Bridges 21

Chapter 21

*Sam……….

It’s really yet to hit me. I’m staring at the papers in my hand and I’m walking and the only reason I’m not walking into people or things is the fact I’m really familiar with the base. I’m carrying the folder they gave me and…reading it my box with medals under my arm it's why the commander wanted to see me. There's going to be a ceremony once I'm "back" but that was about it. But it's nothing compared to these, this, my papers and I’m still reading the letter over and over again.

It’s happening…it’s really happening!

I have to stop.
Catch my breath.

I take out my phone and I call Brandon. It rings a few times then there’s the click on his line after five rings in the house he’s got it that it’ll ring out to the barn. About the fourth ring out there he picks up.

“Hey Sam, how’s were things at the base?”

“I’m still here. Uhm, things went good with the delivery but there were some appointments for me with the Colonel, he’s like my boss and …..”

“Sam…is everything all right?”

“Oh…yeah uhm really good, better than ever actually…. I’m being asked to take some upgrading and stuff in town and they want me as a nurse practioner before they can have me come back to work part time as an instructor.”

“Sounds, great Sam, congratulations honey.”

Honey…I smile at that. It’s nice. I’m still getting used to that and it’s like it means more than it used to before. It means a whole lot coming from Brandon.

“There’s more good news.”

“More? You’re on a roll. It must be good all that good karma that you’ve been storing up.”

“Uhm yeah more. They cleared me for SRS and there was a spot that opened up for me sometime next week.”

“Whoa…that fast?”

“Yeah, there was an unscheduled opening in the surgery schedule and it was take advantage of them having everything scheduled or have to wait. I don’t want to wait Brandon; I’ve waited too long for this.”

“I don’t blame you hon. Is there anything I can do?”

“No, no. I’ll be coming home with the girls and getting things ready and pack my things for my hospital stay.”

“Okay, I’ll see you when you get back then?”

“Okay, I just wanted to call you and to tell you the good news and everything. I’m going to try and get a hold of Cass next.”

“Okay Sam, Love you.”

“I love you too.”

I’m all kid of girling out over that little conversation. I know it’s just something small but it’s our first I Love You over the phone. Something that not too long ago I never thought was really in the cards for me.

I’m really glad that that’s not the case.

I’m smiling even as I call Cass.

It rings a few times then it gets picked up.

“Hey Sam, how’s the trip so far?” She’s sounding better at least.

“Great, better than great actually. I kind of missed some of this actually. Well I guess its part of why I’m calling, my news and stuff.”

“You’re excited.” I can hear her smiling in her voice and that gives me this warm feeling like wanting to hug her. It’s a good feeling and I actually end up sort of hugging myself and cradling the phone.

“Yeah, it’s good news, actually a bunch of good news.”

“Well, it’s just been one of those days so a bit of good news is a welcome change.”

“Bad day?”

“No…just bored, and a mix of that and just some light people being idiots because it’s getting close to X-mas kind of stuff. I was just in an argument with myself about doing up paperwork at the office or not. Never mind that what’s your news?”

“I got the nod.”

“The what?”

“My doctor gave me the go ahead and signed off on my surgery. I’m getting it done!”

“Wow…oh…wow…! Uhm did they give you the date for your surgery?”

“Next week, they’re going to give me a spot that opened up.”

“That’s…that’s fast.”

“Yeah it happened really out of the blue and everything but where they had everything set and scheduled for the surgery it was either go ahead and take this spot or let it go and get put into the rotation and some of the staff are civilian medical people and with the holidays it’s shove everyone’s availability back so I said yes.”

“That’s great beautiful are you staying down there or are you coming home?”

“I’m coming home, I’ve got stuff to get ready and get my stuff for my hospital stay and everything but with any luck I’ll be home where I can recover.”

“That sounds really great Sam, I’ll see about taking some leave maybe and take care of you.”

“I won’t be that bad, but I’ll love having you there. It’ll make Christmas a lot better.”

“Thanks Sam, so what’s the other stuff about you going back to work?”

