So I let her go. I gave her my blessing.
“Well,” Max nodded to me in gratitude. “I was hoping to wait for Charlie to get here…”
“Charlie?” I spat out. “My Charlie?” Oh God, I just called him my Charlie. “I mean… First Sergeant Madison? Why?” I started to stutter. “ W-W-Why would Charlie be coming here?”
Get it together, Hannah.
Max stared at me for a brief second before continuing. “Charlie’s my son. He didn’t tell you?”
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
“No, you said your son was Max Jr. I specifically remember you saying your son was Max Jr.” I reminded him of the facts, praying that I knew more than he about his own flesh and blood.
Maggie gave a little giggle before putting her hand on my shoulder. “Charlie is Max. Our mother used to call him Charlie because he was the third kid. Get it? Alpha, Bravo, Charlie…” She smiled at me, allowing it to sink in.
And then Mary jumped in, taking some of my angst off of her sister. “They were very close before she passed away. He even took her last name when he turned eighteen.”
I was in a state of shock, unable to move, to breathe, to think… I overheard their conversation in the background, but none of it really registered.
Mary asked how I knew Charlie.
There was talk about how the Sergeant Major paired us up hoping that it would ease us both into this new union if we at least knew each other.
My mom talked about how she met Charlie one night when he popped over for a surprise home inspection.
Max oddly pointed out that he wasn’t aware of any home inspections.
And then his voice brought me back: the voice that I yearned for, that I had grown to love. “Hey Pops, sorry I’m late, I was with this—.”
Time stopped when he saw me. Everything that I had been feeling the last few minutes was mirrored on his face.
“Hannah, you’re here.” He shook his head, not knowing what to make of our little rendezvous. “But… why?”
I couldn’t hold it in. I was about to explode. “Because we’re about to be brother and sister, Charlie. Isn’t that… crazy?”
The air thickened around our table during the brief silence, but it was only for an instant, for then the Command Sergeant Major patted his son on the back with a bellying laugh. “Aren’t you happy I warned you to keep your hands off this one?”
“Yeah…” Charlie almost whispered. “Thanks for the head’s up, Dad.”
No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
I pushed back from the table, trying desperately to keep it together, before I would ultimately go running from the restaurant. “I just need a minute… one minute.”
But I didn’t just need one minute. I needed all of the minutes. I needed them to process this very fun fact: Charlie Madison, also known as Max Reynolds Jr., the man I had allowed myself to fall for, the man who only thirty minutes earlier I told we should try to see where this relationship could lead barring anything crazy, that man was going to be my stepbrother.
Fuck. Me.
“Hey Pops, sorry I’m late, I was with this—.”
Time stopped when he saw me. Everything that I had been feeling the last few minutes was mirrored on his face.
“Hannah, you’re here.” He shook his head, not knowing what to make of our little rendezvous. “But… why?”
I couldn’t hold it in. I was about to explode. “Because we’re about to be brother and sister, Charlie. Isn’t that… crazy?”
BOOK TWO
Chapter One
Charlie
Wait… What the fuck just happened?
You know, sometimes life hands you lemons, and sometimes it just hands you a swift boot kick to the face.
And, you know what? You really can’t make lemonade from a swift boot kick to the face.
“I’m going to… I’m going…” I blew the air from my mouth, allowing my lips to flutter in complete desperation. “I’m going to make sure Hannah is… all right… yeah.”
Like a zombie, I moved from the table, in the direction of where Hannah had just run off. Shit. I never even said hello to my sisters. I guess I was a bit shell-shocked from the whole my dad marrying her mom thing, to say the least.
I’m sure they understood… or understood half of it.
I looked around the parking lot, not sure where she would have gone from there, but without too much searching, I soon eyed her fairly easily, as she was planted up against a weeping willow… crying.
Fitting.
“Hey.” It was all I really knew how to say in that moment.
“Go away, Charlie.” She said through her held-back tears.
I shook my head, forgetting for a second to speak. “No. I’m not going to go anywhere.”
She finally turned to look at me, and our eyes met in an all-embracing kind of hopelessness. “Max? Your real name is Max? When were you going to bring up that little fact?”
“It would have come up in time.” I shrugged; never realizing it was a big deal. No one called me Max. It was my birth name, not the name I went by. I’m honestly not sure if it would have ever come up at all.
“Oh, just like the fact that your father just happens to be our boss would have…” She put her fingers up in sarcastic quotation marks, “come up in time?”
“Hey!” I retaliated before realizing I had no real ground to stand on.
I pushed my fingers through my hair; attempting to come to terms with the real mess we had just found ourselves in, before continuing with any more words of wisdom.
