by Ivy Jordan
“Sort of,” I said. “It’s a little complicated.”
“A little complicated? What, it’s not like you’re sleepin’ with her.” Pete sniffed and, when I didn’t say anything, he whacked my shoulder.
“Shit, Sawyer!”
I cringed.
“That’s gotta be against some type of law! You’re sleepin’ with her?”
“Just once,” I said. “Yesterday, it was… it was weird.”
“What the hell happened?” Pete’s eyes were wide, and I could tell he didn’t entirely believe me.
“We’d been sort of talking outside of the session. I asked her to dinner, she told me no, and we sort had a short talk about that. She wanted to keep things professional.” I couldn’t shake the sight of her tight against my body in a moment of complete forgetfulness. “I went in yesterday, and it was just… different. At the end of the session, she told me I ought to see someone else since she likes me.”
I cut off, and rubbed the back of my neck, trying to tactfully put what had then gone on. “And we slept together.”
“In her office?”
I nodded.
“Shit.” Pete shook his head. “Goddamn. Did you take her back to your place or did you just leave?”
“Left,” I said. “Well, she made sure I was still coming for the appointment on Monday.”
“Are you?” Pete asked.
I thought about what it would mean to go back. I didn’t know if she expected to have sex again or if she genuinely wanted to go back to having a patient-doctor relationship. “I will, but only to clear things up,” I said. “I can’t sleep with her if she’s going to be my psychiatrist. I need to either see a different therapist or sleep with somebody else.”
“That sounds like the best thing to do,” Pete said. “You can’t get any mental health recuperation if you’re sleeping with the doctor.”
“Exactly. And I can’t have a healthy relationship with her if I’m her patient.” The two things simply couldn’t go together, and I’d rather have an entire relationship or an entire doctor. Frankly, I wasn’t sure that it was still possible to go back to being just her patient.
A few hours later, Pete let me use his restroom so I could wash up—we both needed to at least get a few of the layers of dirt off before we went anywhere. The bar we were going to was one I was familiar with. George’s had been around as long as Austin had, I was pretty sure. It was the place we used to go when we were in high school, parading in with fake ID’s and thinking it was our smarts that got us in rather than the bartender’s apathy.
Now, of course, we didn’t need to worry about whether we could get in. It was a little too early to be out drinking; the sun had only barely started to set over the hills. But we didn’t want to go into Austin, because Sixth Street was meant for parties and not for quiet, calm drinks, and Pete and I both tended to go to bed early.
Not long before I’d joined the army, I could go all night drinking and partying. It seemed I was already an old man inside.
When we walked in, the bartender’s face lit up.
“Sawyer! By God, is that you?”
“Hey, Jim.” I wasn’t terribly close to Jim, but we knew each other’s names and I’d certainly been a paying customer of his for some time. I shook his hand.
“Where the hell have you been?” Jim asked. “Your usual?”
I couldn’t help but feel glad that he remembered my drink after all this time. “Yeah,” I said. “I was in the service for a while.”
“I thought I told you,” Pete interjected. He hopped up on the bar next to me and took the glass that came his way.
Jim shrugged. “In any case, it’s good to have you back.” Then he had to go and attend to other patrons, leaving Pete and me there with our glasses.
I took a drink and sat back in my stool slightly, looking out over the bar. “It’s weird. I don’t feel like I left. Everything’s the same, but it’s all totally different at the same time.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Far as I’m concerned, you couldn’t be more different,” Pete said.
I raised an eyebrow at him, unsure of what he meant by that.
“I mean you’re better now than you were,” he clarified. “At least you’re healthier. Still kind of an asshole.”
We grinned at each other.
“Speaking of how you were,” Pete said, setting his drink aside. “You know Quinn’s related to Stacy, right?”
I wrinkled my nose. It must have occurred to me before, or she must have told me, or Pete must have told me. It sounded like something I’d heard before. Still, it didn’t sit well with me. “Yeah, I know.”
“How do you think that’s all gonna pan out?” Pete asked. “Her knowing Stacy and all? I mean, if she knows Stacy, she could very well find out a good deal about you.”
I furrowed my brow and shook my head. It was a lot to think about, and I didn’t want to consider the implications of this. “I hadn’t thought about it,” I admitted. And I didn’t want to think about it, but I was sure that it would be the only thing on my mind until I saw Quinn on Monday.
Thankfully, Pete didn’t get the chance to continue to talk about it. A few people walked into the bar, and I wouldn’t have noticed, except their faces were familiar. I instantly recognized my old friends—or, three of them, at least. The one I had been closest to, John, still wore a beat-up denim jacket. There was one guy I’d only met once or twice, whose name I couldn’t remember, and the other was Kent, who had been around as long as John.
They saw me, too, and their faces lit up.
“Hey! Man, we thought you were dead or some shit!” John walked forward and clapped me on the back.
I laughed. “Nah, just thought I’d take a nice vacation in Syria.”
“Shit, they let you out?” Kent raised his thick eyebrows and spat into his water bottle.
“Yeah, more or less,” I joked. I hadn’t seen these men in ages.
