Page 14 of Finding Romance
I nod.
“Is she doing better?” she asks.
I nod.
“You don’t say much, do you?” she questions.
I shrug. “I guess not.”
I glance over to find her pursing her lips as if considering this fact about me.
“Where did you grow up?”
“Are we playing twenty questions?” I ask.
“Sure,” she replies, a grin spreading across her face.
I groan and she giggles. “Oh, come on, indulge me. I mean, it’s not like I live here. You probably won’t see me again for months,” she explains. “Or more, depending on if I ever find a job and it’s not around here.”
“You’re looking for a job?” I ask.
“Yeah. I’m trying to figure that whole career thing out,” she says and then lowers her voice to a whisper. “It’s not going very well.”
I fight a laugh because I remember being in those same shoes years ago when I decided just to join the military instead of going to college or getting a job. “I see.”
“So?”
“So?” I repeat.
“Where did you grow up?” she repeats her question. This woman is frustrating as fuck. I can tell she isn’t going to relent, so I figure what the hell?
“Well, when I was a wee lad, I lived in Maine with my parents. And then when I was a teenager, I went to live with my grandparents in Scotland,” I explain.
I look back to see her grinning again.
“What?” I ask as I try to figure out what I said that was so funny.
“Wee lad,” she repeats my words with a laugh. “That explains why I sometimes hear a faint accent when you speak.”
She’s not wrong. I tend to have my Scottish accent pop out when I drink or when my guard is down. My father’s accent remained strong until his final day and then living on a remote Scottish island for four years had me acquiring a bit of one. I did my best to cover it up when I decided to go back to the States and join the military.
“I suppose so,” I say as we reach the end of the block and I turn us right.
“So, you must be close to your grandmother,” she says, her elbow brushing my arm. I watch her out of the corner of my eye. She’s looking at me and not watching where she is going.
“Watch your step, curious cat,” I tease.
She looks back down in time to avoid a planter along the edge of the sidewalk. “I guess what they say about curiosity killing the cat is true, huh?” she says with a slight laugh, keeping her eyes ahead.
“How long were you in the military?” she asks.
I raise an eyebrow because I never told her I was in the military.
“I saw your dog tags on the wall of your living room when you opened your door the other day,” she explains and I’m instantly impressed by her attention to such a small detail.
But I still hate all the questioning. This is why I don’t date. So many questions. So many things I don’t want to remember. I’ve spent my whole life running from my memories. And so far, I’ve managed to keep away from them.
“Five years,” I say, remembering when a beachside bomb changed my life. It gave me a concussion, a nasty scar on my forehead, and some hearing damage. But it was the stitches on my trigger finger that kept me from going back into the field. I still don’t feel everything on that finger, but I have most of my mobility back.
