Now, here we were eight years later, and my son had just proposed.
“I think you do,” I paused. “I think it’s the father of the bride’s job to do that.”
“Fuck you. You have just as much money as I do.”
That was true. I did.
“Okay. I’ll pay half,” I offered. “But you’re covering the alcohol.”
He snorted. “I think we should offer up a bar, but you have to self-pay. The boys can drink.”
That they could.
Abram joined us moments later as Abrielle ran to Kayla and Janie. Both women wrapped their arms around each other, and I looked at my son.
“You know what you just did, don’t you?”
He blinked. “What?”
“You made their dreams come true…and I’m not talking about just Abrielle’s.”
Abram’s lips kicked up, his smile so much like my own.
“Damn straight. I’d do anything for them.”
I slapped my son on the back, then offered Rafe my hand. “Care for a beer?”
“You don’t drink beer when tequila is the answer.”
I snorted as I walked away, Rafe at my back.
Each of us watched as for the rest of the night our women did nothing but smile.
And when Kayla joined me in our bed much later in the early morning hours, we made love like we’d been doing for the last twenty-eight years.
“I’m happy.”
“I’m happy you’re happy, baby.”
Then I held her for the rest of the night, as I would for the rest of our lives.
What’s Next?
Get You Some
6-7-18
Prologue
If you see a hooker standing on the corner, do not pick them up. You will get arrested.
-Hostel PD FB page
Johnny
I felt like I was suffocating.
Each breath I took led me further and further down into the abyss.
I could feel their eyes on me, and I hated it.
Fucking. Hated. It.
All of them stared, but they never did anything more than that.
My mother was too worried that she would break me, and my father thought I’d get over it. However, thanks to my mother’s worry, he too was bothering the hell out of me.
It wasn’t like men didn’t come home from war all the time.
I wish I could’ve stayed.
However, life didn’t work like that.
Which sucked, because I was just as healthy now as I was before the accident that had sent me spiraling downhill.
My mother and father thought I was fucked up due to the accident that had sent me to the hospital in the first place.
I wasn’t.
What I was fucked up about was the fact that I couldn’t go back with my unit and finish what I’d started. For all those years, that had been my life. I’d help protect the innocent, while also being with some of the best guys that this Earth had ever produced.
However, a tracheotomy, apparently, is something the Marines medically discharge you for…who knew?
After taking shrapnel to the throat from a bomb exploding next to our Humvee, they performed an emergency trach on me to help me breathe. When I woke up, it was to find myself in Germany, a pint short on blood, and the doctors telling me I was going to be just fine—but that I would never be back with my unit ever again.
That was what fucked me up.
Especially when, moments after stepping foot onto US soil, I’d gotten word that two men from our unit had died while on patrol.
Somebody landed hard on the couch beside me, and I looked over to find Janie staring at me with a bored expression on her face.
“Why is it that you always have to be in the dark? It’s cold over here,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
Her large diamond ring on her finger caught my attention.
“Why don’t you go hang out with your husband?” I suggested.
She shrugged. “I’m mad at him right now. And, I just hate seeing you sitting here all by yourself. You just look so pitiful.”
I flipped her off.
Janie laughed. “Seriously, though. There are about eighteen willing women over there,” she pointed and I followed her finger with my eyes. There were, indeed, women over there. And they may, perhaps, be willing. But I wasn’t. Not at that moment in time, anyway. “Why are you over here all by yourself? That’s not normal for you.”
I shrugged. “I’m fucking tired.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why? Last I heard you weren’t even working.”
I grinned. “You aren’t holding back the punches, are you?”
She blinked innocently at me. “I don’t know what it is you’re speaking of.”
I grunted. “Sure, you don’t.”
“But seriously. Why don’t you have a job yet?”
That was the hundred-dollar question.
Why didn’t I have a job yet? Because everywhere I wanted to apply had family. And honestly, I was just a little bit tired of them hovering.
“I was going to apply at the police station, but then Trance and Loki started to butt their business into it, and I changed my mind,” I answered honestly.
I loved my family. Truly, I did. But I was a grown ass man. I’d spent six years in the military, away from their prying eyes. I didn’t know how to function anymore with them trying to dictate my every move and show me how I should do things.
I knew how to do things.
Janie looked speculative for a few moments.
“Maybe you should come to Hostel,” Janie suggested. “It’s a small town. No family in sight…and nobody to look over your shoulder to make sure you’re doing all right.”
I grinned at the prospect of leaving Benton.
Janie and I knew each other well. Janie, her best friend, Kayla, and I grew up together.
I had once thought that I might try to go down that path with her, but then I met a girl in high school that made me realize the difference between interest and interest.
I honestly thought that girl would wait for me when I deployed…but I’d been wrong.
Speaking of the devil…
“What the hell is she doing here?” Kayla asked as she plopped down on my other side. “Seriously, she disgusts me.”
I snorted.
There was no love lost between Janie, Kayla, and Rosie. None. Honestly, it surprised me that they hadn’t done anything more than just toss glares her way since we’d broken up.
“She has every right to be here,” I pointed out. “It is a public bar.”
Janie and Kayla both snorted.
“Well, she’s a whore, and I don’t like her.”
I found myself laughing for the first time that night, which drew everyone’s attention to me, my parents and Rosie included.
“I think I’ll take you up on the offer of sharing your new town. Tell me, do they have a police department?”
Turns out, they did.
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