The Blue Collar Bachelors Box Set: The Complete Blue Collar Bachelors Series

by Miller, Cassie-Ann L.

  Nova glares back. "I will diatribe about my masturbation practices till my dying day if settling down means getting stuck with a square like Joshie Bear."

  "Hey, that's my fiancé you're talking about!” She throws up her arms in anger.

  "And that's my vag you're talking about!” Nova retorts.

  “He is not a square."

  “Josh has four sides that are all the same length and four ninety-degree angles. I’d say he’s a square, Princess Sophia."

  The bride-to-be seethes. “I’m so about to uninvite you from the wedding.”

  I snicker quietly to myself and pull the cupcakes out of the oven as the timer goes off. At least when they're fighting, the focus is off of me. As the girls continue to bicker, I take it upon myself to open the wine and pour us each a drink. By the time we’re drunk and eating cupcakes and leftover Italian food, we’ll be humming Kumbaya around the dinner table.

  I drop a perfectly good wine glass and it shatters to pieces when Nova and Sophia both yell out in unison, their eyes focused right over my shoulder. I spin around and look out the wide glass of the back door.

  And I scream the loudest.

  Chapter Three

  Leo

  My arms spread wide as I hold up the crumpled instruction sheet in front of me and try to make sense of the diagrams and drawings.

  "Fucking Christ!" I mumble under my breath. As soon as I utter the words, my head quickly snaps in the direction of the door. I breathe out in relief.

  Thank god Brent didn't hear that because I'd have to explain to him again why he isn't allowed to use those naughty words while I can't seem to stop spitting them out every few minutes. It's hard to go from the brutal, adrenaline-driven environment of the battlefield to the life of a civilian, a father, a role model in the blink of an eye.

  But that's no excuse. I have to set a good example for him. He’s already been torn away from his mother with little explanation. If I don’t step up to the plate, he'll lose his faith in humanity as a whole at the tender age of four. I can't allow that to happen.

  He’s the single light in my dark life. His innocence is the flicker that keeps hope alive in my chest. I have to protect him, not just from the cruel, harsh world, but also from the darkness that has all but swallowed me up. Even as my anger, my guilt, my overwhelment threaten to overpower me, I have to show up every day and fight for that little boy’s future. I don’t know how I’m going to pull this off, but I’ve got to. I’m all he has.

  This town is as good a place as any for a fresh start. With its quiet, tree-lined streets and its two-story single-family homes. The perfect place for playing in the backyard and riding bikes on the quiet roads and reading books in a tree-house. The perfect place for giving my son the kind of childhood I never had.

  I turn back to the IKEA disaster on the floor in front of me. I'm almost positive that this isn't what the dining table on display at the store looked like. Why are the legs sticking out of the top of the table instead of underneath it? I rotate the diagram 90 degrees and it still makes no sense.

  Scratching the back of my head, I sigh. Maybe I should have read the instructions before I started building instead of waiting until I fucked up.

  I stick my head out the back door to check on Brent. He's sitting on the grass beneath the big oak tree with his Iron Man action figure in hand, mumbling animatedly to himself as he waves the thing around. His superhero cape is fastened securely around his shoulders. I feel a pang in my chest and I'm not sure if I'm touched by his innocence or if I'm jealous of his cluelessness.

  "Enjoy it while you can, buddy." Because one day, life will give you a series of swift kicks in the ass and you'll long for the days when you could just strap on your cape and pretend that you can stop the world from crumbling down all around you.

  I step back inside. Man—this house is hot as hell. I didn’t expect that April in northern Illinois would be this muggy. Leaving the door open for air to circulate, I turn back to my IKEA project. As soon as I'm done with tablegeddon, I've got to figure out the air conditioning system. In the meantime, I tear off my shirt and kneel down with the tiny wrenches and screws that came in the box and begin disassembling the table.

  This needs to get done tonight. I'm determined to sit my son at the table for dinner. It's what families do. They sit at the table every night and they share a home-cooked meal. For us a home-cooked meal means packaged ramen but I digress. I want to give the child some semblance of normalcy even though our whole world has been flipped on its head.

