Vanilla Ch. 06-09

She gave my hand another reassuring squeeze.

Pulling my fingers from hers, I guided them to her coffee cup, sensing that she might take reassurance from its warmth, "Something you want to talk about?"

She looked down at her coffee cup, almost as if she was staring into the inky contents as her fingers brushed against the heat of the cup, "Is it that obvious?"

Looking at her face, I cursed her heavy glasses.

For the millionth time, I wondered what her eyes looked like as I bet myself that they were as beautiful as the rest of her.

She had occupied my every thought since I had left the meeting with Eva the day before, as if my conversation with her had opened up some hidden dam within my mind that had been holding back a billion, billion thoughts of Mia and her beauty.

Everything about her seemed so perfect.

Her intelligence.

Her wit.

Her strength.

That indominatable way that she faced the world without fear.

She never showed me her eyes, but I knew in my heart that they would be beautiful.

Sensing that I needed to cut the tension in the moment, I joked, "Well, normally you eat like a starved pig grazing in slop, so to see you turn your nose up to free food I figured something had to be wrong!"

Her mouth opened in mock outrage, "What?! How dare you! I eat like a lady!"

I made a rude noise, "A lady cow!"

She sat up straighter, giving me a better view of her tight, attractive body, "How dare you, Sir! Look at this body!"

I was looking...

Jesus Christ was I looking...

That was one positive of her being blind.

She couldn't see when I was being a lecherous turd.

She gave a curt gesture, "This is the body of a lady that eats like a lady all the time!"

Grabbing my coffee, cup and pushing away the slice of pie in front of me, I put an arm outstretched on top of the booth, "You tell yourself what you need to to sleep at night, m'lady."

She sniffed the air, "You going to finish that pie?"

Rolling my eyes at her, I shoved the plate to her, "Go ahead baby girl."

She slid the plate back over to herself, giggling maniacally at her triumph...

"It still amazes me that you can do that!"

She triumphantly speared piece of pie up on her fork, "Never stand between a blind lady and her pie!"

Rolling my eyes at her again, I shook my head, "I think you're really just faking it. Nobodies that accurate with pie detection."

She put the pie in her mouth as she giggled, before putting a hand up over her mouth in mock outrage, "How dare you make fun of my disability!"

"Pfft!" I spit at her, "If the FBI ever needs a pie detector you'll be first on their list. Disability my ass!"

She giggled, putting an hand in front of her mouth as she chewed, "Pie detector!"

I raised an eyebrow at her, "Huh?"

She waived her fork, "Like lie detector? Only pie detector!"

Wincing, I covered my eyes at my own pun, "D'oh."

She speared up another piece of pie, using her fingers delicately to find where it was, "Thank you."

I took a noisy slurp of my coffee, "For the pie?"

She looked up at me, shaking her head, "No, silly. For distracting me. My day is always a little better when it has a little Isaac in it."

Smiling, I watched her enjoy her pie, "And my day is always a little better with you in it baby girl."

We sat in silence for a second, her eating her pie and me sipping at my coffee as I watched her...

Finally, I asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

She wiped at her lip, brushing away a pretend crumb that I knew didn't exist, "Talk about what?"

I laughed under my breath, "I'm very good at watching people. I can see that something's bothering you."

She looked at her plate, not saying anything, again pushing her food around with her fork.

"It's okay. We don't have to talk about it either."

She looked up at me, smiling.

Just that smile on her face set me to grinning like a fool.

"We can just sit here, and talk about something stupid. Or inane. We can talk about school, or the weather, or anything."

She took a deep breath, before pushing the pie left on her plate again, "You won't want to talk about it."

I tilted my head at her as my heart started racing...

There was only one thing that I had ever avoided talking with her about...

My work.

She winced, "I started volunteering at the VA."

Her words knocked the wind out of me, making me realize that there was one other thing that I had always shied away from when she had brought it up.

My time in the military.

The dream pounded into my skull.

The feeling of being trapped.

The smell of acrid smoke.

Men screaming around me.

The memory of me, a stupid, twenty-year-old kid, reaching for the only thing that mattered to me in a burning Humvee...

Her voice pulled me back up, like a hand grabbing me and pulling me back up from a freezing cold river, "Does that piss you off?"

