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There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. -1 John 4:18 (NIV)
She didn't mean to slam the door when she went to return Keeper to Cap's apartment. She intended to slip in, leave the dog, grab her things and head back to her apartment. After all, it had been several days since she'd been there, since before the trip to New York.
I can't believe how much has happened in less than a week, she thought as she tiptoed across the kitchen to retrieve her purse. She glanced into the living room and noticed that Cap was asleep on the couch with the television blaring. No wonder he didn't hear the door slam.
She unhooked Keeper's leash but kept Glory on hers. Naturally, the Labrador bolted straight for his owner, covering his whiskery face with “I desperately missed you!” kisses. So much for slipping out unnoticed, Leah lamented as Cap sputtered and flailed in reaction to the big dog's gratuitous affections.
I just don't feel like talking about this right now, she thought. And I don't even want to know where he was when I got home earlier. I'm completely over this uncertainty, ambiguity, and guilt. She considered making a break for it while he was still in a semi-conscious state but she stood frozen in the kitchen as he lumbered toward her yawning.
“Where have you been?” he asked, his question barely coherent through an open-mouth stretched wide by his yawn.
“Um...taking the dogs on a walk?” she snapped back, pointing to the leash on Glory. “Where were you when I got home?”
His face contorted for a moment as if he was trying to decide how to answer but robotically slipping into what looked an awful lot like a lie in the meantime. The result was something like a used car salesman-ish smarmy, sheepish grin. You've got to be kidding me, she thought, her cheeks starting to flush with anger. She had her hand on her hip, gripping Glory's leash so tightly she thought she might melt through the material. She was giving him one minute to offer her a plausible explanation with an accompanying genuine expression before taking her dog and leaving.
“I have a surprise for you,” he finally said, his smile so wide that the dimples were out in full force.
It seemed like a stall tactic to her, a distraction from the real question. She knew her patience was wearing thin and her temper was about to take over. In a moment, every bit of red in her strawberry blonde hair was about to reflect in the fiery words her tongue would spew. “You didn't answer my question.” She paused for about three seconds as his dimples disappeared into oblivion. His face registered the realization that she was truly upset. “I asked you where you were. I have a feeling you were doing something I wouldn't like.”
He took a step back and Glory lurched toward him on her leash with a growl. Amazing! She's mad at him too! Leah smirked.
Glory's reaction sent Keeper dashing into the kitchen to see what the fuss was about. Suddenly the four of them were facing off, Cap looking defensive and Leah looking about to cry. Her nerves were completely shot from all the stress that had been heaped upon her throughout the day and this was the situation she had most wanted to avoid. And yet here I am in the thick of it. I just want to go home and sleep with my doggie in my own bed. She felt the anger evolve into despair in the blink of an eye, the rage melting into tears that began to stream down her face.
“What in the world is going on, Leah?” Cap asked, stepping toward her again and Glory moving out of his way without protestation. His eyes searched her face for answers and when he saw the tears, his arms stretched out, reaching for her.
She fell into them despite her determination not to. When she felt them wrap around her, she collapsed in heaving sobs against his shoulder. He pressed his lips to the top of her head and said nothing, just absorbed her tremors into his tall, strong body. Minutes later, her eyes drying and her throat finally opening back up to allow sound through, she pulled back and looked up at him. She could see that he was still confused about why they were in his kitchen with Glory still on her leash and her bawling into his chest.
“Are you fucking anyone else?” she asked in almost a whisper save for the emphasis on the hard consonant F.
“Oh my god, what?!” he laughed. “Are you serious?”
She straightened her back and looked him in the eyes. “Yes I'm serious. You're a swinger, Cap. You like to fuck multiple women. As far as I know, it's been months since you've been with anyone but me, and I need to know if that's true, if you're really following our agreement.” It didn't take long for her Angry Redhead Voice to return.
“What is our agreement exactly?” he asked with feigned innocence.
“Really?” Any evidence that she'd just been crying in his embrace had vanished into thin air. “I can't believe you are pretending you don't know what I'm talking about. So, who is it? Is it Rhonda? I bet it's Rhonda,” Leah threw out the accusation.
