Spade was ready and waiting for me when I knocked on his hotel room door. He handed me what I’d asked him to pick up, and after changing we went to go pay a visit to Clayton’s family. Spade had come through with their address, and when we pulled up outside the house, there were three cars parked out front. I hoped that meant they were all here. I was counting on the Sunday family breakfasts Sadie once told me about, being a tradition they still kept up.
We climbed out of the car and walked up to the front door of the single story house that would’ve fit in any ordinary residential neighborhood in America. I knocked and an older white man, with light eyes and salt and pepper hair, answered the door and I could only assume it was Mr. West, Clayton’s dad. His eyes traveled between the two of us, taking in the complete Marine dress blues Spade had borrowed from a recruiting office here. Then his eyes met mine. “Can I help you gentlemen?” He asked guardedly.
“Yes sir, my name is Andrew Reid and this is Damien Slater and we’d like to come in and speak to your family if that’s alright,” I responded.
“What’s this about?” It was obvious he was hesitant to let us into his house. I imagine the last time Marines paid his family a visit, it hadn’t been a pleasant experience, in fact that was exactly why we were here.
“It’s about your son Clayton, Mr. West,” I answered.
“Oh, okay. Uh, yes, of course you can come in.” He pulled the door open wider and stepped back so that we could enter. We followed him into the family room where he indicated we should take a seat. “Just a moment, let me get my wife.” He turned and made his way toward what I assumed was the kitchen. “Loli,” he called out, “we have visitors.” Then a pretty woman, slighter younger than Mr. West, with dark golden brown skin and all dark features, appeared in the doorway wearing a simple dress and apron. She was clearly Clayton’s mother and the one who had passed on the more exotic traits to her sons. I was pretty sure Sadie had mentioned that she was from somewhere in South America, maybe Venezuela.
“Who is it dear?” she asked and her voice held the slightest trace of an accent, leading me to believe that she had lived in America for most of her life.
“They’re here about Clayton,” he told her. Her eyes snapped to the two of us on the couch and I watched as she took in the uniforms in the same way her husband had. She came further into the room and her husband gestured for her to take a seat in the large comfy chair that was angled to face the sofa.
“You knew Clayton?” she asked, but before Spade or I could answer her, the sound of a back door opening and then banging closed reverberated through the house, followed by footsteps making their way toward us.
“Breakfast ready, Ma?” One voice called out, and then two familiar faces appeared in the living room. Dre and Jeremi were both dressed in athletic shorts and tshirts. Dre held a soccer ball in his arms and they were both covered in a layer of sweat that indicated they’d been outside kicking the ball around. When they spotted me, their eyes instantly narrowed. “What the hell are you doing here?” Jeremi blurted angrily.
Mrs. West gasped, “Jeremi! They are our guests, they’re here about your brother.” She then looked to me, “I apologize for my son, I’m sure he didn’t –”
“Don’t you apologize to him, Mama,” Dre cut her off. “He’s friends with Sadie.” That elicited another gasp from her and her expression became troubled.
“Is this true? Are you friends with the Pierce girl?” she asked me, and I wasn’t going to lie.
“Yes ma’am. I am, but if –”
“No!” She barked, rising out of her seat. “I want you out of my home. That girl is no good. No good! And I don’t want you here. My son should never have been with her, and now he’s dead. The Marines took my baby away, she took my baby away. Now I want you gone.”
“If you’ll just hear me out for a minute,” I started again, but this time it was Jeremi who interrupted.
“She said to leave, so get the hell out of here.”
Spade and I both stood up to face them and they took a step closer, preparing to throw us out if they needed to, I was sure, but I wasn’t leaving until I’d said what I came here to say.
