by Witt, L. A.
“It’s a bit less depressing like this, isn’t it?”
“Very. You said it doesn’t get shitty much because we’re in a . . . what did you call it?”
“A rain shadow.” He waved a hand toward the south, as if to indicate the mountains. “The clouds can’t get over the mountains, so they dump the rain on the coast instead of us.”
“Right, right.” I paused. “Sounds like you should’ve gone into meteorology or something.”
Scott laughed. “Nah. I’m a bit of a science junkie, but . . .” He gazed out at the water, and his humor faded. “Seemed like I could help more people in this line of work.”
As much as I didn’t believe counselors really did relationships much good, I believed Scott’s intentions. From the start, he hadn’t given me the snake-oil vibe I’d gotten from my own counselor and from Anna’s. Though maybe I had blinders on. I wanted him, so of course I wasn’t going to see—
“Question.” Scott startled me out of my thoughts.
“Hmm?”
He studied me. “Do you have any objection to me smoking?”
I raised my eyebrows. “You smoke?”
“On occasion.”
“I’m assuming we’re not discussing Camels here.”
Chuckling, he shook his head. “No. Not Camels.”
“In that case, I don’t mind as long as you share.”
Scott smiled. “That was my next question, actually. And yes, I will.”
“Awesome.” Rebelliousness brought a grin to my lips—it had been years since I’d smoked weed. Jackie and I had sworn it off after we’d decided to have kids, and I hadn’t touched it since. Just the thought of it now made my head light with anticipation of that delicious high.
We found a little inlet and a spot in the shade of some evergreens. Here we wouldn’t be visible to anyone who happened by—God forbid they see us lighting up in broad daylight. Once we were completely alone, Scott reached into his back pocket. He pulled out a small bag containing a roll of paper, some weed, and a lighter.
I raised my eyebrows. “You always carry that?”
Scott laughed. “Not always. But I picked some up this morning and didn’t want to leave it in the car.”
“Where the hell do you get it, anyway?”
“Where?” He snorted. “There’s a dispensary down by the theater now. Haven’t you seen it?”
“Is there?” I shook my head. “Didn’t even notice.”
“I figured you’d know that part of town like the back of your hand.” He smirked. “Being such a fan of the local theater scene and all.”
“Shut up and roll it.” I laughed.
Scott chuckled and pulled a piece of thin paper from the bag. “The local dispensary is a godsend. I was getting fucking tired of driving to Seattle every time I ran out.”
“The closest dealer you could find was in Seattle?”
“Not a dealer. A dispensary. I had a green card before they legalized recreational use.”
“Really?” He was the last person I’d expected to be a regular weed user, but somehow, I wasn’t that surprised. He was a marriage counselor, not a priest. “You had a prescription?”
Scott nodded as he sprinkled some weed on the paper, shielding it from the wind with his other hand. “Does wonders for seasonal depression. And the rest of the year, well . . .” He grinned. “It’s been a lot more relaxing since they made it legal across the board.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I guess it would.” Damn. Maybe I should’ve thought of this a while ago. Like, sometime over the past three years.
He steadied the joint, lit it, then offered it to me.
I took it, my fingertips brushing his, and brought it up to my lips. I hadn’t done this in ages, and the smoke hit my throat hard enough to make my eyes water, but I didn’t cough. I held my breath as I handed the joint back to him, and after a moment, slowly let it out. We passed the joint between us a few times, and then I leaned back on my hands and stared out at the water.
As the weed slowly made its way into my bloodstream, my head became pleasantly light, and some tension I hadn’t noticed in my neck and shoulders unraveled itself. For once in my life, I was relaxing, and I suspected it wasn’t just the marijuana. Pleasant company. Beautiful view. The sound of the surf lazily lapping at the rocky shore. I decided I could get used to this.
“God, it really is gorgeous here.”
Scott crushed what was left of the joint and tucked it into the bag. “It really is. I’ve been here a long time, and this never gets old.”
