Blackout

Chapter 15

Imaia Island

Max

Present

“I want you to meet Andres when you return,” deadpanned my grandma while she moved around her little kitchen, full of pans and pots that she kept sparkling clean. By the window I could see the little Pothos plant I’d gifted her on mother’s day and on the fridge’s door was still my elementary picture plastered under a magnet. If people asked who the little girl was, she always said “esa es mi niña”  which meant “that’s my little girl”. Even if I was a full grown woman that thankfully had grown teeth and was a couple of feet taller.

My grandma had left my tablet over the oven at a weird angle so I could barely see her through the camera. I knew she would be home since it was Sunday after the San Pedro festival that celebrated our local church. She looked beautiful in her flowery dress and wearing the necklace I’d given her for her birthday.

I fixed my headphones and kept walking down the stairs, on my way to the dorm. I’d been pretty busy during my night shift and was ready to hit the sack. One open heart surgery, one dislocated shoulder and a busted appendix had been enough to keep me on my toes for thirteen hours. I was tired, hungry and sleepy. It went without saying that I had no time to fight her over this... whatever-his-name- guy that she wanted me to meet. I sighed, lifting my phone’s camera a bit so we could see each other better.

“Abuela por favor, que no quiero conocer a nadie,” she frowned, her black eyebrows tensing in a cute contrast against her whitening hair. I don’t want to meet anyone, that’s what I’ve said, which seemed to be a code war to start the exact speech I’d wanted to avoid after a thirteen hour shift. She started complaining about the fact she wanted to meet her grandkids before dying and how she would not be around to be by my side forever. I was about to fake a headache and call it a day when I caught the sight of a large set of shoulders and short black hair.

I stopped walking right away, pausing by a lemon tree that marked the middle of the road between the dorms and the medical unit. Callan stopped on his way to the parked humvees, his shoulders tensing in awareness, before turning to me. He was dressed in his uniform, with the sleeves of his yellow-brown fatigues folded around his muscular forearms. Jesus, he looked as if he had been photoshopped into an army slogan, looking powerful and strong and so damn tall that he towered over everyone around us. In contrast I was on my scrubs, my hair dirty and greasy after using a scrub cap during my last surgery, and yes, I was wearing white Crocs...with socks, because they were damn comfy. Suddenly I felt self-conscious and nervous. Surely, this was not exactly how I wanted him to see me, but there was no point in praying for the land to open and spit me in Hawaii. I waved my hand at him and Callan started walking to me.

When he was close enough he stared at the phone in my hand and then back at me.

“Am I interrupting?” he asked in his deep voice and my grandma stopped her speech at once. She blinked with her index finger midway and then her eyes flashed with a curious look.

“Máxima, déjame ver quien te habla,” Aww s**t. She wanted to see Callan. I opened my mouth and closed it, trying to find a good reason to finish our video call but at the end she lifted her eyebrows at me, crossing her arms and squaring her shoulders back. I was woman enough to admit I was scared of any old latin lady that stepped like that. I took one of my earbuds off and offered it to Callan.

“My grandmother wants to see you,” I said, chewing my lower lip nervously. Callan didn’t even hesitate. He took the earbud and my phone out of my hand, moving it up so she could see us better. My grandma’s eyes opened like saucers when he smiled at the camera, all white teeth and green-gray eyes, his charm full-on.

“Como esta señora Cruz?” he asked in Spanish, making me smile from ear to ear. His accent was terrible, and the “r” sounds could use a lot of work but he had the sweetest gesture, trying for my grandma, and for that I couldn’t stop myself from liking him a ton more. Make that two tons more when my grandma smiled too, clearly pleased with what she was seeing.

“An Army man? Just like Maxima’s grandfather. I like that,” I blushed instantly, trying to move slowly and reach for the phone, but Callan only needed to move his hand a little higher and it was completely out of my reach. My grandma’s eyes sparked, moving curiously between me and Callan, “ What is your name, young man?”

