“Sometimes,” he admitted.
“Okay, could you be more specific?”
“When I go out I don’t want to get into some heavy conversation about my time in the service or what happened. But I don’t want to act like everything’s normal and then have some fucking panic attack and scare the shit out of everyone.”
“I guess that makes dating tough,” I said.
He shrugged. “I haven’t tried.”
“I’m sure you’ve met some women you were attracted to since you came back stateside. Why haven’t you asked anyone out?”
“I’m not interested, or I haven’t been. If you have to work yourself to exhaustion just to hope to sleep, it’s not like you have a lot of energy to put into getting to know somebody. And I don’t want to go that deep, talk about all my shit. Kind of a mood killer.”
“To be honest, it isn’t a mood killer at all. If you open up and make yourself vulnerable to someone new, that’s how you build intimacy. Intimacy is necessary to make a real connection.”
“How’s that work for you?” he said.
“We’re not talking about me,” I said.
“Come on, we’re supposed to be friends now. When was your last relationship?”
“Never,” I said.
“Whoa, never? So you’re trotting along beside me giving me intimacy advice when you’ve never been with a guy?”
“I have ‘been with a guy,’ as you put it, a number of times. But it didn’t work out for me,” I said, prickly.
“One guy, a number of times, or a number of guys but just once?” he asked with a wicked grin.
“You won’t get very far being judgmental,” I said. “I’d just prefer to go it alone.”
“You’re telling me that you gave up because of some bad sex? With what, frat boys? Rich pretty boys at college who didn’t know what they were doing?” Disgust ranged in his voice.
“We’re not here to discuss my past,” I reminded him.
“What about making yourself vulnerable and intimacy and all that?” he challenged.
I stopped my shuffling jog, bent down with hands on my knees to catch my breath, “We’re not trying to build intimacy. This isn’t a relationship. We’re just friends going for a jog, discussing your PTSD.”
“So when you go out with your friends, is this how it is? You do something you hate while basically interrogating them?”
“No,” I said, “of course, not. We have conversations. We laugh and eat a lot of queso.”
“So why aren’t we doing that?”
“Because, this is strictly—” I was stuck, trying to find the right word. I couldn’t say professional because I couldn’t have him as a patient. I couldn’t say friendly because I wasn’t about to have dinner with the man like he was Maggie or Sarah Jo. “Platonic,” I said.
“So you hook up with your friends?”
“No!” I said, “God, you’re the worst!”
He grinned. “I know. My brother tells me all the time.”
“I just need a minute. Then I’ll start running again.”
“Again? You weren’t running before,” he said with a dry laugh.
“Don’t get salty with me,” I warned, gasping out a laugh. “Just because I can’t keep up.”
“Do you need a piggyback ride home?” he asked.
“No, I can do this,” I said, swiping sweat out of my eyes and frowning at the streak of mascara that came off on my fingers.
13
Tyler
I let her limp along for another half mile before I offered to stop for a rest. Her face was red, and it was obvious from her stride that she didn’t run regularly. I was kind of disappointed when she declined the piggyback ride. It would’ve been fun, and it seemed like the only way I’d get to touch her. Every time I got even remotely near her, she’d skitter away or bend down to tie her shoe that wasn’t even untied.
“Want to sit down for a minute?” I asked. She nodded.
Then Layla flopped down on the grass, spread-eagle like she’d just sprawled out and collapsed.
“That was hell!” she said with a wheezy laugh. “I’ve never been so hot in my life. It’s like PE, but without the energy of a high schooler. God. Why do people do this on purpose?”
I chuckled, “I used to think that way, but I decided in high school I wanted to join the Corps. So I started working out pretty seriously, using the free weights after the football team finished training, doing intervals, lots of weight-bearing work to build up my upper body. Jer and I have a tendency to be skinny, so if I don’t work at it, I start losing weight.”
“Yeah, that must be a real bitch,” she said sarcastically, “since I have to count how many chips I eat or else I’d have to wear a tent to work.”
“You’re beautiful as you are. And nothing would change that,” I told her, “The diet culture is bullshit, you know.”
“Yeah, but I still buy into it about half the time.”
“There’s no need to,” I said.
Layla looked up at me. I sat on the grass near where she had sprawled.
“I get it though. Because I hated being skinny and small growing up. So I changed it, but then when I got to basic training, that just changed everything for me. The whole way I live in my body and look at my body. I almost think everyone should do boot camp—not the bikini body boot camp crap they advertise, the real thing. Where you’re in a group, part of a team, and your job is to hone your body into peak fitness. Even in old or mud or rain, you learn to get your body to perform, because it’s your only defense. Weapons can be taken or lost or jam up at the wrong time. All you have is yourself, and it pared away a lot of my vanity about working out.”
“You make it sound transformative and amazing.”
“It was, and it taught me to value my body as a gift. I may want to bring that to people someday, be a personal trainer or something,” I said, thinking out loud.
“You’d be wonderful at that.”
“You’d skip your training if there was running, don’t lie,” I teased, but it meant something to me that she’d instantly thought I’d be great as a trainer. It settled on my shoulders and made me feel proud.
“I don’t know, if you ran a gym and taught classes, I bet I’d show up. I’ve done some kickboxing, but I hate it. It’s too sweaty,” she admitted.
“There’s nothing wrong with a little sweat. Some things are worth getting sweaty for,” I said. I knew she felt the weight of my words by the way she glanced away from me.
“So when you open your gym or your training business, are you going to stick around here, or are you moving on once the addition to the vineyard is done?” she asked. Her voice seemed carefully casual, like she was trying to sound like she didn’t care either way.
It struck me that I wanted her to want me to stay.
Layla sat up and fixed me with a serious look. I felt pinned in place, waiting for her to say something I could tell by her eyes that it was something sincere and important. She hesitated a second, then reached out and took my hand. The same shock of recognition, the same furious wave of arousal accompanied her touch as it had before. I had to steady myself so I could hear her speak instead of just grabbing her and dragging her into my lap right where we sat.