My palms show my nervousness. Exiting the steel elevator, I enter the twenty-third floor of the building Aidan sent me the address of, a chilled bottle of Chenin Blanc and French pastries in hand. It may be a bit too much, to come baring gifts, but it's better than showing up empty-handed.
Since his location wasn't far from my own apartment, I made the decision to walk, judging that my weary legs needed the exercise. A French bistro was on the way, the window full of gorgeous cakes and tarts. The wine was a necessity, a tension-breaker I'm sure will be needed.
It's no surprise that his building was one of the better ones in downtown Seattle, having done my own secret research on him. His inheritance is a subject mentioned often in articles previously written about him, an unfair punch line usually added beside his impressive collections of shots. There was a file in my drawer, most likely conjured up pre-romance. It contained vague details of his life.
His parent's car crash.
His wife and child's unfortunate accident.
The immense fortune and estate left to him by his senator father. The vast collection of antiques and artworks that were collected by his mother. Stocks that have accumulated triple, quadruple their initial worth over the years...and he still has presence in the stock market.
His door is tucked at the dead end of the hallway, a wall of glass displaying some gorgeous views of the city. I double check to ensure I'm not knocking on the wrong door at nine o'clock at night, and when I'm reassured I'm where I should be, I do the deed, stiffening for bravery.
He's just a man. He's just a man. Don't think about what he knows, what you don't.
Just get to know him.
The door opens and he's there, dressed in dark jeans and a black v-cut sweater, sleeves pushed up his forearms. Aidan exhales at the sight of me, as if he'd not expected that I'd actually show. I'm slightly more formal, dressed in what I wore at work—a creamy mini dress and flats—a thin jacket draped over it to block out the low temperatures of the night. My legs are frozen.
I've run out of openers, struck silent, my palms so clammy that my grip tightens on the items I've brought so I won't drop them. Some of his hair is tucked back behind his ear, simply, the other side hanging in silky waves to the nape of his neck.
"Hi," he murmurs, stepping back so I can pass through into the apartment. Admittedly, I hesitate in the threshold, unsure as to what I'm doing, why I've invited myself over here, but it's too late for second-guessing.
He shuts the door behind me, and I thrust the gifts into his hands, neurotically.
"I brought some pastries, some wine."
He smiles, clearly amused by the action, mortifying me even further, which until now I hadn't thought was possible. I dedicate my attention to other things—his apartment, for one. I stop in the middle of the very spacious living room with a nicer view of the city than my own has, and my first coherent statement of the night arises.
"You have no furniture," I say, curiously. It's not completely true. There's a couch, one couch. A fireplace built into the wall, burning bright. There's a coffee table with a lamp on it. Other than that, his apartment seems barren, unlivable.
"I only really need the bedroom. I'm never in the apartment."
"Where are you then? What do you do?"
"I'm working."
I turn, watching him set down the bag and wine into the kitchen, which is visible by a divider.
"Working? Photography? I thought you didn't do that anymore?"
He hasn't released a shot in years.
"Not photography," he says, removing the cork from the wine bottle with a bubbly pop. "I'm working for the city, in Government relations."
"Oh, the government?"
"Yes."
"Sounds boring compared to what you used to do."
"It's just...something to do."
"And it pays well, I bet."
He breathes in, pouring the white wine into glasses. "After the Pentagon, I was taken into questioning, a few times. My, well, Nora's father, he informed me of the position, knowing I was in town and qualified."
"Over qualified, no doubt."
He smirks, glancing at me through the barrier. "What makes you say that?"
"I can tell you're brilliant."
"Far from it, but thank you." He disappears for a moment as he cuts the corner, holding our glasses. "It's not forever. I'm under no contract."
"Good. Your work is too impressive to give up on."
He chuckles, darkly. "I have no desire to go anywhere near disasters...for a long time to come."
"There are other subjects in the world with meaning," I press.
"I suppose so." He sets down his glass, holding out his hands for my coat. "I can get that."
I hadn't realized I was still wearing it. With a shrug, it's off and in his hands. We both move further into the apartment, where the fire has warmed the room the most.
"I...I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't even know what to say," I confess.
"You don't have to say anything. You can just be here."
I smile, sitting down onto the couch. "Yes, but I also have many questions, one's I've been trying not to ask."
"I see." He glances back to the kitchen. "I'm guessing we'll need the whole bottle of wine then."
"Mm, I think so."
While he's gone to retrieve it, I glance down at my phone while it buzzes, seeing Bradley's name on the screen. I sigh, rejecting it when I notice Aidan approaching again. He sets down the bottle, taking a seat a good deal away from me on the couch.
With no furniture to take up any space, my voice echoes around us. "Um, where should I start?"
My phone buzzes again in my lap, and I make a noise of reluctance, quickly tucking it away into my purse.
"Matthew surely isn't still working at this hour," he says, smiling at my frustration.
