Текст книги "Semper Fi"
Автор книги: Jane Harvey-Berrick
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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 24 страниц)
Caro was 40 and maybe kids would happen—maybe they wouldn’t. Well, I’d still have her and that was okay, as well.
We had our whole lives ahead of us.
“Stop fidgeting, bro!” Ches hissed, elbowing me in the ribs. “You look like you’re on crack.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I replied, not really meaning it, but earning a frown of disapproval from Amy. Some things hadn’t changed.
He’d flown into JFK with Amy and their kids two days ago, so we’d had a night on the town. My bachelor party had been pretty tame compared to Ches’s when we were both in our early twenties. I didn’t really drink much anymore, not since the realization that I was in danger of having a drinking problem like my bitch of a mother I thought his father had one too.. Caro had knocked that shit right out of me. I’d stuck to a few beers—enough to make me loose and mellow, but not enough to get me shit-faced. Ches had other ideas, and started slamming shots like he’d invented it. Amy blamed me for his hella hangover the next day. I thought it was damn funny.
He didn’t even remember the strip club we’d gone to. Or he said he didn’t remember. It had been his idea and it had been kinda fun, but none of the women were as hot as my fiancée.
At least he’d had 24 hours to recover before the wedding.
The wedding.
Yep, I was finally getting my girl to walk up the aisle.
Ches nudged me again. “How’s your leg? You didn’t seem to be limping too badly.”
“The only limp thing around here is your dick,” I smirked at him.
“Hey!” he said, sounding stung. “That was a one-time thing.” I raised my eyebrows. “Yeah, well you wait till you’ve got two kids and they’ve kept you awake all night! Fucker,” he muttered.
Ches had told me more than I wanted to know about married life. The gross things that could happen in diapers turned my stomach, but I was a former Marine—I’d deal.
I looked around at the people who were standing with me to see me marry the love of my life: Ches and Amy with their kids; his mom and dad—who were almost like my own parents and helluva lot better ones—flew in from South Carolina. Donna Vorstadt, the wife of my dad’s old CO had come for the ceremony, too. She’d been Caro’s friend when we lived in San Diego. Her husband was too ill to travel. It wasn’t weird though—Donna had always been nice to me, and she was almost like a mom to Caro.
I guess Caro had been as unlucky as me when it came to moms: hers sucked big time and hadn’t been invited.
Nicole, Jenna and Alice were there to support Caro, along with her journalist friend Marc. He turned out to be a pretty good guy. Well, he was on Caro’s side, so that was enough for me.
This was my family—my new family, my real family. It felt good.
I craned my neck when the doors opened again, and Caro walked in carrying a huge bouquet of orange and yellow tulips. She’d left her hair down, which had been my request, and it gleamed in the afternoon sunshine, curling down her back and over her shoulders. She wore a dark orange silky top that made her beautiful olive skin glow. I was so fucking proud of her.
At Shirley’s insistence, I’d dressed up fancier than I’d planned, wearing dark khaki pants, a white button down shirt and a thin black tie.
Amy said that the black tie “wasn’t appropriate”. I’d told her to go screw herself, but I said it really quietly. But then Shirley agreed with her. I nodded and smiled at whatever they said, then ignored them. Only Caro needed to like what I wore, and she already said she’d be happy if I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
When she reached my side, she took a tight hold of my hand. I could see tears in the corners of her eyes, and fuck me if I wasn’t just the same.
We stood in front of the deputy clerk at City Hall and I promised to love her every day for the rest of her life. Then she really was crying, and said she would never again let anything separate us. That was good enough for me. It always had been.
The day was cold, but the sun was shining on our small group, and I couldn’t help feeling blessed.
Despite everything we’d been through, the years apart and the decade of despair, despite my injuries, and the difficulties that were still ahead, I’d never been happier in my whole life. We were beginning again, or, perhaps, adding a new chapter to our story.
THE END
I was born on the 13th which explains a few things. I love the ocean, dogs of all shapes and size, and chocolate.
