Nine Million Bicycles

"Yes, you do, don't you?" Paula said as she hugged the little man.

"I need my toe-ays," he told her.

I took her a second, but before Lake translated that, Paula said, "Oh. Your toys. Where are they?"

Connor pointed to the bag next to the carseat.

"Ah. Okay. Got it," she said as she reached back in.

"Let me take those," Lake said once she picked them up. "And you can put him down if you'd like."

"No, thanks," Paula said. "I want to hold this handsome young man as long as possible."

"My daddy's pantsome, too," Connor let her know.

Paula laughed happily as she carried him inside and said, "Why yes, he is. He's very...pantsome."

Lake was just ahead of her, so he opened the front door for her, and Paula took a second look at what he was wearing, and realized she wasn't the only one who'd overdone it for coffee. Lake was wearing a dark green, long-sleeved shirt with a pair of Brown Dockers, and his thick, dark hair had a small amount of product in it making him look....

The word that came to mind was 'delicious' followed by 'yummy' even though she'd never share them with anyone to include her daughter. But he really did look very 'pantsome'.

Paula carried Connor to the kitchen then asked if he was ready to get down.

"Not yet," he said pleasantly surprising her.

"Oh, okay. Well, that makes me very happy!" she told him.

Lake set his son's bag down under the countertop's over-hang then asked if he could do anything to help.

"You could turn on the coffee pot. Or if you want to see if it's too strong, you could check the amount of coffee in it first."

Lake laughed then said, "Coffee can't be too strong. Not for me, anyway."

"Then we're good," Paula told him. "I like mine strong, too."

"If you drink yours black, I'm adding that to our growing list of things we have in common."

Paula was truly on Cloud Nine. She laughed happily then asked how many items were on the list.

Lake grabbed his cell phone and pretended he was checking and scrolling down through page after page.

"Oh, wow. We're already on our 25th page. I'm running out of room over here!"

He punched the 'on' button then walked back over where she was still holding Connor and asked how her week went.

"It was...nice. It's good to be out of the house, you know?"

"I do. I can't imagine being housebound again," he said.

"Again?" she asked politely.

"Oh, sorry. Yes, after my uh, my sciatica issue. I was in so much pain it was hard to walk let alone work."

"That had to be awful," Paula said supportively.

"It was pretty much unbearable until I had this procedure done."

She smiled then said, "I'm just glad to know you were able to get some relief."

Something about the say she looked at him told Lake she wanted to say something else so her politely asked if there was.

"Oh, no. Nothing at all," she told him with a genuinely happy smile. "Other than, 'How was your week'?"

"Not bad, I guess."

"Just the same old same old?"

"Um...more that this woman I've been thinking about pretty much all the time didn't call the station all week. Now that was tough."

His smile made her tummy flip flop. Or maybe it was his words.

"Maybe she's just afraid you might think she's...pushy," Paula offered, wondering how he might react.

"That's possible, I suppose. Not that I'd think that, of course. It's more that I can see how she might think that could be true. After all, she's not just a woman but a really special lady, so yeah, that makes sense."

He smiled again, and Paula looked away just as the coffee pot gurgled.

"The sound of caffeine!" she said.

"I love the smell of coffee in the...afternoon. Smells like...heaven!" Lake said in a different voice.

Paula knew it was a movie line, but the specific move wouldn't come to her.

"Okay, I have to ask for help. What movie is that from?"

Lake laughed as he poured coffee into the two cups Paula had sitting out.

"Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now. Only he loved the smell of 'napalm in the morning' while I prefer coffee."

"Right! Yes, now I remember. I watched that movie with my husb... my almost ex-husband."

Lake set a cup down for her on the counter then apologized if he'd dredged up a bad memory.

"No. Not at all. At least not the movie," part she told him. "Robert Duvall was very handsome in his big hat."

She didn't mention his bare chest, but that's what she remembered.

"Connor? Can you get down and play now?" his father asked.

"Yes. I can," he said without argument.

"Do you want to color or play cars?"

"Um...cars!" the little boy said.

"He loves my Matchbox cars from when I was his about age," Lake said as he opened the bag and got out the original box his parents had given him when he was five.

Connor began zooming the cars around but there wasn't a lot of zooming. It was more just quietly moving them while maybe saying something like, "Oh, do you want go over there with me? Okay. Come on!"

