My Bad- Lani Lynn Vale

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  Pru’s lips went wide as she smiled full out. “My sister did that. I went with her once. It sucked so bad I never went back.”

  “It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, but when I went into it, I found a place in the world that was all mine. A place where there were other kids that didn’t have their parents there either. And when I turned eighteen, I joined the Army and then never looked back.”

  “You want to do it for the rest of your life?” she asked softly.

  I had.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “I do.”

  But if there was one person in this world I’d give it up for, it’d be you.

  I didn’t tell her that, though. We were too new. She wasn’t ready to hear the depth of emotion that I was feeling for her.

  She’d run, and I’d have to chase her to get her back.

  I wasn’t sure she was ready for my kind of chasing, though.

  “So the point you were trying to get across as you explained all of that was that you’re married to the Army and that you want me to know that no matter what I say or do, you’re not leaving it.” She sobered.

  I shook my head. “No, I’m just telling you that it’s important to me but…so are you.”

  She softened at my words. “I’ll be able to deal. I won’t go out and shag every single man that points his penis in my direction while you’re gone.”

  “Shag?” I laughed. “Who says that?”

  “Me!” She narrowed her eyes.

  “And you just said you’ll wait…is that what I heard?” I asked.

  She softened. “I’ll wait…as long as you give me a good enough reason. You have to do a lot of convincing in between today and when you leave next week. I need to have a lot of memories to remember why I’m waiting while you’re gone.”

  Chapter 8

  Eat food off of other people’s plates. Those are their calories. They don’t count.

  -Life Hack

  Pru

  I couldn’t believe I’d said half of the things that I had.

  Honestly, if I was going to do this, I needed to have the understanding that it could, and might very well, go bad.

  I didn’t want it to go bad, though. I wanted it to go oh so good.

  Though I hadn’t known Hoax long, I realized rather quickly that he was beginning to mean quite a bit to me.

  When he kissed me on my porch step last night, I’d decided that I really was going to give this a try.

  Military men weren’t all bad, and Hoax was proof.

  But, it scared me that he was going away for an unknown amount of time.

  He hadn’t corrected me when I’d guessed he’d be gone for six months.

  I’d been curious, of course, about what exactly he did in the Army, and when I asked him he diverted the topic.

  Which was why I found myself standing in my dad’s garage bay watching him work as I contemplated what I was going to ask him and how.

  “Would you just get over here already?” my father questioned.

  My lips twitched. “Yeah.”

  Then I moved to the car he was working on and leaned my hip against the front fender as I watched him bend nearly in half to reach a bolt that was inside the hood.

  The motor was missing, and he looked like he was in the process of rebuilding it based on the scattered contents on the massive table behind him.

  His wrench slipped, and he cursed.

  “Here, reach in here and tighten this bolt,” he ordered, handing me the wrench.

  Having done this for him a thousand times before, I reached in the small space and did as he asked, handing it back to him moments later.

  “I’ve been working on that goddamn bolt for five minutes now,” he grumbled.

  I smiled.

  “There are some things women are better at,” I teased.

  He grunted out a ‘whatever’ and held his hand out for the wrench, which I promptly slapped back into his hand.

  His hand closed around the tool and he placed it on the rolling tool chest next to his other side before resting both of his large hands on the frame of the car and looking at me expectantly.

  “What?” I feigned innocence.

  “Today’s your day off and you’re usually sleeping in, not hanging out with your dad.” He paused. “You could’ve brought donuts, you know.”

  My lip twitched. “If I’d brought you donuts, Mom would’ve thrown a shit fit.”

  He sighed. “It’s high cholesterol, not the end of the world. Seriously, it won’t hurt to have a donut every once in a while.”

  “Your high cholesterol is a precursor to heart disease. Trust me when I say that you don’t want to deal with the consequences of a heart attack,” I promised him.

  This was an old argument, but something that came up constantly.

  He grunted. “I realize that. And I’m on meds now, so it should be a moot point, correct?”

  Technically, yes.

  But still…

  “It’s not easy for anyone, Dad,” I pointed out. “Do you think Mom likes it any better than you do? She’s literally the absolute worst when she doesn’t get her sugar. You should see her at work lately. She’s awful. Everyone hates her, and me by association.”

  Dad grunted. “Not everybody.”

  I winced. “You heard about Kelley?”

  “I hear a lot of things about Kelley.” He paused. “For instance, I heard from your mom, who heard it from Kelley when he called her into his office to light a fire under her ass about you, that you were caught making out in a hospital hallway with a certain man that you promised you wouldn’t be seeing more of.”

  That promise had come from me to him when I told him he didn’t need to run a background check on him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.

  He shifted his weight to one hand, and then lifted his free hand up to rub some grease on my cheek.

  “Lucky for you I went ahead and ran the background check,” he said.

  My belly clenched. “Anything bad come up?”

  What branch of military is he in, and what does he do? I wanted to yell.

  “Other than a few petty thefts that Jack and Janie had to dig pretty goddamn deep for, no.” He paused. “Interesting news about his military background, though.”