I shook my head, forgetting for another second that she couldn't see me, "No."

She pushed her hair back behind her ears as she looked at me sheepishly, "I thought it might..."

Forcing my hands down, I took the coffee cup back up, less out of a desire to have it and more out of the desire to have something to do with them, "No. Why would it?"

She put her hands back down, playing with the plate as she looked through the top of her eyes at me, "Because I wanted to understand you better..."

I wanted to laugh at her.

Wanted to be able to laugh at her.

Instead, I forced myself to a stillness as I watched her.

"How would volunteering at the VA help you to understand me?"

She chewed on the inside of her lip before answering, "I guess I kind of knew the truth. Like..." she searched for the right words, "I guess I just got to thinking about the first time I asked you about your time in the military. You shied away from it. Every time the subject gets brought up, you go all quiet, and I can hear the pain in your voice as you tell me that you don't want to talk about it."

She shrugged, "I guess I could read between the lines. I could feel how much it hurt you. I wanted to understand that better. Wanted to understand how that had hurt you."

Taking a deep breath, she blew it out between puffed up cheeks, "I found out about this program through the school. It's kind of an informal counseling program. More just giving vets an opportunity to talk to someone. I heard about it and the only thing I could think of was that it would help me to understand you a little better."

She reached out, finding her own coffee cup, "They paired me up with this guy..."

I could see her almost tell me his name, before her training took over, reminding her that her clients' lives and privacy were paramount.

"He lost a leg in Afghanistan."

I winced, feeling the pain of that as I thanked God for the billionth time that I had dodged a fate that unlucky...

I immediately felt like slime.

"Some of the things," her voice cut back into me, "he talks about."

She shook her head as sadness bled off of her, "It breaks my heart to think that you might be..."

Reaching back across the table, I took her hand again, pressing my cool flesh to hers as I held her hand, "It's okay Mia. I understand."

She looked up at me, everything about her face and her body pleading for my understanding, "You're not mad at me?"

Tilting my head, I tried to understand, "Why would I be mad at you?"

"Because it was like I violated your privacy..."

I squeezed her hand hard, "You didn't violate my privacy, baby girl. Not at all."

"You didn't want to talk to me about it, and I went digging anyway. That's violating your privacy."

I shook my head, "No, it's not. You did a good thing."

"For a selfish reason."

I laughed, a short, cynical chuckle, "Do you plan on quitting now that you've seen behind the curtain a little?"

A sense of fierceness filled her, "No. In fact I think I've found what I want to do. I want to help vets."

I shook her head, "Then it wasn't selfish at all. I know a lot of good people that could use someone in their life like my Mia. I know my life is better for having her in it."

She sat up a little straighter, that fire that filled her spilling out of her, radiant and brilliant in a way that was nearly blinding.

She smiled, "Are you ready to go?"

I winced, glad that she couldn't see it.

I always hated it when our time together was up.

But it always came to an end.

Sliding out of the booth, I went over, assisting her as I grumped, "Yeah."

We went to the counter where Meg met us.

She put out check on the counter, and I dropped sixty bucks, as was my habit, "Keep the change, Meg."

Meg scooped the cash and check back up, "Thank God for the two of you! I swear, you guys are putting me through college!"

Giving her a chuckle, I held a hand up, waiving at her, "Have a great night, Meg."

Her eyes went back and forth between me and Mia as she smiled, "You two, too."

Walking to the door, I opened it for Mia, letting her out into the cool night ahead of me.

This was where we normally parted ways.

She turned left, north, to go home. I turned right, south, to go to mine.

Or we usually did.

Tonight, she stood in the night air, her face searching for mine, "Will you walk me home?"

I tilted my head at her, thrown by her unusual request.

"Do you want me to?" I asked, my heart thrilling in my chest as I marveled at her beauty.

It was a first. Our first time doing anything away from the diner.

It made me realize for the first time how unusual that was.

It had been weeks. Weeks of us meeting for dinner. Every time we'd meet, the two of us would plan out the next time we'd both be there. Neither of us had ever missed an appointment, and yet, neither of us had ever reached out for something more. Never asked each other to go some place else, or to meet up and do something different.