“Mrs. West,” I said calmly, but Dre and Jeremi weren’t having it and they started to get in my face. I wasn’t going to fight them here, even though I thought both of them deserved a good hit to the face for the shit they’d put Sadie through, but as pissed off, it wasn’t why I came. They started yelling at us to leave, making threats, and their mom was becoming borderline hysterical, while Spade and I stood there, trying to keep our cool. This was not going well. Not at all. I tried explaining that we were just there to talk to them, but I don’t think anyone could hear me over the shouts, and then finally Mr. West stepped in.
“Enough,” he yelled loud enough that it startled everyone and we were silent. Then he fixed me with a stern look. “I don’t know what you boys thought you would achieve by coming here this morning, but now that you’ve disrupted my home and upset my family, I think it’s time for you to leave.”
“With all due respect sir,” I replied, “that’s not going to happen. We came here because you all need to hear what we have to say and you’re all going to listen,” they started to get all worked up again, but I raised my voice to speak over the top of them, “and if you don’t want to listen, I can always get the police involved.” That shut them right up. I looked at Mr. West. “I don’t know if you’re aware of what your sons have been up to, but harassment is illegal and that’s what they’ve been doing to Sadie, so if you don’t want me to report them, then I suggest you all shut up and hear me out.” Jeremi and Dre, still looked like they wanted to protest, but their dad raised a hand to stop them. He also seemed surprised by the news that they’d been harassing Sadie.
“Go ahead and say your piece, we’ll listen.” Mrs. West lowered herself into the chair again and the other three took their places behind her. Spade and I returned to our seats on the couch as well.
“We didn’t come here to start a fight and I don’t want to get the police involved because that’s not what Sadie wants.” There were a few huffs at the mention of her name, but I ignored them. “Yes, we are both friends of Sadie’s, but we really are here about Clayton.”
“Did you know him?” Mrs. West asked again, some of the hostility in her voice had lessened.
“No ma’am, we did not, but we don’t need to have known him, to know that the way your family has responded to and handled his death is disrespectful to his memory.” I saw the anger that my words incited, in all of their eyes. I didn’t give them the opportunity to speak, but I also wasn’t here to be a complete asshole.
“Believe me when I say that I am truly sorry for your loss. I can only imagine the pain you feel, and how hard it has been on your family, but I know that this isn’t what Clayton would’ve wanted. Hating the woman he loved, won’t bring him back, and whether you like it or not, he loved her, and she loved him. She’s not to blame.”
“He never would have joined the Marines if it wasn’t for her,” Mrs. West retorted.
“That may be, but by blaming her, you are belittling his sacrifice. It doesn’t matter why he enlisted, I can promise you this; after Clayton went through basic training, he wasn’t the same boy who joined up, and everything changes once you get deployed and you’re actually over there and in the middle of it,” I paused, taking a deep breath before I went on. “I was just an eighteen year old punk kid who enlisted for no other reason than I wanted to be able to support my fiancé and I thought joining the military would make me a badass, excuse my language, but like I said, I was just a kid who didn’t really know what he was getting into. Damien’s story is similar.”
“Yes it is,” he jumped in, “I didn’t have a good home life or family, college wasn’t really an option for me, but I didn’t want to waste my life so I signed up, hoping I would get to play with guns and pick up girls in my uniform.”
“We were deployed to Kuwait and I
raq,” I continued knowing Clayton was killed in Iraq, “and our reasons for signing up didn’t matter anymore then. What you need to understand about the Marines, is that it isn’t just a bunch of soldiers playing G.I. Joe, it’s a family. Each unit is like a brotherhood and that means something. It means that each man is willing to lay down his life for his brothers. What the Marines stand for is bigger than just one soldier, and I know to you Clayton wasn’t just one soldier, but he gave his life for something that I promise you he believed in. He gave it for his brothers, for his country, for the people he loved. Your son was a hero and his sacrifice saved lives that day. Don’t try to take that away from him by putting it on Sadie. Don’t make his death for nothing, because it wasn’t. You should be proud of your son, your brother, and honor his life and his memory the way it deserves to be honored.”