When I’m not in my writing cave, I can be found at the beach, watching surfers.
Don’t forget to look for bonus chapters on my website
More about my chosen charities
You might wonder why I’ve chosen Felix Fund and EOD Warrior Foundation to receive the profits from this book. A good friend of mine was an ATO (bomb disposal officer), so these two charities are very close to my heart.
“Felix Fund exists to support any military personnel who have conducted or assisted with Explosive Ordnance Disposal duties, and their families.
This includes ammunition technical officers, ammunition technicians, ECM operators, drivers, infantry escorts, weapons intelligence specialists, dog handlers, searchers or any other military personnel involved in EOD duties.
Our current focus is funding therapeutic normalisation breaks to help bomb disposal teams readjust to life in the UK after serving in Afghanistan.
We are also raising money for welfare and rehabilitation facilities, and building a hardship fund for all. This fund will of course support the trade’s many injured and bereaved, but also members of the wider ‘bomb disposal family’ who have otherwise fallen on hard times.”
And if you’re wondering why the charity is named ‘Felix’, think about the cartoon character ‘Felix the Cat’, who had nine lives…
www.felixfund.org.uk
I have also written a play about a former soldier’s experiences of PTSD. To find out about Later, After, click here.
“The EOD Warrior Foundation (EODWF) serves the EOD community by providing financial assistance and support to active-duty and veteran wounded, injured or ill EOD warriors, families of our wounded and fallen EOD warriors and by maintaining the EOD Memorial.
The foundation offers four pillars of support and handles each request on a case-by case basis. The immediate and ongoing assistance and resources provided by the foundation to those in the EOD community are intended to provide support above and beyond the budgetary constraints of the Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Emergency Financial Relief
Education
Hope and Wellness
EOD Memorial Care
Our support includes financial assistance and additional services such as morale events, peer-to-peer support, educational programs, connections to resources and sustained contact with our EOD warriors and their families.
The foundation believes that the EOD family is for life. Our ongoing mission is to disarm the challenges of the EOD family by providing our support with compassion and caring to every individual we serve.”
www.eodwarriorfoundation.org
To Kirsten Olsen, editor, de-Britisher, best friend, Army wife.
To Alana Albertson, awesome writer and Marine wife.
To fabulous author Tina Gephart for sharing the story about her husband who worked in EOD for the US Air Force—he wore his dog tags around his boots, too (see chapter 15).
To Amélie White Vahlé for the French translation (and apologies for Sebastian’s opinions on Geneva!)
To Trina Micotta for her marketing knowledge and expertise, as well as her unfailing study of the hottest models.
To Hang Le for her stunning covers and never-ending creativity.
To Michael Anthony Downs, our lovely cover photographer.
To Audrey Thunder and Dina Eidinger, for loving Sebastian and being his unfailing cheerleaders.
To Sheena Lumsden, for her friendship and all her work behind the scenes.
To Raquel Gamez who sent my books to her husband while he was serving in Afghanistan.
To all the bloggers and readers who have followed Sebastian and Caroline on their long and difficult journey. Thank you for loving them, too.
Thank you Stalking Angels. You know how much you mean to me and you never let me down.
