May Contain Wine

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  I did.

  Julian was broken. There was something inside of his brain that just didn’t mesh right, and he wasn’t functioning on all cylinders.

  I’d sensed that when I’d first met him, of course, but I hadn’t been able to put my finger on exactly why.

  Even worse, I felt sorry for the man.

  There he’d been, killing poor, defenseless animals and putting them on my front porch for me to see, and I was feeling bad for him.

  The irony of it all was not lost on me.

  “Romeo and Julian were apparently a product of a really bad marriage,” Louis said as he sat back, hands patting his now satisfied belly. “We called Julian’s father. He was very open with us. He said that Julian chose Tiana, and Romeo chose him. However, he was deployed, and Romeo had no choice but to go back to his mother. After he’d come back, apparently Tiana couldn’t ‘stand to look at him’ so she chose to stay away more often than not. She put on a hell of a show each time the father’s brother came over to check on the kids, though.”

  “That’s awful,” I said softly. “But… why did she fixate on me? I mean, it wasn’t my fault that I had to call her. I was just doing my job.”

  “The ex-husband had a few guesses.” Louis sighed. “One, you look like the woman that the ex-husband left Tiana for.” I winced at his words. “Two, you showed her son, that she hated, kindness. She didn’t like that.”

  That was just… sad.

  Really, really sad.

  What did it matter in the end?

  Romeo was dead.

  Julian would be seeing the inside of a psych ward for quite a long time.

  And Tiana was now going to be put away for attempted murder of a police officer.

  Needless to say, she’d totally and royally screwed her life up. All for no reason at all.

  That was sad and horrible, and I wished that people like her never got the gift of a child.

  The rest of dinner, and the entire ride home, I was silent, locked inside of my own head.

  When we arrived at my door, I blinked in surprise.

  “I thought we would be going to your place,” I said quietly.

  “We are, but I wanted to stop by your place first,” he said. “Our future place.”

  I got out of the car and walked with him up to the front door.

  He produced a key and walked inside, waiting until I was all the way in to close it behind me.

  The doors closing meant there was very little light in the house, making it almost eerie.

  When I felt for the light switch, I frowned when I felt something hanging above it.

  Moving my hand lower, I found the switch, flicked it on, and stared at the ring that was hanging from a sign that said, “Will you marry me?”

  I blinked stupidly for a few seconds, unsure what to say.

  “I know that we haven’t been back together that long,” he said from directly behind me. “But I know what I want. I’ve known it since we were kids. I want you. I want a life with you. I want to have fifteen kids with you. I want to be married and grow old with you. I want to wake up next to you every morning for the rest of my life. I…”

  The app on Louis’ phone signaling a SWAT call rang out, interrupting his words.

  “This’ll be our life,” he said as he pulled his phone out, silenced the alarm, and gestured to the ring. “If that’s all right with you…”

  I yanked the ring from the string, put it onto my finger string and all, and practically ran out the door to his car.

  “Let’s go, slowpoke. You got places to be. Bad guys to deal with,” I called over my shoulder.

  He followed me out, being sure to lock up behind himself as he did.

  When we got into the car, I admired my ring.

  “I’m pretty sure I’m carrying your kid, you know,” I said softly.

  “I know.”

  His knowledge didn’t surprise me.

  He knew me about as well as I knew myself.

  “I don’t want fifteen kids,” I continued.

  He chuckled. “Out of everything you heard, that’s all you have to focus on?”

  I twirled the ring and worked on tugging the string free.

  “Well, fifteen seems a little excessive,” I said as he flipped on his lights and sirens and accelerated down the street at a fast clip.

  “But think of all the fun we’ll have making them.”

  Well, he wasn’t lying there.

  Making babies was fun, after all.

  Epilogue

  Funpa—like a grandpa, only cooler.

  -Calloway to Bennett

  Calloway

  I got off of the bar stool, wobbled slightly, and then grinned when I didn’t fall on my ass.

  Walking to the sink, I threw my cup and bowl into it and then turned to see the dogs prancing excitedly by the back door.

  I walked over to it and opened it up, only for the dogs to go straight to a dead bird that was right outside the door.

  “No!” I said sternly, clapping my hands.

  We’d adopted two brother dogs from the local animal shelter.

  One was black with white spots, and the other was white with black spots.

  They were the cutest, most destructive little jerks I’d ever met.

  But they were so great.

  I grinned and talked to them as I walked to the back door.

  Over the course of the last eight months, we’d adopted two dogs, worked on our house, and gotten married.

  Now, we were only days away from the birth of our first child, and I couldn’t be happier with how my life had turned out.

  The dead birds always brought back memories of my life from months ago, but luckily, this time, I knew they were harmless.

  Sadly, Julian was now committed to a psych facility for a very long time. There would likely never be a time that he found his way out.

  They’d determined him to be a risk to himself and others and had found him a more permanent place in a small town in Kentucky.

