by Julia London
There was, however, one tiny-teeny flaw in that hunk-a-hunk of burning love: He didn’t talk. He just stared at her as though she were the one with the hunchback. Apparently, he was the kind of writer who sat hunched over a computer all day and didn’t actually talk to people.
Unfortunately, his reticence to engage in conversation brought out her uneasiness. Whitney was the sort to talk when she was nervous. A lot. It was as if her tongue had a mind of its own, was determined to find a way to make her funny, delightful, and charming—even if it killed her and everyone else in the room. Why was it some people could charm at the drop of the hat, and people like her had to search around for it like a blind man searching for a door in an unfamiliar room?
Her Uber arrived three blocks down from where the march was happening. Whitney shoved her things into the backseat and climbed inside as her phone began to ring. “Have I missed surge pricing?” she asked the driver hopefully, digging into her tote to find the phone.
“Nope,” he said. “Pioneer Square?”
“Pioneer Square,” she confirmed, and fished her phone out of her tote bag and looked at the display. She groaned, then reluctantly slid the phone open. “Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, honey! Where are you?”
“In a car. I’ve only got a couple of minutes.”
“It’ll take twenty,” the driver said.
Whitney glared at the back of his head. Okay, so she lied to her mother. But conversations with her mother had been excruciating lately.
“Where are you headed? To dinner with friends, I hope.”
Her mother was obsessed lately with Whitney’s lack of a girl gang. “Actually, I’m going to meet my realtor to look at a property, and then we’re going for drinks.”
“That’s nice. Is it…never mind,” her mother said.
“Why? What were you going to say?”
“Nothing. I don’t want to upset you,” her mother said soothingly.
“What, Mom?”
“I was going to ask if this property is more affordable than the last one. Your father says real estate is overpriced in Seattle. Honestly, sweetie, I don’t know why you had to go there. You could have made your pies here.”
She had to go there because her father was in Orange County. They weren’t exactly on the same page, and Whitney had figured if she was ever going to make a go of “making pies,” she needed to do it without him breathing down her neck. She’d chosen Seattle after researching the market for coffee shops and bakeries. Seattle was a thriving city with a strong millennial population, and millennials loved their coffee and sweets. “I didn’t know Dad was so familiar with real estate prices in Seattle.”
“See? You’re upset.”
“I’m not…” Whitney paused and drew a breath. She could imagine her mother standing in the kitchen, her slender body dressed in fashionable yoga-wear, one foot propped against an inner thigh in a tree pose.
“Your father and I just want what is best for you, Whitney. We want our children to excel in life and be happy.”
“In a way you deem appropriate,” Whitney wearily reminded her. They’d had this conversation a thousand times.
“In a way that is perhaps a little more substantial and rewarding than your cupcake fantasy, sweetie.”
This was the thing that made her insane. To the Baldwins of Orange County, a desire to own a bakery was not a suitably lofty goal. That was something that lesser people did. Baldwins were lawyers, like her father and older sister, Taylor, or doctors, like her brother Cameron. “It’s not a fantasy, Mom. I’m here. I have a business plan that you and Dad both agreed was a good one. I’m trying to excel and achieve and be happy in a way that I think is best for me.”
“We are all very proud of you, Whitney.”
She wished she had a knife she could plunge into the headrest in front of her. They were not proud of her. What they wanted was for Whitney to be a lawyer, to join Dad and Taylor in the family law firm. Or, she could be a heart doctor, like Cameron. Dad had been laying out her path all her life: for example, she had to take ballet lessons because elegant little girls become elegant socialites. She had to join the Young Republicans because the Baldwins were patrons of the Republican Party, whether that aligned with her beliefs or not.
She’d hated those things and more. She was not elegant like a ballerina—anyone who took a look at her generous butt and sturdy legs could see that. She was not the least bit political, and never had a clue what anyone was talking about when she had to attend those dinners with her parents. And still, Whitney had played along, because Taylor and Cameron had before her, and because she thought that’s what she was supposed to do. She went to law school, and a month after her last exam, when she was studying for the bar, she realized just how much she hated law. Hated it. And if she didn’t cut bait then and there, she’d be stuck practicing law for the rest of her life.
When she announced what she really wanted to do, the thing for which she had a true passion, her father said she’d be the laughingstock of the family. He warned her that he would not bankroll this ridiculous dream, and that without his considerable resources, she’d never make it.
He was right in a way—Whitney would never make it with his shadow looming over her. So, she’d done her research, packed up her life, taken her inheritance from her grandmother and headed for Seattle. So far, things weren’t working out as she’d hoped, exactly, but she was out from under her parents’ negativity and their lack of confidence in her.
“You know what, Mom?” Whitney said. “I’ll call you later. I’m trying to juggle a few things here and really don’t have time to talk.”
“Whitney, don’t hang up mad. I didn’t mean anything—”
“Yep, I know,” she said curtly. Of course her mother meant something—she always did. “It’s just that I’m super busy.”
“Well…okay. But please call when you have time. I miss talking to you!”
Whitney would enjoy talking to her mother much more when she had her bakery up and running. But for now, she said good-bye.