Sheena Lumsden, Audrey Thunder, Tonya Bass Allen, Lisa Sylva, Tera Chastain, Mary Dunne, Nikki Costello, Ashley Jones, Kelly Findlay, Sarah Lintott, Lisa Smith Reid, Lily Maverick Wallis, Andrea Flaks, Kelsey Burns, Celia Ottway, Rhonda Koppenhaver, Caroline Yamashita, Lelyana Taufik, Aime Metzner, Nancy Saunders Meyhoefer, Helen Remy Grey, Heidi Keil, Bruninha Mazzali, Kirsten Papi, Gina Sanders, Gabri Canova, Melissa Parnell, Dina Farndon Eidinger, Evelyn Garcia, Nicola Barton, Jacqueline Showdog, Elle Christopher, Carly Grey, L.E. Chamberlain, Marie Mason, Trina Marie, Kim Howlett, Ellen Totten, Jen Berg, Shirley Wilkinson, Ana Kristina Rabacca, Emma Darch-Harris, Emma Wynne Williams, MJ Fryer, Drizinha Dri, Rose Hogg, Barbara Murray, Beverley Cindy, Megan Davis, Jenny Angell, Mary Rose Bermundo, Clare Norton, Andrea Jackson, Rosarita Reader, Sarah Bookhooked, Fuñny Souisa, Luiza Oioli, Megan Burgad, Lisa G. Murray Ziegler, Krista Webber, Carol Sales, Crysal Ordex-Hernandez, Dana Fiore Stusse, Jade Donaldson, Paola Cortes, Natalie Townson, Hang Le, Erin Spencer, Raquel Gamez, Nycole Griffin, Kandace Milostan, Ana Moraes, Sharen Kallenberger Marzola.
And the Fanfic readers who were there from the start.
SEBASTIAN & CAROLINE’S TENTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
“Hey, hot mama!”
I take a moment to appreciate the beautiful woman who’s my baby mama. Well, the kids are not so much babies now. Marco is nine-going-on-nineteen, if the way he notices girls is anything to go by—little dude has all the moves. Our baby girl, Shirley, is nearly six, named for the woman I think of as my mom.
And Sofia, our adopted daughter is 11 and such a beautiful soul. She loves being a big sister and shows it in everything she does—the way she looks after her brother and sister, the way she talks to them and tells them stories. Cutest fucking thing ever. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that her life started in the stark mountain ranges of Afghanistan. I talk to her in Dari every day so she has some connection with her homeland, but in all other ways, she’s an American girl, just starting junior high. And I will personally FUBAR any teenage boy who lays eyeballs on either of my daughters.
Ever.
I look at my family and wonder how I got to be such a lucky mofo. It’s not all been smooth sailing, not by a long shot, but life is good right now; we’re good.
Caro had her 50th birthday a few months back. I know it bothers her, although she doesn’t say much, but I caught her coloring her grays in the bathroom with a home dye kit.
“Grays show up more when you’ve got dark hair, Sebastian,” she snapped at me when I asked her why she was doing it, although her eyes were glassy with unshed tears when she said it.
“Baby, I don’t care. If you want to color your hair pink, green and purple, then go ahead. You’ll always be beautiful to me.”
“It’s alright for you,” she snorted, torn between tears and laughter. “You’re blond—no one will ever notice.”
And although she didn’t say it, sometimes the fact that I’m 13 years younger still bothers her.
Things had gotten a little tense between us for a while, and it was for the dumbest of reasons.
Since I was medically discharged from the Marines, I work as a personal trainer at an upscale Manhattan gym four days a week. That sounds fucked up, but when I was discharged, the docs thought I’d never walk well again, and the bullet that went through my shoulder left me with poor motor skills in that arm. But I’ve worked really hard to get as much function back as possible. I’m fitter than most guys in their thirties or even twenties.
So now I work with people like me—I mean guys who’ve been injured. I even had to go back to school to learn all the anatomy shit to be a personal trainer, but it was worth it in the end. When I first started out, I used my USMC connections to cut a deal with a gym owner, Connor Gibson, a guy who has a chain of gyms across the East Coast. He wanted to do something for ex-servicemen and women, so I persuaded him to let me do rehabilitation work with guys who’d lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan. When he saw that it was good marketing, good for business, and highly fucking motivating for the able-bodied in his gym, he made it a core concept for the whole chain. But part of the deal was that he wanted me working more on the marketing side, as a kind of poster-boy for people recovering from injuries. What-the-fuck-ever if it helped my guys.
I definitely had injuries: as well as being shot, I’d lost 15% of muscle mass from my right thigh after getting caught in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan.