"It's not Matthew," I grumble, setting my things down on the floor beside the couch. When I finally look at him, forcing myself not to flush under the circumstances, I think I've succeeded until his smile fades slowly as it dawns on him who I'm speaking of.
"He's been around a lot then?"
"He's...trying to be."
"Of course he is," he says, flatly. There's no hint of frustration in his voice, but I know it's there. I can't help but know it's there. I stare at him, silently, holding onto the thin stem of the glass.
"You know, I do know who he is. I haven't lost the ability to decipher things for myself."
"And who is he? To you?"
"A man who doesn't like to lose. A man who thinks of himself with high regard. A persistent man who doesn't know when to stop." I shrug, looking down into my drink. "A man who thought he was going to marry me, and hasn't accepted my distance."
"Mm."
"Who is he to you?"
"I...really don't want to say."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want to be the person who tries to pin you against him to get ahead. I don't want to be that guy."
"To get ahead?"
He looks at me pointedly. "You know what I mean."
"Samantha's on your side. She lost it on him today, completely unraveled him."
"Somehow, she likes me."
"And she used to like him, quite a bit, so I'm thinking I'm missing a lot here."
He stares at me, just stares long enough that I look away, swallowing my unease.
"Bradley does love you. He does...I'll give him that. I think everyone you meet falls in love with you." He chuckles, softly. "But he loves the version of you he's puzzled together in his mind, the version of you ten years from now, and I'm sure it's not the same person you've envisioned for yourself."
He shakes his head to himself, sighing. "I think he'd force new dreams upon you. I think Bradley would change you, if you let him."
"And you wouldn't?"
"No."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I fell in love with your stubbornness, your love of who you are...You never hid from me, Jo. Right from the start, you were all in."
I don't know why that makes me want to cry. Maybe it's for him, maybe its embarrassment. Embarrassment because it's been three months and I'm still sitting beside a stranger who has the knowledge that once, I fell in love with him in just days.
"You must really hate me sometimes."
"Hate?" he regards me like I've finally done it. I've gone crazy. "Josephine, you saved my life. I owe everything to you."
It's daunting how quickly my heart has catapulted to my feet. I can't tell if it's in a good way or a really bad way. He leans down, setting down his glass on the floor, and scoots closer to me, his expression disbelieving.
"I was...at the end when you met me. Just months before, I'd tried to end it all," he says passionately, and my eyes flicker over to his wrists. "I did that to myself because I couldn't stand my life. I'd lost everyone I ever loved. Each morning was dark, regardless of the weather. You...you brought me back."
I cannot fathom it, but the truth, the passion in his voice touches me beyond words. I cannot stop myself. I reach out and graze the scars again, like I did the other day, but now there's no one to interrupt. I feel his gaze on me while my own remains on his scarred skin.
"You've known more pain than most...it is in your eyes," I whisper, checking to make sure my words still hold true. What I see is far more than sadness—a hidden depth that he's unlocked, a depth people rarely get to experience, let alone live in.
I could ask him what happened to them. I probably knew once.
But we're sitting here, not even ten minutes since I walked through the door, and I'm touching him. I'm drawn to him. Distance is imperative, if I'm going to keep a clear head.
This isn't a man you jump into bed with. This isn't a circumstance that's easy.
His feelings are deeper than mine, and I need to be careful.
I let him go and slink off the couch, moving onto my feet, forcing a boundary, even if it makes me seem insensitive.
"Josephine, ask me whatever you need to. I'll tell you the truth," he says behind me, softly.
Despite the flourished drama, the lies that surround me daily, people taking advantage of my impairment, like Bradley, I don't expect that from Hughes.
"The Pentagon. I need to know what happened."
"There's a good deal of it that I don't know about. It's something I may never know."
"Why?"
"We were waiting for the Lieutenant that arranged for us to be there, who was in a meeting. You left to go to the bathroom, and never came back. When I noticed you'd been gone long enough to concern me, I went looking for you. I found a body, the body of an officer, in the corridor...The alarms started to sound. I searched everywhere, only to find you, crying in a hallway on the ground."
Christ. "I didn't tell you what happened?"
"There was no time. We were running when the explosions began detonating." He grabs his drink from the floor, and brings it to his mouth, taking a needed gulp. I shake my head in disbelief, trying to imagine something like that. I went through something that traumatic, and have no recollection, no PTSD.
I wonder if he does.
"We made it through the doors with a large group of others. We were on the steps when a bomb detonated behind us." He runs a hand through his hair, grimacing. "I have no idea how I was brought to the hospital. I just woke up in a room. I...was sure you were dead."
He swallows and stands up too, needing to walk around. I watch him, dread seeping through my skin.
"It wasn't until Samantha located me that she informed me you were, in fact, alive, but induced into a coma when you started to flat line during surgery...a-and the rest you know."