Hell, I didn't even have her phone number.

She smiled, the streetlights shining on her sharp teeth, "Yeah. I could use a friend tonight."

Stepping up beside her, I brushed my hand against hers, "I would love to walk you home."

Standing, facing the direction that she usually went to go home, I waited and watched as she folded her cane up, each movement crisp and sure. When she was done, she took it in her left hand, her right hand wrapping around my arm.

It took me a second to realize what she was doing...

She was asking me to lead her.

She smiled up at me as she looked into my face, "You won't walk me into anything, will you?"

Brushing a stray lock of hair away from her face, I smiled at her, feeling a sense of unbelievable responsibility wash over me, "Never in a million years, baby girl."

She giggled and we started walking.

It was unbelievable. I could feel her pull at my arm with each step. Not enough to be an annoyance, but just enough to tell me that she was there...

It made me realize just how much trust she was putting in me.

She was putting every ounce of her safety into my hands...

I knew it wasn't supposed to be, but I found that thought to be the ultimate erotic experience...

Heat suffused my chest as we walked, her hand like an electric current against my arms as we walked down the street.

I knew I was grinning like a fool as we walked, the urge to put my arm around her was nearly unbelievable.

Looking for something, anything to say, I blurted out, "Why don't you have an assistance dog?"

She smiled as she looked up at me, "Here we are, walking arm in arm on such a pleasant night and that's what's on your mind?"

Wait?

What?

Was she flirting?

No.

Stop thinking like that. Like she said, she just needed a friend to walk her home tonight. She had a rough day, and she doesn't want to be alone.

Perfectly normal, so stop thinking like a letch.

Forcing the thought from my mind, I shrugged, "Seems like a pretty normal question to me?"

She walked a few paces quietly before answering, "Do you know how expensive an assistance dog is?"

I nodded, smiling at myself, "Yes. Yes, I do."

I could almost feel her roll her eyes at me, "Sure you do. Yeah, maybe you have a rough idea how much..."

I cut her off, "Fifteen to thirty thousand dollars. As high as fifty thousand for a very high functioning animal, which is not what you need. In your case I'd figure you could make due with a mid-level dog, so I'd put the cost right around twenty grand."

I could feel her slow a little as her arm pulled against mine. She laughed, "Did you do research on that?"

Laughing, I shook my head, "No."

She made a rude noise, "Yeah, right."

I shrugged, "Believe what you want, I used to raise service animals."

She dialed in on me, "What? Really?"

I nodded, smiling at her, "Really. My parents own a kennel. I grew up training service dogs."

We walked a few more steps before I added, "There are non-profits that help cover the cost in a lot of cases. I'm sure we can find one that would help cover the cost..."

She shook her head, "No."

I looked at her, wondering why she felt so strongly about it, "Really? Are you sure?"

There was a tentativeness to her attitude as she walked and I could tell that she was having trouble putting her thoughts into words. Giving her time to process, I walked us through the night quietly.

She finally broke her silence, "I don't want anyone's charity. There are people that need it more than I do."

I glanced down at her, my mind spinning through the gears as I watched her, "So, if you could afford one, you would use one?"

She smiled, "I would love to have my own helper doggy." She shrugged, "My parents looked into it when I was younger, but we couldn't afford it. They are helping with my college and my living expenses while I go, but we could never afford one..."

I thought about that, the wheels spinning in my mind...

Then I realized how hopeless that was.

That door was closed.

Her voice brought me back to the moment, "What was that like?"

"What was what like?"

She giggled, her voice musical in the night, "Raising service doggies!"

Looking down at her, I was mesmerized by her childlike glee...

Smiling, her amazement rubbing off on me, I answered her, "It was actually really hard. Up each morning at four to feed and water. Then off to school. Then home for training. Weekends running them through drills. Watching all those dogs training their little asses off. Each of them so happy each time they pulled off some stunt that you wanted them to pull off. Each of them so devastated when they just couldn't wrap their hands around some impossible fucking trick that just needed them to pull off..."

Her face fell as she felt my pain...

