Chapter 7

“If you don’t stop making out with your damn fiancée, I’m leaving without you,” Gabe announced, probably more irritably than he should have and for no good reason.

“You can’t leave without me. I’m the bachelor in the bachelor party,” Alex called from where he and Becca were huddled in the next room, doing who knew what.

“I don’t think Pioneer Spirit is going to close down before we get there,” Jack said, seated all cozy with Rose on the couch.

Gabe narrowly resisted scowling at the both of them.

“I want a full report,” Rose said, since she owned Pioneer Spirit. She’d taken a leave of absence, letting her head waitress run things while she was pregnant. “Crowd size. How’s the new hire doing. If anyone is hassling my waitresses,” Rose said.

“Why are you asking me for a report? He’s your lapdog,” Gabe said, gesturing at Jack.

“You were just down there this morning,” Jack said. “I think Tonya warned you that any more checking in would result in you being bodily blocked from the bar until the baby is six months old.”

“I am the boss, not Tonya.” Rose crossed her arms over her chest and scowled, but Gabe had a feeling she’d be dealing without any reports.

The front door swung open, and Colin bolted inside, Monica following at his heels with a box in her hands. She leaned back on the door, clearly struggling with the weight in her arms.

Gabe scowled, marched over, and took the box from her. Christ, it was heavy.

“Thanks,” she offered. “Just some supplies for our little party,” she said, unwinding the scarf from around her neck.

Since he didn’t want to watch the staticky strands of blond hair swirl around her face as she took off her winter gear, he peered in the box. “Are those board games?”

Becca and Alex finally emerged from the other room.

“We’re having an old-fashioned sleepover. So don’t you three dare stumble in here drunk later. It’s the bunkhouse for you.”

“I hope someone won’t be stumbling drunk,” Monica offered, hanging up Colin’s already shed winter gear along with her own.

“I’m the designated driver,” Jack said, unwinding himself from Rose and getting to his feet. “I took the nine-month alcohol-free pledge.”

“You’ve got him so whipped, I don’t know how you live with yourself.”

“I guess the same way you live with that piss-poor attitude of yours,” Rose replied sweetly. “Maybe a little whipping would do you some good, Gabe.”

Gabe just grunted.

“Do I really have to stay with the girls?” Colin whined, looking hopefully up at Gabe.

Gabe patted his dark head. “Sorry, kid, twenty-one and over for this party. But do me a favor and play with the dogs. They’ll be needing some male companionship.”

Colin grumbled, but soon enough, he was sprawled out on the rug with the two ranch dogs, happily scratching their stomachs while Jack and Alex pulled on their winter coats.

“Be safe, you three,” Becca said sternly, slipping Alex’s hat on his head.

“No bar fights or you’re paying me damages,” Rose added.

The couples exchanged kisses, and Monica and Gabe stood awkwardly, pretending like they didn’t notice they were the two singles in the room.

Then, thank Christ, they were out the door and on the way to the bar. Finally. Gabe hadn’t had a decent drinking night in weeks.

Alex and Jack talked about the fixes they’d done to the furnace at Jack and Rose’s place on the way to the bar, and Gabe mainly nodded along, pretending to listen. Montana was dark and stark outside the truck’s window, and Gabe appreciated that lack of red-and-green Christmas lights out here in the middle of nowhere.

Of course, once they got to Blue Valley proper, it was all lit-up storefronts, wreaths on doors, and those obnoxious pieces of tinsel and garland strung from streetlights on one side of the road to the other.

Even Pioneer Spirit was decked out in twinkling lights and ribbons. “The one hope I had for this town was its total lack of holiday charm.”

Alex laughed. “Everyone loves Christmastime, Gabe. Even Blue Valley. Perhaps even you, deep down.” He parked in the small gravel lot next to Pioneer Spirit’s somewhat shabby exterior, somehow made to look inviting by the red, white, and green lights decorating the storefront.

“Don’t confuse me with the Grinch. This cold, black heart ain’t ever growing three sizes.”

Jack snorted, sliding out of the truck in time with Alex. “Yeah, you’re a real hard-ass. That kid is terrified of you.”