  I get lost in the project, bent on figuring this puzzle out. I'm a military-trained weapons technician. I put guns together and take them apart in the blink of an eye. I can build a bomb using a rubber band, a nylon sock and the contents of my vegetable drawer. I'm about to start work on a general contractor’s team the day after tomorrow, for crying out loud. There's no way I'm letting an IKEA kitchen table take me down.

  "Daddy, look at me!" I hear Brenton call out from the back porch.

  "Yeah, buddy. Really cool," I say, barely glancing his way before he's scampering down the stairs again, his cape flapping behind him.

  I'm down on my knees, taking another shot at screwing that leg into the table. I think this thing is finally starting to come together. But a few minutes later, a flash of red catches my attention as it zooms across the back porch.

  What the..? Am I seeing things? Every now and then, my PTSD causes my mind play to tricks on me. But when the red bolt zips by again, I know for sure that this is no optical illusion. I stumble to my feet as fast as I can, bolting toward the door.

  It's too late.

  My son giggles wildly as he charges up the neighbor's back porch and presses both tiny hands to the glass pane of the door. There's a pair of enormous red panties covering his face.

  I cringe all the way down to my toes when I hear a woman's shrill scream rip through the air.

  Chapter Four

  Reese

  Have you ever had that dream? The one where you're up at the front of class to give a presentation that you're completely unprepared for and the entire room is sitting there, waiting for you to get on with it. But when you look down, you realize that you're naked. Completely naked.

  Usually, at that point in the dream, you bolt upright in bed, chest heaving, sweat on your brow and realize that—thank god—it was just a dream.

  Well, as I stand here at the back door, blinking impishly into the chiseled face of the strikingly handsome man standing shirtless in front of me, I realize to my horror that there is no waking up. This is no dream. This is my reality. There's a little boy on my porch staring up at me through the stretched-out leg holes of my super-sized red granny panties.

  I'm going to need years of therapy to recover from this traumatic event.

  The tall, tan sculpture of male perfection snatches the underwear off of the child's head and scolds him sternly. "Brenton Montgomery—what is wrong with you?!"

  "But, daddy—I’m Spiderman!" Innocent puppy dog eyes blink in his father’s direction.

  "But, nothing. You know better than to do something like this!” He’s fuming. Face red. Nostrils twitching. “...And Spiderman doesn’t wear a cape!" The stranger’s broad chest heaves as he turns his attention to me. He looks as mortified as I feel. "I am so, so sorry," he tells me with an earnest expression, his iridescent blue irises glimmering despite the heavy bags beneath them. "He just...he..." The man’s deep voice trails off and his eyes flutter shut as he shoves a frustrated hand through his hair.

  My eyes fall to the panties still clenched in the fingers of his other hand. But I'm in too much shock to speak. Instead, my gaze explores the rock hard body on display in front of me. And my armpits go damp.

  He's hot. Really hot.

  My anti-perspirant isn't strong enough to combat this level of man-heat.

  Dark blond hair with the slightest wave to it. Sharp, brooding eyes in the most intriguing shade of blue. Defined cheekbones and a jawline
I want to trace with my fingertips.

  And the lips...the full, succulent, juicy lips, like harvest-fresh fruit at the end of summer.

  My eyes move down his stubbly chin and his bobbing Adam's apple to his wide, rounded deltoids. His pecs are tight and swollen with the bulging muscles beneath. His abs are stacked like bricks one on top of the other—

  I feel an elbow nudge me in the ribs. "It's no problem at all," I hear Nova say over my left shoulder. "Right, Theresa? Tell him that it's no problem at all." She gives me a hard stare.

  "Right," I say, snapping my attention back to his face. My knees go weak when my eyes collide with his. So hot…

  Sophia takes her position on my right side. "This is Reese," she tells the gorgeous stranger as she gives me a little push in his direction. “She lives here. Alone.” The suggestive tenor of her voice is anything but subtle.