But, I wasn’t quite sure how to do that. This situation was really fucked up.
“You, more than anyone…” I started, taking a more solemn approach instead of attacking the bigger picture. “Should understand why I choose not to broadcast my relationship with my father. What would you have thought about me had you known the Command Sergeant Major was my dad? Would you have thought I’d be deserving of the title of First Sergeant?” I kicked the ground, knowing what I was about to say was all too true. “Or would you have thought I was some snot-nosed, immature boy who just got lucky that his daddy was there so he wouldn’t have to do any of the grunt work associated with climbing through the ranks?”
She didn’t answer me right away, but I knew she understood. It was something I had dealt with for so long. I didn’t want to be seen as just my father’s son, especially by her.
“God, I shouldn’t have to explain myself.” Now I was getting worked up, and she still wasn’t talking. “I’m fucking good at what I do. I’m deserving of the respect I demand. Who the hell cares that he’s my dad?”
“What are you trying to say?” She meekly mumbled. “That I’m not deserving of respect?”
It was like I was talking to a spoiled child sometimes. “Never once did I say that. God, Hannah, you should try listening to me instead of just assuming everything I say is a jab at you.”
How many times today could she remind me of why I don’t get involved emotionally with women? It was like one thing after another with her.
Hannah’s eyes still bore the glaze of tears she had been trying desperately to hide from me. I knew she was confused and hurting, and not really able to grasp what was happening around us. I knew this all too well because I was feeling the exact same way.
“You’re right.” She finally uttered as I had just about given up hope of her ever acting sane again. “This isn’t just about me.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t know what to say, but it seemed good enough in the moment.
She took a slow step toward me, and I felt my insides tighten. No matter the bomb that was just dropped on us, or how she drove me absolutely bonkers, I couldn’t help my feelings for the woman. I was utterly obsessed.
“Promise me you knew nothing of this.” Her eyes begged for the answer she already knew.
“About our parents?” I confirmed, dumbfounded. “Of course I didn’t know. I don’t live with him, and I certainly don�
�t talk to him about his love life.”
And then I started to laugh. It really was funny, actually, if I laid all the facts out in front of me. I didn’t know. I had no idea that there was anything going on with him, let alone the two of them, but all of a sudden, things started to make sense.
“Why are you laughing?” She seemed concerned.
“There were these things that happened,” I started, not sure where I was going. “In the moment, I didn’t think anything of them, but now they are so clear.”
In a quick turn of attitude, Hannah joined me in laughter as she agreed. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
We resolved to sitting in the grass, under the shade of the crying tree. I wanted to hold her hand in mine, but under the circumstances, I knew it would seem as if it were in bad form. So instead, I fought my aching urge to touch her.
I cracked my knuckles as I thought back, needing some place to put my anxiousness. “When he paired us up on the first day of your training, my dad told me that you were important to us. I just assumed he meant to the Army, considering your father’s reputation. But he literally meant us. Like him… and me.”
She came right back with, “How about my mom trying to dig into your entire life the night you stormed into my apartment for my fake inspection? I thought she was trying to set us up! Little did I know, she was just trying to get to know her stepson.”
Now we were rolling, and I kept it going. “When you were passed out in the infirmary, he came in to make sure you were fine enough that we wouldn’t need to alert your family. I thought he was just following protocol, but in reality, he just didn’t want your mom freaking out during their nightly pillow talk!”
I started laughing more. And then she started laughing more. Her giggles were contagious, and I couldn’t find it within myself to stop. By the end of our little duel laughing fit, we were both lying on our backs, looking up at the swaying branches.
“Oh my God.” She was still chuckling as she came up to her elbows and looked directly at me. “That second day, after I had spoken with Reynolds, I told you that I didn’t rat you out to Daddy. No wonder you freaked out! You thought I meant your actual Dad!”
I sat up, finding my ground. “I thought he told you, which was something I really didn’t want to happen, especially so early on in your training.”
“And especially more because we were sleeping together?” She teased, knowingly.
I shrugged in response. There was no denying that little piece of the puzzle was a big part of the whole ordeal.
In those few moments, it was as if nothing had happened. We were okay. Not too much physical time had passed since our lives were forever changed, and yet, we were already laughing, and cordial, and handling it the best way we knew how.
I helped her to her feet after we agreed our families would probably start to get worried about us with our long disappearance. We walked briskly across the parking lot, and made it to the door of the restaurant before we both stopped to turn to each other with an inhaled breath.
“You first.” She motioned, knowing I had something to say.
“No, no. You go first.” I decided I needed to hear her thoughts before I admitted mine.