Gabe stepped out of the truck, wincing at the cold and the pain in his hip, which was made worse by the temperature and the gravel beneath his feet. “Whatever, Captain Whipped America.”

They razzed each other as they made the short trek to the bar entrance, then stepped into the dim warmth of the bar. Alex and Gabe grabbed a table while Jack went and ordered them a round.

Finally, they all sat at the table, uncomfortably like old times that felt even older than they should. Because during old times their lives had been the three of them. Now it was more like couples and one solitary Gabe. Gabe raised his glass and did his best to pretend this was all fantastic. “A toast to the last days of the single man.”

“I think it’s supposed to be a happy toast, Gabe,” Jack replied. “Not one that sounds like a funeral.”

“It is a death of sorts. At least for the guy downstairs.”

Alex shook his head. “The guy downstairs has no complaints.”

“Well, that is something to toast to.” They all clinked glasses, and Gabe ignored the way his chest tightened. It was the end of something. Jack and Alex wanted to pretend like time wasn’t marching on, but Gabe knew what marriages and babies did. They separated people. Gave you new people to love, and the old people didn’t fit in anymore.

He drank deeply. “So, when are we going to toast you?” he said to Jack. “Make an honest woman of that girl you knocked up?”

“As if I haven’t tried. Rose has a timeline of her own, and I’m just following it.”

Alex shook his head. “You should put your foot down.”

Jack gave Alex a doleful look. “Since I like my foot, and Rose would chop it off if I tried to ‘put it down’ anywhere near her, I’ll stick to her timeline.”

That earned a laugh from both Alex and Gabe. Gabe couldn’t say he would’ve predicted either woman for his two best friends. Shy, skittish Becca, who’d come into her own and was nearly as much of a military leader as Alex himself. She had a softness to her, and it was good for all of Alex’s tightly controlled edges.

Then there was snarky, tattooed, take-no-shit Rose and Captain America Jack. As opposite as night and day, but it worked. Clicked. And because they were his best friends, the men he’d become a man with, a SEAL with, he was glad for them and what they’d found.

But he also recognized their trio was coming to an end. Everything would change. Marriage and babies and families. No matter how hard Alex and Jack tried, Gabe would be the odd man out. The one who didn’t fit. It was a place he was so used to it was somewhat of a shock to be hurt by the change.

“Before we really start celebrating, there is something I want to talk to you about, Gabe.”

Gabe sipped his whiskey suspiciously. “Is it a discussion I’ll need more alcohol for?”

“We just wanted you to know that if you need to take some time off and go back to New Jersey to visit your family for Christmas, we can make that happen.”

Gabe stiffened. It was quite the ambush, and one he certainly hadn’t seen coming. He’d been friends with and deployed with Alex for nearly fifteen years, Jack for more than ten. Alex had asked about his family a few times, but Gabe had never answered in any meaningful way. He’d thought both Alex and Jack had accepted long ago that Gabe didn’t have a family.

“You’re not going home,” Gabe said, nodding toward Jack. Deflection was always the best way to not have to answer a question.

“No, we didn’t think Rose would be up for the trip. Since my family just visited this summer, it didn’t seem imperative, especially with Rose’s family so close. I imagine next Christmas, we’ll find some time to go there, or they’ll find some time to come up here.”

Alex leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. They hadn’t been Navy SEALs for two years now. But during that time, they’d given Alex a lot of grief for still acting like the leader, and yet sometimes, that was comforting—to watch Alex put on that suit of armor and be prepared to fight for something.

It was not comforting when they were talking about this.

“I’ve never pushed on your family business, and I know you appreciate that, but I have to push now. Afterward, we can get drunk and forget it ever happened, but for a few seconds, we’re going to be straight. I don’t know what your deal is with your family. You’ve made sure never to tell us. And that’s your prerogative. I just know I missed a lot of Christmases at home on purpose, without even really being aware of what I was doing. When my dad died, I realized I’d missed out on all these things. I let something subconscious build and cause me to miss something, and I’ll always regret it. I don’t want you to go through the same thing.”

