Things that never bothered me before suddenly bothered me.
Things that did bother me now made me irate.
Oh, and let’s not forget about the clothes thing.
I couldn’t fucking wear them at home. It was either I was walking around in boy shorts and a sports bra, possibly a camisole if I could stomach it, and nothing else.
I positively dreaded the whole putting scrubs on to go to work thing.
“Right,” Hastings said as she put her hands on her hips. She’d run here from hers and my brother’s place, which was about a half mile away. “Why did you rent here again?”
She looked up at the old as fuck house that I’d moved into.
It was positively breathtaking to me.
The house was one of those old farmhouses. The kind that had about twenty bedrooms, a wraparound porch, deep farmhouse sinks that you could wash babies in, and a mother-in-law suite that the sweetest old lady on the planet was living in.
Apparently, the whole thing was her house. She’d raised three babies in it. Then, as her health declined, she’d chosen to move into the smaller part of the house for less upkeep.
And now, or at least before I’d moved in, she was having her grandson keep the main house in tip-top shape, and she was just biding her time before the grandson wanted to move into it.
It worked out great for me seeing as I’d needed a bigger place to stay—sure, I hadn’t needed twenty fucking bedrooms—but I’d needed more room, nonetheless.
“Because my old place’s lease was expiring, and I needed more room.” I pointed to my still-flat stomach.
Hastings looked at it, then hers.
“Maybe I’ll just move in here with you since your brother’s being such a dick right now,” she muttered darkly.
I laughed. “My brother is an opinionated asshole, and he’ll come around. All of them will. Eventually they’ll get over the shock of me being pregnant, breaking up with Mark whom they all loved, and moving out all within a week timespan.” I paused. “Right now, they think I’m having some sort of mid-twenty crisis. They think I’m setting myself up for failure or something.”
“Are you?” she asked curiously.
I rolled my eyes.
“No,” I said. “I just want a freakin’ kid. Why is that so bad?”
She leaned her hip against the still-ticking lawnmower. “I don’t think it’s bad. I wish I had half the confidence that you do. Fuck!”
Then she punched the air.
“That’s new,” I said as I noticed her new move.
Hastings had Tourette’s.
She was a sweet, beautiful young woman who said fuck a lot.
The thing was, I said fuck a lot and I didn’t even have the excuse of having a disease to blame it on.
“I know,” she grumbled. “It’s annoying, too. Especially when there happens to be something in front of me when I do it. I punched your brother in the nipple this morning. He has a bruise.”
“Sucks to be a little bitch like him,” I teased. “Are you going to be okay to make it back in the dark?”
Hastings had planned on just stopping to say hi, but then we’d gotten to talking and one thing had led to another and now she’d been here for over an hour.
“I was thinking about calling your brother and asking him to come get me,” she admitted. “He doesn’t like it when I run in the dark.”
“How about you go hang out on the front porch on a rocking chair, and I’ll take you home when I get done mowing this last patch?” I suggested.
She gave me a thumbs up. “Sounds good.”
So that was what we did.
I mowed the last patch of yard, then put the lawnmower away in the most immaculately kept barn I’d ever seen, then gestured for Hastings to meet me at my car.
“A new car, too?” she said as she took it in.
I looked at the Challenger.
“Actually, no,” I confessed. “I was in a wreck two days ago and they’re repairing it. Some fool fifteen-year-old decided to take a merry little drive through town. He hit me at the turns right by the school. Caused four thousand dollars’ worth of damage, too. Now I’m going to have a wreck on my history when I do go and trade it in a few months.”
“A fifteen-year-old?” she said as she climbed into the Challenger. “What the hell?”
“Exactly what I said,” I admitted. “Though, I did used to drive to the corner store when I was fifteen. But that kid lives all the way outside of town. I’m not sure that I was quite that brave when I was that age. I did scare the crap out of the kid, though. He was texting and driving.”
“Oh, boy,” she said as she buckled herself in. “What did he do?” She tilted her head. “Or should I say what did you do?”
“Well,” I admitted. “First, I yelled at him. Then I called the cops. Then I yelled at him in front of his father. Then, when his mother got there, I yelled at her, too.”
Hastings snickered. “And how did the kid take it?”
“The kid is a spoiled little asshole,” I muttered. “I swear to God. They’d already bought him a brand-new Ford F-150. Like brand new, straight off the lot, all the bells and whistles. Do you want to know my first car?”
Hastings’ grin was infectious as we made it all the way out of my driveway and onto the road that we both lived off of a mile and a half apart.
“What?”
“A Volkswagen Rabbit. We used to call it the microwave. It was Sammy’s first, and then when I was old enough to drive, they bought him a new truck and then gave me that Rabbit. That thing was the shittiest little car I’d ever driven. Sammy practically ruined it. It smelled like beer and BO for the entire year that I drove it,” I explained.
“My first car was a Ford van that used to belong to my mother. It actually was quite nice. I could fit all my friends in it… if I wanted to. Which I didn’t.” She paused. “Because I didn’t have many friends.”