But then Gibsy had the bright idea of putting me on the front of a fucking calendar that he sold for the charity Wounded Warriors. That was fucking bad enough, but it got worse. Because that’s when I was approached by a model agency to do underwear modeling for them. I’m not kidding! How fucking embarrassing is that? A bunch of strangers staring at my junk. But the killer in the contract was that they’d fundraise on behalf of Wounded Warriors—a deal that would net hundreds of thousands of dollars for the charity. How could I say no to that? And Caro talked me into it, as well.
So seven or eight times a year, I’m flown off to some beach or photo studio, and paid crazy amounts of money to strut around in skivvies. Too fucking funny. Except that I started getting stopped in the street by strange women, or even groped in public.
At first Caro thought it was kind of amusing, but the way these women treated her wasn’t. Yeah, it caused some tension for a while. I said I’d stop the dumb modeling, but she pointed out how much money the charity would lose, and the publicity meant that Gibsy gave extra free memberships to rehab guys to use his facilities. I guess you could say I was locked into it.
I’ve just gotten back from a shoot in Florida and surprised Caro and the kids by turning up three hours earlier than they’d expected.
Caro is sitting on the deck in the backyard reading a book. She jumps when I whisper in her ear.
“Hey, hot mama.”
“Sebastian!” she manages to breathe out, before I give her the long, hot kiss that I’ve been imagining for days.
Then Marco looks up from where he’s been kicking a soccer ball and a huge smile spreads across his face.
I never had that as a kid. The only emotions my dad invoked in me were fear and hatred. My kids are never going to know what that’s like. Never.
“Dad!” yells Marco. “It’s Dad!”
Shirley runs out of the house, shrieking at an ear-splitting volume, and she and Marco start using me like a jungle gym. Then Sofia joins in and it becomes a group hug-a-thon, and we crumple onto the deck while they climb all over me. I fuckin’ love it.
“Hey, can we have a BBQ tonight?” yells Marco.
“Sure, bud—at Atash’s place. Me and my girl are having a date night.”
Marco kicks at a dandelion growing in the cracked paving, sending the seeds floating into the air.
“That means you’re going to have sex,” he grimaces. “That’s gross.”
What the fuck? I mouth to Caro.
She shrugs, as if to say, You’re his dad—you fix it.
“Don’t disrespect your mom,” I say to Marco seriously. “I’ve missed her and we just want to spend some time together.”
“I think it’s romantic,” giggles Sofia, and I can’t help rolling my eyes. Fuck knows what books she’s reading these days. I leave that shit up to Caro.
“Sorry, Mom,” Marco mutters when I give him another hard stare.
“Did ya miss me, too, Daddy?” asks Shirley.
“Yeah, I missed all my babies!” I say pulling her into a hug.
But she wriggles away looking annoyed. “I’m not a baby anymore, Daddy!”
“Aw, you’ll always be my baby,” I laugh.
Sofia takes Shirley’s hand and herds Marco toward the door.
“Come on, we’re going to Uncle Atash.”
“I’ll pick you guys up at twenty-hundred hours!” I call after them, and laugh as Marco salutes.
Kid wants to be a Marine and is forever asking Caro about my medals and where I served. He knows I don’t like talking about it, so he asks her. She’s gently trying to dissuade him from enlisting and figures that she might be successful with another nine years of persuading him to go to college instead, but I’m not so sure. He reminds me a lot of me at that age—stubborn and single-minded, just a lot happier.
They wave goodbye and I stare at my wife. “Bed, woman. Now.”
She sucks her teeth and looks down. “Can we talk first?”
That doesn’t sound good. I sit next to her and hold her hand. “Sure, baby, what’s up?”
She’s silent, just staring at our joined hands until she lets go and rakes her fingers through her hair.
“I feel like we’re drifting apart,” she says, and the words threaten to shatter me. She’s only just started talking and I’m trying not to freak out. “You have the gym and your modeling work. The kids are in school now. I’m bored with covering local events for community news-sites. And you and I…”
My heart clenches. What the fuck is she trying to say?