“Callan Jameson, ma’am,” he said slowly, marking every word so she could hear him over the sound of his men training by the military camp. She nodded slowly, her eyes moving between us one last time before she smacked her lips, shaking her head a little.

“It’s nice to meet you, Callan.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” he said, sounding sincere, his smile warm. I didn’t know if he had ever done this before, meeting relatives of the women he wanted to bed and all that, but one thing was sure. He was good with the ladies. Of any age.

“I don’t know if you will ever be in Miami but let’s do something, next time you are in this city call me and I will cook you something good in no time. You can come over alone or with Maxima, that’s optional. In this house all of her friends are welcome,” I wanted to die of second hand embarrassment but to my surprise Callan laughed, enjoying this chat with my grandmother a little too much. He rarely laughs but he laughs with her. That intrusive thought made me pause and look back at my grandma, who was already staring at me with a knowing look. She smiled then, nodding.

“We will talk soon, Máxima. Te quiero mucho mija,” she blew me a kiss and finished the call before I could say anything else. I wasn’t sure how to read those last words. She wanted to talk to me about Callan or she wanted to have a talk? Those were two completely different types of conversation. I risked a look up at him and found Callan already studying me with a lopsided grin.

“Maxima?” he asked me and I rolled my eyes.

“That’s my actual name, yes,” I accepted my earbud back, making a big deal of putting my phone and earbuds in my scrub’s pockets, dragging in every minute to try to postpone this talk, “I started going by Max once I entered highschool.”

“I see,” he said with a hidden smile.

“You see nothing,” I fought back and Callan nodded condescendingly, my tone full of rebuke.

“She seems like an amazing woman,” he said, his tone turning serious and his eyes growing caring, as if he wanted me to understand he really respected my grandmother. I nodded slowly, our eyes inspecting each other’s expressions, our lips, the set of our eyebrows. Callan cleared his throat, his brows knitted in the middle, “Your grandfather served in the military?”

I rested my back against the lemon tree and Callan moved with me, watching my face carefully as if he was trying to read my every tell. I nodded again, placing my hands inside of my pockets, “He served in the Navy. He was stationed in Guantanamo Bay for two years and that’s how he met my grandmother. She was only seventeen when she married him and they stayed married until he died, fifty years later.”

“What was he like?” he asked me, brushing my hair back behind my ear.

“He was a lot like Connor,” I said with a smile and he smirked, smiling a little, “He distrusted everyone and everything. If you broke his trust there was no repairing it, not ever, and he had this way of looking in your eyes and knowing if you were lying right away.”

“Did he ever catch you lying?” 

“No way, I never lied to him. I loved the old man too much to ever break his trust,” I explained and Callan moved even closer, placing his hands on some branches over my head and staring at me down the straight barrel of his nose.

“Could you do that again?” he asked me, making me furrow my forehead.

“Not lying to somebody?”

“Loving another military man,” Callan said, studying my eyes when I finally realized what he was trying to say. I felt my own eyes move back and forward while I studied him back, trying to judge if he was playing with me or being serious. He was being serious. I sized him up, squaring my shoulders back and crossing my arms just like my grandmother had done to me. One corner of his mouth turned up and he opened his lips as if to speak but I covered his mouth with a hand, stepping into his personal space and craning my neck up until I could see his eyes fully.

“Don’t play games with me Jameson,” I warned him and he narrowed his eyes, moving his head to the sides until I pushed my hand away.

“Is it Jameson now, Maxima?”

“It is when I’m being serious,” I said straight-faced. 

“So am I,” Callan moved his hand then, caressing my cheek slowly and placing it around my neck, letting me feel the vibration of his deep voice through his touch, “It’s not that I don’t believe in marriage. I do. I believe that as a man I can respect and love the right woman unconditionally, until I f*****g die. I’ve never thought about the possibility though. Not until you.”