Her face went sad then as she remembered her mother, and I instantly regretted bringing up vehicles if it put that kind of look on her face.
Her mother, father, and sister had recently died. It was a sore subject that I tried not to remind her of if I could manage it.
“Hey, do you want ice cream? I all of a sudden want some ice cream,” I said out of the blue, hoping that it would take that awful look off her face.
Hastings grinned then, but just as quickly the smile fell away as if it never was.
“Fuck yeah.” She paused. “That was an actual fuck, not a Tourette’s fuck in case you were wondering.”
I wasn’t, but I loved that she clarified it for me.
Five minutes later we were pulling into the Sonic, and a familiar lifted green truck caught my eye as I pulled in across the parking lot from it.
After ordering our Blasts—hers with M&M’s and mine with Butterfinger—we stared at the truck.
“Do you think that’s the truck that I saw at my place?” I asked her.
She looked over and studied the truck right along with me.
“Yep,” she said. “Same dark-ass tinted windows. I can’t see in at all.”
“Maybe when the chick delivers his food, he’ll accidentally roll down the window and I’ll see his face,” I muttered.
We were so focused on the truck that we didn’t see the woman come up at our window until she’d rapped on it.
We both screamed like the girls we were and turned to find her grinning at us, ice cream in hand.
She was also on roller skates.
“Hey!” I said as I grinned repentantly at her. “We were stalking.”
Her eyes went to the truck at the end of the lot and then back to me.
“Mr. Grilled Chicken Sandwich, Hold the Bun?” She smiled. “He doesn’t even have the mayo or anything on it. He eats grilled chicken, tomato, and lettuce only.”
My eyes went wide. “That’s so not fun.”
She shrugged. “The man has a banging body, so obviously whatever he’s doing is working for him.”
We all looked back toward the green truck, and I groaned when I saw it backing out of the parking lot.
“Damn,” I said. “Maybe next time you can take a photo of him?”
She was already shaking her head.
“No way,” she immediately disagreed. “The guy is scary. Like, looking in his eyes, I see Jesus and feel like I need to confess my sins kind of scary. He scared me so much that I started to go back to church when he first started coming.”
“When does he show up?” Hastings asked as I passed her the ice cream that she’d ordered.
“Usually every single day around this time. Sometimes a bit earlier. Always orders the same thing. Sometimes he has his elderly grandmother with him, and on those days he’s not as scary,” she admitted. “One time I skated right into his truck when he looked at me. His grandmother laughed so hard that he actually smiled at me when I apologized for the fifth time.”
This guy sounded great.
Plus, from what his grandmother had talked to me about as I’d moved in last week, I knew that he was a good guy.
He was a police officer with KPD.
If I was talking to my brother, I might just ask him about him. Though, I’d never caught his name.
Grans—I was informed that that was her name, and I wasn’t to call her by anything else—hadn’t ever mentioned his name. It was always ‘my grandson’ when she referred to him. I’d have to make an attempt to learn his name this week.
Maybe then I could ask Hastings, who could ask Sammy.
“I’ll have to make it a habit to come,” Hastings said. “Ice cream every day works for me anyway.”
We laughed and the Sonic chick left, leaving us to finish our ice cream and talk.
“He sounds so mysterious,” Hastings said. “He’s putting a book character in my head as we speak.”
I grinned at my friend and sister-in-law.
“I’m glad that I could be of service,” I admitted. “You ready to go home?”
She looked at my ice cream.
“I am if you are,” she admitted. “We don’t have to rush home, though.”
I shrugged and took another bite of my ice cream, finishing it up before I started to drive out of the lot.
She wasn’t even half-finished by the time we left.
“You’re eating that quite slow,” I said as I drove her home.
“I like it melted,” she admitted. “It tastes better for some reason.”
I gagged. “I can’t stand melted ice cream. In fact, if it’s melted even a little bit, it reminds me of semen.”
It was her turn to gag this time.
“So you don’t swallow, I take it?” she teased.
I rolled my eyes. “The one and only blow job I attempted to do ended almost before it began. It was this guy that I met during college. We were both a bit drunk, and you know that precum stuff that comes out before? Well, I tasted it and nearly threw up on him. It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever tasted in my life. All hot, salty, and thick. Bleck.”
Hastings was laughing as we pulled up to her house.
“I’m going to have to write that in a book,” she teased again as she unbuckled. Neither of us were the least bit surprised to find her husband—I wasn’t claiming him as my brother until he apologized for being mean to me—was waiting outside for her. “Oh, boy. He looks a bit upset, doesn’t he?”
I snorted. “Just tell him that you found me walking on the side of the road and got distracted. He won’t want to talk about me, so then he’ll change the subject.”
She sighed. “Y’all need to make up. This is getting ridiculous. Contrary to what you believe, they’re still asking about you. All the time. They do it subtly since I’m the only one speaking with you at the moment.”
She rolled her eyes hard.
“Like, I guarantee you he’s going to ask about this car. He’s going to want to know why you’re not driving yours. Then he’s going to be pissed that he didn’t know you were in a wreck. Then he’s going to call your parents and tell them, and then I’m going to have to listen to them all bitching and complaining that they’re not hearing this firsthand from you since you refuse to talk to them.”