“Oh they really want me back and need me here on base one week out of the month to be one of the nursing instructors but they want me to get my upgrading don’t over at St. Luke’s before I do that so I’m a NP when I go in to be a trainer.”

“NP? That’s a new one for me Sam.”

“Nurse Practioner, it means that I get to do a whole lot more things. It’ll let me be able to make judgment calls and write scripts and stuff when the doctor’s busy or not there.”

“Pay increase?”

“Oh yeah, it moves me into the lower end of specialist.”

“That’s good?”

“Yeah like another two hundred every two weeks after taxes give or take. Plus I’ll be back to work, work officially on the books and stuff so I’ll be off of drawing medical pay and back to drawing my regular pay.”

“You sound relieved by that, I thought you were good for money?”

“I’m okay, but it’s still a relief, Dad’s funeral and the house and the back taxes and other stuff and just living day to day wasn’t something that I was used to, not after the forces.”

“You could have told me.”

“Cass, you just moved in. I didn’t really want to get into the money stuff until later.”

She sighs over the phone. “Alright, I can get that money is a one of those big deal things in a relationship and I get that you wanted to make sure we were going in the right direction with us before we started getting into the heavy stuff.”

I smile and kind of do that happy pacing thing, the little dancey turn on one foot while still hugging myself and the phone. “Hey Cass?” I say in my warm, soft I love you voice.

“Hmmn?” she say’s back in that honeysuckle, I wish I could snuggle up tone.

“We’re talking about it now.”

“Yeah we are aren’t we.”

“Yeah…”

“I love you Sam Chase, I’ll see you when you get home?”

“I hope so.”

“Kisses soldier girl.”

I hear her siren kick on before she hangs up on me. I can’t help but to hug the phone and just stand there in the sunshine and let it just sink into me. It’s Brandon and Cass warming me up inside more than the sun.

I have never felt this good inside of myself in my life.

I head back to the warehouse where I left the girls and can’t help but smile at the bunch of guys that are talking and flirting with Jenny. She’s a looker that’s for sure, early twenties and a DD bust line that she’s showing off but not showing off with the simple relaxed way that she’s dressed…many a lad has blessed the invention of the sweater.

But with Jenny it’s more than her looks it’s that honest friendly country girl thing and the fact that she’s just over the moon at being here on a real army base. She one of those rare people that’s not ashamed to love our military, she see’s them…us as heroes and it’s nice to get that.

None of us in the service sign up for that, we don’t need that but when it happens it makes it worth it, it makes you stand just a little taller and straighter. It makes it easier to deal with the stuff in your head sometimes.

I go it and hug the girls and tell them the news. Okay finally I’m able to have the whole girl’s together freak out squee moments that usually go with stuff like winning the lotto, a big promotion or getting engaged. I guess finally getting SRS qualifies as a Squee moment now.

I think that we amused the guys watching us and confused the few girls who probably wanted in on the fun but I’m not sure if me revealing my status would go over that well.

Still hyped up and excited by all the good news we get our things and say a few more goodbyes and head off downtown to get set up at out hotel rooms at the Best Western it’s hard actually to get rooms anywhere in the city even this early because of the Olympics. It’s a mixture of tourists but there’s a whole lot of workers living here in hotels and motels. Still the Best’s are pretty good motels really actually more of a hotel but that doesn’t matter we’re just going to sleep here.

We take the truck and head out to various places I really can’t name them all but I liked being downtown shopping in the little shops and looking for things to get the people I love for Christmas this year.

Brandon’s easier than I though to shop for. I found a great old bookstore in Davie Village that had some of these great old biographies and auto biographies on rock bands and there were some books filled with sheet music too. I just hope he can read music. I get Jenny art supplies while I’m there and some used art textbooks too. I can’t help myself either but to pick up a few things as well.

Uhm I’m not really a prude or I never really thought that I was but wow, there are some sex gadgets out there that look like they just might be more appropriate to uhm…NASA? But there are a few things that I can see myself needing in the future and there’s a few things that I want to try when I get home before I leave for my surgery.