Pete didn’t say much to them, offering a sort of wave. He’d never been very close to this group; he walked off, presumably to go use the restroom or wait until the people were gone.
“Can I get you a drink?” John asked.
“Oh, I’ve got one, but you’re welcome to sit up here,” I returned. “What have you been doing?”
“More of the same,” John said. “Mostly we’ve been trying to get a bar of our own open in Austin. It’s been a bitch to do. The only place anyone goes in Austin is Sixth, and that place is pretty much locked down. Nothing’s for sale right now, and those bars are doing more than well enough for themselves not to need to close.”
“You could open something in San Marcos,” I reasoned. “San Antonio, maybe? Not too far from here.”
“Ah, but it wouldn’t be the same. Besides, Kent’s got a girlfriend in Austin he can’t move too far away from.”
“Shit, she’s impossible sometimes,” Kent agreed. “Been dating a year, can’t get her to part with the town. She didn’t even grow up there.”
“Women can be something,” John offered. He looked back at me, and he leaned in a little closer. “Say, we were all going to head back to Kent’s later. Keith here just got back from Mexico, and he’s got all kinds of good shit to try out. You wanna join us?”
I didn’t want to think about what he meant by ‘good shit,’ but it couldn’t be anything good. I shook my head. “No, I can’t, sorry. I have work tomorrow morning.” It was a reasonable excuse.
“That’s a shame,” John said. He glanced around, making sure no one was looking our way, and then he held a few baggies towards me.
It was idiotic, holding cocaine out in the middle of a bar for anyone to see. I raised my eyebrows at his boldness; did he have some kind of deal with Jim? Memories of the months before I left began to flood back. Doing coke with Stacy and laying around the house all day, listening to my father shout at me, staring at my bank account after nights of partying and wondering what the hell had happened to me.
“
You can take some for the road if you’d like. Think of it as a welcome-home present,” John said.
“Hey, Sawyer.” Pete materialized behind me. I thought for a second that he’d only just walked up, but there was a glint in his eye that suggested he’d seen what happened. “It’s about time we got going. I think I left the shed unlocked and I’d prefer to get back and fix that.”
The shitty excuse only solidified that Pete knew what was going on.
“Is there some kind of problem here?” Kent asked, setting his water bottle down. He stood next to John, both of them puffing themselves up a little.
“Nope,” Pete said. “Not so long as you shove off and go bother somebody else.”
“What exactly are you implying?”
“You need to stay the hell away from him with that shit,” Pete snapped. He was never one to hide what he was thinking.
“You need to back the fuck up before you make a scene,” John retorted. I could see them starting to advance forward, and I decided to intervene.
I grabbed Pete and forcibly pulled him back. I was much stronger than he was and it wasn’t difficult to pull him back; it would be easier to pull him than fight off two men. “Pete didn’t mean anything,” I told them. “Got it? He didn’t mean anything.”
The men nodded slowly, and I walked out of the bar with Pete in my grip. I didn’t stop until we’d reached the car, and then I let him go so he could get in the driver’s seat.
“Shit, Sawyer, what the hell was that for?” Pete burst.
“I didn’t want to see you get the shit kicked out of you,” I returned. “Honestly, you should have known better. There were three of them and one of you.”
“I couldn’t see them leading you back into all that bullshit!” Pete barked. “For a while there, before you left, Sawyer, we didn’t think you’d make it. We thought were going to end up like Stacy, and you… you made something of yourself, goddammit. You got better.”
I fell quiet, ashamed that I’d made Pete feel like I was angry with him.
“You need to stay the hell away from that,” Pete said to me. His voice nearly shook with how angry he was. “You understand? You need to stay the hell away from all of those bastards. You had the army to bail you out the first time.”
I swallowed hard and looked back at the bar. I was wrong; it felt like a million years had passed since I’d gone to war. “You’re a good friend, Pete,” I said to him.
“You better fuckin’ believe it,” Pete said. “Get your ass in the car. We’re going home.”
Chapter Sixteen
QUINN
I made sure that I had all my bases covered by the next Monday. I went to the clinic and got an STD test, despite knowing that it was hugely unlikely I’d picked anything up. The report came back negative, of course, and I kept it in my purse. I spent Saturday and Sunday debating over whether I was going to continue to try to see Sawyer as a patient. It would be hugely irresponsible to try and have both relationships, so I needed to pick one.
By the time Monday morning rolled around, the only conclusion I’d reached was that the situation was tricky and I was going to have to talk to him about it. Recalling what he’d said to me in my office during our encounter, I opted for slacks instead of my pencil skirt, and a loose blouse that did little to show off any figure I might have. Glancing at myself in the mirror, I looked like I was trying not to look remotely sexual. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and pushed my glasses on—the glasses I didn’t know whether he liked or not, but most men I’d been with preferred them off.
It was ridiculous to take all these measures to make sure I didn’t look attractive, and I couldn’t help but berate myself for overthinking the situation on my way to the office. When I walked into the waiting area and saw Sawyer, though, I was glad that I’d worn what I had. He’d chosen to wear a short-sleeve shirt, and I could see his tattoos more clearly.