“You are considering marriage,” I rephrased his words, staring at him with a frown so he could hear his own words out loud. You know, just in case I was not following him. Callan nodded, looking grave and all business like. I started biting the inside of my mouth, feeling a little unsteady after this revelation. I wanted to know him better, and sure, I’d invited him over to our Shots and Questions night so he could get to know me better too. I hadn’t been following any hidden agenda with the gesture. I knew he was a good man and I’d wanted to grow closer to him to see where that could take us, but marriage? We were still strangers to each other. I knew virtually nothing about him, apart from some facts and I doubted that knowing he preferred Hummers over trucks was considered important enough to take vows and marry. My frown deepened when a thought crossed my mind, “Are you considering marriage only so you can take me to bed?”

“That’s one of the benefits but not my main reason,” he answered honestly, making me blush all the way to my chest. Callan smiled, thumbing the column of my neck gently, “I’m thinking about marrying you because you are too damn good for me. You are the kind of woman who needs a better man at her side and I want to be that man for you. You need to know I’m not a good man, Max, and I will probably never be. You will be accepting someone you don’t deserve if you marry me. I will try becoming better for you.”

“Why do you say that?” this wasn’t the kind of speech I’d been expecting from him. Back in Miami he had sounded so reassured, so full of himself and proud. The man standing before me now was giving me humility and raw honesty. I realized this man wasn’t selling me a one night stand but a lifetime together. He wanted me to understand there was gravity in his offer, that he wasn’t playing around. s*x he could give to anyone, but compromise was something he didn’t give easily. Callan licked his lips, a line forming between his brows. 

“Woman, I will never be around,” he started saying, getting closer, speaking clearly and soundly, “There will be moments in which you will need me right there with you and I will be nowhere in sight. You won’t be able to get a hold on me if I’m off-grid. I guarantee you will feel more alone than you will feel my company. I’m already possessive of you and not in a good way. I will get mad and jealous easily. I’m gruff as f**k. I don’t know how to f*****g speak when people are emotional and I will try to fix everything with s*x because that’s the one thing I’m good at. If you still want to consider this after everything I said, I know for a fact you are probably as crazy as I am.”

There were about a thousand of things to digest about that speech but only one thing had me raising my eyebrows, “Are you that good at s*x?”

“Max,” he chastised, a nerve pulsing in his jaw. Well, there went my last attempt to keep things light. I sighed, moving one step closer, until my front was touching his body. His greenish eyes darkened a bit, staring at me as if he could eat me whole. Tension stiffened his shoulders but this time he didn’t try to move. Our chemistry was out of the charts and still Callan was trying to fight it off, giving me space to think things over. I nodded finally, knowing quite well that he was right.

“I need more time to think about everything you said,” I told him and Callan seemed to ground his jaw, studying my eyes with the same precision I’ve seen him analyze dangerous situations and security measures. Callan removed his hand from my neck, making me feel...bereft. I instantly missed his heat and wanted it back, which was not a good sign. We needed time to think about all of our options and decide if we wanted to be together or let the other one go. For whatever reason I hated the idea of not getting to know Callan a little better. Just a little more. Just for a while. Just for him to stay a little longer. He held my sight for a while and in that moment the rest of the world seemed to disappear. It was just Callan and me, gray eyes against hazel ones.

“I can give you time,” he said finally, his voice a verdict, “but while I wait, you belong to me. There are no other men for you. If you need things, things you can’t get by yourself, you come to me and me only.”

I rolled my eyes but Callan didn’t smile, making me widen my eyes, “Are you serious?”

“Damn right I am,” and then he was turning his head down and kissing me right in front of everyone. It was a claiming kiss. His lips guided mine over and over, making me go after him and follow the deep strokes of his tongue. Someone whistled catcalls at us and I was positive I heard one of his men screaming f*****g finally at our back but for the life of me, I couldn’t stop kissing that man even if a thunder stroke us down. At the end he pushed his head back, holding my lower lip between his teeth in a gentle bite that felt like a promise for more. He kissed it better with a pick of his lips and then took a step back. Callan dipped his head in a goodbye gesture, “Dr. Cruz.”

“Major Jameson,” I nodded in response completely out of breath and sounding breathy.

With a smirk Callan turned around and left me there, staring at his back and thinking of all the possible ways in which I was completely, royally and utterly screwed.