Entangled To The CEO

Jake’s [POV]

The beach was quiet on this side. The sea stretched out for miles in curling waves of blue and green. I had already run three miles when Luis found me.

“Sanchez,” I said as we clasped hands before bumping our shoulders together in what qualified as a hug.

“It’s been a while.” Luis smiled.

“You look good, Middleton,” he said, and he looked me over carefully.

“It’s like you never left the army.”

“I make sure to run at least three times a week,” I told him.

“How do you even manage to find the time?”

“I drop Noah off at kindergarten, do a seven-mile run, and head into the office a little late.”

“Perks of being the CEO, huh?” he asked.

“Definitely,” I nodded. I met Luis Sanchez when I was still a rookie in training.

He was a marine and had a couple of years and a whole lot of experience with me.

But it had taken one conversation to make us friends, and even though we were part of separate divisions, we had worked together in Afghanistan and had made the attempt to keep in touch after I had retired from the army.

It had been more than a year since I’d last seen Luis, but he didn’t look any different.

Dark eyes, tan skin, and a shaved head that you could bounce a quarter off of.

He was a few inches shorter than I was, stockier, and heavily built, but he was one of the finest and most disciplined fighters I had ever seen.

We started walking along the coast as waves lapped at our feet.

“How’s it?” I asked.

“Over there?” Luis smiled.

“The same as it was when you were serving,” he responded.

I looked out into the ocean and imagined the dry heat of Afghanistan.

Was it odd that a part of me missed it? I wondered. Maybe it wasn’t the land…

Maybe it had to do to be there. Maybe it was because I knew who I was when I was serving.

My life was straightforward and uncomplicated. I had a job to do, and I enjoyed doing it.

But now… Everything was different. I was no longer in the army, I was no longer a major, and I no longer had the same sense of purpose I had once had.

“Do you miss it?” Luis asked as though he had read my mind.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

“Is it weird if I said yes?” He smiled.

“Hey, I happen to understand where you’re coming from. When I’m over there, I miss it here. But the moment I’m here… I can’t wait to leave again. But it’s different for me.”

“Why?”

“Because I have no one to come home to,” he said.

“You have parents,” I pointed out.

“That’s different,” Luis clarified.

“My parents have each other. They have two other sons and five grandchildren to occupy themselves with. They don’t depend on me for anything. Having a family of your own is a whole other thing, though.”

“What if you did have a wife?” I asked.

“What if you had kids?”

“I would keep serving until the day I died, or they begged me to retire,” Luis said.

“I would have had to keep saying goodbye to my wife and my children, and they would have had to live with the uncertainty of my career and the fear of knowing that every time I leave, I might never come home again. That is why I will never get married.” I bit my lip.

A part of me wished I had been that smart when I was younger.

I remembered the first few months of my courtship with Daphne.

It had made me stronger; she had breathed new life into me, and I had gotten caught up in the moment.

I had never stopped to think about the future or the freedom we were sacrificing to be together.

“You made the right choice, Middleton,” Luis said.

“You made the right choice by leaving the military. Noah needed you. And, you’ve done amazing things since you left. It’s rare for a Major to give up his position like that. It’s even rarer to find him managing a whole company within a couple of years of his retirement.” I smiled.

“Some days I prefer the military.” Luis laughed.

“It’s funny,” he said.

“The first day I met you, I looked at you and thought, that guy was made to serve. He was made to be a soldier. But now I look at your life, and I think, this is where he’s meant to be. I think that’s how life works. We end up where we’re meant to end up.”

“Very poetic,” I said.

“I didn’t know you were such a softie.”

“Just philosophical,” Luis laughed.

“I’ve been reading a lot of Khalil Gibran lately.”

“Daphne used to read him,” I said, mostly to myself.

“How is Noah?” Luis asked.

“He’s…doing well,” I said.

“He’s four now.”

“They grow up so fast,” Luis nodded.

“Do you have a picture?” I took out my phone and showed Louis a couple of recent photos of Noah.

He was smiling in all of them and looking bashfully at the camera.

“He’s a looker.” “Isn’t he, though?” I said proudly.

“I can’t see any Daphne in him, though,” Luis said.

“He’s your spitting image.”

“Daphne used to say the same thing,” I nodded.

“People just tell me he looks like Daphne because they think that’s what I want to hear. They think somehow that’ll make me feel better.”

“People don’t always know what to do with loss,” Luis pointed out.

“They tend to react strangely.” I thought about my behavior last week towards Kristen and felt instantly ashamed.

Despite my shame, though, I still hadn’t worked up the willingness or the courage to apologize to her.

