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“You never will.” Mom shook her head. “That woman is like a rash that creeps up on you. One second she’s not there, and the next she’s speeding across two parking lots and entering a store she doesn’t ever go to just to make a scene. This won’t be the last time that you see her.”
God, I hoped that weren’t true.
I didn’t want to deal with that woman at all.
I sighed and shook my head, pushing my plate away.
“I guess I’ll deal with her if I have to,” Sammy muttered darkly. “But that bitch better not ever get in Hastings’ face like that ever again or I won’t be responsible for what I do.”
“You leave that to me,” Aurora said. “You’d get in trouble for hitting an old woman. I won’t.”
The table laughed, and the annoyance level ratcheted down slightly.
The next hour or so we talked about Sammy and me. Or, at least, it was their attempt to get to know Sammy.
And by the time we were driving home, I felt like utter shit for not going to see them earlier.
“Tomorrow we go to visit your family,” I said softly.
He looked over at me with a grin. “It’s good that you say that because I got a text from my dad and sister over dinner asking me why I was fighting in a grocery store. I’m sure that the cat’s out of the bag and my entire extended family now knows. And we can go visit them.”
I offered my hand to him.
He took it without missing a beat, placing it on the middle console between our two seats.
When it came time to shift, he didn’t let go of my hand, and instead used his casted hand while holding the steering wheel with his leg.
He didn’t let go of my hand until we were pulling into my driveway.
But again, he didn’t go home. He stayed the night with me.Chapter 19
What wine pairs well with apocalypse?
-Wine tumbler
Hastings
“I need your help with something,” I said.
I was beginning to sound like a broken record.
Sammy paused with his shirt halfway over his head and looked at me through the armhole.
“More book research, baby?” he teased.
Book research.
I loved book research.
I used to go to my trusty friend Google for this. Now I was going to Sammy.
He was a fountain of knowledge that I hadn’t realized that I needed.
Yesterday it was help with the Army chain of command.
Today, it was… other.
“Yes,” I bit my lip. “I want you to read a scene that I just wrote and tell me if it’s… possible.”
His brows rose but he finished taking his shirt off.
“Will I need to be clothed for this?” he asked when he started on his pants.
He’d just come in from work, and he was ‘really in need of a shower’ according to him.
Apparently his pants had been dirty, and I was loathe to ask what would have made them that dirty that he felt the need to strip them off the moment he walked in the door.
Then again, maybe I should have only because it would give me something to write about.
I shook my head. “No.”
He’d asked me the same thing yesterday when I’d asked him to tell me how the chain of command worked.
He’d been in the Army for five years, and I’d learned that once Army, always Army.
Where I’d been writing ‘ex-Army’ for all these years in my books, he’d explained that as with the other branches, they would never be ‘ex.’
“We have to go to my parents’ house in a couple of hours,” he said, holding out his hand for the computer. “Dad’s making brisket. Smoked it all day, according to my sister.”
“I’m ready to go.” I gestured to my black leggings and bright pink t-shirt that said ‘CrossFit’ on it even though I’d never CrossFitted a day in my life.
Apparently there were some t-shirts that were being sold for breast cancer awareness month next month, and Sammy had come home with two of them. One in my size, and another in his.
I’d put it on immediately and fell in love with how soft it was.
He grinned when he saw my shirt, then his eyes fell on the computer.
My heart started to pound as he began to read, and I sat on the corner of the bed and nervously bit my fingernail as I watched.
I started to notice a few things right off the bat.
He stiffened when he realized what type of scene it was I was wanting him to read.
Then his breathing hitched slightly.
His stomach tightened as he read my words.
When his eyes flicked up to mine with a small smirk lifting his lip, I couldn’t help the blush that rose to my cheeks.
“Come here,” he ordered.
I did, biting my lip the entire way.
Before I could sit, he said, “Lose the leggings.”
I had a feeling that he was going to want the panties gone, too. But since we had places to be, I really didn’t think that getting naked right then was a great idea.