Gabe leaned back in his chair, trying to put on his best mask of a smile. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t muster it with this lump in his throat or this awful constriction in his chest. He couldn’t smile and brush it off. He couldn’t laugh and say something flippant like, “The difference between you and me, Alex, is that your family gave a shit.”

He had to find a way to end this conversation without making it seem like a bigger deal than it was. Without giving it an emotional weight it didn’t need.

“I don’t need to go home for Christmas. That’s not something I’m going to regret.” He said it decisively, and he didn’t let it show that it nearly cut him in half to say it. Not because it was a lie, but because it was simply the truth.

“Okay, answer me one question and then we’ll move on.”

Gabe looked at Jack with as much blankness and unaffectedness he could manage. He had the sinking suspicion he didn’t fool his friends all.

“Will you not regret it because you think you don’t want to deal with it, or will you not regret it because there’s a mutual break?”

The bitterness was so thick he could barely curve his mouth into a smile. “Trust me, it’s very mutual. They want as little to do with me as I want to do with them. That’s the way it’s been for fifteen years. No deaths will change my mind. I’m exactly where I want to be. And I don’t plan on going anywhere else.”

“Good,” Alex said firmly. “Because we don’t want you going anywhere else. You’re family. Our brother. This is where you belong.”

“Just don’t sleep with my fiancée, please. So far that’s my only experience with brothers.”

The fact Jack could make a joke about his ex-fiancée’s previous infidelity showed just how far the man had come. And Alex saying brothers without mentioning Navy SEALs showed just how far he’d come. These men had grown and changed and embraced civilian life. They’d found women who were somehow exactly right for them.

They were leaving Gabe behind.

Gabe raised his glass. “To building your families,” he said. Because that’s what Alex and Jack were doing. That was the thing Gabe was never going to do.

So he downed his glass and got to the very familiar work of getting drunk as a skunk.

* * *

“The fact you own Mall Madness is the greatest damn joy of my life,” Rose said as Monica cleaned up the game. They’d spent something like hours playing board games and getting Becca drunk.

Monica had never been to a bachelorette party—she hadn’t even had one. She’d known Becca wouldn’t appreciate penis paraphernalia, and Becca hadn’t had many friends growing up, so Monica had decided to go for sleepovers and nostalgia.

They’d overdosed on junk food, wine for her and Becca, board games, and lots of laughter, while Colin sulked with the dogs. He was sleeping next to one as Monica finished cleaning the game up.

“You can thank my parents, who saved all my childhood toys, and my son, who had no interest and thus did not destroy them. What’s next?”

“I’m sorry, Becca. I love you, but I’m not playing another round of Monopoly. Mall Madness was awesome, but I’m board-gamed out.” Rose linked her hands over her expanding stomach.

“You’re just mad that you landed on Broadway with the hotel.”

“No, I’m mad that I’m pregnant and can’t get blisteringly drunk while we do this horror show masquerading as a bachelorette party. Where’s the penis talk? We could have had strippers while playing Mall Madness.”

“Rose,” Monica admonished. “My ten-year-old is right there.”

“Oh please. He’s out like a light and he should probably know that women talk about penis just as much as men talk about—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Monica hissed as Becca giggled uncontrollably. “I don’t want him knowing what men or women talk about.”

“Just so you know, after I get married and then have this baby, we’re having a retroactive bachelorette party for me, where we will actually do things you do at a bachelorette party. Fun things.”

“I thought the future bride was supposed to have a bachelorette party she thought was fun.”

“Well, drunk Becca is fun.” Rose moved to face Becca. “All right. Spill some sex stuff.”

“I am taking this boy upstairs before he wakes up and is scarred for life,” Monica said, moving toward her sleeping child. “Then you can have as much sex talk as you please, Rose.”

“Thank God.” She bounced on the couch, grinning. “I want to hear about girth.”

Monica groaned trying to pull Colin out of his prone sleeping position on the floor without waking him up. He grumbled something, but she managed to lift him. He was tall but all gangly limbs instead of heavy bulk.

Monica managed to carry him up the stairs and into one of the extra bedrooms. She laid him down on the bed and pulled the covers over his shoulders. Part of her was tempted to stay here with him. Keep an eye on him. She didn’t want him to feel like he was alone.

