by Caro Carson
Good question. He’d told her to be prepared, hadn’t he? Yet she wasn’t. She had to wing it. “Everyone, this is Tom Cross. My...my roommate.”
“Your roommate?” Lizzy and Michelle repeated in unison, their tones of voice sounding like that was an unbelievable description. Or like she’d won the lottery. Hard to tell.
“Yes, Tom’s letting me crash in his spare bedroom until I can get my own place.”
There. She’d come up with a perfectly true explanation. Except Tom wasn’t letting her stay. He’d been ordered to share his house with her by a full-bird colonel.
Lizzy stared at him a moment longer, then snapped her fingers. “Chloe. Chloe, where are you?”
“Here, ma’am.”
Chloe had been standing next to her the whole time. Lizzy threw her arm around her shoulders. “Very important lesson here, my young apprentice. Very important. If you ever, ever have him for a roommate, and he’s just a roommate? You call me. I’ll be right over. You got it?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Chloe was really cracking up. “But it won’t happen. Captain Cross is my company commander.”
Helen set her drink down. The army was such a small world.
“Your CO? Oh, what a total buzzkill.” Lizzy stood up straighter, making an effort to appear slightly more sober, and toasted Tom. “I get to finish my drink each time I make an embarrassing comment.”
“How are you doing tonight, Michaels?” Tom asked Chloe. Or rather, Captain Cross asked Lieutenant Chloe Michaels, who apparently was in charge of one of the four platoons that made up Tom’s company.
“Having a good time, sir. Friday night, and I’m not on duty.”
Tom turned to Helen. “Are you corrupting my newest platoon leader?”
Helen held up her finger and thumb, indicating an inch of space. “Maybe just a little.”
“Some roommate you are.”
Chloe handed her pool cue to Michelle. “Play my next shot for me, ma’am. I’ll be back in a minute.” She left, drifting off in the general direction of the restrooms.
Smart girl. Even in a casual setting, command structure existed. It was less awkward for everyone if she just skipped out until Tom had finished talking to his peers about whatever it was that had prompted him to come over.
I am what prompted him to come over.
He’d come to spend time with her. Helen savored that little thrill as she looked at him. It was entirely too sexy that she had to look up at him. “Do you always come here on Fridays? I hear it’s their busiest night. Saturday, I’m told, it’s a ghost town.”
Lizzy had herded the other women back to the pool table, giving Helen and Tom a little alone time. Helen had come here tonight specifically to avoid alone time with Tom, but now that he was here, wearing those jeans, she didn’t see the harm in a chat. The bar was noisy, the bass voices of the mostly male crowd mixing with the bass of the rock music played by local musicians, all in bizarre juxtaposition to the childish snowman decorations that had been hung by the neon beer signs, in case they all forgot it was December.
“Not many Fridays. I just came over to say hi and to buy you a drink. What are you having?” He picked up her drink and took a sip. Behind his back, Michelle gave her a thumbs-up.
Helen took her drink from him. Yes, they’d kissed. And yes, they’d done more than that in Vegas. But this was too much, to just help himself to her drink like they were...lovers. Which they weren’t. Not anymore.
“Cranberry juice?” Tom’s expression was friendly, but his eyes watched her a little too closely. “Just plain cranberry juice?”
“Yes, it’s cranberry juice. I’m driving.” All the joy drained right out of her. All the fun went out of the whole room. “You came here just to see if I was drunk, didn’t you?”
His friendly expression didn’t slip, not one bit, but he didn’t answer her.
“You thought I might have another blackout, didn’t you? Just hours ago, I told you and our couns—you and Jennifer that I’m not a heavy drinker.”
“I know you’re not. I was with you the whole time last Saturday. But obviously, even a moderate amount of alcohol can give you black-out episodes.”
“No, it does not.”
“Yes, it did.”
She turned her shoulder to him, back to the game, but it wasn’t her turn yet. “Go away. I’m none of your business.”
“Oh, I think you are, my dear roommate. You most definitely are.”
“Only for twelve weeks.”
“Every single week that I’m with you, I’m going to protect you. I made a vow.”
“Wedding vows don’t say ‘protect.’”
“Cherish. I’m going to make sure that someone I cherish doesn’t black out anywhere unsafe or with anyone who might be unsafe.”
She made a little scoffing sound, but in case he hadn’t heard it over the music, she slid him a look, too. “You’re a little late on that one. I already woke up in a stranger’s bed last Sunday morning.”
He barely showed any response, but he’d heard her. His eyes had widened just enough to give it away. She turned back to her game, but now Lizzy was talking to some guy in a flight suit. Girls’ night was falling apart.
Tom stepped behind her, standing much too close. His fingertips rested lightly on her waist—there were rules against public displays of affection in uniform, so this was appropriately subtle. And effective. When there were only fingertips to feel, she felt each one. His mouth was close to her ear. “You were never unsafe with me.”
Oh, that voice. That damned voice that triggered an instant arousal, every damned time.
He was a jungle cat, purring in her ear. “You were never, and you will never be, unsafe with me. You know that, Helen. Deep down, you know that’s true. It’s why you made love to me on Sunday, isn’t it?”