“Well, frankly, Sebastian, the only time we see each other is in bed and we’re…”
“Fucking like it’s the end of the world?”
She laughs suddenly and I feel my shoulders relax for the first time since she told me she wanted ‘to talk’.
“Something like that,” she smiles, shaking her head. “I just meant we don’t have much time to talk about ‘us’.”
“What’s worrying you, baby?” I pick up her left hand and start playing with her wedding rings. “This isn’t like you.”
Her lips twist in a wry smile that fades quickly.
“I suppose it’s a lot of things, Sebastian. You’re this super hot model and doing all these photo shoots…”
“Which you know I’d stop quicker than ass on ice…”
“I know, but you’re jetting off to exotic locations with all these young models…”
“You think I give a fuck about them? Seriously?”
She looks down.
“No, not really.”
“Then what? Because you know that you’re the only woman I’ve ever looked at. For fuck’s sake, Caro! You think I’m screwing around on you?”
My heart is starting to race. How did we get here? How did we get to be one of those couples?
She sits up straighter. “No, I don’t think that. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. You’ve never given me a moment’s concern in that direction. It’s just that…”
“Then what is it, baby?”
“I feel old.”
There’s a beat as I stare at her in surprise. My reply is as dumb as it sounds. “No, you’re not.”
She gives a small smile. “I feel it sometimes. You’re so fit and…”
“Caro, when the winter storms roll in, I’m the one limping around like a fucking retiree!”
She rests her hand on my right thigh, over the ugly scars that there’re always so fucking anxious to show in photo shoots.
“I know, tesoro. But…” she huffs out in frustration. “My periods have stopped.”
She looks up and stares at me.
“You’re pregnant?!”
“No!” Her voice cuts across my happy thoughts.
Now I’m just freakin’ confused.
“Um, okay?”
Her lips thin slightly and she crosses her arms. Not sure how I’m pissing her off…
“It’s menopause, Sebastian,” she explains, her voice brittle. “It’s a big deal. A very big deal. I can’t … I’m not…”
Now I’m getting it. Okay, so not always the sharpest pencil in the box when it comes to this shit, but I know what to do.
I pull her into my arms.
“Caro, I get that this, um, change of life, is a big deal, I do. But I love you, baby, and nothing else matters.”
“I just feel so old compared to you. You’re a model, for God’s sake. I feel old and frumpy and I’m just so bored.”
She pulls away from me and I’m wary again now. I swallow several times.
“Bored with me?”
Her head whips around so fast, her hair fans out around her.
“No, tesoro! God, no! Never that! But I need to be challenged—and not just athletically in the bedroom.”
I can’t help a small smirk at that comment, but I reel it back in because her eyes are flashing with annoyance.
“So what sort of challenge do you want?”
“Well, there was that assignment in the Middle East that came up and…”
“No! No fucking way! We talked about that!”
“Actually, we didn’t talk about that, Sebastian. You lost your temper and stormed out of the house.”
True.
“Caro, it’s fucking dangerous out there. No more war zones. No more places you have to wear body armor. Don’t tell me we didn’t discuss that, because we fucking did. You’re not going.”
“Stop telling me what to do!”
“Stop being so fucking selfish!”
She gasps and her eyes glitter dangerously, but I’m not backing down.
“I mean it, Caro. We’ve got three kids. What the fuck do you think would happen to us if something happened to you? I couldn’t…”
I don’t finish the sentence, so we sit there staring at each other. Caro takes a deep breath and I can tell that she’s trying to talk calmly.
“All I was going to say is that since I turned down the Middle East assignment, I’ve felt … adrift. I need a good story to get my teeth into.” She pauses. “And I had an offer this morning.”
“Not a war zone.”
She rolls her eyes. “No, not a war zone.”
“Okay, then.”
“Okay, what?”
“You got a new assignment. It’s not a warzone. How long will you be away for?”
I hate this bit. I hate her going away, but she hates it when I leave, as well. And this is a partnership.
