Soak (A Navy SEAL Mormon Taboo Romance) (12 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Ryder tried not to let his
attention falter, when Mirabel started making out with her new girlfriend,
Lexi. This was difficult. Lexi was a busty redhead with old Hollywood-style
eyebrows drawn on in pencil. As their heads bent together in sexy conspiracy,
his old self was all but screaming:
this is so hot. This is so, so hot.

But the new, calm, well-adjusted
Ryder didn’t give in to temptation so easily. For one thing, these were his two
best—and so far, only—friends in the city, and he wasn’t about to become their
creepy straight dude friend who couldn’t keep his drool to himself. For
another, the little trio was currently sitting in a decrepit waiting room in
Queens, waiting to see if Ryder had passed some obscure test that would
determine if he was fit to work with other veterans. Nabby had recommended that
he look into “giving back,” to his community, so here he was. At the scene of
the crime, so to speak.

Mirabel’s lazy mouth descended
to her girlfriend’s shoulder, and Lexi giggled with glee. The only other
occupant in the waiting room was a rigid-looking old lady, who kept her eyes
glued to the floor. Lord knew what she was thinking about the present company.
Her penetrative gaze somehow reminded Ryder of Marie Christiansen’s pious eyes,
when her father spoke at dinner table. And just like that, he was about as far
from being turned on as it was possible to be.

“Strong?” A nurse in
bubblegum-pink scrubs peered across the waiting room. Mirabel, to his relief,
put her wandering hands back in her own lap. “Mr. Strong? Dr. Fisher is ready
to see you?”

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Lexi said, in
her husky voice. Ryder blushed, which made Mirabel giggle. “You’ve got this,”
his yoga teacher snapped, leaning forward to shake his knee. Their
encouragement reminded him of barracks bonding. They had his back, these crazy
two. He felt lucky to be part of a team again.

Dr. Fisher’s office was about as
decrepit as Dr. Fisher’s waiting room. It was suddenly easy to see how high a
priority the city considered their veterans to be.

“So you want to work with
military men,” the grizzly doctor told him, thwacking his way over many
teetering stacks of file folders to his flimsy desk. “Why is that, son?”

Ryder cleared his throat,
preparing to deliver the rehearsed explanation. As a fellow sufferer of PTSD,
he knew what the men were going through. In service, he’d taken on leadership
roles with courage and compassion. Etc, etc. But when he spoke, none of these
reasonable explanations came out.

“Umm, I think I’m heartbroken?
So I need something to fill up my time. Besides...her.” He regretted the words
as soon as they’d been spoken aloud. Why would a doctor take any kind of chance
on some casual jock? Veterans needed strong, committed support. Not just
Average Joes walking in off the street ready to blab to anyone about their girl
trouble.

“I applaud your honesty,” Dr.
Fisher grunted, pushing his drugstore glasses an inch further down on his nose.
“Most of the people we get in here are vaguely religious, tell me they’re
‘instructed by God.’ But I have a lot more faith in love than Jesus. I don’t
know about you.”

Ryder just grinned. He figured
the jury was still out on Jesus.

“I have a patient—nice kid, just
finished his second tour in Afghanistan. Allegedly  peace-keeping, but he’s
seen some shit. He hasn’t been very receptive to traditional therapy, and won’t
come to group. I see in your file here that you like to read?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Well, that’s good. Reading’s
about the only thing Wally likes to do anymore. Maybe you two tough guys can
get yourself a book club going.” When Dr. Fisher smiled, Ryder noted his
crooked, yellowy teeth. There was something endearing about this flawed
workhorse of a man, who was merely intent on doing his best by a bunch of
broken kids. Ryder nodded enthusiastically, surprised at how good it felt to
accept the assignment.

“Can’t wait to meet him,” he
said, several times.

That night at his aunt’s place,
in his old teenage bedroom, Ryder took stock. He ticked off his blessings on
his fingers. He had his health (for the most part), two funky new bohemian
galpals, he had his aunt, he had New York City. It was beginning to feel like
Provo was just an extension of the bad dream his service had been. He tried to
imagine the trajectory of his life, from the current course: he could keep
going to yoga class, and follow Mirabel’s advice and seek teacher
certification. He could volunteer with kids like Wally, and offer whatever
expertise he could be expected to have about living after seeing so much
violence. It almost felt like an argument for God, this second draft of a life.
He could be a new kind of hero.

Still, something was missing. He
got up and paced the floorboards, gingerly, so as not to wake Tilde. He paused
in front of the mirror, and took an appreciative glance at his resurrected
physique. His biceps had begun to curve again. The panels of his abs were
distinguishing themselves. He ran a hand over the back of his head and noted
that his dark black hair was starting to get shaggy in back. Soon enough, he
would almost blend in with his new hipster company.