Lacey is all very been there played with that in the place and Jenny is staring wide eyed like the country girl she is at all the stuff and the fact that both me and lacey have made out own discreet purchases we end up talking her into getting her self a slender but very nice alternate dating appliance and I was surprised at her buying some books there too about human sexuality and even some Lilith fair CD’s.

She was so getting chatted up and hit on by this spiky haired cute little smart sexy lesbian that was behind the counter of the alternative lifestyle store we where in. Jenny has the looks and that farm fresh innocence that just drives some people wild. Me…I got a few looks and a few stares told me I was “read” but it wasn’t a big deal, only two when we were on the street gave me this dirty look like I was offending their lesbian sensibilities.

I’m not sure if that would have bugged me even if I hadn’t gotten the good news about my surgery. I guess it’s the good thing about the ex. I had gotten a good look at their side of things and there’s just some of them out there that just won’t like me because I wasn’t born female, and to them I’ll never match their ideal as a woman.

I actually smile at them. It’s just looking at both of them and realizing that these two couldn’t come close to Cass on their best days.

Lacey of course having lived here in Vancouver and in New York and a bunch of other places is a consummate shopper and she’s dragging me around to all these high end Shoppe’s and boutiques and not just satisfied there we have to end up going to The Sinclair Center and to the Pacific Center Malls where she went through a lot more high end places to shop.

Okay I’m not saying that it wasn’t fun, I mean with Jenny just all wide eyed country girl at all the stuff and me all wide eyed at some of the prices. Two hundred dollars for some kind of designer jeans? Please there are some people just waiting to get ripped off. What went wrong with GWG or Levis? I guess my tastes aren’t that fancy.

But it was fun to try stuff on and to see ourselves in different looks.

And there were a few nice things that I did splurge on. I put a large dent in my Visa card in Victoria’s Secret I know cliché but some of their slinky wear is just drool worthy and I can’t wait to see Cass in some of the things that I got her.

In the end we spent seven hours shopping…seven hours, that’s mostly Lacey…in fact that’s mostly a full working shift for a lot on people. We’ve a full truck and a full double room back at the Best Western and as tired as I am we decide to get all dolled up and go out on the town.

Lacey does hair and helps with my make up and I dress to the nines in one of the few new outfits I bought. Red three inch heels, black stockings, my new Vicky’S’s red lacy push up demi bra with a matching lacy trim hip hugger panties. The a short sexy red dress…I’ll say this, little black dresses are great but when you’re blonde red works really well too.

I get pictures taken before the dress, and after the dress doing different poses and looks for both Brandon and Cass, some with some of my new toy purchases as seductive props…those are mostly for Cass.

A Red Bull mixed in with the picture taking and e-mailing them to Cass and Brandon has me charged up enough to go out with the girls to hit the nightclubs and go dancing. We get a cab and hit The Cellar, Roxy, The Tonic all pretty fun pretty hot places and I end up dancing with quite a few people both guys and girls and If I got made no one said anything.

We end up just a bit buzzed at this really big Sushi place called Tojo’s and we belly up to the bar. Lacey knows Tojo himself who is this funny little Japanese guy who is like a really funny and a little drunk Mr. Miagi. We do shots with him between our courses of Omakase which is where you let the chef surprise you with what he can make. I like sushi and it’s a reason I like being home. You can get perfectly good sushi in places all over but to me, unless you’re in Japan, the West Coast is where you get great sushi.

Tojo’s is great sushi, and Jenny is priceless doing shots and eating of course we’re drinking with Tojo so we’re toasting yelling “Kampai!” and Jenny stuffs and bit of toro down and leans over to me sort of yelling. “Y’know I though this sushi stuff was all bait an all but I like this Kampai stuff.” It’s Jenny so you just gotta laugh because she’s awesome. I almost pee myself when we stagger out to our cab and Lacey goes “Look dead bird.” Of course it’s Jenny and she looks up. “Where?” Lacey and I crack up while getting into the cab.