“I believe that. Certainly beats the shit out of southern California.”
“Yeah? That where you’re from?”
I nodded. “Yep. Born and raised.” My buzz evaporated a little as I sighed and said, “My kids are still there. They’d like it here, but . . .” A heavy feeling set up shop in the pit of my stomach. “Somehow, I don’t think they’re coming. Well, Haley isn’t, anyway.”
Scott turned to me. “To stay? Or to visit?”
“At all.”
“Why’s that?”
“To put it bluntly, she doesn’t want to.”
“She doesn’t want to come to Washington?” he asked softly. “Or she doesn’t want to see you?”
I shifted my gaze into my lap, watching my fingers play with a wrinkle in my jeans. “Pretty sure Washington isn’t the problem.”
His scrutiny was palpable even though I wasn’t looking at him. “What happened?”
My throat tightened a little, and my heart thumped as I let my weed-addled mind go there. Even the marijuana couldn’t dull how much it hurt to be this far from my kids—physically and otherwise. “It’s . . .” I coughed, hoping he blamed it on the smoke. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
“You might want to roll us another joint first.”
“Can do.”
Neither of us spoke while he rolled it. I didn’t even comment on the fact that he’d obviously done this a few times—he manipulated the weed and paper like he could do this in his sleep. I decided I liked that about him. That when he stepped away from the office marked Scott Fletcher, Marriage Counselor, he was a human being with bad habits just like the rest of us.
He lit the joint and handed it to me.
“Thanks.” I took the smoldering joint and pulled in a lungful of smoke. I held it until my head started spinning, and then slowly blew it out, turning my head so I didn’t blow it into Scott’s face.
As the renewed buzz started taking hold, I stared out at the water. “I figured out I was gay in my late twenties. I mean, I guess the writing was on the wall before then, but I didn’t put the pieces together.” I shifted a bit, resting my forearms on my bent knees and letting my fingers dangle. “Only problem was I’d already gotten married, and we’d already had a couple of kids. And of course once I realized I was gay, it started fucking up my marriage.” I shook my head and sighed, debating taking another hit off what was left of that joint. “Or, well, it started fucking me up. Which took its toll on Jackie. We weren’t at each other’s throats or anything, but our sex life went south and we just started drifting apart. At least we managed to keep it out of the kids’ sight.”
“Did you?” His tone was laced with gentle skepticism.
I nodded. “We were pretty damned good at putting on a happy front for them. Which was exhausting, but . . .”
“I can imagine,” he said softly.
Though I didn’t really need any more weed, I did need a moment to collect my thoughts, so I gave in and pulled another toke off the joint. I held the smoke for a moment, let it out, and went on. “Things didn’t start falling apart until I finally came out to my wife.”
“How did she take it?”
“She kicked me out for a few days. I mean, that was the extent of the discussion: ‘I’m gay.’ ‘Get out.’”
Scott whistled.
I leaned back, pressing my hands into the sand, and tilted my head to either side to releas
e some tension. “I guess she started feeling bad about not hearing me out, and the kids were asking where I was. So we sat down and talked. She was pissed off, especially when she realized she’d been so miserable for so long, only to find out I’d known all along I was the problem.”
Scott flinched, but didn’t say anything.
“And she thought coming out to her was a prelude to me admitting I’d cheated on her. Like I’d been about to tell her I was leaving her for a man, so she’d booted me out because she didn’t want to hear that part.”
“Did she believe you when you said you hadn’t been cheating?”
I nodded. “We talked for a long time. Probably more than we had in years. When we were done, we were worried about the kids more than anything. With as stressed out as they were after I disappeared for a few days, we figured a divorce would be devastating. So, we decided to stay together. For their benefit.”
Still, Scott didn’t speak.
I cleared my throat, which still burned from the weed. “We stayed that way for four years. And Jesus, we were miserable.”
“I can imagine,” Scott whispered. “Is that when you and your ex were seeing the counselor?”