  As for Julian’s mother? Well, she was serving twenty-eight years with no possibility of parole.

  With any luck, she’d die there.

  The dogs nudged the bird with their noses.

  “Babe!” I cried out.

  Nothing.

  “Babe!” I yelled once more.

  “What?” Louis groaned.

  “There’s a dead bird on the back porch,” I said. “And the dogs won’t go pee because they’re too interested in smelling it.”

  Silence, then, “So?”

  I sighed. “Well, I’m just sayin’, when you have to come clean up all the tinkle off the floor because they didn’t go, then you’ll care.”

  Nothing.

  “Babe!” I yelled. “This is what you signed up for when you agreed to marry me!”

  I heard him sigh from the other room, then he appeared in his game room doorway and stared at me with tired eyes.

  I smiled at him.

  He’d spent the entire night at a SWAT call and had literally just arrived home twenty minutes before.

  “What?” I asked.

  He rolled his eyes and walked to the back door, picking up an empty paper towel roll and a butter knife on his way.

  “What are you doing with those?” I asked as he passed.

  He didn’t answer.

  Instead, he walked outside, in only his underwear, and picked up the dead bird with only the paper towel roll and the knife.

  He walked it over to the fence that we’d built and chucked it over, away from the dogs’ grasp.

  Then, I watched as he tossed not only the bird over the fence but the paper towel roll and the butter knife as well.

  My mouth fell open in surprise.

  “Louis!” I cried. “I just got those in the mail yesterday! They were from Crate & Barrel! And I spent five hundred bucks on them!”

  He rolled his eyes and walked
straight into the bedroom.

  I grinned and washed up my dishes from breakfast.

  I felt a pain rock through my belly, and I grimaced at the contraction.

  They were getting stronger and closer together.

  And, if I had any luck, they would continue to do so.

  But… I did need to tell Louis.

  He deserved to know that I was having them, even if he was going to freak out.

  We’d spent the entirety of my pregnancy worrying.

  First, about my anemia that luckily didn’t rear its ugly head during my pregnancy. Something that I was hoping, crossing my fingers and toes, and praying wouldn’t return. Then about the pre-eclampsia. Followed shortly by the sheer size of the baby growing inside of me, making it to where they’d already assumed I was going to have to have a C-section to deliver him.

  Needless to say, not only did Louis no longer want fifteen children, but I was loath to admit anything that might scare him in any way.

  There was only so much worrying Louis and I could take.

  “Babe!”

  He came back into the room fully dressed, making me want to grin.

  I didn’t dare.

  “You’re going to work?” I pouted.

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Yes, I’m going to work. There’s a little thing I need ,like money to pay for your five-hundred-dollar Crate & Barrel purchases,” he teased.

  I grinned unrepentantly at him. “Oops.”

  The thought of telling him I was having contractions waned. I’d tell him if and when they got to the point where I felt like we needed to go to the hospital, and not a second sooner.

  He snorted and tugged me gently into his arms. “Bring me lunch?”

  I looked up at him and smiled. “Of course.”

  “See you around noon,” he murmured, dropping a soft kiss onto my lips. “Take care of my baby.”

  With that, he was gone, leaving me with two rambunctious puppies.

  The sound of his truck starting up outside had a flutter going through my heart.

  “Okay, you two,” I said as I looked at my two rescues. “Who wants to help me fold baby clothes?”

  ***

  Louis

  “Hey, Louis!”

  I turned at the sound of my name being called by my chief.

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  The Chief grinned his fucking ass off as he gestured to an old man in overalls. He was wearing overalls only, no undershirt, and was holding a big ass box the size of which was causing him to waver on his feet.

  I recognized him instantly. And behind him was my girl.

  But she was holding back, looking at the man then at me as if she knew something funny that I didn’t.

  I walked up to the old farmer and offered my hand. “Sir, how are you?”

  I also didn’t remember his name for shit.

  Which probably made me a bad person, because the man had come up to the police station twice over the last couple of months to say thank you for all of the work that I’d done. He’d even talked to Luke and told him how ‘above and beyond’ I’d gone for him.

  Whatever. I wasn’t really good with names.

  “Officer Spurlock.” The old man shook my hand, the box teetering.

  Calloway was there to steady the box, taking it from his hands.

  I immediately let go of the old man’s hand and took the box from Calloway.

  The box teetered, causing my brows to rise.

  “How can I help you?” I asked curiously, winking at Calloway when she saw her dad and headed his way.

  “I wanted to bring you something,” he said as he gestured toward the closest desk. “It okay if we use that?”

  I looked at the desk, which happened to be a young officer’s and nodded. “Sure.”

  I placed the box on top of it, and the old man started to open the lid.

  “I just wanted to bring you some sausage from the pigs that you saved,” he said.

  I blinked.

  “Um, what?” I asked, confused.

  “The pigs that you saved. I slaughtered them and brought you some sausage,” he said.

