Chapter 92
702 Words
“That safe house that you set up for the women and kids… you did that to honor your mother?”
“Yeah. We didn’t have a place like that to go to back then, and I remember sleeping on bus station floors and in apartment building hallways, until she got a steady job and managed to find a place for us to rent. It was a hell-hole, but it was heaven after the bus station, you know? And as soon as I had the money, all I wanted to do – after I took care of Mom – was set up a place for women and kids who had no f*****g choice but to run from the men who were supposed to protect them.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I think that’s great of you.”
She was startled. “You do?”
“Yes.”
“Well, thanks. But it’s not something that many people know about, so don’t tell anyone, OK?”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Can I ask you another question?” she said.
“Of course.”
“Why don’t you date anyone seriously?”
He almost fell off the chair. “How do you know that I don’t?”
“Well, do you?”
“Uh. No.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, Olivia….”
“What’s wrong?”
Dallas was having a very tough time with himself, suddenly. “Well, it’s just that… it’s a bit hard to talk about.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry or upset you.”
“You didn’t,” he assured her. “It’s just…” He fell silent.
“Just what?”
“Well, after my time overseas, I found it difficult to… to be with anyone seriously. I was – a mess in lots of ways.” He sighed. “Being a sniper is so f*****g traumatic, you know. I mean, I had extensive training and psych evaluations and counselling all the way through, but still. There’s something about taking a human life in that way that’s just so – impersonal. It can f**k with your head, big-time.”
She nodded.
“When you start to see the whole world from a distance, and you keep your emotions in check all the time, and you have this power over life and death… I mean, I can kill someone from seven hundred yards away through a window, and I have. All those things make it f*****g challenging to let anyone in. Dean and Chris and Jim were close and stayed close, because they were physically there, and they get it. But letting in anyone new? Outsiders and civilians? A girlfriend? It’s – it’s not easy to explain things to them.”
“I can see that.”
“So, I just didn’t date seriously. Or at all, really. I didn’t want to be close to anyone. Emotionally, I mean.”
“But now you do?”
He started. “What?”
“Well, you’re using the past tense, Dallas. You just said that you didn’t want to be close to anyone emotionally. So now you do?”
Oh, f**k, man. You just gave yourself away. Completely.
“Um.” Dallas cleared his throat. “Well, maybe.”
Say it, say it, you f*****g coward. Tell her.
“Maybe with one person.” He took a breath. “Maybe with you.”
She stared across at him, her heart in her throat. “With me?”
“Yeah.”
The silence stretched out between them. Dallas was paralyzed in the chair, feeling so unbelievably f*****g stupid that he wished for a hole to open up right in front of him. He’d dive in head-first, and never come out again.
Olivia spoke now. “Come here, Dallas.”
Slowly, he got to his feet and walked over to the bed, set the gun on the bedside table. He sat on the edge of the mattress, studied her in the dim light. God, she was just so f*****g gorgeous, and he fought with himself to not touch her.
Not until she touches you first. If she touches you.
- Writer
