Double Trouble
Page 16
“It's no trouble, I swear,” Trevor said.
While most everyone had a Southern accent here in South Carolina, Trevor's was different. He was from Texas, and his accent was that thick drawl, and his voice deep. He often sounded like a stereotypical cattle farmer, which was exactly what his father did for a living. But, Trevor was a Ranger through and through.
Nolan was standing just behind him, and to the right – quiet as usual. He was the introvert of our little unit. He was also the brains. He was an engineering geek, focused more on mechanics, than on combat during his time in the Army. He was leaner than the rest of us, and not quite the man of action and violence the rest of us were, but he was still a Ranger. His body was pure, lean muscle. Even with his black thick-rimmed glasses and clean cut, dark hair, he still looked like a Ranger. He was also the only one of us without ink, which said a lot about Nolan. He was never one to give in to peer pressure.
Then, of course, there was Sean, who was the exact opposite of Nolan. The two of them couldn't have been any different if they'd tried. While Nolan grew up in an upper middle-class family, Sean had grown up on the streets of Chicago, and it showed. A little rough around the edges, with brown hair that hung down to his shoulders now, Sean never let anything get in his way. Not even poverty.
Today, he was successful, and you wouldn't have guessed that he was once the bad boy of the group. You probably couldn't picture him, out on the corner, selling drugs on the streets back in high school. He’d had to make some pretty unpopular, and sometimes illegal, choices just to keep a roof over his family's head. He was one of the hardest working, most strong-willed men I knew.
I was more than proud to call of these guys my friends. I knew Aaron was as well. We were a band of misfits, the type of guys from totally different backgrounds, who grew up in totally different circumstances and situations, but our love for our country – and later, our friend and his family – brought us together. There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't thank God for bringing us altogether.
If only He hadn't taken Aaron from us, well, I might have been inclined to pray more. Losing him was like losing part of myself; a part of myself that I'd never, ever be able to get back. He was gone, and there was just an empty hole inside of me now because of it.
I'd been so deep in thought, I missed the rest of the conversation. Tammy and Simon were going inside, ready to start their presentation. I'd seen it countless times before, but it always brought a tear to my eye – and I typically didn't tend to cry much. None of us did, really.
Yet, we'd all lived through the same pain Aaron had. We'd all witnessed the tragedies of war, watched those we knew die, and experienced the shock of trying to return back to our normal lives. We'd all managed to bear the pain and endure it somehow.
The only difference though, was that like Aaron, we had come back fully intact. Physically, anyway.
Maybe things would have ended differently had he not lost his leg. Maybe not. He was still damaged when we were discharged and got back stateside. He hurt more than any of us, and he drowned that hurt in a bottle of whiskey and a hell of a lot of sleeping pills.
The real horror of war, however, wasn't the damage it had done to his body. It wasn't that he'd lost his leg necessarily, that was the reason he wasn't with us any longer. No, the real tragedy was that after surviving months on end in some of the bloodiest, most tense days of conflict, days when the bombs were going off everywhere, explosions, bullets, bombs, and missiles all combined to fuck him up totally and completely.
His depression was so bad, and so crippling, and exacted such a heavy toll on him, that not even his four best buds or his baby sister could have saved him from himself. Not there at the end, when he'd decided it was time for him to quiet the noise in his head the only way he knew how.
“Let's get moving,” Sean said. “I'm driving.”
“Your truck have snow tires on it?” Trevor asked, cocking his eyebrows at me.
“No, but you ever drive in the snow, Texas boy?” Sean asked.
“Oh, shut the fuck up. We all know Nolan's the most experienced in the snow,” I said, patting our friend on the back. “Ain't that right?”
“Growing up in Buffalo came with a few advantages, yes,” he said. “But I don't have a truck.”
Trevor tossed him his keys. “Drive mine. But be careful.”
“Wouldn't dare hurt your baby,” Nolan laughed.
“Damn right. She's the love of my life.”
“I've never heard anyone speak about their truck that way, you sick bastard,” Sean said. “Maybe it's time you got a girlfriend.”
“Maybe. Or maybe I'm just fine living the single life,” Trevor said.
We all climbed into the dual cab truck. It was the heftiest truck I'd ever seen, and would be perfect for driving in the mountains, given that it was especially suited for rough terrain and all kinds of weather conditions. I just prayed that Nolan's experience driving in Buffalo would translate well to driving in the Appalachians during one of the worst snowstorms of the century.
