Chapter
21
Bobby
Two months later in Woodbridge, Virginia…
“Yeah, suck it. That’s right. Suck. It. Suck it all up real good. Don’t miss a drop. Come on, come on, baby, you can do it, suck it dry already.”
I instantly regretted letting myself into Declan’s house after no one answered the door. ‘Cause that kind of commentary was not generally something you wanted to hear coming out of another guy’s mouth as you were walking into the room where they were giving those kind of explicit instructions. Especially, when it was the home of one of the biggest manwhores I’d ever had the pleasure of knowing. My buddy’s only saving grace was the fact that: A) I could hear the buzz of the shop vac. B) I’d received a phone call from Declan, begging me to help with the clean-up from a flood on the main floor of his house. And C) upon coming into the occupied room where the shop vac buzzed in Declan’s hands, I was able to witness the dumbass making ridiculous looking pelvic thrusts while giving his porno like instructions to an inanimate object all while listening to his IPod.
Quickly whipping out my cell phone, I started video recording the big dummy before he noticed I was there. A few minutes later I had several more exaggerated pelvic thrusts coupled with the kind of lines you heard in cheesy porno movies saved for what would certainly be a laugh fest at the next meeting the Ex Ops team had. I felt my lips twitch in what was almost my first genuine grin in several weeks, as I pocketed my phone.
Life had been pretty fucking miserable since coming home to Virginia, which was nobody’s fault but my own. The sad truth was, the only semi-good moment I’d had since coming home was the day Jaxon had called to let me know Belle had identified her three kidnappers and Rivera in our pictures of the dead from the rescue in Mexico. The good part, not being that she’d managed to ID them, or that their deaths had officially closed her case, but knowing her tormentors were dead and she was no longer in danger. I could care less that we’d temporarily managed to shut down a leg of the black market arms trade. Some other asshole would eventually pop up to take Rivera’s place. It was all about the knowledge the woman I loved was safe. Belle was all that mattered.
The movement of my lips finally caught numb nut’s attention and I watched my buddy study me like I was mold under a microscope. “Are you smiling? Holy shit. What finally broke you out of that self-inflicted funk of yours?”
My lip twitch grew a little bigger. “Nothing.”
Declan arched an eyebrow. “Nothing?”
“Nothing.” Much. Just you acting like a first class moron and that I get to post it on YouTube, I silently added in my head.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever, man. It’s good to see you smile. Thanks for coming out to help me. You see this fuckin’ mess? It’s crazy. That’s what I get for letting some blonde babe with knockers the size of watermelons tell me she was an experienced plumber. The pipes under the kitchen sink blew out and this is what I came home to.”
“Well, maybe if you picked up a phonebook and called a real plumber instead of trying to beg off a date using the pipes under your kitchen sink as an excuse, shit like this wouldn’t happen.”
“Come on, man, give me a break. I was trying to get her out of my hair, but the minute she told me she would ‘fix my pipes’ my brain went into overdrive. That didn’t count all the things she said she would do to my ‘wrench’.” He gave a lascivious smile with his air quotes.
“Yeah, well, I hope it was a helluva pipe cleaning because now you’ve got this mess.” I waved my hand around to encompass the soggy carpets.
Declan sighed wistfully. “It most definitely was one bad ass pipe cleaning; nothing that could compare to Teagan, though. Damn, man, I think I could fall in love with that woman if I ever got to have round two with her. There was this thing she did with her—”
Throwing my hands up in the air in front of me, I yelled, “Oh, hell, no! Nope, don’t want to hear it. I played football with the girl. She went through freshman football’s high school hazing with me. She was one of the guys to me, not to mention, she’s my son’s godmother, so I sure as shit do not want to hear about what she can or cannot do. Ever.”
Declan groused, “You take all my fun away.”
Pointing back to the soggy carpet, I said, “Yeah, well, if this is an example of your kind of fun, then I’ll definitely pass on it, bro.”
“Yeah, well, I’d pass on your version of fun, too. It involves a future prescription of Prozac.”
Glowering back at Declan, I snapped, “What’s that supposed to mean, dipshit?”
He gave a mirthless laugh. “You’re calling me a dipshit? You’re the man that had the American dream handed to him on a silver platter and managed to fuck it all up! All because you couldn’t pull your head out of your ass long enough to forgive a woman who you dicked over in the first place. If anyone’s the dipshit here, it’s you.”
Unbelievable. Talk about kicking a man when he’s already down. Instead of saying something I would regret later, or doing something stupid like giving him a fist to his face, I turned towards the front door and started to walk away.
“That’s right, Bobby. Run away from the problem and go back to licking your self-inflicted wounds. If I hadn’t been with you in the jungle and Afghanistan, then I’d start thinking you were a pussy with all this chicken shit you’ve been pulling lately.”
Who needed a best friend? A punching bag was more therapeutic anyways and I had a living, breathing version of one, fifteen feet behind me that I was going to beat the ever living shit out of.