Mrs. West had tears in her eyes and I noticed that her husband seemed to be on the verge of them as well. Jeremi and Andre remained silent, but they no longer appeared hostile. I was pretty sure what I’d said had made an impact. I didn’t know how much, but all I could do was hope they took my advice. Mr. West walked us to the door, and actually thanked us, not only for coming to see his family, but for our service as well. I got the impression that he was finally seeing things differently, and I hoped that meant he and his family would finally find some peace, but whether they did or didn’t, it was no longer my problem, or Sadie’s.
When I returned to the boat after dropping Spade off, Sadie was still lying in bed. Her eyes opened when I stepped into the bedroom and she looked up at me soft smile, but I could still see sorrow in her eyes. It wasn’t as strong as yesterday, but it was still there and I knew it was something she would always carry inside of her.
I went to her and sat down on the edge of the bed and brushed a strand of hair out of her face as she looked up at me from her pillow. “Where did you go?” she asked softly. Eventually I would tell her, but for now it didn’t matter.
“I just needed to take care of something, but I’m back now,” I told her.
“Good. I don’t want to be alone,” she admitted quietly.
“I know, baby, and you’re not. You don’t ever have to be again,” I grabbed her hand in mine, “It’s okay to miss them and be sad, they’ll always be a part of you. I don’t want to try and replace them or make you forget what you had. I know I never could, but I love you. You’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met and I know you’re my future. I want to take away all of your tears and give you the whole damn world.” I slowly ran the backs of my fingers down her cheek. “You’ve lost so much, but I promise you haven’t lost everything. We’re gonna have it all babe, and one day, when you’re ready, you’re going to feel a child inside of you again. You will hold our baby in your arms and you will be an amazing mom. I will love you both, and as many other children as you want to have, for the rest of my life. You’re it for me baby.” I caught the tear that fell from her eye and rolled down her cheek and then I kissed her.
Epilogue
6 months later
Sadie
“Hey babe, can you come in here?” Ace shouted from the music room.
“Quiet,” I shushed him as I entered the room and found him sitting on the coffee table instead of one of the couches or chairs, with an acoustic guitar in his hands. “I finally got Abel down for a nap. If you wake him up now, you get to put him back to sleep,” I warned him.
“Sorry babe,” he stood up and kissed me on the cheek and then pulled me down on the couch in front of him. “We just haven’t played together in a while and I miss it.” It had been a while. We’d both just been so busy the last few months. The guys did another major tour this summer, wrapping up a few weeks ago, just in time for Jax to give birth to her son on the same day the guys came home. Abel Fender McCabe was the newest, and definitely the cutest member of the McCabe family. Yes there was some argument about the order of the first and middle name. Someone, also known as Ky, thought it should be reversed. Jax won, and Fender became his middle name.
In between homework and studying, I’d started giving lessons privately once I returned to Boston. The rest of my free time, I’d spent helping Jaxyn prepare for the little guy’s arrival and getting Mia settled into her dorm here in Boston. She finally got out of my parents’ house and hopefully it would be the fresh start she needed.
Now the guys were home and things were as normal as they could be. Abel was three weeks, and after three weeks of sleep deprivation, diapers, nursing, spit up and crying, Jax and Ky were ready for a break, which is why Ace and I were babysitting. Of all nights we thought they deserved to spend their first anniversary together, minus the spit up and diapers.
It was all a little unreal, seeing them as parents, but they were doing an amazing job, and it seemed that baby fever really was contagious. They had set off a chain reaction. Lissa was five months along in her first pregnancy and Lucy was due to pop out her and Shane’s second and third child. Yep, twin brothers for Izzy. There were bets out on who would be the next one to end up knocked up, me or Vi. My money was on Vi now that she and Jake were finally engaged and planning for a winter wedding.
