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“Say hi to Jimmy for me,” Gem said with a flirtatious wave.
“Say hi to your husband for me,” Sam shot back, and Gem got those cartoon hearts in her eyes again.
“He’s right here.” She moved her screen so they could all see Jason laid out along the couch, fast asleep with Willow in his arms.
Bronte and Laney aww’d appropriately, but Sam was too hungover to show the proper amount of love for the wholesome family. “I gotta go.”
“Take a picture of this Marine for us.”
“Preferably full length, please and thank you.”
“How about of all three brothers? To compare?”
“You guys are the worst. I’m leaving now.” And then she hung up on her giggling friends to brush the taste of beer out of her mouth.
6
After peeling his face off his mattress, Mike assessed how his body felt. From his head to his toes, it was like he’d been left in the washer, waterlogged and clumped together. Swiping his hands down his face and bare chest, he shifted back in his bed and blinked around. He had been blessed with amazing parents, who helped him get back on his metaphorical feet. What used to be a place where the boys would sneak beers and watch late-night television, with wood paneling on the walls and dusty paintings of ducks, was now his own little apartment.
It was great, truly, but it didn’t feel like home. Or, at least, he didn’twantit to feel like home. Even though he appreciated his parents and all that they did for him, he didn’t relish living under his parents’ roof as a thirty-year-old man.
That stifling feeling clutched at his chest again, and he took a few deep breaths before moving to the edge of the bed to put on his prosthesis. After brushing his teeth and splashing water on his face, he headed outside and settled on the front stoop, his elbows on his knees as he tilted his face up to the sky.
“Hey, whoa, wait. Wait, wait, wait.”
Mike snapped his head over to the right, where the night-roughed voice was coming from. His lips quirked to the side at the sight of Samantha tussling with her dog, the leash wrapped around one ankle.
“Morning.”
When she turned toward him, he lifted his hand from where he’d been shielding his eyes to see her and waved. She froze for a long moment, and that was when Mike realized he was still in the shorts he’d slept in and no shirt. But she didn’t stare that long. In fact, she dropped her head, letting out a loud laugh with a stiff shake of her head. “My friends are such assholes.”
He liked that she always seemed to blurt out whatever was going through her mind at the moment, and he found himself standing up to take a few steps closer to her, wanting to know what she was smiling about. “You all right?”
She squinted one eye at him. “Yeah. It’s… I was talking to my friends, and…it’s nothing. I’m a little hungover from last night.”
“Me too. Sorry about that. I was the one who asked you to keep playing.”
With the leash and dog under control, she met him halfway between their yards. “We got better as the night went on, though, huh?”
“If by better, you mean drunker.”
She looked everywhere but at his chest, making it so obvious that he had to cover his growing grin with the palm of his hand. “I better go,” she said. “This guy will choke himself with the leash if we don’t get walking soon.”
He didn’t know why he asked, maybe the need to clear his head with fresh air. Or maybe the way she looked up at him. Either way, the words were out before he thought better of it. “You mind if I come with you?”
Her eyebrows rose ever so slightly. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, of course.”
Mike held up his finger, saying, “Give me one minute,” before going inside for a quick change into track pants, a Marines T-shirt, and a baseball cap.
“That was more than a minute,” she teased when he met her back out front. “I thought you military guys were supposed to be on time.”
He clucked his tongue. “Not anymore.”
“I’m sorry.” She grimaced. “I didn’t mean—”
He cut her off with a wave of his hand out in front of him. “Don’t worry about it. Lead the way.”
After a while of walking, she sighed. “It’s not fair. You look fresh as a daisy, and I’m like death warmed over.”
