Son of a Beard

by Lani Lynn Vale

  And I had to admit, over the last seven months that he’d really been working on it, it looked a zillion times better.

  “You gonna sit there all day with that towel between your legs, or are you going to feed my son?”

  I tossed Truth a glare, wiped myself while he watched, and tossed the dirty towel into the hamper beside the door.

  “He’s not crying right now,” I pointed out.

  Truth turned.

  “He’s sucking on my neck. I’d say that he is hungry, whether he’s crying or not.”

  I sighed and reached for a new nursing tank that was hanging on the back of the door. Once in place, I reached for a pair of panties, slipped both feet into them, and settled them on over my hips.

  “Give him,” I ordered. “And go get in the shower. We have to leave in half an hour.”

  Truth handed him over, but chose to watch as I settled down in our bed and deftly situated pillows around my body for support.

  “You have that down to an art,” Truth observed.

  I did. That was what happened when you had a child chained to your breast for half the day.

  I pulled my shirt down, and moved EJ so that he was in a comfortable position with his head resting on the pillow.

  Before I could offer my breast to EJ, though, Truth did the honors for me, and I raised a brow at him.

  “Such a turn on,” he murmured, running his hand down EJ’s cheek. “Watching you care for our son feels like a dream come true.”

  Happiness filled my heart.

  “I like watching you with him, too. It makes me feel warm and gooey inside.”

  Truth grinned.

  “Feed our son. I’ll go get Sean up and off the couch. Get him to help load the car. Anything else you need us to do besides take the groceries off the table?” he inquired.

  I shook my head, then felt my heart leap when he dropped his mouth to mine.

  “Verity?”

  “Yes?” I breathed against his mouth.

  “I love you.”

  Tears filled my eyes.

  I was an emotional mess.

  “I love you, too.”

  With one last kiss on the lips, he was gone, and I was left alone with my child, thanking the Lord that I got drunk in Vegas.

  ***

  Ghost

  I flipped the liter open and closed.

  Open.

  Closed.

  Open.

  Closed.

  A cat hissed.

  I threw the liter at it, and the cat hissed again, this time directly at me.

  Fucking cat.

  “Here, kitty kitty!”

  I looked up to see her pushing the screen door open, and my heart started to pound.

  “What’s that?”

  I froze when she started walking toward me, unaware that I was deep in the shadows less than five feet in front of her.

  Her breath hitched when she bent to pick up the liter, and a small moan fell from her perfect, bowtie lips.

  “No.”

  What’s Next?

  I’m Only Here for the Beard

  5-31-17

  Chapter 1

  Women do not want to hear an apology while your penis is still inside their sister. Take it out first.

  -Pro Tip

  Sean

  I rode my bike up to the spot I usually parked, and cursed when I went to turn in because a car was parked there.

  “What the fuck?” I grunted behind my helmet. “That’s my spot.”

  Okay, it wasn’t exactly my spot. But it’d been where I parked for the last four years, each and every time I came to work.

  Placing both feet onto the ground, I walked the bike backward and put it into the spot across from my usual and shut it off.

  My helmet was the next thing to go, and I sighed when the open wind hit my overheated face.

  Fuck, it was hot for the last day in October!

  Shouldn’t it be cooler already?

  “Workin’ out today?” a colleague, Randa McCullen, asked as she started walking toward her car.

  I looked over at Randa, the basic EMT, and nodded. “Already done.”

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Figures.”

  Then she walked straight to her car. Once there, she got in, waved goodbye, and closed the door before backing out of the spot and rocketing out of the parking lot.

  I guess that meant she was ready to go.

  Certainly would’ve wished I was leaving instead of just arriving.

  Though, that was my usual lately.

  I was working too much. The station I was working in for Allegiance Health was short of staff, and they mandated every able-bodied paramedic to work overtime whether they wanted to or not.

  The only good thing I could say about my shift was that they ran a double medic truck instead of a single medic and a basic EMT. Otherwise I’d be so fuckin’ tired from doing everything every time I was on shift that it’d be nearly impossible to hold down a job here.

  Though, the pay was better than most.

  Although, that wasn’t saying much seeing as I made about four bucks over minimum wage and I was working my ass off for it.

  Every time I arrived on shift, I couldn’t see the reason I was doing this fucking job.

  But get me in the back of an ambulance and I forgot that my job sucked for the hour that it took to take the call.

  I walked into the door of the station, and immediately widened my eyes when I saw a heart shaped ass in a pair of the company’s tactical pants swaying back and forth in front of the counter that divided the kitchen from the living area.

  I closed the door a little harder than necessary in my surprise to see that ass, and winced when she turned around, her hand flying to her chest as if I’d given her a start.

  Which, I supposed, I did.

  “Hi,” I murmured.

  The woman was short. Really short. Though, that didn’t mean much when I was six foot four inches.

  She had a head of blonde curly hair that was stuffed into a bun at the top of her head. A teal band was tied around her head to keep her curls out of her eyes—eyes that were so freakin’ captivating that I wanted to blurt out an ‘are they real?’ to her.

  She looked very standoffish, though, so I decided to wait to bombard her with questions until she at least knew me.

  I was an intimidating guy. At least I was told.

  People that knew me, though, knew that I wasn’t going to hurt them.