"He'll play like that for hours," Lake told her as they sat down at the table and watched.

"He is just SO sweet!" Paula said again.

"I...we...really got lucky with Connor. I fully expected a son who would be loud, aggressive, and constantly on the move—like I was—but he's just as content as can be to sit and play quietly by himself."

"So your wife was able to spend two years or so with him?" Paula asked as gently as she could.

"Yes. Donna held on until his 2nd birthday. She had a very aggressive form of breast cancer, and we had a little party in her hospice room that morning. She was too ill to hold Connor so I laid him beside her for a few minutes after we finished eating the cake. She couldn't eat anything but insisted on us having some. Anyway, she managed to raise her arm and put it around him and tell him how much she loved him. A few minutes later her eyes closed and she fell into a coma."

Lake was trying to blink back tears, and Paula's heart was breaking as she listened, trying not to cry herself.

"She passed away the following morning, and...that was...it."

Lake forced a smile then asked how Eileen was doing.

Somehow, Paula managed not to ruin her mascara as she quickly dabbed her eyes.

"She's doing great. She loves her job, and she's enjoying the people she works with, so things are going quite well for her."

"That's wonderful. I've thought about applying for a civil service job many times, and maybe one of these days I will. Now that I can get around again, moving to someplace like Mountain Home is at least possible."

"Oh," Paula said, feeling silly that her first thought was about how Lake's moving would affect her.

"But that's not going to happen as long as that special lady I mentioned earlier has any interest in talking to me."

His smile was back, and so was her tummy's flip-flopping.

"I...I can't speak for this...lucky woman, but were I in her shoes, I'd make sure you knew she really enjoys talking to you," Paula told him, feeling rather nervous about saying something like that.

"You have no idea how happy that makes me," Lake said. "Even though you can't speak for this really amazing, very beautiful woman I've been crushing on lately."

Paula felt a sudden pang of fear when she realized there was a kind of wetness in a place that typically didn't get that way unless it was during her period. That had been over for two weeks, and it didn't feel anything like what she was typically experienced when the 'Ketchup Man' came to visit.

"Thank goodness for black pants," she said to herself as she felt the first hints of her body perspiring.

"I think maybe this sweater with the coffee is a little too much," she said, causing Lake to raise his eyebrows because he wasn't sure why she'd said that. It was anything but warm in the house, but he assumed she must be warm nevertheless.

"For what it's worth, it's very pretty, and it looks really nice on you," he told her sincerely.

The hint of perspiration became real as she looked away again while thanking him for the compliment.

"Then again, I think you'd look nice no matter what you were wearing," Lake said in a quieter tone of voice.

Now wanting to change the subject, Paula looked at Lake then asked if he'd like anything to eat.

"No, I'm fine. Thank you, though," he replied. "But if you're hungry, please, have something."

"I'm hungry!" Connor said out of the blue.

"We just ate, buddy!" his dad told him.

"I know, but I'm still hungry," his son said as he pushed his cars around.

"Okay. I brought some Goldfish crackers and a juice box for you. Will that be okay?"

"Goldfish! I love Goldfish!" he said with a happy smile.

"Would you like to come up and sit on my lap while you eat them?" Paula asked hopefully.

Connor got up, walked over, and held his little arms up, melting Paula's heart.

"Come here...pantsome!" she said as she pulled him up and turned him around as his dad got his snack ready.

Unlike the fries which he gobbled up, Connor slowly ate the Goldfish one at a time, biting off the 'tails' each time before popping the rest into his mouth.

Lake watched Paula watching Connor. She was unaware she was being watched, but Lake loved seeing the way she smiled and bounced him on her knee as he chomped and chewed.

At one point, she looked up, and mouthed, "I LOVE this little boy!", a big smile on her face.

Lake had wanted to ask Paula out on a real date from the moment he met her, but he'd talked himself out of it until that moment when he couldn't wait any longer.

"Paula?"

She smiled at him and said, "He is so stinking cute!"

He was looking at her 'funny' so she asked, "Did you want to ask me something?"

"Yes. Very much so, in fact."

"Oh, okay," she said, having no idea what was coming.

"I hope this...well, I've been wanting to...I was kind of wondering if...."

Suddenly, Paula's heart began pounding in her chest when she realized what he was doing.