"Most people think that every dog just has the ability to do it, but most don't. That was one of the hardest things. To watch their little hearts break as they washed out. I mean, I know that a lot of people think that their just stupid animals and that they don't know any better, but to them, you're their pack. When they wash out, and you find them a home that will still love them, they just shatter a little, and that broke my heart each and every time..."

She nodded, her voice subdued as she whispered, "Left at Alexander..."

I smiled as I realized she must have known that we were only a few steps away from her turn.

Fuck she was amazing.

"How did you know that we were close?" I asked.

She smiled in pride as she looked up at me, "I count my steps."

Chuckling, I asked her, "But we're taking smaller steps than you would..."

She glanced at me, "No we're not. I have to walk slow when I use my cane."

Nodding, I smiled at her, "Smart girl."

She bumped me with her hip, "And don't you forget it."

Looking back down on her, I wanted to kiss her forehead...

"I won't."

I took a deep breath, ready to dive back in, "And then there's the ones that make it all the way through the program. They are the best of the best. You're not supposed to bond with them, but I always did."

I shook my head as the memories poured through my mind...

"So many times I'd cry myself to sleep after watching one of my friends go on to their home. I'd lay there at night and remember how their fur felt on my face as I hugged them goodbye for the last time. I'd try and remind myself that they were going on to something better, but it never helped..."

Her hand slipped down, tangling in my own as we walked, her voice quiet as we took our left turn on Alexander, "That must have been hard."

"So when I graduated from high school, I joined the Marines. My dad..." I shook my head in amazement, remembering my dad's reaction, "was fucking furious."

I laughed...

"He told me that if I wanted to be a jarhead so badly, then I could just go do that and not come back..."

Her steps were quiet as we walked, "That must have been hard."

I shrugged, "Not really. It had been coming for a good long time. We had never really seen eye to eye anyway..."

It took me about half a block to realize that we were walking in silence the whole way...

Her voice was quiet as she told me, "It's four, four, seven."

Glancing up at the numbers, I realized that we were there.

Bringing us to a stop, I glanced down at her, my heart aching to realize that our time was, for the second time tonight, at an end as I whispered back at her, "We're here."

She turned, facing me...

I wanted to kiss her so badly.

But I knew it wasn't my place.

I had made choices.

Those choices made it unfair for me to even attempt to have a relationship with someone...

"Tell her." a voice whispered in my mind.

"Be honest with her and let her decide if she accepts you or not..."

I closed my eyes, thankful she couldn't see how hard this was for me.

"Will you come up for a drink?" she asked, her voice full of vulnerability.

"Sure."

I wanted to say that it was that vulnerability that caused me to say yes, but I even I couldn't lie to myself to that level. I wanted to come up.

Dropping her cane, she snapped it open and found her way to the steps.

I wanted so badly to recapture that feeling of her complete trust in me and lead her, but I knew that steps were beyond my ability to safely lead her, so instead of taking her arm and even attempting, I watched her in wonder as she one again moved into her black world and showed me true courage...

Following behind her, I watched her unlock the door. Keeping pace behind her, I worked my way in after her.

Her place was on the bottom floor of a two story apartment.

Following in behind her, I was impressed with her minimalist apartment.

It made sense I supposed.

She would most likely want to keep her surroundings simple.

Stepping into her darkened apartment I could see the combination bedroom/living room through the dim light that leaked in through the shear curtains. I was impressed with her simple bed. There was a little couch, and a living room table. Off to my left there was a little kitchenette, and a closed door which I guessed led to a bathroom.

Most amazingly, there was a television, a small one with a set of compact but powerful looking speakers, all of which was hard to make out in the dim light.

Frowning, I made a noise through my nose, "Hmmph."

She looked at me, smiling, "What?"

I shook my head, "Just didn't expect to find a TV."

She looked at me like I was an idiot, "I may be blind, but I still enjoy shows. I can listen to them. I can still enjoy the world outside. I like to listen to the news and I love movies." She pointed, "And with the speakers I can feel the bass from stuff."

I smiled at her, "That's cool."

Even from behind her dark glasses I could see her roll her eyes, "Everything is cool to you."

Taking a deep breath, I chuckled, "Can I turn a light on?"

"Oh! I'm such a fuckhead!" she exclaimed as she moved confidently to the wall near the door.