I wasn’t sure exactly where one tattoo ended and another began, but they were beautifully done. Some roses, some eagles, traditional and typical tattoos but done tastefully and all I could remember was how those arms had felt wrapped around my waist, how his fingers had felt digging into my hip bones…
I shook my head and smiled at him. “Good morning,” I said. “You’re here a little—you’re always here early.”
“I try to be,” Sawyer answered. He returned the smile.
I sucked in a breath. “I, um, I hope that we’re both clear on the terms of your coming to these sessions,” I spoke as we walked back to my office. He got the door for me, eyebrow raised in an unspoken question.
“What we did, last time, on Friday. It doesn’t change anything,” I said. “I’m still your psychiatrist. We’re not… these sessions aren’t for sex. We can’t stop doing work just because of what happened.”
Sawyer laughed. I’d expected him to be disappointed or even angry, but instead, he laughed as he sat down on the couch. “I agree with you one hundred percent,” he said to me, smiling. I didn’t see anything facetious in his smile, and his words were without sarcasm.
“Alright,” I said. “So we’re good to have a regular session?”
“Of course,” he said. He motioned towards me and then to my office. “You have the floor, Dr. Rodgers.”
“Well, you have the floor,” I pointed out. “You’re not paying so that I can talk to you, after all.”
“That’s true,” he said.
I smiled. “You seem to be in a better mood today. Did you do something fun over the weekend?”
He raised his eyebrows at me again.
“On Saturday and Sunday,” I clarified, excluding our sexual encounter from the realm of conversation.
“I went out on Saturday and had some drinks with Pete. Well, a drink with Pete,” he said.
“Yeah? How did that go?”
“It was alright,” he said. “I mean… A couple of my old friends showed up. One of them had drugs, and Pete got defensive.”
That was quite a lot to take in. People didn’t usually showcase that they were carrying drugs when they went out to bars—but then, I didn’t know where Sawyer had gone or what they were around. I thought about what Babs said, about Sawyer hanging around Stacy, and couldn’t help but get a little curious. Thankfully, it was literally my job to ask further questions.
“Why did Pete get defensive?” I asked.
Sawyer shifted in his seat, a little uncomfortable. At this point, I couldn’t see really what he had to lose telling me anything. He must have come to that realization on his own, because he looked up and started talking again.
“When I got out of college, I was kind of stuck. I mean, I had a degree in business, and I probably could have gotten a job, but I hated everything that was offered to me. I couldn’t stand cubicles or desks or offices or cities. I just wanted to be left alone for the most part. I started going out and drinking as a sort of distraction,” he said. “At some point, I met Stacy. She’d gone to my old high school, and we’d never talked, but we just sort of hit it off. She was way more into drugs than I was. I smoked some pot in college, you know, everyone does, but I’d always been afraid of drugs.”
I had similar experiences. I’d always think of the science behind LSD and what it could do to a brain and just like that, I’d ruined whatever party I was at.
“But Stacy was convincing,” he said. “And I was bored and stupid. It got out of control, and my dad found out, there was a whole mess made over it.” He ran a hand through his short hair. “Anyway, once I realized that I was messing up my life, I joined the military to get away from it. I figured it could give me a fresh start, or at least teach me some discipline.”
“Do you feel like the military helped?” I felt like I’d had my worst fears confirmed, but it didn’t bother me as much as I’d thought it would. Sawyer had made some mistakes, sure, but he’d clearly recognized them. Most people would consider a brief stay in rehab or a breakup to be substantial reform from a situation like that. Sawyer
had gone overseas for six entire years to get away from it all. It wouldn’t be fair to force him to further prove himself.
“Definitely,” he said. “They teach a lot about independence. Well, independence as a civilian, anyway. Self-discipline, things like that. I feel totally different than when I left. I wasn’t about to take them up on it, on Saturday night. Pete intervened, but I would have walked away on my own.”
I nodded and believed him. If he’d taken the drugs, after all, he likely wouldn’t even be here. He certainly wouldn’t have told me about it. When people relapsed, they tended to vanish, at least from people they didn’t know too well. Did I qualify as a person close to Sawyer?
“I think that’s a good sign,” I said. “You’re staying out of the wrong crowd. It’s important to stay away from people that encourage drug use. One of the biggest things I see is good people hanging around bad people and acting like them. It’s a mob mentality thing, and it brings out the worst in people.”
“It does,” Sawyer agreed. “I don’t want to go back to my old life.”
“That’s also good,” I said. “Especially if you’re dealing with night terrors and things like that. Drugs can make all of that much, much worse. Sometimes people turn to drugs for temporary relief from a traumatic experience, they want an escape, but it always makes everything much worse in the end.”
“I believe that,” Sawyer said. “Doing drugs was like… I don’t know, digging yourself into a deeper hole. You feel like you’re going somewhere, but one day you realize you’re stuck.”
It was a flawed metaphor, but I knew what he meant. “Right. There are some AA meetings nearby, and those aren’t just for alcoholics. They’re great for people dealing with drug addiction, too, and there are some specific to veterans that I can look up if you’d like.”
Sawyer shook his head. “I don’t think I need that. I’ll let you know if I do, though.”