He was probably right. He’d looked so incredibly handsome, he’d kissed her so incredibly beautifully, and she’d known, deep down, it would be safe to have sex with him. So she had.
Here in the crowded pub, with his warmth at her back and his fingertips on her waist, she could imagine how easy it would be to give in to that attraction again.
Then afterward, he’d caress her face and call her dream girl and expect her to feel some lifelong commitment to him. He would expect to have a say in her life, to control the steering wheel and choose the highway and decide whether or not she’d eaten enough and slept enough.
Twelve weeks. She could resist him for twelve weeks.
She stepped out of his reach and turned to face him. Keeping her voice just under the pitch of the crowd, she made him a deal. “You cannot follow me around for twelve weeks. I’ll let you know if I’m going to be staying out late, so you don’t have to worry about upholding any vows. I’ll text you, and you won’t come babysit me. Deal?”
He glowered at her in silence.
Silence was not an answer. “It’s not negotiable. It’s a deal whether you agree or not. I’ll text you in the future. You won’t follow me around like some creepy stalker for twelve weeks. That’s it. That’s how it’s going to be.”
“There’s one problem with your plan.”
Helen chalked her pool cue and gave him her best version of his eyebrow-raised-in-question.
“It won’t be for twelve weeks.” He stepped close to her once more and used his entire hand on her waist to keep her in place as he spoke very deliberately into her ear. “I made you a vow. I will never divorce you. If you want to divorce me, you’ll have to live here for six months before you can break the promises you made.”
He let her go, nodded to Lizzy and Michelle, and walked away.
“Oh, my God,” Lizzy said. “You are so lucky to have him for a roommate.”
Chapter Seven
“If a genie appeared out of a magic lamp and granted you three wishes, what
would they be?”
Tom scowled at Helen.
She shrugged and pointed to the card in her hand, her body language clear: I didn’t write the question.
So Tom scowled at their counselor as she sat at her desk. “Are these questions supposed to be taken seriously?”
“It’s up to the two of you to read whatever you like into the questions,” Jennifer said, her tranquil, even tone grating on his nerves.
Wish number one: I wish Helen would stop hiding in her bedroom when I’m in the house.
Tom was not in the mood for this. This week’s session was on Wednesday instead of Friday, so it hadn’t even been a full week since their first session with its whopping two questions. But the five days had been long. After Friday night’s debacle at the Legends Pub, Helen was so damned quiet in her room—in his spare room—that he’d looked out the window at the driveway just to see if her car was there, so he’d know whether or not she was in the house. He never heard her playing music. He never heard her watching a movie on her laptop. He never heard her footsteps on the hard tile of the sturdy, single-story house.
It took the silent treatment to a whole new level. He’d always known when Dad was in the house, that was for damned sure. What good was giving someone the silent treatment if your target didn’t know you were in the same vicinity, ignoring them?
His father would make a point of reading the newspaper at the kitchen table when Tom came home from practice.
Hi, Dad.
A turn of the newspaper page. Silence.
Tom would know he was in trouble. He wouldn’t always know why. And when he was sixteen, he’d dared to ask: Is there some specific reason you can’t hear me today?
Dad had turned the page again. There was no way he’d read the pages already; that had been his answer to his son, his only son, who wasn’t worth speaking to. After all, at age sixteen, Tom wasn’t a fighter pilot. To his father, fighter pilots like himself were the elite. They deserved respect. The rustle of the paper was all Tom deserved. And that day, Tom had been angry, done with it all.
Guess your hearing isn’t what it used to be. Too many jet engines got you after all these years, Colonel?
Dad had launched himself out of the chair and Tom had instinctively backed away until he was flat against the wall, scared spitless. At sixteen, he’d been as tall as his father, but still lanky and lean. Dad had been—hell, he might not even have turned forty yet—all mature muscle, and he’d been so for a couple of decades. Dad could have kicked his ass, and they both knew it. “You think I can’t hear you, son? You think that I can’t hear you? Do you, boy?”
Tom hated when Dad’s spittle got in his face, but he knew not to turn his face away. Dad expected you to look him in the eye while he told you why you sucked.
The really sad lesson Tom had learned that day was that spittle and screaming were preferable to the silent treatment.
I wish my wife would talk to me. Yell at me. Whisper to me. Stay in the same room that I’m in for more than thirty seconds.
Her wedding ring was still on the kitchen windowsill.
“Three wishes?” she prompted him.
“Fine. I’d wish for a million dollars, world peace and three more wishes.”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
“And you are?”
She looked nervous for one moment, then hid it smoothly. “Okay, let me think what I would wish for. Seriously.”
Tom watched her tap her perfect finger on her perfect lips. At least her lips were moving during counseling. She’d been silent for five days.
“I’d wish...”
“You’d wish that you’d never met me.” Pain made him impatient.
“You’re wrong. I’d wish that I could remember.”