But there was another part of her, probably the part aided by a glass or two of wine, that wanted to hear about girth.

When she returned to the living room, Becca was laughing so hard she had tears streaming down her cheeks. Her face was fire-engine red and Rose looked pleased as punch.

“If you don’t fill me in because I took my son to bed, I’m excommunicating you both from my friendship.”

Monica plopped herself down on the empty cushion of the couch, picking up the glass of wine she’d been sipping on earlier. She might regret a few more glasses, but it would be fun and something she hadn’t done in forever. It wasn’t irresponsible to get a little tipsy because Rose was here and sober, and could handle any problems that cropped up.

Monica deserved a tiny bit of fun for once, a little girl time. She hadn’t had that in… Well, she’d never had drunk, talk-about-actual-sex girl time. She’d gotten married at nineteen, had her son at twenty, and spent the past ten years raising him and building her career.

“Rose has decided…” Becca dissolved into another fit of giggles. “How… Well…” Becca made awkward hand gestures as she laughed.

“What?” Monica demanded.

“I was just saying that I’ve determined the size of our three fine Navy SEALs by, you know, months of dedicated research.”

“Does Jack know you’ve been researching the size of the other two?” Monica asked, happily amused both by Rose’s conversation and Becca’s scandalized laughing.

Rose waved her away. “Oh, I’m talking about before Jack and I got together. When those boys first walked into my bar all Navy SEAL sure of themselves with just a hint of an edge to make them interesting, let’s just say I scoped out the landscape.”

“So who wins?”

Rose smiled slyly at Becca. “Depends on what you’re looking for. Length. Girth. Stamina.”

“You cannot judge stamina by looking!” Monica said, giving her a light slap across the arm.

“I can. It’s like a sixth sense.”

“A penile sixth sense. Maybe you’re the eighth wonder of the world.”

“Now, it isn’t fair to share all I’ve surmised considering I’m sleeping with one, and you’re sleeping with the other,” Rose said, nodding toward Becca. That all-too-satisfied look slid to Monica. “And technically I can’t prove my theories until someone takes a gander at Gabe without clothes.”

“I nominate Monica.”

Monica glared at Becca. “You need to stop obsessing about me getting into Gabe’s pants.”

“It’s not so much an obsession as my sixth sense. I think you and Gabe complement each other. Besides, Rose and I are taken. You’re all that’s left.”

“Well, I only believe in penile sixth senses, so your complementary sixth sense can bite me.”

Both Rose and Becca dissolved into fits of giggles, and Monica couldn’t help but follow. The discussion then ranged from Rose’s sex talk, to Revival, to first times. The more Monica drank, the more she felt a little bit like crying at how nice this all was.

When a thump sounded loud somewhere out by the porch, Monica frowned. Her first thought was Colin had woken up, but it wasn’t right above them, like it should have been for that.

“Oh no,” Becca said, looking at where the thumping had come from.

“What? What is it?” Rose asked, wide eyed.

“Ron Swanson’s on the roof.”

Monica groaned. “Not the goat. Please, not the goat.”

“That’s what that sound is. He’s up there.” Becca looked imploringly at Monica. “You have to get Rasputin.” Becca’s rooster was the only thing that could ever get Ron off the roof. “I mean, I could get him, but I’d need someone to hold me upright, as the world’s kind of spinning.”

Monica wasn’t exactly steady on her feet, but she wasn’t going to send a pregnant woman or a completely loaded woman to do the job. Which meant it fell to her. She pushed to her feet. “Rose, I hope your retroactive bachelorette party doesn’t involve goats or roosters.”

“From your lips to God’s ears,” Rose returned as Monica pulled on her winter gear. She lost her balance a bit but caught herself by leaning against the wall as she pulled on her second boot.

“You okay there, champ?” Rose asked with some concern.

“I think a little drunk is necessary for me to even attempt to touch that rooster.” Monica pulled on her hat. “If I’m not back in twenty, send a search party after me. I imagine the rooster has pecked my eyes out.”

“Rasputin wouldn’t do that. Not both eyes anyway.”