He put a heavy hand on her shoulder and leaned in close to her face. “I am not sleeping with anyone but you. And I believe our agreement was that we would only play together in the same room, am I right?”
She bristled at the weight of his hand on her. It feels patronizing, but maybe that is just the paranoia I've been feeling since Aimee asked me if he's been faithful. She studied his face: the clear teal-blue eyes with their long blonde lashes, the thick eyebrows that were just shy of being shaggy, and the square jaw carpeted with a thick mat of silver-streaked beard. She had looked at his face so many times now that she knew each expression it was capable of forming by heart. She had never questioned his honesty before now, and it made her wonder if he had a “lying” face. Would she be able to tell if he did? Was he showing it to her now?
“I don't know what to say,” she admitted quietly, wishing she could crawl through his ear and worm her way through his mind a bit to examine what was really happening in there.
“Did you really think I would cheat on you?” he asked, his voice filled with disappointment that she hadn't trusted him.
“I don't know,” she replied. “I don't know what I think anymore.”
“Come here,” Cap beckoned her. “I really do have a surprise for you. Will you go with me to see it?”
“I don't know, Cap, I've had a really awful day. I think I'm going to just go home and go to bed,” she sighed. Her skull was beginning to throb with the beginnings of a tension headache.
“What happened, Sugar? Why don't you tell me about it on the way there? Then when we get home, I'll draw you a hot bath and give you a nice massage. What do you say to that?” He smiled, dimples and teeth in full view. He reached out to grab her hand and pull her into his arms again. “I'll make it all better, Baby, I promise.”
She rested her cheek against his firm chest muscles and sighed again. Why does he make it so difficult? she wondered. He always knows exactly what to say. Next thing she knew, she was hoisting herself into the cab of his truck and he was whisking her across the inlet bridge toward West Ocean City and Berlin. They turned down Route 611 toward Assateague Island, and her heart began to pump faster when she remembered the metaphor she'd thought about earlier when she was walking the dogs. They headed south for a few miles; then he turned down a gravel road heading east back toward the ocean.
The gravel road wound around a bend of pine trees and then straightened into an empty field where a large, abandoned-looking building rose up from the earth. It was industrial looking, perhaps a warehouse, and the metal siding was faded around the place where a sign had announced the name of the business in days gone by. Leah looked over at Cap who was still beaming and shook her head. “Why are we here?”
“I bought this place,” he announced, his dimples at maximum depth. He sat in the truck staring at the building, his eyes afire with visions and ideas.
Leah opened her door and stepped out onto the sandy, weed-dotted soil. The first thing that came to her mind was a television series she'd watched on Netflix where the characters built a meth lab in a similar-looking structure. I pray to God that's not what's going on here! she mused, hoping that she would have discovered an illegal drug-manufacturing side of Cap before now, if it existed. Now that she had dismissed that wild and crazy idea, her only other thought was why? And she didn't even have to voice it. He could tell by the way her face was twisted with confusion that it was the one thing on her mind.
“I know it's not much to look at now, but picture this,” he spread his hands out as if making a frame around the building. “Looks like a warehouse from the outside, right? But we clean it up on the inside and build a bar and some rooms and voila, it's a swing club!”
“Really?” she looked back at him and then toward the building again. The excitement that Cap was radiating was beginning to seep into her pores as if it was contagious. But her body wanted to fight it off like a virus.
“Yes, really! Look, it's so out of the way back here on this gravel road, it will be discreet yet still close to OC so people vacationing at the beach can find it. There's plenty of parking. And wait till you hear the plans I have for the inside. It's going to be amazing!” He looked like a kid on Christmas morning, unwrapping the gift he'd impatiently anticipated all year long. He took her hand and pulled her toward the concrete slab and double glass doors at the entrance of the two story metal-sided building.
The doors were chained together and he wrestled with a huge ring full of keys to find the correct one to unlock them. He pulled off the chain and opened the right side door. “After you,” he offered as he ushered her into the lobby.
There was an office area on the left with large windows on each side. He flipped a light switch and three bare bulbs on the ceiling faintly illuminated the space. “This will be the reception area, where staff will take IDs and money.”