Chris and Spade had yet to maintain a lasting relationship, so they were out of the running as far as knocking anyone up, at least we hoped, and Danny was so private about his personal life, we never knew if he was seeing the same girl or a string of girls. Honestly, for all I knew, he was gay and had a boyfriend. Ace assured me his cousin wasn’t, but I remained unconvinced.
“Come on baby, play with me,” Ace whined, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
“Don’t make it sound so dirty.” I smacked him on the arm but picked up my guitar, which he’d already set beside the couch for me. “What do you want to play, one of your guys’ songs?” I was used to playing through their music with him, but since he had an acoustic in his hands instead of his bass, I should have known he didn’t want to practice.
“Nah,” he shook his head and then positioned his fingers over the strings and started strumming. “How about this?”
It took me a second to recognize it as one of Maroon Five’s newer songs. He was slowing it down a little, but I was able to come in and follow him as he started singing the words. His voice was a little deeper and rougher than Adam’s, but I loved it and our voices harmonized well together when I joined him at the chorus.
We spent the next hour goofing around, playing together. Then he helped me put some lyrics I’d been working on for a while to music until I was satisfied with what we’d created. After that we played one of his favorite games. We went back and forth, each picking a song to play, trying to stump each other with older and lesser known songs. The score was pretty much tied, we both got about half of them right. It was his turn to come up with one he thought I wouldn’t know. When he started playing, I recognized it, but even after a few minutes I was only able to give the name of the song and Ace is firm in his rule that you have to get the song and the artist.
I was running out of song ideas, so I turned around and started playing a random One Direction song I was counting on him not knowing, but I should have known better and apparently he was more current with boybands than I’d thought. He guessed it with a cocky smirk on his face. “Okay, enough. You win,” I conceded.
“Oh come on. Just one more. For the win.”
I couldn’t say no to him. It was actually a problem. “Fine. One more.”
It looked like he was thinking hard and I hoped he didn’t go with another country one. I had nothing against country music, but it was probably the genre I was least familiar with and he kept playing old school songs that I had never even heard of. “Okay, I got it,” he said and then shifted his guitar into position on his lap. He started playing and within a few seconds I was confused because it was an unmistakable and very popular song. I couldn’t believe he would pick something so easy. I loved this song. It was one of my favorites by Train. I let him keep playing and singing even though we were s
upposed to just call it out as soon as we figured it out. I knew I’d already beat him and I really did love the song. The way he was looking at me while he sang the words was doing something to me. Finally he stopped playing and looked at me intently, with a confident grin plastered on his face “Know it yet?”
I wrinkled my brow and looked at him funny. How could he possibly think I didn’t know that song? “Marry Me,” I blurted out.
A wide grin spread from one ear to the other. “I’d love to,” he said.
“What?” I asked confused.
“You just asked me to marry you.” He was still grinning.
“Wait, no I didn’t. It was the song,” I argued.
“Oh, okay then, how about if I ask you,” my eyes went wide as I watched him slip the guitar over his shoulder and lean it against the table. One hand reached into his pocket as he dropped down to one knee in front of me. I gasped when I saw the tiny box. “Sadie, I love you. You already know you’re it for me. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want a thousand more nights like this, spent with you, sharing something we both love. I want to be the one you go to bed with every night and wake up next to every morning for the next fifty years and then some. I’m yours, all of me, and I want you to be mine in every way. I want to give you my last name so that the whole world will know that we belong to each other. I want forever baby, and I’m ready for it to start right now if you are. So what do you say Sade? I’m just a boy … kneeling in front of a girl,” I laughed, “asking her to marry him.”
Happiness bubbled up inside of me and a soft laugh escaped my lips. “Yes you dork, of course yes, but do I at least get to see the ring?”
“Oh yeah,” he chuckled, realizing he still held the box shut in his hands. “I was trying to be all smooth, but I was really fucking nervous. Did I do alright? You’re not disappointed that I didn’t propose in a more romantic place or in front of ten thousand screaming fans are you? Fuck Ky for being the first one and taking that proposal.”
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