She smiles slightly. “Well, it would be about a month … or two…”
That’s a lot longer than I was expecting, but I can see the excitement inside her. I’ll miss her like fuck, but we’ll deal. Somehow.
“Fuck, Caro, two months … that’s a long time,” I say quietly. “But if it’s what you need…”
My words tail off. I’m already imagining what it will be like to be without her for so long. Fucking grim.
She runs her warm hands down my arm. “Don’t you want to know what the assignment is?”
“Sure, baby,” I say, trying to smile.
“I’ll be sailing to Hawaii from San Diego. They want me to write an article about the challenges … for a family.”
I look up, wanting confirmation for what I’ve heard. “A family? What?”
“It’s a series of articles about alternative ways of family life. You know, families who go backpacking around the world; families who live in eco communities and grow their own food, children growing up on the carnival circuit. Well, the editor is following a family at the start of their sailing-around-the-world trip. I’ve been asked to go and report on it … and then I suggested to the editor that we all go for the first month, so I get a real flavor of what it’s like. All of us.”
Her words run together rapidly and I’m not sure who she’s trying to persuade—me or herself.
“It would be an amazing learning opportunity for the children: geography, sailing, navigation, cooking in a galley, fishing … I don’t know! Lots of things. It would be good for us, as well, Sebastian, to spend time together.”
She’s pretty much convinced me, and I can see how amazing it would be to do something like that. But one thing worries me.
“It sounds great, Caro, but I don’t know … Sofia has only just started at her new school and she really likes it. It could fuck things up if we take her out for a couple of months now.”
Caro smiles at me. “You’re such a good father, Sebastian. So responsible.”
I know she’s teasing me, because I used to be kind of wild, but this shit is important.
“I’ll have to ask permission to take the children out of school for so long, but if the school goes for it, do you have any other objections?”
“No, baby. Not even one.”
Caro smiles at me in a way that has my dick hardening immediately. That’s something that’s never changed—no other woman has ever gotten me so hot so quickly. And she knows it.
“We’d be away for your birthday and our tenth wedding anniversary,” she says, as if I could forget that.
“Baby, all that matters is you being happy.”
“So, you think I should take the assignment?” she asks.
I roll my eyes. “Caro, you made up your mind before I walked through the door.”
She thinks about this. “No, I hadn’t made up my mind, but I’d have been disappointed if you thought it was a bad idea. So, I’ll tell the editor yes?”
“Yeah, baby.”
She kisses my lips softly. “I love you, tesoro.” Then she runs her hand over my straining zipper. “Now, I think you need to be thanked properly.”
I scoop her up and carry her into the bedroom. I know exactly how she can thank me.
We start making plans the next day. Gibsy is pissed until I throw him a bone and promise I’ll do some shots for his fuckin’ calendar while I’m in Hawaii. Then he starts getting excited about doing a shoot at the Marine Corps Base in Kaneohe Bay. He doesn’t care that I’ll get the piss ripped out of me. Whatever. It raises money.
One of the best parts of the plan is that we’ll be able to spend some time with my brother Ches in San Diego. We try to meet up twice a year but it’s not always possible with family commitments as well as work.
Caro is glowing. It hurts somewhere deep inside my chest because I can see now the difference in her. I’d stopped noticing—hadn’t realized she wasn’t happy—and that is un-fucking-forgivable. I won’t let shit like this happen again.
Marco is ecstatic that he’ll be getting time off school, until Caro points out that he’ll lose his place in Little League. I take him to one side and promise that we’ll do a load of surfing and all his friends will be jealous as shit.
Then I have to get him to promise that he won’t tell his mom I said ‘shit’. Little dude worked me for five bucks.
The schools aren’t very happy with us, but Caro talked the Principals into it somehow. I was left behind for that discussion. She says the male teachers get defensive around me, and the female teachers are too busy checking me out to make sensible decisions. Fuck’s sake.