Whipping around to face him again, I roared, “Fuck you, man! You have no idea what this situation has been like for me! I don’t see any long, lost loves falling into your lap after hiding a teenage son from you. Until that happens to you, keep your judgmental bullshit to yourself. You have no goddamn idea what I’ve been going through! If you think I’m over here, loving life, when really I’ve left everything that ever fucking mattered to me halfway across the goddamn country, then you can take that shop vac hose and you can shove it up your own ass!”
“Oh,” he sneered, sarcastically. “I can tell how you’re living life up since Texas, Bobby. Even if you hadn’t spent the last few weeks moping around like an idiot, it’s written all over your face. You’re not eating or sleeping, you’ve lost weight and you look like shit. You’re so out of it, half the guys on the team wouldn’t want you to watch their six because they’re afraid your head wouldn’t be on straight during any mission we go on. You’re shooting your life down the shitter.”
Jesus, Mary and Joseph! I thought your friends were supposed to be there for you when you were down on your luck. I lunged at him. Barely refraining myself from throwing the punch that I wanted to knock him out with so badly. We were nose to nose now as we yelled at each other.
“I know I’m struggling, asshole! I don’t need you to tell me that. I live and breathe it every second, of every minute, of every fucking day that I have to live without them. So why don’t you be an understanding friend, know I’m doing the best I can do right now, and be there for me instead of giving me grief I don’t need.”
He used both of his hands to grab my shirt and shake me with it. “How about, instead of being an understanding friend, I act like a good friend by telling you to pull your head out of your ass? How about, instead of you walking around like a zombie, you get your shit together and fix your fucking life? It’s not like the woman you love died in Mexico! She’s living and breathing in Texas with your son. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that, if you’d get over your own fucking self, you’d realize you could make this right with your family.”
“And how do you expect me to do that after what I said in her hospital room? You got some kind of magic wand shoved up your ass you can pull out, wave around, and give me the perfect way to make it alright?”
Throwing his hands up in the air in frustration, he turned and started to walk away from me towards his kitchen. He made it five steps before he turned around and pointed a finger in my direction. “Maybe I expect you to act like a fucking man, get down on your goddamn knees, and beg the woman you claim to love for forgiveness for being such a self-righteous jackass. I know it’s a radical idea, but perhaps, if you apologized, she might forgive you.”
The hole in my heart that had been throbbing since getting thrown out of Belle’s hospital room in Texas started to throb in agony again. My eyes pricked with oncoming tears, instead of letting Declan see me emotionally defenseless, I dropped my chin to my chest, bringing my boots into view, and blinked my eyes a few times to clear them away.
He made it sound easy. Like I could waltz back down to Texas and do a little groveling to win my girl back. The half of me that had wanted to do just that, weeks ago, swelled with hope. The other half of me, the part that was scared shitless of both being hurt again and hurting her again, tried to pop that bubble of hope with a savage stab of my metaphorical KA-BAR.
I never wanted to hurt Belle like that again in my life. The look of utter devastation on her face as she sobbed so hard she tore her stitches open and started to bleed out in her hospital bed would haunt me until the day they put me six feet under. It was because of that horrific scene I’d convinced myself she was better off without me. If I wasn’t around, then I couldn’t hurt her anymore.
With a disgusted snort, Declan added, “God, you’re such a dumbass, Bobby. I can literally see the wheels turning in that peon-sized brain of yours as you talk yourself out of your own happiness. Stop it already! Get over it, dumbass! You hurt her. She hurt you. Then, you went and hurt her again. Now go down there, offer your cojones up as a sacrifice, then kiss and make up with the woman. Don’t look back, Bobby; look forward. The two of you obviously love each other. Don’t be stupid enough to throw it away, man.”
Declan was right. I knew he was right. That wasn’t what was in question here. What I was worried about was if Belle would even forgive me. Give us another chance. Because, if she would, I would work my fingers to the bone every day for the rest of our lives to prove to her that I would never hurt her again. I’d bend over backwards, tie myself up into knots, trying to do the emotional equivalent of those crazy ass yoga poses with even crazier names like downward dog, to show her I wanted nothing more than to move on with my life with both her and Seth in it. To live the dream of growing old together. Loving each other morning, noon and night until one or both of us took our last breaths. Even then, I loved her so much I was pretty sure my spirit would follow hers through eternity. Whether in this life or others, if they existed, there was only one woman I would ever love and that was my Belle.
“For the love of God, man, tell me I got through to your ass!”
Nodding my head, I looked up to him. “Yeah, man, you did. Thanks for verbally knocking some sense into me.”
“Anytime, bro, anytime. Now, are you going to help me clean this mess up or what?”
“Nope. You’re on your own. I’ve got a mission in Texas to plan.”
“It’s about goddamn time.”
~~~
The next day…
There was too much testosterone in this room. How many guys did they think it took to pack two bags? One bag was already done. The one with enough clothes to get me through up to a week in Texas and a little black box that held a diamond ring. It was the second bag that was giving me some problems. Looking over to the three men in the room with me—Declan, Riley, and Jaxon—I shrugged my shoulders at a loss of what to do.
