I’ve got a tiny bottle of pepper spray in the palm of my hand. I’ve got my fingers wrapped around it making sure it stays concealed, but if anything unexpected and threatening does happen, at least I can buy myself some time.
Why am I so worried? A woman’s intuition is real, and something just doesn’t feel right at the moment. I don’t like this one bit. I hear a car engine start just in front of me. Are there floats in this parade? I listen more carefully. That’s not a car engine. It’s something bigger. That must be one of those big machines that pulls the floats.
I keep walking toward it. Maybe it will move forward, opening a path for me that I can follow behind. That would be extremely lucky timing, and perfect.
People start stepping back, allowing the float to turn around. It give me more space to move toward it. If I can make it right in front of where he’s heading it will be perfect. He’ll make a big sweeping turn, and then I can follow him out. I just need to get in front of him, in regards to where he is right now. With everyone moving out of the way, that should be a piece of cake.
I hear a woman scream and I freeze in my tracks. Shit! What’s happening?
Think Brittney. Think. What does dad always say. “Assess the situation.”
It’s hard to assess when people are running in every direction.
I hear the engine on the float rev as he redlines the RPMs. I’ve got to get out of here, now!
I wait for the float to turn, but he doesn’t. He’s coming right at me!
I turn and the only thing behind me is a wall. I don’t have time to get out of the way.
Only one option. Wait until he’s right in front of me, stay centered, and hit the deck!
I brace myself.
Suddenly a blue blur comes shooting out of nowhere and smashes into the side of the passenger’s side of the float. I hear metal on metal and glass break.
The body pulls himself inside the window and lunges on top of the driver.
I’m preparing to get down, and the last thing I see is the man in blue’s arm reach up, as his hand takes the wheel, pulling it to the side where everyone has run from, and just inches from me.
I hear the brakes engage and a loud screeching as the tires lock up and slide across the pavement. The float fishtails and changes course into the abandoned portion of the parade route. It slides sideways a good fifteen feet before crashing into the side of a building.
I’m terrified like never before. I take off running in a dead sprint. I see an empty side street. I cut down it as I hear sirens behind me.
I keep running, and running, and running.
No way a car’s getting near here. The police will have this place locked down. I have to get out of foot, and fast.
I run until I can’t run anymore. I’ve gone at least a mile on adrenaline alone. I see a cab and raise my hand belly button high to flag him. I can’t raise it any further. I’m completely drained. I’m a sweaty mess, panting. My chest is heaving.
“Get in!”
I open the door and collapse into the back seat.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. What happened?” I ask the driver.
“Terrorist attack. Buckle up. We’re getting out of here.”
He floors it and I feel my body collapse into the seat. I feel lucky to still be alive.
The man in blue saved my life.
CHAPTER 3
Brittney
The next morning
I’ve barely slept, but I manage to drag myself from the bed.
The shock of yesterday is still fresh in my mind, but if there’s one thing my dad taught me it’s commitment to your responsibilities. Mine this morning is the NGO I volunteer at in the city. We help refugees successfully transition to American life. I just started, but I already feel like I’m making a difference.
It’s so heartwarming to hear the stories from my colleagues. Some of the full-time staff have received postcards, letters, and visits up to thirty years later from the people they welcomed into the land of the free.
Sure, the work I’m doing will look great on my resume, but I’m not doing it for that. I really want to make the world a better place and gain some valuable experience at the same time.
I walk to the subway station that will take me to the office and I immediately see the subway is full of police, and from what I can tell there are also a lot of plainclothes law enforcement patrolling the area as well. The only problem is they’re not so undercover. I can spot them a mile away, so I’m guessing everyone else can too. Then again it’s a good thing. If anyone’s trying anything today they’ll think twice.
And speaking of thinking twice all I can think about is that man who saved my life. I’m zoning out on the ride into work.
What if he hadn’t been there?
What if he hadn’t acted so heroically, as he did?
What if…?
What if a lot of things. I just wish there was someway I could meet him and thank him, but I guess the odds of that happening are slim to none.
I hear the name of my stop and it takes a second to register. I scramble to exit and the doors almost close on me. I really need to get out this daze I’m in.
I make my way onto the street and start walking towards my building.
A few minutes later I round the block and see a swarm of news people standing outside the place I volunteer.
Oh great, I think to myself. I really hope that attack yesterday wasn’t somehow affiliated with someone who’s going through our program.