Either way, I was sure of one thing – we were in for an adventure, and we'd get to Elle or die trying.
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Cuffed to my Roomies (Sample)
1
F*ck me. I’m totally screwed.
I listened with composure on the line, because that was what my dad taught me to do. I remained quiet, instead of saying all the things that came to mind, like ‘what the hell?’ or ‘are you sh*tting me right now?’.
Dad always said manners were important, even with people who were screwing you over. I sat in my car in the dark parking lot, listening to the caller. Driving at night on an unfamiliar road wasn’t a problem, but I didn’t live dangerously enough to talk on the phone while I was looking for the next place to turn. So there I was, in the dark lot of a shuttered Mexican restaurant, holding back all the curse words in the book as I listened to my plan dissolve into thin air.
“I guess I didn’t get your message,” she said, her tone the equivalent of a shrug, “so I rented the room to someone else. She’s really great—she’s a drummer.”
“I see,” I said, rubbing my forehead. There was clear tension in my voice.
“I’m sure you can find another place in the city. There’s always people looking for roommates.”
“Thanks,” I said, and hung up.
Shit. Shit. SHIT.
There went my destination, the address I’d programmed into my phone when I started the GPS guidance. My new home. The apartment where I would be renting a room during my internship.
And, no, there were not loads of people looking to rent a room to a stranger who was so broke she was probably going to have to steal toilet paper from the magazine office where she’d won the unpaid internship. I rolled my eyes at myself. It would be fine. I’d have to get a motel room, which wasn’t in the budget I planned, but I could find someplace cheap until I found a rental.
I’d always prided myself for taking the lemons that life threw at me and making a damn good serving of lemonade out of them. Growing up, I’d been through my fair share of trials. I was the independent type. The kind of girl who didn’t let a few roadblock get in her way. That was another trait I’d credited my dad for passing down to me.
I swung back out onto the highway and drove on. I blasted the A/C even though it was chilly out, to make sure I didn’t get sleepy. I cranked up my workout playlist, some classic Britney Spears tunes to keep me from balling my eyes out. I made three turns in quick succession, squinted at an oncoming truck with its brights blinding me, and was glad when it passed by. I turned off the music when I was within a half hour of the city. With no one on the road, I switched on voice search and said ‘motels near me’ in hopes of finding someplace affordable to crash. The phone didn’t respond. I cut my eyes to it and tapped the screen experimentally. It didn’t light up. I’d never bothered to buy a car charger, so I’d have to wait until I chec
ked in at a motel to plug the phone in and let my dad know I’d arrived safely.
Oh well, people had stayed in roadside motels for decades before cell phones were invented and found them just fine by following the signs right?
I could do the same.
I kept driving, fighting the yawns that started coming, and rubbed my eyes even though I knew it smeared my mascara. The lights on my dashboard flared and went out. I flicked the interior lights, which didn’t come on, and a slow grinding sound filled my car. I managed to steer it onto the shoulder of the road before it died.
“Well, crap,” I said to myself.
My phone was dead. My car was dead. I wasn’t about to try and walk ten miles of highway into the city alone in the dark. So it looked like one problem solved, I thought wryly, I knew where I was sleeping for the night—in my car.
Perfect.
I locked the doors, fished a bottle of water out of my purse and took a drink. In the morning I’d walk a little ways and flag down a car, get someone to call a tow truck for me. It was annoying, but I’d make it work. I didn’t have much other choice.
I got out my notebook and started to write down a list of observations, some funny, some bitchy, about my road trip to the big city, about starting life after college on my own—things that excited me and things that scared me. This was all raw material I could use for the magazine if I ever got a chance to do a feature article or even a sidebar. It was too dark to see, and my handwriting was never the best. Yawning, I put the notebook aside and started to take off my shoes when I saw the flare of red and blue lights track across the dashboard from behind me.
“Things will turn for the better soon”, I thought out load.
I wasn’t quite sure if I believed my own words.
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A Note from the Author
Thank for you taking the time to read my latest novel Double Trouble.
I hope you loved reading my story, as much as I enjoyed writing it.
It would mean the world to me if you could take some time to leave a quick review for this book. Reviews allow me to understand how my readers truly feel, and they keep me improving.
I appreciate you supporting me, thank you so much.
- Natasha L. Black
About the Author
Natasha L. Black is an emerging author of Contemporary Romance. This is Natasha’s third book.
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