Breaking Spades

by W. Ferraro

  Jarod looked at Dylan, annoyed with his last remark. Dylan smiled at Jarod’s reaction.

  “Look, Gates, I am plenty pissed off at you for what you did to CeCe all those years ago. If I had any idea then, you would not have needed the Marines, you would have needed a plastic surgeon. But, as my wife points out to me, it isn’t any of my business. However, I will tell you what I would never say to that little woman, I disagree. Whether you like it or not, CeCe is my business, she always will be. You can’t gorilla your way through this. Sometimes you have to love her enough to let her go.”

  “So you’re saying you would want her to marry that dickstick, Lowell?”

  “I’m saying I support CeCe. Whoever she chooses better take care of her, or they will have me to contend with.”

  Jarod looked to the man he had considered friend all those years ago, and knew Dylan was right. Without a word, Jarod left Dylan’s office, trying to ignore the pain in his leg that was threatening to buckle him. However, the more Jarod thought, perhaps this time the pain wasn’t coming from his leg, perhaps it was coming from his heart. When he reached his truck, he chastised himself for being such a pussy. He rubbed his thigh out of habit and punched the steering wheel. Doing the right thing was never his way ever since his mom died, and unless it was concerning CeCe, the right thing didn’t seem to hold much salt for him in adulthood, either.

  He would fight for her with the last bit of oxygen in his lungs. He can’t give up, if he lost her because he didn’t try everything he could to keep her, then this was all for nothing and that knowledge he refused to live with. In the end, he may have to live without her, but he’d be damned if it was because he was being noble, or some shit like that. His mind, body, and soul needed to fight until the very end, and by God, that is exactly what he would do.

  “Hello?” Jarod answered, out of breath, thanks to the mad dash he made from the shower to his phone.

  “Hi Jarod, it’s Natalie Cross. I hope you don’t mind me calling you. I got your number from Dylan’s phone.”

  “Is everything okay, Mrs. Cross?” Jarod asked, confused as to why she would be calling.

  “Come on, I told you not to call me that, the name is Natalie. Any ways, the reason I’m calling is I’ve decided to have some friends over to the house tonight for an impromptu dinner and drinks.”

  Jarod was beyond confused, “And?”

  Natalie laughed, “And I’d like to invite you to join us.”

  “I’m sorry ma’am, but I don’t understand.”

  “Hmm, you struck me as a smart guy, but okay, I’ll explain, I’m inviting you over to join us for some lasagna and beer. Or wine, if you’d prefer, but you don’t strike me as a wine guy. You are kind of like Dylan in that aspect, but I’m flexible.”

  Confusion continued to overtake Jarod’s brain, “Look Mrs. Cross—uh, I mean Natalie—I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t call you for your opinion. I’ll see you at six.”

  And then, Jarod heard the indication from his phone the call had been disconnected. There was no way he was going there, physically or figuratively.

  CeCe was confused at Natalie’s insistence of her getting the knock at the door, but she did it anyways. When she swung the heavy door open, her breath froze in her throat. The question stuck, unable to come out; thankfully, Jarod answered it for her.

  “I don’t know why I’m even here.”

  With perfect timing, Natalie and Mae both came up behind CeCe.

  “Because it would have been rude to blow off an invitation,” Natalie said as she opened the door farther, Mae took the box of chocolates and six-pack of beer from Jarod’s hand.

  Once he was ushered in the house, CeCe noticed a couple of things; she suddenly felt very warm, as she looked at his snug fitting jeans and broad shoulders in the white t-shirt he wore. The other was Dylan looked just as surprised as CeCe to see the newest arrival.

  After a quick look from his wife, Dylan showed complete class, and walked over and shook Jarod’s hand followed by the other males, Seth and Wes.

  With quick introductions to all the kids running about, and the teenagers that occupied the couches, Jarod’s attention was suddenly diverted to two very eager little bodies wanting a repeat performance of their last encounter.

  “Orsy! Orsy!” was yelled before each little girl jumped up and down trying to reach his back.