  His stoic eyes take a jaunt down my body and my skin heats with self-consciousness. "Reese. Charlie's sister." He shakes his head as if he's just now remembering, and the interest I just saw in his expression fades away. I must have imagined it. "Yeah, he told me that you live next door. I’m sorry—in all the chaos of the past few days, I forgot." He stretches his huge fingers out to me. When his palm slides against mine, my chest tightens and my whole arm tingles as we shake hands. "I'm Leo." He pulls back way too fast. A mournful sigh slips from my mouth.

  "I'm Brenton," a tiny voice interjects and my attention goes to the adorable little boy. Now that he’s no longer wearing my god-awful panties like a ski mask, I see a head of unruly brown hair that could probably use a trim and playful black eyes that hint at the thousands of types of mischief he could get into if given five minutes unsupervised.

  "Hi Brenton," I say, leaning down a little closer. "It's nice to meet you."

  He grins at me as he shakes my outstretched hand. "You’re pretty!"

  I’m blushing like an idiot because now I’m even more aware of his father’s eyes on me. "Thank you," I say quietly.

  Leo puts a hand on his son's shoulder, guiding him toward the stairs. "Sorry for interrupting your evening, ladies. We'd better get going."

  "Wait!" I call out as they're about to head down the stairs.

  My friends gaze expectantly at me just as Leo and Brenton glance back with curious expressions.

  Shit…

  "C-can I have my panties back, please?"

  Leo blinks a few times, looking the slightest bit confused. Like he had already forgotten all about the damn panties. And now, I’ve reminded him of their miserable existence. Good going, Reese.

  I make a clumsy attempt to backtrack. “Or you could keep them…if you want.” He frowns deeply at my magnanimous offer. Okay—I may have just made this situation even more awkward by condoning my new neighbor’s presumed panty fetish. Still the words keep coming. “But you don’t exactly seem like the type of man who’d need panties like those…Or any other type of panties, for that matter.” My hand flies out in front of me as I dig my hole deeper. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it, if you’re into that sort of thing. Because different people are into different kinds of things and that’s okay because I’m a liberal. I totally am.”

  I literally have to bite down on my bottom lip to keep quiet.

  This is who I become when I get nervous. A red-faced idiot with no bottle cork to keep my thought streams from spilling out of my mouth. Saying things I should never, ever under any circumstances say outside of the barb-wired, electric-fenced, maximum-security confines of my mind.

  Did I mention that I’m no good with guys?

  Sophia gasps in pure horror and her eyes bulge out of her face. Nova flings her arms up in the air and merps in exasperation as she stomps back over to the kitchen table. "For crying out loud, Theresa Hartley!"

  Leo looks down absentmindedly at the scrap of red fabric in his hand and then passes it off to me, tilting his head ever so slightly with that sexy, stoic expression. "This isn't exactly how I thought I'd meet my new neighbor,” he mutters in that deep baritone. “I'm sorry again."

  I ball up the panties tightly in my fist as if that will make them disappear. Sophia pulls me into the house. She offers Leo a tight smile and slides the door shut before I open my mouth again to further humiliate myself.

  Thank god for small favors. You can always count on those.

  Chapter Five

  Leo

  Jesus. I wasn’t expecting that.

  Yes, when Charlie had called, nagging me to move to Copper Heights, he’d mentioned in passing that his younger sister lived next door to the place he’d be renting for me. He’d made a joke about knocking on her kitchen window if I ever needed to borrow a cup of sugar.

  I'd hardly been paying attention during that part of the conversation. I'd been lost in my head trying to work out the logistics of moving my whole life from Seattle to Illinois with a cantankerous four year old in tow.

  I’ll tell ya—I sure as hell wasn’t expecting Charlie's sister to look like that. The thick dark hair. The huge brown eyes. The pale skin as smooth as cream. The bold curves pressing against the fabric of her fluttery little blouse. Charlie's such a big, ugly motherfucker. I’d never expected anyone related to him to be so soft and petite and sweet-smelling.