I nodded but didn’t look at him. “Yeah. Well, not at first. We planned to stay together until the kids were at least out of high school, but we started resenting each other after a couple of years, and we started fighting. So we hired a guy to help us try to keep the peace.” Gritting my teeth, I added, “Son of a bitch should’ve just told us the truth—that staying together for the kids was a bad idea, and it would only make things worse.”
Scott said nothing.
“Anyway, after a year and a half of beating our heads against it with a counselor, I finally decided I couldn’t take it anymore. It was killing Jackie, and the kids were struggling, so . . .” I blew out a breath. “So a couple of months after our sixteenth anniversary, I left.”
Softly, Scott asked, “How did you and your wife break it to the kids?”
I swallowed. “We sat them down one night, and we explained that we were separating. They’d seen a lot of their friends’ parents split up, so we thought they’d cope with it all right, but . . .”
“Not so much?”
“Not so much. We knew it would be hard for them, so we tried to make it as easy as we could. We didn’t bring up the fact that I was gay at the beginning. We had to sell the house, but we got apartments a few blocks apart. Jackie and I were so much more amicable divorced than we were married, but the kids . . . God, they’ve struggled so hard with it.”
Scott grimaced. “It’s tough on kids.”
“Believe me, I know.” Memories flickered through my mind. The day we’d told them we were getting a divorce. The day we told them why. The good times that all seemed like images from someone else’s life. How crushed and angry and confused both kids had been. “Sometimes I think we made it tougher on them than we should have. In fact, I know we did. I did.”
“Do they know you’re gay?”
I nodded slowly, shame burning beneath my ribs. “Yeah. We waited longer than we should’ve, I think. It was a few months down the line, after the divorce was final and we’d both settled into our new places. We thought . . . I mean, we wanted to drop one bomb on them at a time, you know?”
He nodded again.
“When Jackie decided she wanted to start dating, we figured that was a good time to tell the kids what happened. I was going to hold off on meeting anyone for a little while, to give them some time to accept the idea, but neither of us realized just how badly they were going to take it. Haley’s been pissed from the start, and a few months ago, she pretty much stopped speaking to me. And Zach was slowly warming up to things and getting used to us being apart. Then we told them the truth.”
I rubbed a hand over my face and sighed. The weed wasn’t doing a damned bit of good now. I was supposed to be high, but I felt lower than I’d been in a long time.
“Zach’s slowly getting better now, but Haley . . . God, I never knew a kid could be so angry, and—” I cleared my throat. “Anyway. That’s all there is to tell about my sordid past.”
“Doesn’t sound sordid,” he said softly. “I think everyone has a bumpier past than they’ll admit. Well, besides to people in my position.”
I studied him. “You’re a marriage and family counselor, but you’re single with no kids. I mean, I know you said your job makes you cynical, seeing nothing but dysfunction, but . . .” I paused. “Is that really how that works?”
“Nah. Most counselors I know are married. Dr. Vincent and his wife have been together since the dawn of time.”
“But you . . .?”
He chewed his lip, then laughed halfheartedly. “Well, you know what they say—those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” He shrugged. “Or counsel, I guess.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that.
Scott picked up the bag of weed and another strip of paper, and for a while, the only sound besides the ocean was the faint crinkle as he rolled another joint. His fingers didn’t seem quite so elegantly coordinated this time. Was it the weed he’d already smoked? The subject on his mind? I was afraid to ask.
He lit the joint, took a drag, and handed it to me. After he’d held his breath for a moment, he slowly blew out a thin cloud of smoke. “I did have a partner once. For six years.”
I exhaled some smoke too, and then turned to him. “Really?”
Nodding, Scott stared out at the water, his gaze distant. “Nathan. It was one of those blind dates that we both thought would be a disaster, but . . .” A faint smile played at his lips. “We were both pretty happy to be wrong about that.” The smile faded. After a while, he picked up the smoldering joint and took another long drag. He turned his head away to blow out the smoke as he offered me the joint, but my head was light enough, so I waved a hand.