  CeCe found herself chuckling, as Jarod squatted down picking up one, and when her ride was over picking up the other.

  “Gibby um orsy, gibby um orsy!” Ria instructed as she kicked with all her might right into his sides, with cheers from her sister to keep going.

  Dylan caught CeCe watching Jarod willingly, and happily taking the twins abuse with a gooey look on her face. He said nothing, just lifted his eyebrow in question.

  The smile fell from her face, and CeCe rushed out of the room and into the kitchen where Natalie, Mae, and Lola were getting dinner ready.

  CeCe turned her head to make sure no one else would hear her before she unleashed on Natalie, the little plotter, “Real cute, Natalie! And just what are you doing inviting him over for dinner?”

  Natalie looked from Mae to Lola, Wes’ wife, who all suddenly had something to do, but were unable to hide the ear to ear smiles from their faces, before she responded, “I don’t know what you mean, we have enough food to feed an army, what’s one more? I thought he might be hungry.”

  Suddenly, the tomato Natalie was slicing for the salad needed all of her attention.

  “And what if I’d invited Derrick? Don’t you think that would have been awkward?” CeCe hissed, annoyed all her friends were finding humor in this.

  Natalie lifted her head, “Oh, and is he coming?”

  “No, I told you he had to fly to New York overnight. He will be back tomorrow,” CeCe said as she snagged a carrot from the enormous salad bowl.

  “Then I guess there is no need to worry about anyone feeling awkward.”

  With a groan of frustration, CeCe left the kitchen and returned to the living room to find Jarod on the floor brushing a doll’s hair with a twin on each leg, instructing him in the proper technique.

  CeCe took a seat on the couch closest to where the trio sat and asked, “So which princess do you have Jarod?”

  He looked to her with complete and utter terror etched on his face, and CeCe was unable to keep the glee off of hers. Cat, who sat closest to CeCe, looked to her, held up her doll and said, “Pweddy wike ou.” Her twin agreed, but went a step further, Ria put her hand on Jarod’s face pushing it so he also looked at CeCe when she said “ya pweddy wike ou.”

  Ria was not willing to move her little hand from his face until he agreed, “Yes, the dolls are pretty like her.”

  His words made each little girl happy as they turned their attention back to the princess program on the television, completely unaware of the adult gazes that were still glued to each other.

  Natalie announced dinner was ready and that the adults would be eating in the dining room, while the kids would be dining picnic style in the living room. By the time Jarod and CeCe reached the dining room, the only two seats still available were across from each other, much to CeCe’s delight, at the end of the table where Natalie and Mae sat.

  After a course of salad and lasagna, the conversation was dominated by the men discussing the upcoming New England Patriot’s team lineup; specifically, their need for improvement on special teams. The woman quickly became bored with the topic.

  “Your necklace is stunning, Cees. I first noticed that gorgeous piece when we were in Boston, but I just forgot to mention it. It is fabulous. I have the perfect pair of shoes it would go with.” Mae said as she took a sip of her wine.

  Natalie shook her head and laughed in mirth, “You and your shoes, Mae. I think you may need an intervention, my friend. But I think you are going to have to dream of borrowing another piece. I happen to know, for a fact, a certa
in software programmer dropped mega dough in Tiffany’s while in Manhattan recently. Besides, I haven’t seen it off of her neck since she got it, I’d say it is symbolic that CeCe may be off the market pretty soon.” Natalie sipped her own wine, before looking to her husband at the other end of the table.

  “Really?” Mae and Lola said in unison as CeCe’s face showed anything but joy, as her gaze looked toward Jarod’s face of stone.

  Abruptly, Jarod stood up, throwing his napkin on the table, “If you’ll excuse me,” he didn’t even wait for a response.

  CeCe looked to Natalie, furious, before she too got up and chased after Jarod.

  She caught up with him just as he was leaving through the front door.

  “Jarod! Jarod! Wait!” she followed him outside and down to the driveway.

  He stopped, but didn’t turn around to face her.

  “Look, I…” but whatever she was going to say died on her lips when he turned to face her.