Hope. It hit him so squarely in the chest, he stayed seated when he wanted to vault out of his chair and pull her out of her own. She wanted to remember him. “Helen—”
“I’d wish that I could remember, because you are so pissed off at me. You also have me at a disadvantage. You know everything. When I woke up in Vegas, you knew my occupation and you knew where I was going. You knew that I had been married, and what my ex’s name is. It’s terrifying.”
“That’s why you’ve been avoiding me?”
“I’m not avoiding you.”
“Bull. C’mon, Helen. Nobody really lives in their bedroom after high school.”
“I read a lot.”
“Sit on the couch and read. Eat at the table instead of squirreling away your food in your bedroom.”
“I don’t squirrel away anything.”
“You do.”
“I’m not going to eat in front of you,” she said, as if he’d suggested something completely out of line. “I cook and shop for one person. It would be rude to eat in front of another person when you don’t have enough to share.”
“We could eat at the same time. We could eat our separate dinners together.”
“Why would we do that? We’re getting divorced. Why should we start building a little domestic routine? Why should we build a—build the...”
“Build emotional intimacy?”
Helen fell silent.
Tom looked at Jennifer. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Emotional intimacy?”
It wasn’t the kind of intimacy he had in mind right now. He’d like to haul Helen off to bed, frankly, where they could screw their brains out until she remembered the pleasure and he forgot this pain.
Jennifer sat placidly, hands in her lap, and gave Helen a schoolteacher’s patient and encouraging nod. “Three wishes?”
Helen tossed the card down onto the table. “Fine. So first, like I said, I’d want to remember everything in Vegas, so I would know what I did and how to undo it.”
Yeah, yeah. Divorce. Got it.
“Second, I’d want...a fresh start. I want to start over with everything. A new place to live, new furniture, new everything. And this time, if I don’t love it, I won’t settle for something that’s only adequate.”
Tom nearly vaulted out of his chair again. She remembered! She didn’t know she remembered, but that was the conversation they’d had while waiting at the chapel, minutes before they’d said I do. She remembered. Sort of. Subconsciously.
“And for the third wish...” She tilted her head, studying him. “World peace.”
Smart aleck. His smart aleck, who was still in sync with him.
Tom was still amused with world peace as he drew the next card. “How would you describe me to someone else?” He looked over the edge of the card at Helen. She knew he was thinking of the pub, and he knew she was thinking of the pub.
In unison, they answered: “Roommate.”
He tossed the card onto the discard pile. This was going well, far better than he’d expected. Helen had remembered something, even if she didn’t realize it. Plus, they’d just added a shared memory of something new, the night he’d met her friends at the pub. It all felt like progress to him. Helen was trying to remain serious, but she was failing. A smile toyed with the corners of her mouth.
She drew the next card, and the smile died. “Have you ever cheated on a romantic partner?”
“No.”
She looked skeptical. “Never? Not even in high school or college?”
“Never.”
“So, if you were sleeping with a girl in college, you would break up with her before sleeping with someone else?”
“Yes. But just to be clear, I didn’t jump out of bed with one girl on Monday, tell her goodbye and jump into bed with a different girl on Tuesday.”
“How would you do it, then?”
“Do what? Find a new girlfriend in college?” He shrugged. “If I broke up with a girlfriend on Monday and saw someone else I wanted to get to know on Tuesday, then I’d ask the new girl if
she wanted to get coffee or something. Maybe go to a party that weekend. Maybe a movie, if I could scrape together the money. That ROTC scholarship was the only way I could afford college. Money was tight.” Dad was stingy. “I had to come up with cheap date ideas. Laying a blanket out on the college green to look at the stars was cheap.”
Helen set the card down with a little shake of her head.
“I dated in college, Helen. I didn’t just hop from mattress to mattress with any girl who was willing. I got to know girlfriends first, before they became...girlfriends.”
Who suckered you into his bed for a one-night stand and then broke your heart, dream girl?
But Helen was silent. He hated the silence.
He filled it. “That’s not the stereotype you’re thinking of, is it? But I think most guys take the time to get to know someone before they start sleeping with them. Don’t do that little scoffing noise. I’m serious. Most guys I’m friends with, anyway. Sex with a total stranger was never my goal, even in college.”
“So that must have come later.” She wasn’t being silent, after all. She’d just been thinking. “Am I supposed to believe I was the first?”
“The first what?”
“You slept with me when you didn’t know me. You jumped into bed with me the first day you met me.”
Shock at the accusation kept him silent, just for a moment, but long enough for Helen to throw up her hand impatiently. “I’m just trying to figure out why you are so determined to spend six months with a one-night stand. You won’t move on to the next girlfriend until you break up with me, right? You can be rid of me in twelve weeks. We only have to do this through Valentine’s Day. But at the pub, you informed me it would be six months. You’ll wait until I’ve lived here for six months, just so I’ll be the one doing the filing. That’s crazy.”
She was intent on him now, speaking with conviction. “Twelve weeks from now, you could go file for divorce and sleep with someone new the next day with a clear conscience. What man wouldn’t want that? I’m sure you have no problem attracting women. Michelle wanted five of you, remember? In twelve weeks, actually eleven now, you could have a woman on Monday, another on Tuesday, another on Wed—”