I’m about fifty feet from the entrance of the skyscraper where our tiny office is located. I’m wishing our building had a back entrance or I had time to go down and come up through the parking garage, when suddenly one of the news crew sees me and beelines it straight toward me.
“Brittney! What can you tell us about the attack yesterday?”
“Do you know the parties involved?” a second reporter asks, as she runs to join the first.
“Do you think you were targeted because of your position here?”
“What are your thoughts on illegal immigrants?”
“Has the Syrian crisis that is attempting to destabilize Europe, spread to American soil?”
“Have you assisted any ISIS members to enter the country?”
I try and squirm through the all the reporters, the bright lights, and the cameramen. And to think, twenty seconds ago I was just thinking how I needed a coffee to snap out the funk I was in.
I get to the door and one of the senior staff members guides me in…at least I’m guessing he’s one of ours by the way he was waiting on me inside.
“Brittney, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say as we walk swiftly towards our ground floor office still wondering who this man is.
“Sorry about everything. I’m Jonathan Davies. My family founded the NGO.”
“Oh. Mr. Davies,” I say. “Nice to meet you.” I’d seen the pictures of the Davies family on the wall, but Jonathan must have been no older than five at the time those photographs were taken.
“My pleasure. Sorry it’s under such unfortunate circumstances.”
“Unfortunate circumstances?” I say. Am I getting fired?
“You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“I’m guessing you haven’t seen the news or read the papers this morning?”
“No. I haven’t had a chance yet,” I say. I wish he would just spit it out already. I’m not about to tell him I was daydreaming about some guy all the way into work this morning. And unfortunately that’s the only way I can refer to the mystery man as at the moment…some guy, because I haven’t even seen his face. He is of course my hero, but I’ll save those thoughts for my fantasies when I’m lying alone in bed at night.
“Someone who knows you recognized your face.”
“Okay?” I say.
“From yesterday. The footage is all over the news. Once the press got your name, they’ve been running with it. Y
our Facebook photos are everywhere. CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox News…you name it, they’re all over this story. It’s like the surveillance footage video is playing on repeat. There will probably be news crews outside your apartment, if there aren’t already. You have to prepare yourself for what’s about to happen.”
“What’s about to happen?”
“Pardon my French, but there’s a saying for what you can expect.”
“Which is?”
“A media shitstorm.”
I nod my head, part surprised someone in his position would use those kinds of words, but part appreciative that he’s telling it to me straight.
He opens the door to our office, allowing me to walk in first. “And that’s not all,” he says.
“Okaaay?”
“There’s someone here to talk to you. They’re waiting in my office. I just wanted to let you know what you’re walking into before —”
“Time’s up, Davies. I told you to bring her straight to me.” His eyes move from Jonathan to me. “Are you Brittney Upton?”
“Yes, sir,” I say. The man’s in civilian clothes, but he’s got a badge around his neck. He looks eerily familiar, but I can’t quite place him.
“Please. Right this way,” he says, ushering me into my boss’ office. “Have a seat.”
This wasn’t exactly the way I expected to find myself in the boss’ office. I was hoping to make it in here for a pat on the back for a job well done at some point in the future, not to be interrogated…or at least that seems to be Mr. Big Shot’s plan.
“My name is Detective Freeman. I need to ask you a few questions about yesterday.”
“Okay,” I say. “Is everything okay?” I feel my legs shaking against the plush leather chair beneath me. I didn’t know such an extravagant chair, which was built specifically for comfort, could be so uncomfortable.
“Brittney, were you at the Veterans Day Parade yesterday at approximately 10:50 a.m.?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what were you doing at the parade yesterday?”
Suddenly the door comes flying open.
“I said no—”
The detective is cut off mid-sentence. The man standing in the doorway is much, much bigger. He’s much, much wider and a whole lot thicker than the detective.
I feel like I’m watching one of those old Clint Eastwood Westerns with my dad. The ones where Clint steps inside the saloon, and the swinging doors come flying open. Ol’ Clint would be backlit to the point he wasn’t visible…just a silhouette of the stranger who just rode into town. You could hear the shiny spurs on those old leather worn out boots clickety-clackin’ as he took his first step inside. Each and every patron in the bar wouldn’t say a word as they turned their head and pretended to sip their drinks and just generally mind their own business. Nobody wanted a piece of Clint Eastwood. He was the biggest, baddest man not from this town. And messing with him meant he was gonna put a guar-an-teed whoppin’ on ya.