“I’m good. Thanks.”
He lowered the joint, but didn’t set it down. “So, Nathan. He was a cop. When you’re with a cop, you . . . accept that things happen sometimes.”
My heart dropped. Fuck. No wonder he’d needed another hit.
Scott exhaled, and it wasn’t smoke this time. “No one’s ever gotten the full story of exactly what happened, but he responded to a domestic by himself, and he went in when he should’ve called for backup.” He stared out at the water again. “I guess things were getting violent, and the prevailing theory is that the wife had gone for a shotgun because she was afraid of her husband. Somehow Nathan caught her by surprise, and by the time she realized he was a cop and not her husband, she’d already shot him.” He swallowed. “Twice.”
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
Scott’s lips tightened. His gaze had turned distant, but then he shook himself, cleared his throat, and looked at me. “It was a long time ago, but damn, it still hurts to think about sometimes.”
“I believe that.” I cleared my throat. “I’m, uh, sorry to bring it up. It’s probably tough to talk about.”
“It’s easier to talk about now than it used to be. Twenty years will do that.”
“Twenty?”
“Twenty.” He lowered his gaze to the joint between his fingers. “After that, I swore off cops and anyone like them. I thought I could handle it, but I tried dating a state trooper a few years after Nathan died, and I just . . . I couldn’t cope. No matter how much I tried to tell myself it was irrational, that he’d be home after his shift, and that he’d be okay . . .” He shook his head. “It didn’t matter. Because it wasn’t irrational. It’s like dating a race-car driver and telling yourself he’ll never crash. Even if he’s raced a million times before without a scratch, there’s no guarantee he’ll survive this race.”
I shuddered. “I never thought of it like that.”
“Neither did I.”
I tapped my fingers on my leg, not sure what to say. I couldn’t begin to imagine what he’d been through. How it felt to carry that kind of grief and fear for so many years, to the p
oint that it still affected his relationships—or lack thereof—to this day.
“Scott.” I cleared my throat. “You . . . do realize I’m personal security, right? Not quite a cop, but . . .”
Eyes fixed on the ocean, he nodded slowly. “Yeah. I do.”
Silence set in and refused to move.
My mind wandered back to the day we’d met, when I’d inadvertently made the conversation awkward with a casual question about how he’d ended up in Bluewater Bay. Studying him, I asked, “Is that why you came to this area?”
Without looking at me, he nodded again. “I couldn’t stay in Seattle after that, so I moved out here. Back then, there wasn’t much of a queer community in Bluewater Bay.” He laughed humorlessly. “Not many options, you know?”
“You don’t get . . . I mean, you’re not—”
“Lonely?”
I nodded.
“Sometimes I am. But I’ve been single most of my life. I’m used to it. I’m okay with it.” Quietly, almost more to himself, he added, “As long as I’m getting good sex from somewhere, I’m happy on my own most of the time.”
I wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince—me or himself—but his tone had an undercurrent that left me unconvinced. It wasn’t my place to push it, though.
“I feel like an ass for feeling sorry for myself after my—”
“You shouldn’t.” Scott turned toward me. “It’s not a competition.”
Of course it wasn’t. That didn’t stop me from feeling like an ass.
Scott faced the water again. “We’ve both got our shit to deal with, and I don’t know. Maybe us meeting when we did was . . . well, I’m not a big believer in fate, but let’s call it good timing.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean maybe you’re what I need right now. Maybe I’m what you need right now.” He shrugged. “Sex. Someone to talk to.” Scott’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he met my gaze. “But I can’t offer more than that.”
I slid my hand over his thigh. “I’m not asking for more.”
His eyes flicked toward my hand, and I nearly withdrew it, thinking I’d misstepped, but he put his on top of mine.
Once again, we met each other’s gaze. He didn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say.