  Jarod’s face was cold and void of emotion. He pointed his finger, jabbing it at her throat as he shouted, “What is that?”

  CeCe swallowed hard and remained mute.

  He repeated the question, with less volume, but somehow with more emotion.

  “What is what?” she asked, but she knew what he meant, as she wrapped her fingers around the circle.

  “Is it true?” he whispered.

  She looked at his eyes and they were no longer the deep vivid color they had been; they were almost gray, as if the color had been drained out of them, reflecting his mood. Her voice quaked as she spoke “Is what true?”

  “Did Fucktard give that to you?” Fury ripped the words from his throat, as she was sure the wind carried them down into the valley.

  Now it was time to get her own temper up, “Will you stop calling him that? He hasn’t done anything to you!”

  “No, he only sticks his dick into you! Answer the damn question, CeCe!”

  “Yes, Derrick bought this for me.” She ran her fingers along the cord suddenly wanting to rip it from her neck.

  “When did he give it to you?” he probed with a softer voice again, but he might have well been shouting as her bones rattled with each word.

  Nothing. She couldn’t speak. Her voice refused to tell him the truth. Or perhaps it was her heart that stopped the words from coming.

  “WHEN!?!”

  Dylan came out the house, but only got as far as the front porch, before Natalie called him back. He ignored his wife.

  “Cees, you okay?”

  CeCe turned her attention to Dylan and said, “Yes, D, I’m fine. I’ll be in in a moment.”

  Dylan looked to Jarod, who returned his dangerous gaze, and Dylan must have decided she was safe enough and he returned inside.

  CeCe looked back to Jarod and knew he deserved the truth, she released the cord and slipped her hands into her pockets, “The night he took me to Giovanni’s.”

  Jarod remained mute and she thought he actually wouldn’t say anything, and when he did, she wished her first thought was correct, “Every time I’ve fucked you, you’ve worn it. Why?”

  “It’s just a necklace, Gates!” she flung the words at him, wondering why she suddenly felt claustrophobic outside.

  “Is it? Or is it the reminder that I’ll never be the guy for you? The shield you needed to don, to drive that fact home?”

  She wanted to deny his accusation, but she couldn’t. Tears began to build in her eyes, but before they could make it past her lashes he continued.

  “And that is why you will never get it.”

  “Get what? What is ‘it’? If you have something to say, say it.” She pleaded for him to do so, but she was terrified what she would hear next.

  “If I have to say it, you don’t deserve it anyways.” He turned his back on her and began to walk to his truck.

  Panic built up in her, panic like nothing she has ever felt before; he was leaving. She chased after him, only stopping to speak angry, fear-filled words, “Jarod, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  He opened the door to his truck, but stopped before turning back to face her, he was calm and quiet and it scared her more than his fury. “I’m talking about love, Kitten. Of all the times I wanted to say those words, to officially say, I love you, I chose not to. Not because the moment was wrong, or I was afraid, but because I was sure I didn’t have to. I was so fucking sure you already knew I did, you have known for a long time.” He stared into her eyes as the tears began to fall down her cheeks, but even this unseen emotion in CeCe was not enough for him to hold his tongue, “I love you more than any man has loved any woman. My heart beats your name. My lungs take in oxygen for the soul purpose of loving you. My brain is wired to love you, and serve only you. But I guess that is my fault. And as sure as I am of my love for you, I’m sure of your love for me. You are just too damn chicken to think it, let alone say it. In order to let the thought to bounce around in your beautiful head means you have to tear down this stupid fucking wall you’ve built up.”

  This wasn’t a fight she would soon get over, this felt like the battle for her life, “I built that wall because of you! I can’t go through that again! You ripped my heart out, Jarod. How can you expect me to let you do it again?”

  His fury was back, and if she thought it was tangible before, how wrong she was.

  “You are forever going to throw that in my face! No matter what I do, what I show you, you will never get over it, will you?”

  “You enlisted!”