Ryder meandered over to his
desk, where a roach lay waiting for him in an ashtray. His only remaining vice,
and a sweet one at that. He brought the clip to his lips and inhaled sharply,
welcoming the cloud that descended over his thoughts. Now that he didn’t have
his nightmare guardian, weed did feel necessary again. It felt better to drift,
to ignore the world’s sharp edges.

Of course the downside to
marijuana was that it made it harder for him to shut up his thoughts. Even the
forbidden ones drifted down all lazy, like deflating balloons. And there she
was, suddenly, perfectly: in her favorite, peach button-down cardigan. Her
mermaid hair swam around her shoulders in loose waves, framing the heart of her
face. As usual, as in life, she wore no make-up—just that wary grin, and those
slightly furrowed eyebrows. In this particular fantasy, she clutched to her
chest the book that had brought them together in the first place:
Anna
Karenina.
That line about all unhappy families being different had never
felt more true.

“Hello,” Ryder told his vision,
flexing, as if she could really see him. She smiled her doe-eyed smile, so the
knobs of her cheekbones twisted. He loved the red in her cheeks. He loved the
light smattering of freckles, so light you had to look close to see them. He
approached, and imagined he could smell the faint floral mist that seemed to
cling to her clothes. She’d once told him it was fabric softener. But it might
as well have been rose petals.

“I’ve missed you,” he said,
letting the words make him vulnerable. She watched, dolefully. She was a woman
who waited, who was cautious—wasn’t that part of her appeal? He took another
hit and she had moved closer, so he could reach out and touch her if we wanted
to. And he did. Oh boy, he did.

She smiled shyly, as she had all
those stolen evenings in the basement, and proceeded to peel the pearl-y
buttons of her blouse apart. He watched her skin materialize, in all its
freckled perfection. He couldn’t help himself. His lips inched forward, toward
the bow of her sternum. He kissed her there, and was instantly drunk on the
promise of what lay below: those perfect, cuppable breasts, which he’d come to
know so well. He felt like swallowing her. All of her.

“You missed me,” the vision
repeated. She bit her lip. Ryder reached through the air and grabbed at the
gentle crest of her ass, which felt warm and ripe even below its typical layer
of woolly, sex-repelling skirt. He bunched the fabric in his fist, seeking the
warmer entrance below, and she started to sink into his touch. He thought he
heard her moan a little, into his ear. That’s when his cock started to nudge
against his jeans. Insistent. Hungry.

He brought her over to the bed.
His
bed, he noted with pleasure. In here, they didn’t have to worry about her
oppressive family walking in—there was just dotty Tilde, who wouldn’t make a
fuss. She began to kiss him, greedily. Her lips mashed against his own. Her
soft paws moved to his cheeks, where they gripped his face firmly. As if he was
the one who was in danger of disappearing into thin air.

“Chloe,” he groaned. She only
got brighter when he spoke her name. His fumbling fingers successfully peeled
off the skirt, and began work on her black stockings. He thought of how much he
missed her taste. Moving faster, beginning to rock his ass against the bed to
imitate thrusting, he finally brought her pussy into the light. The urge was
irrepressible now; he turned her over, throwing her down on the mattress. He
spread her legs wide apart and buried his face in her secret sanctum, thrilling
at her slickness.

He and Chloe had never had bona
fide intercourse, which was something that continued to haunt him. He wished he
could have given her that pleasure, even as he knew it might have made things
worse when they’d been forced apart. Often, his dreams had stopped the buck at
oral and anal sex, as if even his sub-conscious felt guilty about deflowering
her. But tonight felt different.

She cried out above him,
wrapping her soft thighs around his skull. She pressed her firm little hand
into the base of his hair, delighting in its new length. Her fingers twisted
and kneaded, an echo of his tongue. He flicked his tongue back and forth across
her clit for long minutes, than directed his attention to her warm hole. He
furrowed inside, lapping her juices. Chloe’s whole body clenched as one muscle,
then shook, then shivered. She lay panting above him for a few delicious
breaths. Though he remained stiff and ready, it was no chore to relish in
ecstasy with her.

I love you,
she’d said. He hadn’t responded. It was like an
unfinished puzzle between them, those words he hadn’t gotten a chance to say.
Some days he thought he’d write Chloe a letter, some beautiful tell-all
explaining his feelings and his decisions on that fateful day, but then he’d
imagine her tearing the words. Maybe it was better like this, he told himself,
rolling over onto his back and extinguishing the jay. Maybe it was better just
to imagine, forever.

Chapter Nineteen

Gwen wouldn’t stop rubbing
Chloe’s shoulders, as if the repetitive motion could possibly keep her friend
from freaking out.