“Well,” she bit her bottom lip and looked up at me with her big brown eyes. “We did say ‘barring anything crazy’ and this is certainly crazy, so I guess,” she fought herself to say the words, “I guess this is it.”
I held out my hand to hers and gave her a nice, firm handshake. With a huff and a shy smile, I continued. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
Unfortunately, it was just about the opposite of exactly what I was thinking.
Chapter Two
Hannah
I didn’t want to sleep alone that night, but aside from hitting the town and picking up another boy who very well might end up being my instructor for the next phase of my training, I really had no other choice.
The weekend was mine, but starting Monday, I had three weeks of parachute training. I had very little experience flying in planes, let alone jumping out of them, but I was oddly excited.
Don’t get me wrong. I was scared, terrified even, but I wouldn’t be the first to jump out of a perfectly good plane, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be the last.
I hung my purple and gray dress back up in my closet, brushed out my hair, splashed some water on my face, and pulled on an old t-shirt. It was still pretty early, but I was exhausted, and by golly, I deserved a good night’s sleep. I snuck my laptop into bed, allowing myself a few episodes of television while I drifted off, and browsed Netflix for the latest craze.
There were a few good options among my suggestions, mostly some political dramas that I had been eyeing for a few weeks, but before I could click the ‘play’ button on the most intriguing of the bunch, there was a knock at my door.
There was really only one person who would dare show up unannounced at my place this late at night, and I prayed to God it wasn’t him.
And then I prayed that it was.
Let’s be honest: of course I wanted to see him. I’m not going to go around lying to myself. What’s the use in that?
Another knock came at the door.
Impatience: definitely Charlie.
And another knock.
But, knocking wasn’t really his style. He was more of a barge in now, apologize later kind of guy.
As I made my way through my apartment and to the front door, I must have went through fifty different reasons why it had to be Charlie standing on the other side of the entryway, and then another fifty reasons why it absolutely couldn’t be.
“Don’t let it be Charlie.” I whispered to myself as I turned the doorknob.
Yeah, it was Charlie.
“Charlie… what are you--?”
And then he barged in, almost knocking me over in the process. “Okay, no, this can’t be happening.”
“What… can’t… be happening?” I tried to search his emotions as he paced throughout my living room, but this franticness was new to me. We had left things so calm and cordial. What was this?
“Our parents. It’s gross. It’s just plain gross.” He chuckled a nervous laugh, but his demeanor was anything but funny. “They’re old. They don’t need to get married. Why are they getting married?”
I hated to ask the question, because I didn’t want to assume, but if I was going to try to help him get through whatever was currently happening, I at least needed a few more answers. “Charlie, is this because of us?”
“No!” He spat at me, a little too quickly.
“Okay, ouch.” I shrugged, slightly hurt that it wasn’t about us. In my mind, it was still all about us.
“I’m over us. You were right…” Okay, this hurt slightly more. “But why do our parents have to move on? Can’t they just stay like they were?”
“Single?” I was still trying to grasp what he wanted out of this conversation.
“Yes. They did the kid thing, what more do they need?”
He was still pacing, so I tried to stop him with some sensible words. “What about someone to be with so they’re not lonely?” And then, out of nowhere, I started to get angry. I don’t know why, but I was definitely angry. “What about someone to care for who also cares for them? What about the whole love thing?”
He finally stopped pacing for a single second to stare at me in confusion before he started his steps right back up again. “What about it?”
“Oh my God, Charlie. What is wrong with you? When did you become a twelve year old child?”
“I am not a child!” He pointed his finger at me, thinking it would stronger make his point, when in fact it made stronger mine. “I’m being realistic.”
And he was driving me crazy. Coming over to further discuss what was going to happen between us would have been one thing. Coming over for a last chance booty call would have been another thing. But this? This? Did he think I’d agree with him? Did he think we could join forces to split up our paren
ts before they took the plunge into holy matrimony?
Why did he think I’d ever go for that?
“How is this realistic, Charlie? Please explain to me your thought process here.” I was just about to give up fighting and tell him to leave.
“It just is.” He threw up his arms, thinking that would be enough to sway my opinion. Wow, he really was used to getting what he wanted.
“You know what I think this is?” I started, fully ready to give it to him. “I think you’re upset that your father has found someone that will ultimately replace your mother.”
His pacing stopped, for real this time, and he moved toward me with fury in his eyes. “No one will ever replace my mother. Don’t you dare say that again.”
“No one will replace your mother, and no one will replace my father, but if they make each other happy, who are we to take that away?” I continued the reasoning.
“My mom is enough.” He turned to me, and for the first time I saw a small tear reach the corner of his eye.
Embrace The Suck (A Stepbrother Special Forces Novel) Page 9