  Unless they deserved otherwise.

  The woman smiled at me, but didn’t offer me a ‘hello’ in return.

  I walked inside and headed to my room, stopping when I saw that my room had already been taken.

  “You’re gonna have to move your shit,” I told the woman over my shoulder. “This is my room.”

  The swift inhalation of breath had me turning.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “That woman that just left, Randa, told me that this room was free.”

  She had a husky voice. One that I wanted to hear whisper dirty words to me in the darkness of my bedroom.

  “Randa’s a bitch,” I growled. “She likes to fuck with people because she thinks she’s funny, but she’s not.”

  The woman brushed past me, and I groaned at the smell of apples and cinnamon that wafted off of her.

  Either she’d just eaten something or she had a lotion that smelled like heaven. Either way, I wanted to smell more.

  She’d probably feel great…

  Jesus fuck, that was the last thing I needed.

  After Ellen had ripped my heart out three months ago, I couldn’t do the dating thing again. At least not yet. Not after all the shit she’d put me through.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket and I winced.

  It was either Memphis or Ellen, and I didn’t want to speak to either one of them at this point.

  They were both concerned
about my well-being. Whether I was coping well with the break up.

  And they were both good friends now, and I couldn’t complain to Memphis, my childhood best friend, without wondering whether Memphis would be on my side or not.

  So I chose not to talk to either one of them.

  “I knew someone was in here. I should’ve gone with my gut,” the woman muttered under her breath. “Thank you for not freakin’ out.”

  My brows rose. “I wouldn’t freak out over something so trivial,” I informed her. “Now steal my cookies that I brought for dinner and I might change my mind.”

  She graced me with a smile and I forgot how to breathe.

  She really was beautiful, even in the ugly white shirts that Allegiance made us wear.

  It looked like it swallowed her whole, and I wondered if the one she was wearing was donated like my first one had been. At least her pants looked new.

  The company was slowly transitioning to blue tops and blue bottoms with a white reflective strip down the sides.

  And fuck, but what looked butt ass ugly on most women, she filled out like a wet goddamned dream.

  Even her little tactical boots were cute. I didn’t realize that women’s feet came in such a small size. Was she even in adult footwear?

  “Can you even lift a person?” I found myself asking.

  She froze, turned, and nodded her head. Her hands were wrapped around all of her things that she was hastily shoving back into her bag, and I nearly laughed at how pissy she looked.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re tiny. I was curious.” I held my hands up, dropped my back pack to the ground, and walked back to the living room where I parked my ass in my favorite chair right in front of the TV.

  It took her ten more minutes of moving her things before she joined me, and by the time she sat on the couch I was curious if she had something against men. She kept staring at me like I was going to jump up and bite her.

  I flipped to my favorite station, and had just put my hands up behind my head when the tones dropped.

  Every fucking time.

  Get comfortable? Tones drop.

  Taking a shit? Tones drop.

  Getting gas? Tones drop.

  Eating out? Tones drop.

  Sighing, I slowly let the foot of the recliner down and walked behind the woman who was about ten steps in front of me.

  She was in the passenger seat of the medic when I got there and I smiled.

  I did not ride in the passenger seat if I wasn’t in the back. I hated it. Not having control of the wheel literally drove me fucking nuts.

  That’d also been why I’d requested this particular shift with another medic so I wasn’t stepping on any toes with the basics who were usually the ones to drive.

  “Do you want to take lead?” I asked.

  She looked at me and nodded, pressing the button that let our dispatch know that we were in the medic and on our way.

  Okay then.

  Did she speak at all? I wasn’t sure.

  Thirty minutes later, I secretly thanked the good lord above that she’d volunteered to take the call.

  I turned the sirens on and accelerated slowly careful not to go too fast in case my partner, Naomi, (I had to get her name from her name badge because she still hadn’t told me) was standing up in the back.

  Which was likely since she was about to catch a kid that was about to fly straight out of the patient’s vagina.

  Maneuvering the streets of Mooresville, I made my way hurriedly to the hospital while still obeying most of the traffic laws.

  I was thanking my lucky stars, too. In the nine and a half years I’d been a paramedic, I had not had to deliver one single baby, and I would hopefully keep it that way.

  “Shit!”

  Uh-oh. That didn’t sound good.

  “Oh, my God. Did I just poop?”

  I winced.

  “Don’t worry, baby,” the father that was riding in the passenger seat responded to his laboring wife. “The doctor said that was normal.” He turned to me and whispered, “That’s normal, right?”

  I barely contained the urge to laugh.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed. “From what I hear, it is normal.”

  The soon to be daddy nodded, comforted by my words, and returned his gaze back behind him.

  Did I relay the amount of relief pouring through me at not having to deliver this child?

  I could do anything.

  Blood, gore, exposed bone. Decapitated heads. Gunshot wounds. Vomit. Piss. Shit. But childbirth? Hell fucking no. That squigged me out.

  The last street just before the hospital I heard the woman on the cot give an almighty screech, and then Naomi’s ‘you have a baby girl’ as I was pulling into the bay.

  I grinned at the father, who looked as white as a sheet.

  “Ready, Dad?” I asked him.

  He nodded, opened the door, and promptly fell on his face.