He led her down the hall where a square opening revealed the huge, open interior. “The sky's the limit in here,” he said, pulling a flashlight from his belt and waving it through the building. “I think the middle area will be a huge dance floor with a bar at that end. It'll be bring-your-own-booze, but you'll have to check them in with the bartender. That's pretty much standard procedure with the clubs I've been to. And then flanking both sides there will be a series of private playrooms. Oh!” he exclaimed, as if the ideas were flooding his mind so quickly, he couldn't get them out fast enough. “The name! The name kicks ass!”
“What's that?” Leah asked, her eyes adjusting to the dim light coming from the bulbs they'd illuminated in the foyer. She looked toward the ceiling as he shone the flashlight on exposed steel beams and huge pipes. “What did they do in here, anyway?”
“I was told they processed crabs back in the early part of the 1900's. Then after the crabbing industry started declining here, it was mainly used for boat and fishing equipment storage. That's how I found out about it. This old fisherman from here in Berlin who comes down to my shop every now and again told me that the owner had died and his son was trying to sell this place off. He'd had it on the market for about a year and was about to tear it down and try to sell the land to be developed for real estate. You know the real estate this close to the water is big fucking business. I've been negotiating for a couple months now and I had to move around some assets to make it all work. And I have a partner too. I didn't say anything to you or anyone else at her request. We both wanted to make sure it was going to work out. Well, today we met at the bank, signed the papers, and got the keys!”
“Partner?” Leah asked, her eyes wide.
“Casey Fontaine,” Cap revealed. “She's probably twice as excited as I am. It's about time Ocean City had its own club, that way we don't have to keep hosting stuff at local hotels where we have all these rules and we're tiptoeing around all the vanilla people, trying not to offend them all the time.”
Leah was still trying to process everything. Slowly the intricate details were being filtered through her mind and she began reconciling them with what had happened during her meeting with Barry earlier in the day. A web of ideas and emotions started to take shape within her cranium. If Casey's Group was no longer using The Pearl for their events and was using Cap's club instead, then there'd be much less risk to me professionally. We'd still be out the revenue from the parties but I'll just have to figure out a way to make it up...
“So the name,” Cap brought her back to the present. “The Factory. What do you think? We're going to keep the industrial look, all the exposed beams and pipes, just paint all of that dark, like a midnight blue, we're thinking, and the accent colors will be lime green and fuchsia. That's all Casey's idea of course. She's hired a contractor and we're going to meet out here on Monday to go over everything.”
She'd never seen him so impassioned about anything except perhaps when he spoke of his father or his daughters. Even in the dim lighting, he looked decades younger with his eyes lit up and the color rising to the surface of his cheeks. She was in awe of this side of him she had never before seen. He was usually so laid back and even-tempered, always going with the flow, projecting an easy, southern gentleman type of charm. Now he was borderline hyper, he was so animated. The energy radiated off him and bombarded Leah's exterior, only to bounce back to him with twice the force.
“You're not saying anything, Leah,” he finally remarked, his enthusiasm levels waning as his eyes swept her face looking for answers to why she wasn't equally enthralled by the new venture.
“I don't even know what to say. I'm happy for you, Cap, I really am,” she said stiffly. There was a chill in the unheated building and she felt it permeating her wool coat. She shivered then wrapped her arms under her chest and curled her fingers around the opposing elbows.
“Be happy for US,” he corrected, with emphasis on the pronoun, turning to her and prying her hands away from her folded arms. He gripped them in his own and yanked her so close to him that there was only an inch of space separating their bodies.
“What do you mean?” she questioned.
He squeezed her hands tightly into his. “This is for us, Leah. Casey and I want you to run this place. We want you to be the manager.”
She stepped back, an instant wave of vertigo twisting around her like a tornado. She watched his hands drop to his sides. “You want me to leave The Pearl and work for you?” she clarified.
He nodded. “Wouldn't it be great? You'd be perfect, absolutely perfect.”
“Cap...” Her mind was spinning so rapidly that she thought smoke would start puffing out her ears at any moment. “I...I don't know if I can do that.” So many questions and scenarios were jumbling up inside, her brain felt like a clogged drain. She couldn't choke anything out and the furiously flowing thoughts were backing up throughout her entire body, threatening to spring a leak.