"Where are you hurt?" I ask.
He's facing the window. "I'm not hurt anymore."
"But where?"
"Burns...and scarring in various places, mostly my chest, shoulder and back," he says, reluctantly.
"Bad?"
"It could have been worse."
He doesn't want to tell me, and I don't blame him. This conversation is taking a dark turn. As much as I'd like to move on, my determination to recover as much information about that day is strong.
"The Lieutenant?"
"Dead. I heard the room where the meeting was being held was the first detonation...a suicide bomber."
A bombing...a fucking bombing.
I've remained detached from the origin, from the day that's made me lose so much. I've done a lot of things in my life, but I cannot imagine this. To see one of the most famous, most heavily secured places in the United States under siege, innocent lives ending...
It's hitting now.
We were there, together. He knows what I said that day, what I did, how I reacted to it all. He's holding back, maybe to spare me the nightmare of it all. My impairment made questioning, made any interrogations I should have performed moot. With no recollection, I was useless. Aidan took on that burden.
I swallow what little pride I have remaining, crossing my arms over my chest as the temperature in the room drops drastically. I'm not prepared to hear the answer to my next question, but it must be said.
"Did...Did I make you go?"
"It was my choice," he replies, his back still to me. I stare at his rigidness. For the first time since I've met him, I can sense the lie.
"Tell me the truth. I need it."
"I wouldn't let you go alone." He inhales, crossing his arms as well as the chill transfers from me to him. He turns, gazing at me softly. "You left, I followed."
My skin crawls with shame, with resentment and regret. There is no reply, no apology that could ever erase the harm my persistence caused. I don't know why I allowed him to come with me, but I shouldn't have let it happen.
All of this shouldn't have happened.
I shouldn't have allowed it.
"I-I need to leave," I announce, choking on my own words. I can't get to my things fast enough. He's bent beside me before I've even lifted my bag. He grabs my hand.
"Josephine, stop."
I look at him, hardly seeing him past the tears. I want to beg him for forgiveness. "I'm so sorry."
They overflow and gush rapidly, releasing onto my cheeks as I take in the scars he's acquired...really take them in. The one near the corner of his eye that was stitched. The ones on his hands which haven't faded, like mine. Because he's bent to his knees and reaching to touch me, my eyes are able to zero in on the marred skin that's visible beneath the material, a result of immense heat—fire.
"I did this to you."
He exhales, gaping. "No, I swear, you didn't."
I pull myself away from him and back onto my feet, walking—no, running—for my coat.
"I know it's hard to process this—"
"No, it's not hard. It's fucking unimaginable. You've gone through so much already and I just...I added...I'm adding onto it."
"You'll only be adding onto it if you leave for this. This, out of all damn things. I made the decision to follow you. You didn't ask—I went willingly, to be near you, to protect you!" He scoffs, standing in the middle of his very empty living room. "And I didn't do that! That was the sole reason why I went, and I failed, once again! I let you out of my sight, just like them. So, the guilt goes both ways, Josephine!"
I'm opening the door when he comes up behind me, and lays his hand upon it, shutting it gently, forbidding me from leaving. Reveling in my own self-pity, in the faults now laid against me that come with the truth, I stare at the door, finding it difficult to breathe.
"If I could, I'd change everything, every wrong move I took with you," he whispers, hastily. "But I can't. I can't. This is the reality, and I knew the risks we were taking, the risks I was taking loving someone like you." His hand drifts down along the doorframe and over my own fingers. He entwines them, cautiously. "If I had the choice again, knowing what I know now, knowing what we'd go through, I'd still go with you."
"How?" I breathe, horrified. "How can you say you'd actually go through that hell again?"
"Hell doesn't scare me, Josephine," he says, softly. "I'd go there...and beyond to be with you."
It's like a gut-punch, one that has the power to make me keel over in despair.
Did I love him like this? Did I really give myself to him like this, to warrant this kind of devotion?
As terrified as I am by the strength and dark depths his words reach, they do stop me from leaving. They stop me in my tracks, and make me turn my head to look at him.
I don't know how I ever deserved someone to love me like this.
He stares at me, his gray stormy irises sweeping over my face intensely.
He's not expecting a reply, and I have none to give. He looks down only to recover himself, to calm himself down, and then looks at me again, revealing much less than he was before.
"Stay," he whispers, and my gaze falters. His brows furrow, with determination. "Stay here. Nothing needs to happen. I can take the couch...just don't go."
To stay means to give him hope, hope that I'll reach the point of where he is. To stay means that I'm risking inflicting more pain onto him, which is an unbearable thought.
But I can't go.
I can't.
His fingers leave mine, and very carefully, he grazes the slope of my face, the soft curve of my cheek so gently.
"Stay with me."
I'm losing myself, here, in this apartment. I'm absolutely terrified.
"Yes," I finally breathe.