I loved the picture.
I kept it on my kitchen island tilted sideways so I could see it while I was making coffee or cooking food, but also see it from my couch while watching TV.
My heart squeezed at seeing it again – a little bit of my old life in my brand new one.
“Finally found it, huh?” Ranger asked, coming up behind me, resting his bearded chin on top of my head, something he found he was able to do, and therefore doing it often.
“You knew he brought this?”
“No,” he told me, arms closing around my belly. “But I knew he brought you something. He does that.”
“Does what? Breaks into a woman’s apartment?” I asked, but my tone was light, amused, seeing as that was clearly what he had done, but it was the only way he could have saved such an important part of my history.
“Well, sometimes. But only on a job. No. He gives women gifts. We don’t know why. He’s even more tight-lipped about his past than I am. But if he is on a job, he leaves something there for the female clients – some little token he thinks they’d appreciate, that might make the situation better.”
“That’s so sweet. I can’t believe someone hasn’t snatched him up.”
“Honestly,” he said, arms giving me a squeeze before moving away to sit down on the couch, patting the space beside him. I happily jumped up, knees half-over his thighs, shoulder under his arm. “I think the cleaning thing is an issue.”
“Why? Because he spends so much time doing it? Or because the women might get offended when he cleans up after they clean up?” I asked, inwardly a little mad at womankind if they would be so unaccommodating of someone who clearly was dealing with traumas beyond their imagining.
“Well, maybe that would be a part of it. But no… I mean, no one knows if this is true or anything, but…”
“I won’t tell anyone,” I assured him when he paused. He wasn’t one for gossip. And this was a good friend of his.
“I think maybe sex is… off the table for him,” he said, arm closing around me, pulling me tighter.
I’d never considered that. But over the few days he spent in the cabin, he’d never gotten close enough to touch either of us. I’m sure he did. Have to touch people. In life. In work. But that didn’t mean he necessarily enjoyed it. He endured it. Then likely scrubbed in bleach after. And, well, sex was messy. There was no way around that. Kissing and touching and fluids and such. There was no way to do it completely cleanly.
“He hasn’t always been this way, has he?”
“No. I mean, I didn’t know him back before. But Quin met him when he first joined up. Was just your average guy. Probably more prone to being dirty than a neat freak.”
So he would have likely been in his twenties then, had probably already known the touch of a woman, the pleasure you found in the body of another person.
To have that suddenly stripped away, to live a life entirely without it…
“That’s so sad,” I told Ranger, pressing my head into his shoulder.
“He makes the best of his life.”
Much like Ranger had done. Locked away in his woods, avoiding being around everyone else.
“Ranger?”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you come to the woods? I mean, I know you were dealing with the aftermath of your service, but…”
“I spent a lot of time seeing the ugliness of people. I found when I was around it, it made me ugly too. Brought back the ugly shit. It’s easier here not to do that. To keep the demons at bay. I’m… I dunno…”
“Happier here,” I supplied.
“Yeah,” he agreed, resting his face on the top of my head.
“Me too,” I told him.
Then, well, sweaty things happened.
—
“Ha-Ha, you beak-nosed bastard!” I declared, watching as Red stabbed his beak into the bottom rung of the fence I had hopped up just in time to avoid more bloodied marks.
“‘Beak-nosed bastard’ is an improvement,” Ranger informed me, coming up to hand me the basket for the eggs. “Think I’m rubbing off on you a bit.”
“Well, let’s hope not too much. We don’t need both of us cursing at your phone like a couple grumpy old men,” I teased.
I didn’t know what day this was.
Five?
Six?
Something like that.
Everything was blending together in one giant, happy blur.
Ranger brought me on long walks, showed me the wild raspberry and blackberry bushes so I could know where to find them when they finally burst into life, warning me to get there early before the birds picked them clean.
He told me we could freeze the excess to make smoothies for the winter, explaining they were a favorite of his which was why there were none left at present, giving me another itty bitty insight into him. Like he did have a bit of a sweet tooth. But only for berries.