But this was no Spaghetti Western. And we weren’t in southern Italy and Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood were nowhere to be found.
But there was an entirely different kind of knight errant standing in front of me right now. A modern version. The kind of man who needs to be bigger, and tougher, than the baddest man the city has to offer. A man who seems dark, but only because that’s what it takes to do some of the things he has to do to keep people like me safe.
It’s been a few years…more than a few actually, but I recognize him instantly.
It’s the guy I had my first crush on in high school. But I shouldn’t really call it a crush. It was more like an obsession. I wrote his last name after my first name on my school notebooks. I sketched his picture in the back of the same notebooks in-between classes.
And he wasn’t a guy. He was a man. At a time most girls were crushing on the latest and greatest boy band singers, I only had my eyes on him and him alone.
Sean Verlander. My dad’s best friend.
CHAPTER 4
Brittney
“Brittney. Are you okay?” Sean says.
“Sean!” I say. I stand from my seat. “What are you doing here?”
“Exactly. What are you doing here, Marine? You need to leave. I’m conducting an investigation,” Detective Freeman says. His voice is uneasy and his body language has cowered in Sean’s presence. I’ve seen it before, time and time again. It’s not that Sean has to try. It’s just natural. Guys seem him and they just immediately start deferring to the alpha. Biology 101.
Detective Freeman is trying to keep control of his “interrogation room,” but it’s slipping through his grasp like sand in the hourglass, yet at a much quicker pace.
“I’m the one conducting the investigation, Detective,” Sean says. His voice sounds like the crackle of a warm fire on a cold winter’s night. I can just imagine lying with him up in the Catskill Mountains, cuddling the cold away. Not that we’d be cold after all the things we could do with, and to, each other.
I used to imagine Sean wasn’t the big, bad, burly Marine that he is. I’d fantasize that he was a late night FM DJ. I’d call in and request a song. He’d say, “Sure thing, sweetheart. Anything else I can do for you?”
And that fantasy was how I first explored myself late at night in my room…imagining Sean’s voice as he walked me through exactly what he wanted me to do to myself. Where I should touch myself. The exact placement, speed, motion…everything. And the best part was when he told me he knew I liked it. And he was right. Just fantasizing about him was more than pleasurable. But when he told me why I liked it it would always push me over the top.
I liked it because he liked it too. He liked it so much he was in that DJ booth all by himself touching himself while I touched myself. He would go on air in the middle of our imaginary session and his voice would hit those same deep notes, but you could tell something was different. What was different was that he was pleasuring himself to me as he tried to broadcast to millions of people across New York City. The mental picture of that in my mind always pushed me to climax, not that it was difficult whenever I was thinking about him.
Sean would be hot no matter what uniform he wore. Marine Corps dress blues? Absolutely. Late night FM DJ casual? For sure. He could work the grill at a fast food restaurant and I’d still get all worked up watching him sweat as those forearms of his popped as he flipped his meat, looking up just to catch eye contact as I ordered the special at the register. The special of course would be to go back there and get his very own man meat all for myself.
I think I’ve had every conceivable fantasy of him…and more.
But what is he doing here? And why now?
Sean motions to Detective Freeman and they step outside Jonathan’s office. I sit back down in that plush seat of his, but I barely feel more comfortable alone than I did when the detective was preparing to grill me. Then a strange feeling comes over me.
There’s just something about having Sean here that makes me feel more at ease.
Am I relaxed? Not at all.
Do I feel better? Noticeably.
I can’t see the two men, but I can hear the detective’s voice raise. When it’s Sean’s turn to talk I just hear a deep tune that sounds like it’s coming from the center of a warm fire.
A few minutes later I see Sean turn the corner. He turns the door handle and re-enters the room.
“So. How have you been?”
What balls this guy has. He’s just had an argument with a detective from the New York Police Department, and he comes back in here cool as a cucumber like he’s ready to catch up on old times. Old times we never really got to have.
“What just happened?”
“I’m assigned to NCIS now. I’m working a case involving the guy who was driving that truck yesterday.”
I sit there, grasping the seat of the chair, saying nothing.
“He’s been taken into custody,” Sean says. “And I want you to know you’re safe…Brit.”
When I
hear those words I’m immediately taken back. He always called me that when he came around. It reminds me of all those times I thought about him. When I went to senior prom with some boy my age that my friend set me up with, but I secretly wished I were there with him. The big, strong guy who called me Brit Bit. Bit, because I was small.
Veterans Day Daddy Page 2