I had been downright rude to her all week long.

I wasn’t exactly sure what that was about; I just saw her and I would hear myself barking instructions without even bothering to meet her eye.

I had sensed her hurt the whole week, but I still wasn’t sure why I just didn’t man up and say I was sorry.

She had been doing me a favor, and I had treated her terribly.

A part of me wondered why she hadn’t quit already, and I realized at that moment perhaps that was my unconscious reasoning.

Maybe I felt that if I treated her badly enough, then she would leave and I wouldn’t have to see her around the office anymore.

“How have you been?” Luis asked.

“Fine,” I replied.

“Is it still difficult coping with Daphne’s death?” I hesitated a moment.

“You know what?” I said.

“I don’t want to talk about that.” He was quiet for a second, and I could feel his eyes boring into the side of my face.

“So basically you haven’t been coping.”

“It’s been three years since she died,” I said.

“I’ve coped and moved on.”

“Then why is it so hard for you to talk about her?” I was starting to feel angry.

When I said I didn’t want to talk about Daphne, people automatically avoided the subject.

I hated the fact that Sanchez was forcing me to confront the memories that I was desperately trying to forget.

“Because she’s dead,” I snapped.

“Death isn’t always the easiest thing to talk about.”

“You were in the army,” he continued, completely unfazed by my obvious annoyance.

“Your wife was in the army. Surely, death is something you need to come to terms with.”

“What are you saying?” I demanded.

“Because we were in the army, I should have expected this to happen. I should have expected to lose my wife?”

“Not expected to, no,” Luis said calmly.

“But you had to have known it was a possibility. Surely, you were prepared for it?”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” I reiterated firmly.

I started walking faster down the beach, almost as though I wanted to outrun Luis and get away from his questions, but he matched my pace, refusing to be shaken off.

“Have you at least spoken to someone about this?” “About what?”

“About Daphne, about Noah, about raising a child alone after losing your wife so suddenly,” Luis continued.

“You should talk to someone about it, Middleton. What about a shrink?”

“You think I need a therapist?” I demanded, stopping short and turning to face Sanchez.

“Why not?” he said, with a shrug.

“It’s obvious you’re not talking to friends or family about this. It’s been three years, and you’re acting like Daphne died two weeks ago.”

“Fuck you,” I said, trying to walk away from him.

“You have a lot of anger pent up in there,” Luis said, sticking me in the chest.

“That can’t be healthy for you, and it certainly can’t be healthy for your son.”

“Don’t talk about Noah,” I said fiercely.

“My son is fine.”

“How can he be?” Luis demanded.

“When his father is so obviously a mess.” Before I could stop myself, before I could even think, my hand balled itself into a fist and screamed through the air before making contact with the side of Luis’s jaw.

It was a big punch, but Luis stumbled back only a few feet before managing to regain his footing.

He looked slightly surprised, but he was smiling as he rubbed his jaw.

“Wow, you’ve still got some bite to your punch.”

“Fuck,” I said, taking a step forward.

“I’m sorry… I… That was”

“Don’t worry about it,” Luis said, waving away my apology.

“I asked for it.”

“You kind of did,” I nodded. He smiled.

“I’m glad to see you’re at least letting out some of that anger.”

“I…” I started to say something, but then I realized I didn’t know what to say.

Luis put a hand on my shoulder.

“You’ve got a lot to work through, Jake,” he said, using my first name.

It was a sign that he was seriously concerned about me and wanted to help in any way that he could, even if it meant exposing me to some harsh realities.

“I know,” I admitted.

“I’m glad you’re aware of that,” he said.

“Because your son is going to need you. He needs a father that’s present and happy and at peace with the past.” I sighed.

“How can I be at peace with the past, Luis?” I asked.

“Especially how things were between Daphne and me those last few months before she was deployed.”

“Figure it out, Jake,” Luis said gently.

“You have to for Noah’s sake.

You have to be both parents for him, and that means you have to fight harder to deal with your demons.

Otherwise, they’re going to eat you whole, and your son is going to suffer for it.” I sighed.

“Serving in the military was easier,” I said, looking out towards the ocean as I tried to find a silver lining.

“This is going to be just as much of a battle for you,” Luis agreed.

“But you have to keep reminding yourself that you can do this.”

“What if I can’t?”

“You were a major in the army,” he pointed out.

“You have the discipline and the determination. Now you just need the hope.”

“Hope,” I sighed.

“Hope is the hardest emotion to summon.” Luis patted me hard on the back.

“It’s also the hardest emotion to kill.”