  There was a moment of silence as the room around me went quiet.

  Then there were snickers all around. The main ones coming from Sammy who was busy laughing his ass off as quietly as he could in the corner of the room.

  I blinked, choking a bit on the words. “Um, thank you. I… that’s very nice of you.”

  Eight months ago, I’d gone into a burning building thinking that there were crying kids inside. Instead what I’d found were fifteen squealing piglets.

  Instead of leaving them to die, I’d saved them from the fire by picking them up and carrying them out in a trash can.

  Which was quite funny seeing as they were now slaughtered and in bags on a desk in front of me.

  “I made you some bacon. Some sausage. Some ribs, and some jerky,” he said matter-of-factly. “I just wanted you to know how much that meant to me. If you hadn’t saved those, my family wouldn’t be able to eat this winter.”

  I immediately felt bad for him.

  “Sir,” I said. “You don’t have to give me these.”

  He gave me a stern look. “I do.”

  I nearly started laughing.

  Did start laughing after he left.

  “He gave me a box of sausage,” I said with as straight of a face as I could manage. “All those piglets that I saved…”

  The room itself seemed to burst then, laughter filling the bullpen as we all processed what had just happened.

  I was laughing so hard, that at first, I didn’t realize that Calloway was no longer laughing.

  She was staring at me with horror on her face.

  That was when I saw the large wet spot on her dress.

  Her water had broken.

  “But what am I supposed to do with all of my sausage and bacon while you have a baby?” I teased.

  She slapped me on the forearm. “Fuck the bacon.”

  Twelve long, grueling hours later, I was holding a very angry, very tiny baby boy.

  We named him Bennett Foster Spurlock.

  What’s Next?

  Joke’s On You

  6-9-2020

  Prologue

  There appears to have been a struggle.

  -My housekeeping style

  Booth

  “Mail day, bitches!”

  I grunted when a box was practically thrown into my face, along with about eight letters.

  I blinked.

  Ever since we’d gotten out of what I liked to call ‘hell month,’ I’d been getting mail regularly. One or two letters a week. Not fucking ten letters and a package.

  I carefully sifted through the letters, freezing hard when I read the name on the return address of the last one.

  Davidsdottir.

  A few years ago, Delanie and Dillan Davidsdottir had moved into our small town, and ever since then, I’d had a crush.

  A crush on Dillan.

  Yet, I’d slept with Delanie, effectively ruining any and all chances that I would ever have with Dillan.

  Which really fucking sucked.

  Why my drunk brain had decided that would be a good idea, I would never know.

  Needless to say, getting a letter from a Davidsdottir literally sent a shiver of fear through me.

  Opening it up, I started reading.

  Booth,

  I don’t know when you’ll get this, but I need you to know.

  The night that we slept together ended up with a little ‘oopsie.’ I’m pregnant. As of right now, my due date is about eight months away.

  I want you to know that I can have this baby by myself. You don’t have to be involved.

  However, since your mother saw me coming out of the obstetrician’s office, and asked how I was doing, I broke down and told her everything. She assures me that you’ll want to be in
the baby’s life.

  I knew you would want to be… but I’m just scared. Anyway, if you have any questions, I’d be more than willing to answer them.

  I’m sorry.

  Delanie

  I’m sorry.

  I’m pregnant.

  Son of a bitch.

  I closed my eyes as a wave of something—horror? Sadness? Regret?—washed over me.

  Not at fucking all.

  As I folded the letter up, something fell down to the ground that was folded in with the letter, and I bent over to pick it up.

  My breath caught at what I saw.

  It was a sonogram.

  Of my baby.

  My heart, that I thought was broken, kicked a stuttered beat.

  My baby.

  That was my baby in the picture.

  I ran my finger over the black and white photo, brushing the pad of my thumb over the blob that I assumed was my kid. And knew.

  I would do everything that I could for this kid of mine.

  Everything in my power to give, that baby would have.

  Then I thought about Dillan again.

  And then there was Booth. Who really disliked both sisters.

  Not because they were bad or anything, but because they always acted like they were so high and mighty.

  I’d never been able to understand what it was that they saw in us that they didn’t like.

  Needless to say, it hadn’t been easy having a crush on a girl that looked at me like I was a scuff mark on her pristine thousand-dollar heels.

  “What’d ya get?”

  I looked over at my new friend, Colin.

  Colin was a good guy. I liked him a lot.

  Even if he’d started a Dungeons and Dragons underground ring while we were in bootcamp and got caught, which then turned into all of us having to pay for his stupidity.

  He couldn’t help that he was a complete geek.

  “Umm, I haven’t opened the box yet,” I admitted. “I’ll do that in a sec. Still trying to process this.”

  I showed him the sonogram photo, causing his breath to suck in fast through his teeth.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  God, I wished my brother was with me.

  If anyone could talk me straight again, it was him.

  Swallowing hard, I tucked the photo into my front pocket and read the letter all over again.