"I really like you, Paula. And I love being around you, and I was hoping you might want to maybe, you know, go on an...actual date with me. Sometime. Soon."

Just as suddenly, her brain was a jumbled mess of conflicting thoughts when they word, "Okay," quietly spilled out of her mouth.

"Really?" Lake said with so much surprise it made her smile.

"Um...yes. Okay," she said, only slightly more confident.

"That's...that's great. That's...really great!" Lake said, trying not to sound too ridiculous.

"I'd ask if you remembered me telling you how old I am, but you're obviously an intelligent person, so I can only assume you...."

"All finished!" Connor announced as he chomped the last Goldfish.

"Come on. Let's go wash your hands, okay?" Paula said as she looked to Connor's dad for approval.

When they came back a few minutes later, the mood was different. It was somehow more...serious.

They each grabbed another cup of coffee then went to the living room to talk. Connor came with them clutching as many cars as he could hold before dropping them next to the chair his dad sat down in.

"I gotta go get my other cars, okay?" he said as he ran back to the kitchen.

Paula couldn't stop smiling, and Lake couldn't stop staring at her.

"What?" she said sweetly when she finally noticed.

"You're just...so beautiful," he told her so sincerely it caught her off guard.

She thanked him then tried shifting gears and asked him what his favorite songs were. Before they realized it, it was 4pm, and during a short lull, Lake said it was probably a good time for them to leave so Paula could have some time to herself.

She surprised herself again when she said, "What makes you think I want to spend time by myself?" before it hit her that he may have been looking for an excuse to leave.

She started to apologize when Lake said, "I'll stay as long as you'll let me."

Paula's tummy flip flopped again.

"I...I could make dinner for us. If you'd like."

"Will you let me help?" he asked with a warm smile.

"Well, yes. Of course. I just didn't know you'd...want to," she said, surprised yet again.

"I do. Want to," he told her.

For the next three hours, they talked, laughed, teased, and even played a little bit in the kitchen.

When the meal was over, Paula asked if Lake felt like staying a little longer, and the biggest surprise of the day came when he reached over and took her hand, smiled at her, and said, "I meant what I said earlier, Paula. I'll stay as long as you'll let me."

"I almost wish I had some wine in the house," she said quietly and with a warm smile of her own.

"We don't need wine," he told her. "Come on."

Lake stood, then helped Paula get up. For the briefest of moments, they were face to face, and, and crazy as it seemed, she knew if he tried to kiss her she'd let him. She didn't expect it, so when he looked away then reached for her hand again, she wasn't at all disappointed. And yet....

When they got back to the living room, she said, "Would you maybe like to sit with me?"

They were still holding hands, and Lake smiled at her and said, "I'd like that very much."

He helped her sit then let go of her hand and sat close to her, leaving a foot or so between them.

"Dinner was really good. Thank you," Lake said.

"Thank you for helping."

"That was fun," he said with a smile.

"Yes. Yes, it was. It was a lot of fun," Paula agreed, even though she could barely look at him.

Connor was finally tired of playing cars and asked if he could color.

"Sure. Hold on."

His dad brought him his crayons and coloring book, and he sat—or rather knelt—in front of them using the coffee table. Just watching him sitting like that looked painful, but he was happy, so Paula stopped worrying and smiled.

They continued talking until around eight when Lake noticed Connor was drooling and his hands weren't moving.

"Someone is ready for bed," he said nodding to his son.

"Oh! How precious! So...he's asleep?"

"Almost," Lake said as he pulled them up between them.

Connor fell over on Paula's lap, and Lake offered to take him.

"If this is okay, I don't mind at all. This is...nice," she said as she ran her fingers through the little boy's hair.

"No. It's just so...nice...that you're so good to him."

"Oh, no. It's just so easy to love him. I hope you know how lucky you are to have such a good boy."

"I do," Lake said as he looked at Paula. "And I feel very lucky to have met someone as amazing as you."

He raised Connor's legs up then slid closer to Paula so his son's body was more evenly divided between them.

"Oh, hello there," she said as their legs touched.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you like that."

"I...wasn't complaining," she told him very quietly.

"Oh. I see," Lake said as he raised his arm to put it around her. "Is this okay?"

"I think that might be all right," she said, smiling happily.