“Why not? Casey adores you. I adore you. We are going to make a fucking killing, there's such a great opportunity here. The closest clubs are in Baltimore and DC, you know. People from Delmarva drive two or three hours to go. There's so many tourists in the summer and they end up meeting at someplace like Seacrets since there's no club here. That's why Casey's Group has taken off like it has; there's a real need for a local place for lifestyle people to congregate.”
Leah nodded. “I get that, and it does sound like a wonderful opportunity, but what do I tell my parents? What do I tell my friends? I can't exactly say I'm leaving this great job at The Pearl to run a swing club. I mean, really, Cap? Did you even consider that?”
She watched his excitement fade and frustration take its place. “We'll think of something else to tell them,” he suggested. “Where there's a will there's a way. And we're willing to make you an equal partner so you'll be sharing in all the profits even though you're not investing anything. And that's fine! We both want you to succeed, of course!”
“What about your fishing business and Casey's real estate job? How are you going to have time to do this too?” she asked.
“That's why we need you to handle all of the details. You'll need to hire an assistant and some security and a bartender. But we can get started with a pretty small staff, and it will only be on the weekends at least at first. Of course, we need to get all the renovations done first. But I want to open the doors to the public by the winter. When everything is dead in OC, we'll be having this ridiculous grand opening party here at The Factory!”
“Where is the capital coming from?” she questioned. She felt like she was shooting down every golden star of joy and hope he'd affixed in the sky. But someone has to be realistic, right? Someone has to play devil's advocate, she justified her reaction.
He scratched his head with disappointment and it seemed as though he was deflating before her very eyes. But he took in a deep breath of patience and explained, “Casey had some money left to her recently by a great aunt who passed away. And I sold my grandparents' farm in Pennsylvania. We have half a million in cash to get this thing off the ground. Plus I have some other assets I can liquidate if need be.”
Leah struggled to keep her mouth from gaping open at the idea of half a million dollars. I didn't even know his grandparents had a farm in Pennsylvania, she thought, suddenly sad that he gave up a property that may have been in his family for generations.
He watched her wrap her head around the staggering sum as she started to make mental calculations. But she was still frowning. “This is a lot to take in, Cap, especially after the day I've had. I just don't know how it will all work out. I have a lot of questions, you know? I don't like to jump into things without knowing where I'm going to land.”
He intertwined his hands with hers again. “I understand that, Sugar, I do. I am not asking you to decide tonight. Let's talk to Casey and you can come and meet with the contractor with us and we'll get all your questions answered, I promise.”
She turned and began to walk toward the front of the building, suddenly needing to fill her lungs with something other than the stale air that had been trapped inside those walls for years. She made her way through the lobby, her steps illuminated by the faint lights overhead. She nearly stumbled over a thick gray mat that was curled up against the threshold as she pushed her way out into the open air.
The night winds swirled around her but the cool crispness was welcome as she inflated her lungs, breathing in and out, in and out. She heard him locking the doors as she stepped further into the stubbly yard. The sky was pierced with tiny white stars, glittering through the clear and cloudless heavens. She recognized the constellation Orion, his belt gleaming with its trio of brilliant orbs. She felt Cap move in behind her, pressing his body against her back and bottom, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her toward him so they were sealed together. He rested his chin on her shoulder. “Leah, we can make this happen, I know we can.”
She whipped around to face him. “I don't know what we're doing here,” she admitted, realizing that all of her trepidation stemmed from that over-arching dilemma.
“What do you mean? I just told you about the club I want to build.”
“I mean us, Cap. I don't know what you and I are doing. Together.” I've only known him for three months, she thought, yet we sleep together every night and in some ways it feels like we are together, a couple. She considered those elusive, magical words that had not yet been uttered. Three magical words all in a line like those three stars in Orion's belt. Instead, the constellation hanging over us is a giant question mark. And the answer seems as far away as the stars.
“Leah, I want this for us. For our future. I want us to be together...to be partners in every sense of the word,” he said, his voice deep and husky as the words spilled out of his mouth with no hesitation.