Yeah, things weren’t going as exactly as she’d hoped. She made peanuts at the Dinner Magic job, couldn’t sell her baked goods to coffee shops or grocery stores until she had a kitchen that the health department would okay, and the days were ticking by. She wasn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet, but if something didn’t break soon, she didn’t know what she’d do.
She tossed her phone in her bag and looked out the window. Her mind drifted back to Jack Carter. She’d much rather think of him than her own boring issues. How was it that a handsome guy like that was tucked away in a room with a computer? How was it that a man who, by all rights, would have women fawning over him, could be so awkward? He was curious to her, a puzzle to be solved.
She was going to stop complaining to the scheduler about him, because she suddenly wanted to know what made a guy like him tick.
Five
In his bi-weekly Skype session, Dr. Pratt had asked Jack whether he thought he might develop a friendship with his chef.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jack asked. “And she’s not a chef. She’s a baker.” He thought about that a moment. “Maybe a cook. I don’t know. But not a chef.” He was a little fuzzy on the details because as she’d been talking, he’d been ogling her.
“I think you are familiar with the concept of friends?” Dr. Pratt asked. “Let me ask it another way,” she’d continued with the patience of a grandmother. “Is she someone you’d like to talk to? Because this is a perfect opportunity to explore the anxieties you feel around others. Your apartment is a safe environment. You’ve determined the meal service is safe. The contact is for a short duration. When she comes back for salmon night, you might ask her what she likes to read.”
Jack was mildly alarmed that Dr. Pratt knew Wednesday nights were when he had the salmon and zucchini dish. But never mind that—he hadn’t been struggling with this weird anxiety for so long that he didn’t know that reading was
not how you started a conversation with an attractive woman. “Maybe.” He shrugged, his gaze on his leg.
“Many women are readers,” Dr. Pratt said. “It’s not a silly question.”
He remembered Whitney had said she was a big reader. He looked up from the study of his bare knee and eyed Dr. Pratt on his computer screen, thinking.
“Try it and see where the conversation leads you. The idea, of course, is to carry on a conversation without worrying about the interaction itself. And if you get to know her a little better, you will feel more comfortable.”
Jack was beginning to despair that he would ever feel more comfortable about anything.
“You feel easy with Rain,” she said.
How did Dr. Pratt always read him so well? “Well, yeah,” he said. “But I know Rain. He’s one of us.”
“Maybe she’s one of us, too,” Dr. Pratt said.
No. Whitney Baldwin was not a soldier. He was fairly certain of that.
“Let’s aim for a goal of two friends around whom you feel comfortable, okay?” She smiled.
Jack rolled his eyes. “I know what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?”
“You’re trying to make it sound like I’m not bat shit crazy.”
“You’re not crazy, Jack. You have an anxiety disorder. It’s not uncommon, particularly after such a traumatic—”
“Yeah, okay, all right.” He cut her off before she could say it. “I will ask her what she likes to read.”
Dr. Pratt was silent for a moment. “Great,” she said. “I look forward to hearing about it when next we speak.”
Not great. I will have completely botched it by then.
He ended the session and sat back, thinking about what she’d said. How was this him? How had the guy once known as Romeo gone from living his life to slowly letting fear consume him? It had crept up on him—he didn’t really know how it happened, or when exactly he’d shut the door on his life, because it had happened gradually. He didn’t know how he’d come to accept that he needed help, either—real help, and not the online chat rooms with other vets he was lurking in, or herbal supplements he was taking. He’d been seeing Dr. Pratt since early summer at the behest of his sister, after he’d had a panic attack in a department store. He’d gotten turned around in the maze of displays and couldn’t see the exit. He’d caused a scene; the police and store security had been called, and he’d been forced to acknowledge that this thing in him was growing like a beast and consuming him.
In some ways, his bi-weekly sessions with her were great, and made him look at situations differently than his brain wanted to. But sometimes he wondered whether Dr. Pratt was really helping, because look at him—he couldn’t even talk to a woman.
That woman would be here at four o’clock today to sear his salmon and sauté his zucchini.
Jack thought about what Dr. Pratt had said. He thought about it all day, even practiced having a conversation in his bathroom mirror. “So…what kind of books do you like to read?” He sighed. “Dude—you sound like some creepy stalker in a library.” He studied himself. “Hey, have you read The Hunt for Red October? No? Jesus,” he muttered to himself. He sounded ridiculous.
Nevertheless, he showered and shaved, and put on a collared shirt, and pulled his hair back into a ponytail. He was not a trendy hipster, and he didn’t generally wear his hair this long. But getting to a barber was impossible for someone with his disorder—God, how he hated the word—and he’d put off finding one who would come to his house and cut it for him. Like everything else, he worried who the person would be, what he’d say, and so forth. His head was a vicious, hard place to be.
At half past three, his phone rattled in his pocket. He was expecting a call from a source for an article he was writing about negligent care at a local veteran’s health clinic. He dug the phone out of his pocket, but before he could answer, someone or something knocked on his door.