  My brows rose. “As in…”

  “As in whatever he’s into, I can’t find anything on it.” He paused. “As in whatever he’s into, he needs to not have a background at all. He’s a ghost.”

  I felt something inside my chest stall and start back up again. Probably my heart.

  “I’m thinking Delta,” I said to him softly. “But he told Conleigh that he was in the Marines. I’m thinking that was him deflecting from his actual branch, though. The fewer people know about him, the better.”

  “That, or a black ops organization that I don’t know about.” He paused. “Delta would make sense, though. You’re right on the deflecting. The less information people have on you, the better. Especially when knowing certain factors about a person makes it easier to find them. I can make a few calls.”

  For some reason, that made my stomach clench with horror.

  I shook my head. “No. I don’t want to put him in danger.”

  He gave me a hurt look. “What do you take me as, a novice?”

  I snorted. “No. I take you as someone that’s trying to protect your daughter, and you not really caring whether you fuck anything up for him.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m not a bull in a china shop. I know how to make my way around the red tape without putting any signs out that I was there, and what I was searching for. Janie could probably do some digging, too…”

  I shook my head before he’d even finished the thought. “He’ll tell me when it’s time.”

  Sighing, he stood up straight and reached for the dirty, grease-stained coffee cup that was sitting on the toolbox behind hi
m. “Maybe. Maybe not. But, I will say this. I trust the guy.”

  I snickered. “I trust the guy, too.”

  He winked and took a sip of his drink. “You like him.”

  I gnawed at my lip for a few seconds. “It’s scary, but I think that I do.”

  “Scary because you think you could like him a whole lot more than you did all your other boy toys?” he teased.

  Way more. So, so, so much more.

  I shrugged. “Way more than I’m willing to admit. He’s going slow, but it also feels like I’m moving at warp speed. I’ve only known him for a very short time, but he’s insinuated himself right in the middle of my world, and I can’t stop thinking about him.”

  That was the thing about my dad. I could talk to him about anything, and not worry about him freaking out.

  If this had been my mom, it’d have been totally different. My dad was like a soft, gentle breeze that came off a lake on a windy day. My mother? She was like exponentially strengthened winds that rolled off the ocean during the middle of a hurricane.

  If my mother knew how much I was into Hoax, then she’d be planning my wedding as well as naming her grandchildren. Hell, she’d already been leaning that way when I brought him to our family dinner.

  My dad’s eyes went behind me, and I grinned at seeing Jack, the resident computer guy and one of my dad’s best friends, standing there on the phone, his forehead wrinkled as he listened to something that was being said.

  “What’s that about?” I asked curiously.

  “He’s been on the phone all day with the cable provider. Apparently, they’re charging him for porn that he’s not using and is asking for his money back,” Sam muttered.

  I snickered. “Which kid ordered it, do you think?”

  “It could have been any of them,” Jack muttered, coming up to us so silently that I jumped when he appeared at my side. “I’m not paying for that shit, though.”

  “Did you cancel like you were threatening?” Dad asked.

  “No,” he paused. “I got free HBO for six months, though. Apparently, they don’t like it when you threaten to cancel it. And I got us all thirty dollars knocked off our bills. They don’t like it when twelve high-paying accounts get knocked off at once.”

  No, I doubted they would.

  “So what were y’all whispering about over here?” Jack asked, pulling a beer out of his back pocket and popping the top.

  I stared at it. “You do know that it’s only eight in the morning, right?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been up since four, so technically this is lunch time for me. I also noticed that you side-stepped the question.”

  All these men in my life were crazy perceptive. What the hell?

  Dad snorted. “She’s talking to me about the boy she’s seeing.”

  “I’m not sure a thirty-two-year-old man is considered a boy,” I felt it prudent to point out.

  “When he’s twenty years younger than us, he’s considered a boy,” Dad informed me. “Now, what else can we help you with?”

  I shook my head in exasperation. Then, because I knew it’d annoy him, I deliberately started to tease him.

  “So my car started to make this knocking sound last week, but it’s not doing it anymore…”

  My dad sent a glare in my direction. “It better not have.”

  I threw my head back and laughed.

  Jack tugged on my ponytail. “Don’t tease your old man. You know how he gets about your car.”

  That was true. He loved my car almost as much as he loved me.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out without giving it much thought to Jack standing beside me.

  The moment I pulled the phone out and saw the text from Hoax, I smiled.

  Hoax: Want to go for a ride?

  Me: Of course. I’m at my dad’s. Do you want me to meet you at your house?

  Hoax: No. I’ll come there. Now good?

  Me: Yes.

  Hoax: See you in twenty. I’m bringing donuts.

  Me: You’ll win my dad over forever.

  Hoax: That was my goal. See you, sweet girl.

  Me: Be safe.

  Hoax: I’ll give it a try.

  Me: You’ll give it a try? Try, you’ll do it.

  Hoax: Yes, ma’am.

  Me: <3

  After replying, I shoved the phone back into my back pocket.

  “If he makes you smile like that, I’ll put up with him,” Jack informed me.

  My eyes flicked over to his, and I felt a shiver roll through me. Getting the approval of all these men that I called my uncles was important. And Hoax was slowly winning them over one by one.