  “I enlisted because of you, dammit! You could destroy me; I knew it then, just like I know it now. Don’t ever think that was the easy thing to do because it wasn’t. It was the hardest!” It was Jarod’s turn to look away, and when he returned his gaze to hers, CeCe’s eyes weren’t the only ones with water in them, “You were so much better than me, even then. You had a light about you, and look at you now, I was right. You deserved a decent man, yet you wanted me. I couldn’t be selfish. I couldn’t think of only my wants, my dreams, I had to think of yours. If that meant leaving you, then that was what I had to do. But don’t ever think it was easy for me!”

  CeCe wrapped her arms around her middle, suddenly feeling she needed to hold herself together.

  “But you know what? What you’ve been trying to drill into me has finally sunk in, and this was the last nail in my coffin. You want me gone? Well, Kitten, I’m gone. But not because you pushed me away, get that through your thick skull, right now. It’s because I love you more than I appreciate and value my own sanity. I was driven mad when I came back from war, and I’m willingly going back to that terrifying and crippling place because of my love for you. So when you are off living the lie that you are trying to tell yourself is your happy wanted life, know that I went to hell, just like I would go to the ends of the Earth for you. Everything is because of you, and will always be.”

  He hopped in his truck and peeled out backwards. CeCe tried to chase after him, “Jarod! Jarod! Gates! GATES!” But suddenly, she couldn’t talk any more; the tears were falling too hard. He was gone, was along with her convictions that she knew what the hell she was doing.

  Dylan watched out the open door as CeCe’s mustang pulled out of sight, when he turned away, the twins were playing quietly on the living room floor and Natalie was in the kitchen. He walked in the kitchen and she was at the sink doing dishes. He stepped up to his wife, wrapped his hands around her waist, and whispered in her ear, “Well, that kind of blew up in your face, babe.”

  Natalie turned to face her husband, wrapping her arms around his neck before responding, “I don’t think it did at all.”

  “She only finally dried her tears, Natalie. Whatever he said to her, hurt her like I’ve only ever seen her once before. Whatever you were trying to prove by inviting him here, didn’t happen.”

  “Yes, it did. You just don’t want to admit it. CeCe needed to see with her own eyes what the rest of us have seen every time those two are within a mile of each other.
”

  “Oh yeah, and what is that?”

  “They belong together. They are voltaic—they feed off each other. As individuals they are powerful, but put them together and their potential has no limits or bounds, just the ability to make something beautiful, and once in a lifetime. It really is quite romantic.”

  Dylan looked at his wife, bewildered.

  “And besides, CeCe helped me see that the best thing in my life was listening to my heart, and ignoring the fear. The least I can do is return the favor.”

  “You know, babe, you brought such light to my life,” Dylan whispered against his wife’s lips.

  “Only because you taught me where the switch was.” And then Natalie did what she would never get sick of doing: she kissed her husband.

  By the time CeCe pulled into her apartment complex’s lot, her eyes were so puffy they threatened to swell shut. She had tried Jarod’s cell so many times, but it went directly to voicemail. She tried one more time, but this time when it went to voicemail she didn’t hang up right away, she listened to his deep voice, afraid he was truthful in his threat that he was gone.

  When she hit disconnect, new tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over, pooling onto her already wet chest, where all the other tears landed. How could she screw everything up so badly? She replayed their fight, over and over again, in her head. Everything he said was true; every word about her wall was completely accurate. He said he loved her, but she was convinced he hated her more. Could she blame him? This was all her doing. Her entire adult life, every aspect of it she said who, she said what, all for the purpose to shelter herself, and she was okay with the lies she convinced herself were truths. Natalie was right, she chose easy and unattached to protect herself against being hurt, but really what she was doing was hurting herself by denying the biggest truth of all: she didn’t want this type of life.

  Looking at her phone on the passenger seat, she knew it was futile to call him again, he wouldn’t answer, and he wouldn’t return the call. Not that she could say anything to him if he did, she didn’t know what to say, but at least if he was in front of her he wouldn’t be gone. Gone meant time’s up. Gone was decisive. Gone was final. She needed a hot shower and as many bottles of wine as she could consume, but this time, when the numbness took over, there would be no blue eyes to bring the feeling back into her.