They sat there for a minute or so not saying anything before Paula reached up and took Lake's hand in hers.

"Lake? Why do you...I don't know. Like me?" she asked without any hint of anything but genuine curiosity.

"What's not to like?" was his gentle reply.

"Being almost 50?"

"Um...nope. No biggie."

"How can it not be?" she asked.

"So my being 31 is a big deal?" he asked with a smile, as he reversed the question.

Rather than answer him she said, "I can't have more children. Or perhaps it's better to say I don't want to have more children even it's still physically possible."

"Having more as in...giving birth?" he asked with that smile of his.

"Oh. I...I hadn't really thought of that, but were I to fall in love with someone who...say...had a child, then I wouldn't mind that at all."

"What if, hypothetically, this person you fell in love with couldn't have children even if you wanted them?" he then asked her.

"Well, at my age, I believe that would be a plus."

She turned to look at him then added, "A pretty big plus."

She had to assume he'd had a vasectomy even though he was much younger than most men who had them, but even so, that not only didn't matter to her, it really would be a good thing.

"Any other questions?" he asked just as politely.

"If this is too personal, please tell me, okay?" she began.

"Sure. I'll let you know."

"Well, you know I'm a nurse. Just an LPN, but still...."

"Uh-huh."

"When you were bending over at Cobby's, I...saw the gunshot wound."

"Oh, okay. Yes, that."

"If you don't want to tell me about it...."

"I do. In fact, it's something we need to talk about. I mean, if you and I are going to keep seeing each other. Which I'd like very much."

"If you honestly don't care about...dating a woman my age...I'd like that, too," Paula told him.

"I don't. Not at all," he said. "If, of course, you don't mind dating a guy my age."

"I don't. Not at all," she said sweetly with a smile.

She'd turned to look at him, and when she finished speaking, he leaned over and waited for her to react. Paula moved closer and as their lips met, her eyes closed as they kissed for the first time. It was soft and short, but very pleasant.

"That was very nice," she whispered.

"I agree," Lake told her.

He smiled again, then sat up straight.

"I'd turn to look at you, but my back doesn't like that too much," he said before he began answering her question.

"Anyway, I was on my third deployment to Afghanistan in 2014. I mentioned being a CCT, but left it at that. The little-known truth is CCTs often end up in gunfights. We never seek them out. Our job isn't like the infantry. But we can defend ourselves with the best of them."

He did look over at Paula, was staring intently at him.

"We were calling in airstrikes on enemy positions for an Army unit we were working with when a dozen crazy jihadis tried conducting a frontal assault. It was a suicide mission, but when you believe dying is better than living, you do suicidal things. One of them somehow made it through the lines, and while I was firing at the other shit-heads.... Sorry. That's an old habit I'm trying to break...this guy started lighting us up from behind."

"Lighting us up?" Paula asked.

"Oh. Sorry. Again. He started firing at us. I heard it, but there was gunfire on my left, right, and from the remaining enemy in front, so it didn't register. And then I felt like someone hit me with a sledgehammer from behind. I kept firing, but at some point I realized I'd been hit. Two of our guys...dispatched the jihadist in back of us, and we eliminated every single one of the other psychos."

He looked over and saw tears streaming down Paula's face.

"Long story short, the round—the bullet—went through the sciatic nerve in my lower right back then traversed downward, and well, it caused a lot of nerve damage in...other places. That's what I was kind of referring to about not being able to have more children."

"Lake. I'm...so sorry," Paula said as she began to sob.

"It's okay. Thank you, but I came home. One of our guys didn't, and that still haunts me. I know it wasn't my fault, but I can't help but feel if I'd done something more, maybe he'd have made it back alive, too."

"So that's where all the pain comes from," she said rhetorically.

"Yes. Physically and mentally. The physical part is bearable now, but for the first year it was indescribable. After the shock wore off on the battlefield a few minutes after the firefight ended, I felt it for the first time. It was so...bad...I passed out from it. They kept me on morphine until the first surgery—that scar is below the entry wound—then kept increasing the pain medication until a second surgery. I was better after that, but still in a lot of pain, but they told me that was the best they could do. So while it was no longer excruciating, the pain was still worse than anything I'd ever experienced. They ending up medically retiring me, and that's around the time when I got addicted to pain pills. And that's around the same time Donna was diagnosed."