell me about Kelly’s graduation.” He could not have cared less about the graduation, but a subject change was desperately needed. Anything would be good as long as it stopped him from thinking about sex.
“Oh, it was wonderful,” she smiled and began talking. He listened and ate his cake. Usually he liked chocolate cake with fudge frosting, but he didn’t taste it. His mouth was still filled with the taste of Maddie’s kiss. The subject change and cake helped his desire fade back into a small flame, however, and as he watched her, he could also see that she had needed it, too. That did wonders for his self-esteem. She wanted him just as much as he wanted her. Don’t go there, man.
He drank his coffee then asked her questions about school. She told him about the kids and the activities for the final few weeks. They would be let out for the summer the Friday after Memorial Day. After that, Maddie had two weeks to get her classroom ready for the summer school class that she was teaching three days a week.
They quickly got into a comfortable mode where the conversation wasn’t forced and they were no longer nervous. Soon Maddie had him laughing at another one of her stories. She would have been a good actress because she drew the listener into her stories with not only her words but also by the way her voice inflections and hand movements changed. That was one of the things he remembered about her. She was always so full of life that he had enjoyed being around her even though she had been a kid.
Kevin was always trying to ditch her, but he didn’t mind if she hung around. He thought that she was fascinating. Of course, Kevin didn’t like it that she was the best practical joker in the crazy Sullivan clan. She had some imagination. Since Kevin had a tendency to be too serious, she usually liked to target him and was able to get him good on several occasions. Rick remembered hearing about the camping gag to end all camping gags that Maddie pulled off. Somehow, she managed to move Kevin and Mark to the middle of the lake while her brothers were asleep. They climbed out of their tent and went straight into the water. She was the clever one, all right.
The clock chimed ten pm, and Rick was surprised by how much time had passed since he had arrived. He had been there for over an hour. It was starting to get late, and he had to work the next morning. So did Maddie for that matter. Reluctantly, he stood up and waited for her to stand up, too. She walked him to the door with her hand in his. When he looked down at her to tell her “goodnight,” she had that happy light in her eyes and a smile on her face. He felt like he was ten feet tall and bulletproof. She put her hand on his neck and pulled his head down for another kiss.
That kiss didn’t have the same urgency as the first kiss, yet it filled him with the desire to stay with her, nonetheless. After several small kisses that teased his senses, she pulled back and looked up at him with that dreamy expression that she would get when he kissed her. Then she snapped out of it, and when she did, he snapped out of it, too. What was he doing? He was giving her every indication that he wanted a relationship with her, and he wasn’t sure that a relationship would be a good thing.
“The dress! I need to get it,” she exclaimed then ran to her bedroom. While she was gone, he quickly ran through every reason why a relationship was a bad idea. He was still thinking of them all when she returned with the dress. “Here you go,” she told him when she handed it to him. He knew that she expected another kiss, but he couldn’t kiss her again. He was already in enough trouble. There was a confused expression on her face when he finally opened the door and walked out. Of all the ways to say goodbye to a woman whom he had been kissing just a minute earlier, but he had to do it.
He shook her hand.
* * * * *
The nightmare came again. Only this time it was different. This time he was looking down at himself like he was an observer to the drama that was playing out before him. This time he tried to save himself and the rest of the men from what he knew was coming. “Don’t go there! Don’t go down that road! It’s too dangerous,” he yelled at the driver. He wasn’t heard because the driver was listening to the sergeant yell out instructions. He yelled louder. If he yelled loud enough, maybe he would be heard. Maybe he would be able to stop what he knew was coming. “That path hasn’t been cleared of IEDs!” he tried again.
The driver didn’t hear him and turned down the road that had been reported as having been checked earlier in the day. Rick had told the sergeant that when they took off from the kill zone. That was what he had been told by the radio operator back at Camp Bastion, located in the southern Afghanistan province of Helmand. He could see the old deserted car, the one that was loaded down with explosives, in the road up ahead. Once again, he yelled at the driver, but he wasn’t heard.
He looked down at himself tending to a wounded man in back of the truck as they rode back to base. Their unit had come under attack in the hills just outside of a little village north of the base. That day, there was heavy fighting with the Taliban it seemed everywhere in the region. They were short-handed. A medevac chopper couldn’t fly in soon enough to fly the man out. They were all in use elsewhere. The only choice left to them was to load the wounded Marine into a truck and drive back to base.
He remembered what he was thinking as they drove back. He was praying that the man would hang on while he worked at stopping the blood that bled from a gunshot wound to the Marine’s femoral artery. He already had a tourniquet wrapped around the man’s upper leg and was applying pressure to the wound. It was only another few minutes before they would be back at the base. If he could get the man back in time, then the man might be saved. He could be airlifted out. Rick was doing all that he could to save the man.
“Hey, Doc. We’ll be there in ten minutes tops. How’s Kozlowski doing?” Sergeant Jackson yelled to the back of the truck where Rick was working on Lance Corporal Kozlowski. After Rick yelled Kozlowski’s status back to him, they hit a bump in the road that knocked Rick onto his rear and against the back lift gate. He dropped the bloody gauze that he was using to apply pressure on the wound onto the dirty truck bed and reached for clean gauze from him bag. His bag had slid into the back corner. It was while he was turned away and reaching for his bag that it happened.
The world exploded around him in an instant. Everything went white then began to fade to black. The pain was intense, and he cried out over and over again. He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t see. Then he heard it. He could hear barking. The Rick that was watching the drama play out knew that it was Harvey coming to wake him. The barking was next to his ear. Slowly, the haziness began to clear. Just before he was pulled from the dream, he looked down at himself, at the broken and bloody mess that he had become. But he had changed. With a start he opened his eyes and felt the tears burn a path down his face and into his hair. It wasn’t his face that he saw. It was Maddie’s.