The line was short, only one person ahead of us. And when the woman spoke, I immediately recognized her voice. Sure enough, Kael did, too, and as he said her name, I clung like a flea to his side.
“Turner?” He used his free hand to tap her shoulder.
“Martin!” Her face lit up at the sight of him. Not that I blamed her, but I felt possessive and unreasonably jealous. My lungs burned as she reached for him like she was going to hug him. I let go of his arm, moving a few feet away, defensively; if they started to hug in front of me, my eyes were going to melt off my face. Kael reached for the baggy sleeve of my sweatshirt to pull me close, dodging the hug she tried to give him. Her arms fell flat at her sides as he laced his fingers through mine. Her eyes instantly went blank, hiding any thoughts she might have been having; she was a soldier, after all. In most romances, this would be the chapter where I find out that Kael has a secret past with her or, worse, he pretends not to know me. He was confusing me by doing the opposite of what I’d expected. Why do I always assume the worst?
“What are you doing here, of all places?” Turner asked Kael, not looking at me. She was smiling again, focused on him.
Kael held up my laptop with the arm that wasn’t holding my hand. “Her laptop is fucked up, so we came to fix it.”
We. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Turner straightened her stance, and I was a bit terrified of how small I felt next to her. She was wearing makeup today and had her civilian clothes on, unlike when we ran into her at the commissary. Not that she didn’t look great in her uniform, but wow, her personal style was cool. She was wearing a black halter that tied across the back, with cutouts on the sides that exposed a lot of skin. Her jeans were loose everywhere except her hips and butt. She looked like she belonged on an Instagram account full of “look at me” vacation pictures or in an engagement photo shoot with a man like Kael. She was definitely on his level, unlike me with my sloppy clothes and blotchy skin. I inched a little closer to Kael.
“This is Karina, you’ve met her,” he introduced me.
I waved, offering a quiet hello.
She seemed to analyze every feature of my face and clothes. “Oh, Fischer’s sister! Now I see it,” she said, laughing. I hated that I didn’t get her joke.
“You know my brother?”
She nodded, flipping her dark hair over her shoulder. Her fingernails were perfectly manicured and painted a light pink, skating the line of dress regulations. She bit the edge of her lip and wrapped the ends of her glossy hair around her finger, the perfect metaphor for my inward spiral.
“Of course I know Austin! Who doesn’t?” She said it in a way that felt like it meant something more. “And your dad. He—”
Kael interrupted whatever she was going to say. “Ray! My man!” he called out to an older Black man with a thick gray moustache standing behind the counter.
“Martin. Haven’t seen you in a while,” Ray said in a raspy voice, obviously happy to see Kael. “I barely recognize you out of uniform. What brings you in?”
Kael gave Turner a quick nod goodbye and turned his attention back to me and Ray to explain what was wrong with the laptop. Ray said it would be an easy fix but that he was so backed up with work, it would need to be left there for a day or two.
“Friends and family discount.” He winked, and Kael handed him his credit card without giving me a chance to protest. Not that I would have: I was still inside my head, wondering if Kael had dated Turner or, worse, had slept with her. Actually, I didn’t know which was worse, but I’d surely prefer neither. This growing web of acquaintances connected to the people in my life was rattling me.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
My shift that afternoon was long and I could barely keep my eyes open. It was now evening and I had already had three scheduled appointments; Stewart, who was one of my favorite clients, would be the last. Going to the mall this morning with Kael had depleted most of my allotted daily energy, but the way he’d held my hand the whole drive home had replenished it. I wondered what he was doing now. I hadn’t heard from Kael since he dropped me off at home. He mentioned he would be going back to his place, and I wished we had had time to go there together. I wanted to see where he lived, where he slept—I just didn’t want to miss a chance to know more about him. But now I was feeling self-conscious about texting him. I didn’t want to seem clingy. It wasn’t such a big deal to text him a quick “hi.” I knew that, but I didn’t, of course, and I watched the screen of my phone and the clock on and off until Stewart finally came in.
During her treatment, Stewart told me all about her upcoming move to Hawaii. On top of the perk of getting to live there, her long-awaited promotion to staff sergeant had also come through. And she spoke enthusiastically about her partner, Stacey, who ran a small business, designing and selling these cute floral dresses.
“She’s going to set up one of those little shops right on the beach. She’s convinced she’s made for beach life,” Stewart said and beamed. She was optimistic that Stacey’s business would surely do better in a year-round beach town than it did here near the border of Georgia and Alabama, almost five hours away from the coast.
Stewart kept talking a mile a minute, her head in the cradle and her voice muffled. She winced as I applied extra-firm pressure. She was always full of knots, but she could handle the pain better than most of the people I’d had on this table.
“I’ve heard the housing on post is really nice, and very affordable.” I shared what I knew from my father and a couple other clients.
“I reminded Stacey that we’re going to be living by the post, since it wouldn’t be easy to live on post,” Stewart said between her deep breaths absorbing the body work. “I did find a cute house only a few miles away. It has a small garden for the dogs.”
I felt bad for not thinking about what I had just said before I said it. I knew that, in reality, gay couples weren’t particularly welcome living on post together. It blew my mind that Stewart could serve her country the same way a straight woman or man could, but she might be denied the community support that a straight soldier would have. Seemed to me the “don’t ask, don’t tell” protocol really meant “don’t care, won’t respect.” The military needed to catch up with the times. Things were changing slowly, but overall, the Army hadn’t been very supportive of the LGBTQIA+ community. Too many men in charge still believed that being homosexual had no place in the military. These were sometimes the same men who swept sexual assault under the rug, not to mention an overwhelming number of disappearances and suicides of service members in every branch. I worried about all of the challenges that Stewart and Stacey would face, even if Hawaii seemed like a more accepting place to live than some other military bases. I listened to Stewart talk for the rest of our session, but underneath her every word, I felt a sense of sadness. I wished this world were more fair for Stewart and her partner and for all the other people I didn’t know, but who were suffering for their own reasons.
I felt a little guilty that I was eager for the massage to finish so I could check my phone and see if Kael had texted me. I needed to connect with him any way I could. I needed to feel closer to him. Even just to see his name on my phone screen. To reread old texts he had sent me.