  Reese is pretty. Very pretty. The kind of pretty that lingers at the back of my mind for hours after our encounter. The kind of pretty that makes me forget to spend the night hating Mara like I always do. The kind of pretty that's distracting.

  Now, I’m restless. I can't get her out of my head. Meeting Reese Hartley tonight was a shock to the system. I don't want to be imagining her breasts as I lie on top of my covers with my fist tight around my cock. I don’t want to be thinking of her lips as I jerk myself like a mad man chasing release.

  My breath stutters and my pulse jackhammers. I try to convince myself that all this is normal. That a little fantasy never hurt anyone. That the distraction is good for my racing, chaotic mind. It’s just a break from the oppressive emotions that have been strangling me since my wife told me that she had someone new, that she was leaving, that she wasn’t coming back. On a scale from one to completely and utterly fucked up, what I’m doing—squeezing my cock, grunting low in throat, thinking about the girl next door—is nothing.

  It’s normal, right?

  Fuck—I know it ain’t.

  But my balls tighten and my cock throbs when her face flashes across my mind. And it’s her face I see as my skin tautens from head to toe. My spine goes rigid, my skull lifts off the bed from the sheer power of the orgasm ripping through me. Damn—it’s been a while. My lust strains against my heated skin and my cum shoots from my cock into my cupped hand.

  I collapse against the mattress and the weight of my guilt immediately stomps squarely into the center of my chest.

  Charlie would kill me for having these thoughts about his sister. He's the only ally I've got. I can’t afford to lose his friendship over some inappropriate, misplaced lust. Grabbing my wet towel from the foot of the bed, I clean myself up then toss the towel onto the dirty pile in the corner. This is kind of pathetic.

  Damn, I could use a smoke.

  I crawl out of bed and pull on a t-shirt then tiptoe down the stairs, dodging around boxes on the floor. I grab my cigarettes along with a red plastic cup and the whiskey from the back of the kitchen cabinet. I head for the door. Right now, I just need to clear my mind.

  Sliding the door open, I sink onto the cold back step. The sky is black. Not even the moon or the stars to keep me company.

  Figures…

  Everything’s harder at night. In the daytime I do the socially-required task of keeping my shit together. At night, not so much. At night, it's too hard. At night, I just can't swing it. In the dark, it all becomes clear.

  I really am all alone.

  Leaning my elbows on my knees, I let my head drop down. There’s a chill in the air that sinks all the way to my bones. I feel weary. Worn down. Much older than just 29. I swa
llow a fiery mouthful of liquor and then take a long drag from my cigarette. This is becoming a habit. A bad one that won’t serve Brent or me in the future. I know I should cut it but it’s my only escape right now. My only reprieve from the chaos.

  There is no pain like the raw, gut-wrenching realization that you've been abandoned, left to fend for yourself, by the person who pledged that death was the only thing that would do you part. And every time I look at Brenton's innocent little smile, that pain sears my heart all over again. Mara—how could you walk away from that innocent, little smile? I never could.

  With an unsteady hand, I bring the cigarette to my lips again and draw in more smoke. My lungs expand with the poison. I shouldn't be doing this.

  Now isn’t the time to be running away from my problems. I’ve got to focus. There’s so much that needs to get done. I need to buy some real dishes. And groceries. Brent needs new clothes and sneakers. I have dozens of boxes to unpack. The thought of it all is overwhelming.

  I’m a fucking soldier, for crying out loud. I should be stronger than this.

  My head snaps up like a shot when I hear the sound of an engine approaching. The glow of headlights shines against the side of the house. I bolt to my feet, dropping my burning cigarette into my drink to extinguish the flame. Then I move stealthily to the corner of the house, peering down at the driveway. My systems are all on high alert and I’m ready for a fight. But when I stare through the windshield of the pickup truck grinding to a halt on the gravel, my best friend’s face comes in to view.

  I exhale a sigh of relief. These overreactions are side effects of life on the battlefield. You don’t just lose those reflexes simply because you’re suddenly bunking on a king-sized memory foam instead of a narrow army cot.

  Charlie jumps out from behind the wheel of his truck and grins at me. “Hey, man.”