I rolled my eyes.
“It’s not that I refuse to talk to them. I think they owe me an apology,” I admitted. “Mark wasn’t that great of a guy. It’ll be okay that he’s no longer in the family.”
She sighed.
“Oh, holy shit.”
I blinked. “What?”
“That’s the truck!”
I looked to where she was pointing and felt my eyebrows raise. “That’s Malachi’s house, right?”
Malachi Gnocchi was an enigma to me. I’d been introduced to him, but he was barely ever there at any of the functions that I went to when it came to my brother and the SWAT team.
Now that I knew who he was, I knew what the poor Sonic chick was talking about with him being intimidating.
“When did he get a new truck?” I asked. “Didn’t he have a new one not too long ago?”
“No, that was Saint. Malachi always drove his motorcycle.” She paused. “What do you think my husband and him are talking about?”
Malachi had wandered over to talk to Sammy, and I grimaced.
“I don’t know but get out,” I said. “I need to go back home.”
Hastings giggled. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Same time, same place?”
I snickered. “You’re just going to run half a mile to my place and expect to go to Sonic again?”
She shrugged. “I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”
The problem was, I didn’t either.
As I drove away a few minutes later, I couldn’t help but stare at the man—Malachi—in my rearview mirror.
I went to bed later that night thinking about Malachi, and I woke up thinking about him.
The problem was, I couldn’t figure out what, exactly, it was that drew me to him.
CHAPTER 7
I’m a tac-ho.
-Sierra to Hastings
SIERRA
Sierra,
Have you ever wondered why we continued to write each other two years after your class ended?
I can’t say that I don’t love writing you, so I hope you continue well past when you think it’s smart to stop.
I’m being deployed again. This time to parts unknown—so that means that I can’t tell you where. This area is special.
All of your letters need to be sent to a different mailing address. I’m giving you my friend’s place in California where we’re officially listed as being ‘stationed.’ I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to reply to the ones you send, but I’ll still write you some and post them from where I’m going.
This deployment feels a lot different than I’m used to.
Like it’s a bigger one or something.
I hope that what I’m thinking is about to happen doesn’t actually happen.
It’s like a huge rock is settled in my gut every time I think about where we’re going and what we’re going to be doing.
How is work at Taco Hell? Did you start college yet?
Gabriel
• • •
The next morning the doorbell rang just as I’d let Axe outside to go pee, and I had to hurry across the house toward the front door to answer it.
When I got there, it was to find an older couple around my parents’ age, that looked pissed, at the front door.
“Hello,” I said softly as I stared from the man to the woman. “Can I help you?”
“My mother lives here,” the man said. “Where is she?”
No ‘hi, how are you’ or ‘good morning’ from this guy.
“Are you talking about Grans?” I asked, wishing I’d at least gotten her real name even if I agreed to call her Grans.
“Yes,” he snapped. “Grans.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Grans is living in the mother-in-law suite around back. You can access her house from the…�
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They both left without another word, turning around mid-sentence.
I watched them walk away for about two point five seconds before I decided it was too early to deal with other people’s shit and shut the door.
I’d just let Axe into the house and had started back toward my bedroom when there was another knock at the door, and I couldn’t help but groan.
What would I have to say to convince them?
Only, when I opened the door, it wasn’t Grans’ children that I found, but my father.
I narrowed my eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I asked shortly.
He was the last person that I wanted to deal with today.
My father’s eyes narrowed, looking a lot like, I was sure, mine did.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you were in a wreck?” he asked.
“What, am I supposed to call you and tell you stuff when you don’t do me the same courtesy?” I asked curiously. “Because, I had to hear it from Hastings that you had to go to the doctor yesterday. And I didn’t even get a call about it.”
My father’s head tilted back and he looked ready to pull his hair out.
“I didn’t even want Hastings to know!” he yelled. “Can’t a man go to the doctor in peace?”
I frowned. “No.”
“It was for a goddamn boil on my ass, Sierra. Was that really something that you wanted to know? They had to drain the goddamn thing. It was gross. End of story.” He growled. “When my life is in danger, like yours fucking was, then I’ll tell you.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You let Mom kick me out. Why would I call you?”
Dad sighed. “I learned a long time ago, when it comes to you and your mother, to just let y’all deal with it. Because when I try to insert myself into y’all’s fights, things always go worse than if I’d just have left it alone for y’all to deal with on your own.”
That was true. Like, for real.
I loved the hell out of my mother, but we were two peas from the same pod.
We fought like cats and dogs, and always had.
When three very opinionated females lived under the same roof, things were bound to turn shitty.
“Why didn’t you tell us that you were breaking up with Mark?” he asked softly. “If you’d have just shared that you weren’t sure things were going to work out with him, things would’ve probably gone better. It was like, one week he was having dinner with us and everything was great, you and your mother were talking wedding plans, and the next y’all are broken up and you’re pregnant by someone else. Can you not see how that’s not a shock?”
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