“I want to take her for a picnic to surprise her, but I don’t know what I should take for it.”
Riley raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “You think she’s going to go with you willingly on this picnic?”
That was a good point. With the way things had been left last time I’d seen her, there was no telling what her reaction to me showing up would be. Pursing my lips in consideration, I said, “Getting her there isn’t the problem. Seth’s helping me with that. My boy is even taking care of the Sheriff so I don’t have to do something drastic because he pissed me off. Like shoot him. It’s making her stay still long enough not to grab a gun and shoot my sorry ass that I’m worried about. Think I should pack the paracord in case I have to tie her up and make her listen to me?”
Jaxon hesitated for a second before he said, “Annabelle was kidnapped and held hostage not too long ago. Maybe tying her up isn’t such a great idea.”
Shit. He was right. How could I not think of something like that? Before I could respond, Riley piped in, “I don’t think you have to worry about her listening to what you have to say, man. If I were you, I would be worried about whether you keep your nads by the time you’re done talking. Your girl is a bit of a firecracker. Take the paracord anyways, though. If the Sheriff tries to get in your way after all, you can tie him up instead of shooting him. I know you hate his guts, but Annabelle may never forgive you if you kill or maim one of her friends.”
They nodded like bobble heads in agreement. Declan’s lips twitched like he was trying to hold back a laugh. “The rope may be thin, but I recently used it on a brunette after she broke into my house and tried to sexually assault me in my sleep. It’ll hold the Sheriff where you want him, if you use it right.”
“I don’t even want to know the story about the paracord and the woman, Dec. Sometimes the shit that happens to you is too disturbing for words.” I tossed the small bundle of thin rope into my bag along with the mini-Maglite it had been lying next to the drawer.
Jaxon curiously rumbled, “What are you taking the Maglite for?”
“It’s a nighttime picnic. Just like we used to do back home in Georgia by the creek.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “The Maglite is good, but it’s not going to light up the whole area for you. That’s a rookie mistake, you should know better.”
Now my lips were twitching. “I’m not going to use it to light up the whole area, Commander, only the ground as we’re walking, so we don’t trip.”
Jaxon asked, “You’re going to forego light and lay there in the dark? No candles or anything? That doesn’t sound very romantic.”
I shook my head. “No, way. Candles would ruin it.”
The three men stood across from me, confused now. Finally, Riley asked, “Ruin what exactly?”
Holding two fingers up in front of me, I answered, “First of all, the stars wouldn’t seem as bright and my girl loves to see the stars. Second, I’m taking a set of night vision goggles with me. That way when I talk her into getting naked, I can put them on and not miss a thing, but she’ll have to rely on all of her other senses to pay attention to what I’m doing to her. I get a naked, green-looking Belle and she gets what I want to give her. What more can a man ask for?”
This got me amused, male chuckles before Declan asked, “What else are you going to pack?”
Rubbing a hand across the back of my neck, I looked down to some of my standard issued gear. “I don’t think she’ll want MRE’s to eat at a picnic.”
Riley rubbed a hand over his mouth while he thought about something. Somewhat absentmindedly, he murmured, “Strawberries and whip cream.” He had that faraway look in his eyes he got when he was thinking about his ex-wife, Kara.
“Thanks, man. That’s a good idea. I can pick them up from the store before I see her.”
Jaxon added, “Champagne would be good with that.”
Scoffing back at my commander, “Are you nuts? We don’t drink that prissy shit.” Glancing down to my canteen I got an idea. “But I could take this and put some Southern Comfort in it. It would certainly help her to unwind so she doesn’t try to cut my nuts off before I do what I got to do.”
“You’re going to need something to lie down on the ground with her on. Pack your old Army field blanket,” Declan added.
“That’s wool, you moron! You want us all chaffed up after I get done playing Marco Polo with my night vision and her body parts?”
Riley started coughing to hide his laugh. Declan and Jaxon didn’t bother to hide theirs. “Then take your thermal blanket and lay it on top of the wool one. Then you can play slip and slide while you get sweaty with her.”
Damn. That was a good idea, too. Images of getting sweaty with Belle bombarded my brain, causing all of my blood to drain south. Suddenly, I was so hard my dick practically felt strangled behind the zipper of my jeans. If I didn’t get a move on, I was going to embarrass myself in front of the last people on earth I wanted to see me in this condition.
Stuffing the two blankets in the bag with the other stuff, I watched as an industrial-sized box of condoms landed on the top of the pile. Looking up, I saw Declan grinning unrepentantly. “Be like a boy scout and be prepared, right? I think you’ll want to get her to an alter before you knock her up again.”
Jaxon ignored the horn ball in front of me and asked, “You got everything you need, now, to go down there and bring her back?”
Pulling the folded up envelope out of my back pocket, I held it up and in front of me. “This is the last of it right here.”
“What is it?” Riley asked.
Waving it back and forth a little bit, I answered, “This is the letter she should have had all along.”