He had been half-heartedly making dinner when the doorbell rang. He answered it and Kate swept past him, into his own apartment, before he could even invite her in.
"I thought we had a date." He said with some levity, sensing she was pissed off and trying to get her into a better frame of mood.
"I thought we cancelled." She snapped at him. She was beautiful in a spaghetti strap black dress and heels, her blond hair swept up off her neck. Her expression was ice cold.
He watched her storm her way into his kitchen.
"I'd just like to know why you walked away from me today." It came out sounding like a statement but he meant it sincerely as a question. She had been confusing him lately and it was unsettling.
She spun around to face him and her expression would have been intimidating had he not known her for so long.
"Because you've turned." She spat the words at him.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" He did his best to keep his voice calm.
"Well, you're clearly one of the bureaucrats now."
"I'm just doing my job. I have responsibilities that come with the position. Like it or not."
"And that includes not supporting your former crew, does it?" She finally said what they had been dancing around. The accusation sat there for a moment, charging the air between them.
"I have to be impartial. It's not personal." He tried to explain. She hadn't ever had a desk job like he had now, she didn't know the soul crushing drudgery of it. There were no decisions left for him to make, every option was outlined for him in various manuals. God, it was dull.
"Oh, that is crap. You hide behind this veneer of command. I look at you, with your straight back and your square shoulders and it is your armor. And you won't let anyone in because you're afraid," She was finally letting her emotions show, almost yelling at him now. "You're an emotional coward, Mike Flynn."
He wouldn't stand here and listen to this slander. He chuckled, a defense mechanism of which he was well aware-he had gotten this habit from his father's side of the family. He stepped past Kate, into the living room. She needed a minute to pull herself together. He could sense she was about to either smack him or start crying and he wasn't comfortable with either of those options.
She kept talking, spinning around to speak to him even as he turned his back on her. "And I have put up with it...for three years now. Sometimes I actually think that you enjoy tormenting me." Her voice went soft at the end, a touch of bewilderment leaking past her anger. It was enough to make him react.
"Oh, come on, Kate! That's unfair. You know the regulations." He walked back toward her, challenging her to accuse him of being too strict with the regulations but dammit, that was all he had. He had his ship and his regulations. Now, with the recent desk job, he didn't even have his ship.
"Yeah, the regulations. They don't apply any more, do they? You can't hide behind them any more." She looked up at him, brown eyes burning with anger at him.
She was right: he didn't have his ship. With this shore posting, he no longer had the on-board regulations that had kept his life in order. He felt suddenly lightheaded. His anchors were cut away and he was drifting. He reached for the closest life line and it was Kate, standing before him in his kitchen in a dress that exposed her delicate collar bone, with color rising on her cheeks from her impassioned speech.
He reached for her and closed the space between them. He kissed her and felt her body press against his. He let himself get lost in the physical desire of the moment, allowing his mind to stop railing against his recent circumstances.
When he woke up, Kate's head on his chest, he knew it had been a hastily made decision. He had what he had always wanted, except it was too late. He wanted the ship, Hammersley, and Kate at the same time. The career and the relationship: the ultimate indicators of success. He thought he had lost Kate so he clung to the ship until she made it clear that he could have her if gave up the ship. So he had let Maxine and Kate talk him into a desk job. Now he had Kate but had lost the Hammersley in order to get her. It was a hollow victory.
Her phone rang and she reached across his body to answer it. He felt her smooth skin against his chest and her hair tickled his face. God, she smelled good. It had been years since they had slept together-his fault, he could admit he made some poor decisions when he was younger-but she was everything he remembered. She had the same curves as those that lived in his memory and she made the same quiet noises of pleasure that had haunted his dreams for years.
"Kate McGregor. Hello? Ok, yep. I'll be there in an hour." She spoke into her mobile.
He knew what the phone call was before she had hung up. He'd had the same phone call many times himself.
"Duty calling?"
"Notice for sea," She confirmed.
He felt as if his body sunk through the bed into the floor. His thumb continued to rub small circles on her lower back, and he murmured what he thought were appropriate words for the moment. But he wasn't present. He was adrift again, adrift by himself. It was all made worse by the fact that Kate, who he finally had in his arms again, was going to sea without him. He couldn't process the sadness, not yet. So he kissed her, pulling her closer, trying to make his body take control of his senses so he could escape his mind again.
Kate left, taking her beaming happiness with her and leaving him deflated in his apartment. He had gotten dressed and taken a cup of coffee out to the veranda. He willed himself to notice the smells of a nearby flower garden, the sounds of birdsong and of cars driving past on the street. He told himself that it was good to have balance. Life couldn't be 'sea' all the time, one needed a bit of 'land' now and then. His self pep-talk lasted only a few hours before he found himself lying on the lounge, daytime television droning in his ears. He checked his watch: only nineteen hours left to fill until he was due at work tomorrow morning.
He had two great loves in his adult life: Kate McGregor and the Hammersley. Kate was soft curves and intelligent conversation and an adorable giggle. Hammersley was hard edges and brute strength and a sturdy deck. The overarching dilemma of his life for the past decade was his inability to pick one over the other. He had tried having both and it was impossible. One of them was going to end up second best. The more he put off making the decision for himself, the more external factors had intruded to force his hand. Now he had Kate but he had lost the Hammersley.
And he wasn't sure what choice he would make if he was called on to go to sea again. He wasn't sure which he would miss more: Kate, the woman he hoped to build a future with, or the never-ending horizon as seen from the bridge of a patrol boat.