“You got everything?” she asked,
for maybe the ninety-ninth time. Chloe still took mental stock. Her few dresses
and pants were folded into her suitcase, along with some toiletries, her
beloved ice skates, and a few hundred dollars in cash c/o of Gwen. Her cell
phone was still in the family’s custody, so she traveled today with no way to
contact anyone.

Beyond this, Chloe carried only
a plastic bag full of airport paperbacks, and a heart full of hope.

“It’s gonna be fine, you know,”
Gwen repeated—also for the ninety-ninth time. “You can call me any hour of any
day. I’ll run right across America and pick you up.”

Gwen’s own flight North—she was
off to visit her father and Alton—didn’t leave for another few hours. But she’d
come to the airport early just to see her bestie off. The past few days had
been a draining whirlwind, complete with long talks with each member of her
family, much yelling and many tears. The battle had ended finally on Wednesday
night, when Elder Johannes slammed his open palm down on the table. “Go!” he’d
cried, red face inches from his only daughter’s. “Go. But don’t you ever expect
a welcome in this house again.”

No one but John had watched her
leave, dragging meager belongings out to a taxi at the curb. Her older brother
had seemed about to say something. Chloe had waited, a part of her still
hell-bent on receiving the Christiansen’s blessings, if not their apologies.
But just as he’d opened his mouth to speak, her father’s shadow had darkened
the stairwell, and the gloom his figure cast over the house drowned out even
the possibility of reconciliation. So Chloe turned her back on her family, as
she felt they’d done to her.

“This doesn’t have to be an
ending,” Gwen said, playing her usual intuitive self. “Your Dad and Freddy
don’t represent this whole community. If you ever want to come back, the world
will make room.”

It was a sweet thought, but not
especially comforting in Chloe’s present moment. Logical or not, she’d been
unable to divorce the church’s more rigorous doctrine from her father’s and
brother’s behavior; to her, it seemed like all of Provo, not just the
Christiansens, had conspired to destroy her spirit. A small piece of her
lamented the loss of God, of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day
Saints—but she was still too angry to imagine a happy homecoming. Not yet,
anyway.

“I’m gonna see what the rest of
the world has to offer right now,” she told Gwen. “I’m like the Amish. Off on
Rumspringa.”

“Well, but maybe a bit more
specific than that,” Gwen smirked. “New York’s not exactly a random choice of
city, is it?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Ya-huh. Say no more,
ballerina.”
Gwen leaned over and kissed her best friend on the cheek with a sweet,
aunt-like smack. Chloe tried not to think about how much she’d miss this lady.

“Go get him tiger,” were her
friend’s parting words—for just as she spoke, the gate attendant announced that
Flight 2903 to LaGuardia Airport was boarding.

In truth, Chloe didn’t know what
to expect when she got to the city. Between her confiscated cell phone and
redacted internet privileges (not to mention Johnny’s refusal to provide her
with an address), she had no idea where to find Ryder Strong in a big,
throbbing metropolis. She kept telling herself that the world wouldn’t end if
she couldn’t find him. In the end, she’d broken ties with her family for
herself, not for some guy. Yet. Yet, yet, yet, yet, YET.

She had one flimsy lead—a
contact of Gwen’s (some hipster resident who aspired to be in on all the Mormon
jokes, even as he mentored young churchgoers) had told her to hit up the VA.
While medical records were necessarily sealed, it was possible that Ryder had
put himself on some mailing list—and perhaps if she pressed the right chatty
secretary, she’d find his number. As the flight attendants circled the cabin—two
gorgeous, petite brunettes with their own disarming doll smiles, reminiscent of
Freddy Eyring’s creepy Ken face—Chloe pulled the scrap paper with the
hospital’s address on it from one of her pockets. She held the information in
her lap, like a baby bird, and tried to get comfortable in the tiny coach seat.

“Headed home?” This came from
her paunchy seatmate, a tired-looking businessman in a polyester suit. Chloe
immediately wondered if he was Mormon, or just visiting the wildlife.

She didn’t know what she was
thinking, when she blurted out ‘yes.’ She instantly felt like Gwen—savvy,
capable, discriminate with the truth. But the white lie felt good. It felt,
weirdly, true.

She thought she’d seen enough of
the world. Her church group had gone to Disneyland when she was small, and she
remembered glimpsing stark California out the windows of the charter bus. She
had been a part of crowds. She had attended campus rallies and talks. Plus, her
mind’s eye was a world and time-traveler; in her books, she’d been to Paris in
the 20s, London in the 40s, Rome in the Renaissance. Morocco, Guam, Japan.
Still, none of this quite prepared her for the arrivals gate at LaGuardia
airport. The sea of humanity there—so much darker, more diverse than her native
land—made it seem like a light-switch had flipped in her brain.
So this is
the rest of it.