  “I’m going to leave my car here and catch a ride with Hoax. I’ll be back for it tomorrow,” I told my dad.

  He looked up and said, “Maybe that’s for the best. I want to make sure you weren’t actually telling the truth before ol’ lover boy called and put that goofy smile on your face.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Dad, I would never let a knock go. I’d call you immediately and get a tow truck.”

  He grunted and reached for his coffee once again, and I decided to wait on telling Dad that the donuts were on the way.

  Jack wrapped his large arm around my shoulder, and then slowly started to talk about what he found on the ‘kid’ aka Hoax’s background report.

  A whole lot of nothing except for what my Dad already told me. Jack had to dig pretty hard to get the sealed court documentation of Hoax’s record, but according to Jack and my dad, what he’d been busted on wasn’t anything that any other teenager hadn’t tried. Apparently, Hoax was just exceptionally bad at hiding any wrongdoing that he’d done.

  We’d moved our topic of discussion to the party that was happening in a few weeks—one of Jack’s kids’ twenty-first birthdays—when Hoax pulled up with a box of donuts strapped to the back of his bike where my ass had been occupying lately.

  He pulled up next to my car and shut the bike off, pulling his helmet off his head and giving it a little shake before climbing off the motorcycle himself.

  His eyes moved and instantly found mine, his smile breathtaking.

  I felt my heart turn over in my chest at the devastation the man caused to my soul and returned his smile with every bit of as much enthusiasm, if not more.

  Once he was standing beside his bike, he turned to place the helmet on the seat before reaching for the strap that held the donuts to his bike.

  That was when I saw the shiny new helmet that was hooked to his bike next to his knee.

  I gasped. “Look at that pretty helmet!”

  Dad grunted. “You’re such a girl.”

  I was. I was excited over a sparkly black helmet with pink glitter. So sue me.

  Who wouldn’t be excited over a pretty helmet like that?

  And I knew that it was mine. He’d picked it out especially for me.

  I’d relayed to him my discomfort that wearing Brielle’s helmet caused, and he’d gone out and gotten me another one.

  That sort of melted my heart.

  Hoax walked up moments after my dad’s declaration, hearing the words from where he’d been.

  “She’s a girl,” Hoax agreed. “But then again, I kind of like that she’s a girl.”

  I grinned and reached for the box.

  “Did you get any good ones?” I asked.

  “Glazed cake, right?” he asked, helping me open the box.

  I beamed at him. “You remembered!”

  He nodded once. “The kind of donut one’s girl likes is kind of important. I think it’s a requirement to know these types of things, right?”

  That was when I saw him staring at my dad with his hand out.

  Dad took it and shook it once before letting it go. He did agree with Hoax, however.

  “Cheyenne would likely disown me if I forgot her favorite things,” Dad answered.

  Witnessing my father’s devotion
to my mother was breathtaking sometimes.

  “When Winter was pregnant with our second, I forgot that she no longer liked chocolate donuts and made the mistake of buying her one as an ‘I love you’ gift on the way home from a run. When I gave it to her, she started crying and accused me of not loving her anymore.” Jack offered his hand to Hoax, who’d stuck his hand out immediately after shaking hands with my dad. “Jack. You must be Hoax.”

  Hoax nodded. “I didn’t buy any chocolate. Pru told me she was partial to all things glazed, and that her dad’s favorite was the blueberry cake. If I’d known you were here, I would’ve bought more. Sorry, man. You want one of the glazed?”

  Jack took the plain glazed and took a bite out of it.

  Dad took the blueberry cake that Hoax had bought for him—another thing he’d remembered—and took a bite.

  His groan of euphoria made everyone laugh.

  “Shut up,” Dad grumbled. “I’m having a moment.”

  Hoax set the box down on the toolbox and reached for a plain glazed donut, too. Then he ate half of it in one bite.

  I rolled my eyes and took a bite of my donut, nearly moaning myself at the taste.

  “I need…” I said after my first bite.

  “Chocolate milk?” Hoax asked, holding out a small jug of it to me. “They only had the one kind, not the two percent you said you like better. But I remember you saying that as long as it was Borden brand, you could drink it. I got you a straw, too.”

  Once I took the milk, he fished out a straw that was likely in the same place the milk had once been.

  After taking it from him, I offered him another smile. “Thanks.”

  “I didn’t learn that Cheyenne didn’t like chocolate milk until a year after I continued to buy it for her on my Sunday morning donut runs with the girls. We laugh about it now, but I’m just impressed that you know she likes a particular brand only.” Dad shook his head.

  “We were talking about our favorite foods,” Hoax admitted. “I expect her to return the favor if she ever gets me anything. She better not forget that I don’t like root beer or I’ll have to reconsider our relationship.”

  I shoved another bite into my mouth as I rolled my eyes.

  “Dear Lord,” I snickered. “I don’t think I could forget with how graphic of a description you gave me.” I turned to my dad, who was reaching for another donut. “He told me that root beer reminded him of the scum of the earth and that when he smelled it, it made him have nightmares.”