Jack’s heart surged to his throat. It was too early for his dinner delivery. Frank wouldn’t let anyone up without telling him. He quickly silenced the phone and put his back against his office wall. Sweat began to bead on his forehead as he tried to think logically.
The door clicked. Buster began to bark as the door swung open. Jack’s heart pounded so hard now he thought he would faint. He looked wildly about for a weapon—he always looked around for a weapon he did not keep for fear of actually using—
“Jack! Where are—dammit, Buster, you almost made me fall!”
Jack released his breath. He stared at the ceiling a moment, willing his heart to a normal beat. He dug the phone out of his pocket and looked at the display. Yep, that was his source, all right. “Thanks a lot, Christie!” he shouted at his sister. He dragged his wrist across his damp forehead.
“What?” Her curly blonde head appeared in the doorway of his office, Buster beside her, wagging his tail and looking up at her with very soulful eyes.
“You startled me and I missed an important call.”
She rolled her eyes and stepped inside. She wore jeans with holes in the knees, a snowy-white boyfriend shirt, and red Converse sneakers. “It smells like unwashed bodies in here, Jack. Can’t you open a window or something?”
“No.”
She walked over to his U-shaped desk, where he had two computer monitors—one for work, the other for gaming and video streaming. His desk was neat—the papers stacked in an inbox, the pens in a holder. He wasn’t a freak about it, but if he kept everything in the same place, he didn’t have to worry about losing it. Or that someone had moved it. Strange how these things had never occurred to him Before Afghanistan and now kept him up at night.
“Who would be calling? I thought you were down to contact with your shrink, your editor, and your dog walker.”
He shot her a look. “I talk to the guys,” he said defensively, referring to his childhood friends—Ryder, Noah, Wyatt, Zane, Adam, and Ford. Except that he hadn’t talked to them but once, by phone, since he’d ditched Ryder on Founders’ Day. And Noah, who called to tell him his cousin Lainey, who was one of Jack’s first loves, was really sick. “And I really needed to take that call,” he said.
“Call ’em back. I’m not stopping you.”
He gave his sister a look that clearly conveyed he would drop-kick her across the room if she didn’t cut it out. She returned his look with one challenging him to try.
Christie was the one person on earth who knew what he was dealing with. She lived way up at North Beach, and didn’t come downtown often. Usually, she called him to harass him.
“Why are you here, again?” he asked.
“That is not a nice way to greet your sister,” she said pertly, and sauntered across the room to him, rising up on her toes and kissing him on the cheek. “I was forced to come because you won’t answer the phone half the time, and you haven’t been to see your mother in weeks. You know she’s afraid of driving and can’t come here.”
In Christie’s book, their mother was allowed all the anxieties in the world. She’d had them all their lives. Anxieties he hadn’t really noticed until he started experiencing them himself. But Christie didn’t cut him the same slack—nope, he was an ex-Marine and should be able to muscle through. She was the one who’d found Dr. Pratt. She and her fiancé, Chet, were even paying Dr. Pratt, because Christie didn’t trust him to keep up the sessions if she didn’t. She knew her brother well.
“Do you have anything to eat?” She sashayed out of his room with Buster on her heels. Jack reluctantly followed her.
She went into the kitchen and opened the fridge door. “Looking pretty bare. Is your dinner girl coming?”
“Supposed to, yeah.”
She withdrew a container and opened it, stuck her nose in it, then put it back. She closed the fridge and went to his pantry, and took out a bag of potato chips.
“Seriously, did you come barging in for a reason?”
“Yes. I wanted to see my brother.” She sat down on one of the
barstools with the bag of chips. “And I told Mom I’d check on you.”
He sighed. It was hard to stay mad at Christie. She had a big, pretty smile that had always warmed him, even when she was a little brat following him and his buddies around. “Frank should have buzzed me to let me know you were here.”
“It wasn’t Frank. Some new guy.” She paused. “Don’t freak. He looks like he’s twelve and he had on the uniform. He said he started Monday and Frank had stepped out for a moment. I convinced him to let me up.” She smiled.
“He shouldn’t have done that. This is a secure—”
“Jack,” she said sternly. “You’re in Seattle now, not Afghanistan. He’s just a kid with a new job. He shouldn’t have let me up, but he did. The world is still spinning.”
“You mistake youth for innocence,” he warned her.
“No, I don’t. And I don’t want to talk about your paranoia—”
“I’m not paranoid. I have a disorder—”
“Call it what you want, but I’m getting married in six months and I really, really need you to walk me down the aisle, Jack!” she suddenly shouted. “Mom worries about you all the time because that’s what she does, and since you avoid her, she says it to me.”
“Okay, all right.” He held up a hand. “You’re right.” He took a seat next to her. “I know I’m a pain in the ass. But I’m working on it and I’m getting better.”
She shoved the bag aside and swiveled around to face him. “Are you?”
“I went for coffee one morning. I had a conversation with the dinner girl.”
Christie sighed.
“What?”
“Well…the coffee shop is literally downstairs. And the girl comes into your house, so it’s not like you’re actually getting out in the world.”
He had not told Christie how anxious women—talking—made him now. “It’s progress.”