But it wasn’t like she was dumb;
she could read signs. If passing strangers seemed to judge her on her chaste
paisley outfit and apple-cheeks, she took it in stride. Once, a leering man
tried to start a conversation, as she waited at baggage claim for her familiar
carpeted suitcase. She ignored him, feeling like a New Yorker.

The noise didn’t let up outside,
where people yelled at a few flustered men in fluorescent bright hats,
demanding taxis. Chloe quietly took her place in line, and removed her
journey’s only other map: an address to the Hampden Residence for Women, on
Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Though every word in the chain felt unfamiliar in
her mouth, she repeated the words over and over, sweat gathering on her brow,
so when she took a place in the taxi’s passenger seat she was able to say her
destination with confidence. Hampden House had been another one of Gwen’s
helpful hook-ups. It was better than a hotel or a hostel, because the only
clientele were businesswomen and teachers. No funny business allowed.

“Where you from, sweetheart?”
The taxi driver’s eye was wandering. “Kansas? Don’t tell me I’ve got Dorothy
Gale in my cab.”

Chloe smiled tightly. “As much
as I love her footwear, we’re not related,” she snapped back. When the cabbie
laughed, she was pleased with herself. Maybe she could make it in this tough
town after all.

The ride was long, but it didn’t
feel like it. Out the window, the world whipped past like a fever dream. Chloe
noted untold skyscrapers, homeless people, pedestrians who might as well have
been racing one another, for their speed. She delighted in the spires of
several elegant churches (“This is midtown,” the cabbie pointed out, pleased to
offer a two-penny tour) whose big stone facades demanded grace. “Can just
anyone go in?” she asked, pointing to a Neo-Gothic structure that reminded her
of Notre Dame.

“To St. Patty’s? Oh, you
betcha.”

“Catholic?”

“Oh, born and raised,” the
cabbie said, misunderstanding the question. “What about you?”

“I’m Christian,” Chloe said.
Another white lie. But this one, too, felt right. Her stomach leapt, with some
combination of dread and excitement.

The fun paused when, on arriving
outside the modest-looking Hampden House, the cabbie informed her that the
drive had cost sixty dollars. Her heart sunk as she forked over the bills,
which represented a pretty hefty chunk of Gwen’s donation. She needed a job
yesterday. At least, she reminded herself, she’d had the foresight to bring an
emergency credit card. But this was in her mother’s name, so who knew how long
it would work before someone in the family either tracked her down via
purchases or cancelled the damn thing.

“Be careful out there, love,”
the driver said, as he peeled back into traffic. She turned to face her new
home.
Breathe deep,
she told herself.
You’re no crazier than Jo
March, or Esther Greenwood. Practically all of your favorite literary heroines
took off for New York at some point.
Then, as she fumbled with the
revolving door:
Well, maybe not Esther Greenwood. She’s a bad example.

A chesty woman-out-of-time sat
in the lobby, gazing at herself in a compact mirror. Chloe tried not to stare
at the deep V of her cleavage, and settled on her fire-engine red hair,
instead. If this chick was supposed to be exampling Hampden House’s stated
values of “modesty,” and “respectability,” Chloe had a bad feeling about the
rest of the city’s moral compass.

“How can I help you, baby?” The
woman snapped her compact shut with a click, and smiled a seductive smile.
Chloe blushed, in spite of herself.

“Chloe Christiansen. I’m from
Provo? My friend Gwen got me a room here?” She hated how little-kiddish and
small she sounded, but the woman didn’t seem to mind. Rather, she swiveled her
attention to an ancient-looking computer, and started taking her sweet time to
scroll through some kind of database.

“New in town?” she drawled,
without looking at Chloe. It occurred to her that Gwen would probably like this
chick. They both probably identified as Samanthas, on
Sex and the City.
(Well,
this analysis based on the one time Chloe’d snuck a viewing of the very-taboo
HBO show, on some co-ed’s computer in college.)

“Yep. I’m from Utah.” She wasn’t
used to introducing herself by the name of her state. The words felt strange on
her tongue.

“Oh, bitchin. I’m from Oregon.”

“So you’re not from New York?”
Chloe tried to hide her surprise. The receptionist looked at her, and smiled
impishly.

“Darling, almost no one like us
is from New York. We’re all immigrants.” She pressed a button on her computer,
and a plastic key card emerged from some mysterious machine. “It’s Room 212, up
the stairs and to the left. Activities and communal meal info is posted in
every corridor. And my name is Lexi, if you need help with anything.”

Lexi winked as Chloe took the
key card from her lacquered nails. She swiveled her attention to the rest of
the lobby.
Us,
Chloe remembered, smiling.
She said ‘no one like us.’ 

There’s no place like home.