“I don't know if you're ready for that so I've been trying to take it slow. You're so much younger than I am and you have your whole life stretched out in front of you. I don't know if you can see yourself heading toward the future with an old man like me, one with skeletons in the closet and so much goddamn experience I could write a fucking book.
“You know, after I got divorced, I was positive I wanted to be alone, you know, the single stud, notching my bedpost with all the lovely women that came to the beach to play. I didn't know women like you were out there. You're so smart and independent, and you have no clue how fucking sexy you are. The first time I saw you that night at The Pearl I wanted you. Yeah I wanted to put the notch in my bedpost, but then after that, there was so much I saw in you, so much substance, so much potential...I wanted more. I needed more. But I didn't want to scare you with that; I didn't want to chase you away.”
“Well, I'm still here, aren't I?” His speech made her eyes well up with tears, stinging and soothing all at once. These were words she didn't know he was capable of saying. She felt it from him, that their lives were growing into each other, but she didn't expect him to say it, to admit it. And still that elusive word hung in the air unsaid.
“I always feel like you're one step from running away. Like I've pushed you too far, too fast, and all I want to do is hold you and promise you that no matter what happens, I'll make it right,” he vowed. “But I'm afraid you won't let me.”
“I'm just scared, Cap, scared of trusting you, scared of trusting myself. I'm scared of all these thoughts and feelings that contradict everything I've always believed. I get so scared sometimes I think I have to escape. Even tonight when I was walking the dogs, I was planning my exit strategy, but you always pull me back in. You make me want to stay.”
“Do you love me?” he asked and for the second time of the day, the pivotal question was posed point-blank, no beating around the bushes, no euphemisms or skirting the issue.
She didn't answer at first, still as confused as when Aimee asked the question earlier over the phone. She'd searched her heart all afternoon and evening and she kept coming back to the fact that she did, but she shouldn't. Like Aimee had said, it was a matter of the heart, not the mind. My heart says yes and my mind says no, I can't, she surmised. Not that that is much of an answer. It's more of a contradiction.
“I do, Leah,” he confessed, feeling emboldened. He took a deep breath as if he'd been holding that inside way too long, then drew her body close to his so that the vapors formed from his breath as it struck the chill fell against her cheeks. “I've fallen in love with you. Leah. I didn't want to, I didn't think I needed to... But I did...and...”
“And what?” she asked when his voice trailed off into the dark winter night. Her heart was pounding at the utterance of that word, the word she kept trying on and taking off again like an outfit in a dressing room she liked but was too afraid to buy. She felt like he could probably hear her heart thundering against her ribcage.
“And I hope you feel it too,” he answered, more vulnerable than she'd ever heard him sound as his pitch raised and formed it into a question at the end.
She felt like the stars were swirling above her head in crazy elliptical orbits, but maybe it was just the dizziness she'd felt inside the building returning for an encore. Her thoughts were falling like bombs around her at the rate of a million hits per minute, but she felt a clear, ringing voice rise up from somewhere deep inside her to answer, someplace she had locked up years ago. She felt it pass over her vocal chords and through her lips like strands of silk being woven together, tumbling out into the cold night air in a misty vapor that wrapped around Cap's ears, and then his heart.
“I do feel it. I want to trust you, and I want to let my heart feel what it wants to feel, Cap. But I need your help. I need you to promise you'll always be honest with me, no matter what. That's the only thing I'll ever ask of you. Complete and total honesty. I've been lied to before and I just can't...I can't have it happen again. I'm still wounded even though years have passed now.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist, locking eyes with him and searching for a promise. “If I can trust you, I can love you. It's as simple as that.”
“You have my word,” he promised, pressing his lips against her forehead. “As well as my heart.”
She looked up at the sky and her gaze followed a line of stars pointing to the southeast where moonlit-crested waves were crashing upon the shores of Assateague's simple, natural beach. She thought about the relation of The Factory to Ocean City and the island, almost directly in between the two. The metaphor seemed too delicious to ignore. She glanced at Cap, then down to her feet as they pressed into the sandy soil.
Maybe there is a middle ground after all, she thought. Maybe I'm standing on it.