It’s close to three AM when we finally crash in our hotel rooms.

***

I wake up with dry mouth and a bit of a hangover and I’m up before the other two. I’m more used to the hard getting up after partying neither of them partied then had to get up for a duty shift.

Two aspirin, and my meds and I grab a bottle of water and head down to the lobby and the bar/restaurant and get a smoothie then head to the gym and I run the hangover out. You can do it. Sometimes you’ll get sick, or some will get sick but that’s you’re body reacting to the hell you put it through boozing it up.

It hit’s me too but I’m on the treadmill and I increase the speed and incline and I run through it, sweat the last of it out and get my blood pumping. I get my endorphin rush and once that hits everything settles, I’m still in a good mood and there’s a decent rock station playing over the speakers of the gym and I run through the songs. “I’m walking on sunshine, Hip to be square, Oh Sherry, and Everybody wants to rule the world.” I love that song.

I gazed longingly at the pool and I’m love to have just to have been able to just dive in there and not worry about my suit and stuff. Still I can’t help but to smile and Where this might have gotten to me before I’m getting my surgery…I’m going to really get to be me and just knowing it changes everything.

I get back to our rooms and I hit the shower as the other two are barely moving. I actually have to dodge Jenny as she makes a rush to the throne and actually cries/moans “Kampai…” into the toilet. I sigh and stay and hold her hair and take care of my girl. It’s flush time a few times as there’s the reek of saki and beer mixed with digested fish and just the hints of bile and wasabi.

It’s pretty much me and Lacey loading our stuff in the truck. Lacey’s handling her hangover in her usual way. Having walked down to the lobby and got herself a pot of coffee and sat outside in her sweatpants and her bra and sunglasses as she killed the entire pot and chain-smoked and had a joint by the smells drifting through. I’m not a fan of drugs but I won’t like freak out on people about it either unless you’re dealing to kids or you’re really stupid. But I’m not going to bust Lacey’s chops over a bit of pot.

It takes us until about one in the afternoon to get back on the road and headed for home. It snows off and on and we’re taking out time. Jenny needs her bathroom breaks and Lacey her coffee and I’m happy with some doughnuts, I’m still and always will be a Tim Horton’s girl. I get myself an extra large black and two Boston Cream doughnuts just outside the city and that tides me over until I get into town at about twenty after five. I pull into Mao’s Golden Palace and text Brandon and Cass not to get anything for supper that I’m getting Chinese.

I like Mao’s for two things, one is this Szechuan spiced BBQ chicken and the second they do Dim Sum, and Dim Sum is one of those things I like and Brandon should giving the time he spent in the orient.

I get supper enough for everyone and then some. We’re unloading stuff into the house and Cass is home and dressed in her baggy sweats and one of these huge shirts that are old ones of her dad’s. No make up, hair just a bit messy and she’s still stunning.

But she’s still quiet, she’s still kind distracted as we unload things. I’m getting more and more nerved up as we get settled in and set up for supper.

She’s setting the table when I come up behind her and wrap my arms around her. “Hey, what’s wrong honey, you’ve kind of been off somewhere tonight?”

“I’ve got a lot on my mind.” She rubs her hands over mine. I swear there’s a shiver there.

“You want to talk about it?”

“Kinda have to.” Yeah, there it is again, the shiver. Is she regretting this? Is she freaked out by me finally getting fixed?

“Cass…” My voice is raw, full of fear…

“I…I…haven’t been feeling myself lately and I took the afternoon off. I went to see my Doctor…”

Oh god…please…

“It’s alright honey, whatever they said Cass, we’ll get through this together…”

“Good…I hope so…”

“What’s wrong, Tell me you’ve got me pretty scared.”

“Well that makes….three of us.”

“Three, you told Brandon already?”

“No…Three.”

Then she moves my hands that were wrapped around her and runs them up and down her abdomen.

“Three…oh….oh…Cass?”

“I’m Pregnant Sam, I’m Pregnant.”

“……………………”