We’ve got to pack light because there won’t be a lot of room on the boat. Shirley is in tears when Caro tells her that she can only take one Barbie doll with her. I promise her that I’ll buy her a Hawaii Barbie when we get there. I’ve no idea if there is such a thing, so Caro might have to figure out how to make a grass skirt and a lei for a doll. And then I start wondering how Caro would look in just a grass skirt and a lei, but because the kids are eating their supper, I have to shake that thought and take a cold shower instead.
It’s a long flight to San Diego. All the kids have done it before, but it doesn’t mean it gets any easier. Thank fuck for laptops and DVDs. We’re taking one with us on the boat, but that’s strictly for Caro’s use. No one is allowed to touch her laptop—that would be like another Marine touching your M16. That shit is just wrong.
Ches is waiting for us at the airport with his Suburban.
I’m shocked by how fat he’s become. It’s been nine months since I’ve seen him and if he wasn’t a guy, I’d swear the fat fucker was pregnant. Caro elbows me in the ribs, which means I must have been staring. But come on! I grew up with this guy—he was as fit as me. I mean yeah, I know that he has an office job and I work in a gym, but that’s no excuse. I’m going to have words with my best friend.
His wife Amy meets us at the front door and even manages to hug me without pulling a face. She’s never been a fan of mine, and she has her reasons. Well, two friends who won’t talk to her because of me. But that was a long time ago now. Women sure have long memories—or maybe the sex I had with two of her buddies was that memorable.
What? I’m a guy—that’s how we think.
Caro goes with Amy to get the kids situated, and I go with Ches to get take-out.
I can’t hold it back any longer.
“What’s with the beer gut, man?”
“Fuck you, Seb! You spend all your day at the gym. It’s hard to find time to work-out. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“I’m calling bullshit on that. I see plenty of guys who have families and office jobs. What’s really going on?”
He looks at me sideways then glances back to the road.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
That pisses me off.
“I see guys every day with their legs blown off. Yeah, they have great prosthetics, but the best equipment in the world isn’t as good as a real leg, and you’re not using yours. It’s just frustrating, man!”
Ches blows out a breath. “Just life, I guess. Kids are growing up. I’m in the same freakin’ job I was ten years ago; jeez, Seb, the same place where we bussed tables when we were 17. I just feel like life is passing me by. And look at you and Caro, doing all this crazy stuff. Amy has her friends, her job, her book club—she doesn’t need me. I just…”
His words trail off.
“I think you’re wrong,” I say seriously. “But maybe you need to think about what you want for you. Spend some time at the beach, go surfing. We always used to go there to figure things out.” He nods slowly. “And I’ll draw you up an exercise schedule, something to get you fine and fuckable, my friend.”
He gives me the finger and we both laugh.
Back at his home, we eat pizza and I can’t help smiling as Ches tries to force down some salad instead of a fourth slice. It’s a start.
I get the kids bathed and into bed, and then collapse onto the sofa with Caro curled up next to me.
Ches and Amy are filling the dishwasher, so I take the opportunity to slide my hands under Caro’s shirt, running my hands across her ribs and brushing the underside of her breasts.
“Sebastian,” she chides in a breathy voice before kissing the hell out of me.
Amy interrupts us. I knew she hated me.
“OMG, you guys! Don’t you ever stop? You’re like a couple of horny teenagers!”
Caro looks embarrassed, but I just grin at Amy and raise my eyebrows. I always did know how to piss her off.
We spend three days with Ches and Amy before we head to the Harbor Yacht Club to find our host family and the boat we’ll be sailing on.
The Falcon looks like something out of a pirate movie with two tall masts and a web of rigging, the sails stored for now.
It’s a beautiful, sleek boat, and I know from the research Caro did that she’s 74 feet and can sleep 12 people. I did a lot of sailing when I was a Marine, but never in anything this swanky. I can’t wait to get on board. The kids are just as excited and Caro’s eyes are shining with happiness.
Our host family come out to meet us. We’ve skyped with Ken and Ellen so we know what to expect. But all the same, I make sure that Ken keeps his eyes off of Caro. He seems cool, but you never know.