“Uh-huh. I’ll be back.” Monica stepped out into the icy night. As she stepped off the porch, she looked up at the dazzling sky above. Stars twinkled everywhere, and the moon’s light bathed the snowy ranch in silver. Becca had strung Christmas lights all over the house and barn, so red and green cut through all that white.

Monica took a deep breath. Oh, it was beautiful. How lucky she was to have come here, to get to experience this.

Then she remembered herself and turned to look up at the roof. And there was a goat, munching on a wreath, while red and green lights sparkled around him. She doubted very much that many people got to experience this.

She pulled her phone out and took a picture of Ron Swanson on the roof, chuckling to herself. Before she could head for the barn to get Rasputin, she heard a truck rumble in the distance, then saw headlights cutting through the dark.

When the truck came to a stop, Jack slid out of the driver’s seat and glared up at the roof. “Damn goat.”

“I’m on my way to get Rasputin. Unless, as the only sober one, you want to handle that for me.” Monica smiled winsomely.

Jack grimaced. “Oh, fine, but keep an eye on those two. They’re going to need help getting to the bunkhouse. Just keep them inside the truck till I’m back.”

“Sure.”

Jack strode to the barn and Monica peered into the truck. She thought both Gabe and Alex were passed out, until the back door swung open.

Monica jumped, taken aback as Gabe stumbled down from the truck. Monica waved a hand in front of her face as the smell of alcohol and bar hit her like a punch. “Dear Lord, how much did you have to drink?”

“S-still conscious s’apparently not ’nough,” he said, falling to a knee, then getting back to his feet and brushing the snow off his pants.

“Jack said you’re supposed to stay in the truck.”

“Jack ain’t never been my commanding officer, and he’s not starting now.” Gabe took a step toward her, stumbled again, and she reached forward to try and help keep him upright. Except then they were both somehow in the snow, Gabe something like half on top of her.

He didn’t get up, and she was shocked enough to just lie there in the cold, icy snow with his dark eyes assessing her.

“You smell pretty.”

Monica laughed in spite of herself. “You need to work on your drunk compliments.” She pushed at his chest. “Get off me.” Good Lord, it was a hard chest. Even under his coat and heavy shirt, she could feel the strength of him.

But Gabe rolled off her and got to his feet. He held out a gloved hand, and she let him pull her to her feet. But then he pulled her closer, not letting go of her hand. His head tilted down to her ear, much like it had in the bunkhouse the other day.

“I doubt you want to hear my other compliments, s-sweetheart.”

It was a slur more than a stutter, and he was falling-down drunk and foolish, so she did not shudder at that. Not at all. “Don’t let alcohol put words in your mouth, Gabe.”

He kept his grip on her hand, pulling her so close their bodies touched. It shouldn’t have mattered. They were both wearing enough layers to ward off the cold of a Montana winter night. She didn’t feel cold. Shivery maybe, but not cold.

“Oh, I have those words when I’m sober too. I’ve just got enough sense to keep them to myself.” His lips barely touched her ear as she spoke. “Sparks, remember?”

She could only stare at him, and she didn’t feel all the icy wetness on her back or the frigid chill of the air around them. She only felt his big hand holding on to hers and, somehow, all that heat emanating off him. “I remember.”

He leaned closer, so close his cheek actually pressed to hers. Everything inside of her rioted to some sparkling life. A feeling so long forgotten it was almost foreign, centering itself low in her belly.

“Drunk enough to make a bad decision?” he asked in a low, rough voice.

She paused. Even knowing it should be an automatic no, there was that foreign part of her tempted. A bad decision with him sounded enticing instead of wrong. Something she deserved instead of something she should avoid.

But he was drunk. She was a little too. That was all that foreign part was. The loss of sense and control, and she’d never let herself give in to that. “N-no.”

He grinned, pulling back, all wolfish in the silvery light of the moon. “Too bad.” Then he was striding…well, stumbling, toward the bunkhouse.

Jack returned with Rasputin and used the rooster to coerce Ron Swanson off the roof. Monica could only watch, thinking a little too hard about that foreign part of herself and how much she wanted to make it a lot less foreign.