Table of Contents

Title Page

BEFORE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

NOW

BACK COVER

When it’s Not

Perfect

By

Amanda Flieder

www.amandaflieder.ca

Copyright © 2018 Amanda Flieder

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, and recording or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the author, except for brief passages quoted by a reviewer in a newspaper or magazine. To perform any of the above is an infringement of copyright law.

ISBN: 978-1-7752514-0-8 (mobi)

BEFORE

JENNY SAT ON the shoulder of the highway and stared at the flashing lights on the police cruiser. She could hear the ambulance sirens coming up quick, and the fire-truck came to a screeching halt nose-to-nose with the cruiser. The ambulance siren wound down to silence as the ambulance stopped behind the fire truck. Someone from somewhere ran over and threw a blanket over her shoulders, then knelt just in front of her and to the side of her legs to ask questions. She looked away from him and back toward the burning cars.

The fronts of both cars were just… gone. The air bags in her parents’ car hadn’t been able to stop the engine from punching through the dash. The other car looked the same. Her parents were just… gone. Jenny had been knocked out, but had come to as the cop had ripped open the back door to get into the car to see if she was still alive. He’d gotten her legs free from between the front and back seats, and then pulled her out and carried her to the opposite shoulder of the highway, his car between her and the fires. Her feet didn’t look right when he’d put her down. Her knees and the parts of her legs below them were sitting at angles that her hips said weren’t the ones she was sitting at. Her brain told her that was a bad thing, but she couldn’t feel anything.

The firefighters moved fast in slow motion. Jenny watched in numb silence. The EMT with the stretcher came to her on a run as the one crouched beside her yelled out the codes and jargon that they spoke in. Her brain told her that was also bad, but she didn’t know why. She looked past the EMTs at the lights on the ambulance.

Her whole life up to this point was just… gone.

CHAPTER 1

LATER

“HEY COOP. IS your dad’s shop open today?”

Austin felt his usual dumb smile drift onto his face whenever Jenny called. It happened a minimum of twice a week, and he started waiting for the next one as soon as she hung up.

“Yeah, it is. What’s up?”

He wondered what the latest rant would be. It had been a slow Tuesday so he was hoping she’d chat for more than a few minutes. The last call had been a quick venting of frustration over a bad photographer harassing one of the male models she was the agent for, and barely any conversation.

“I’m in Miami with five more girls for a beachwear and calendar shoot and the location the client picked for the beachwear shoot is not what was in the brochure. The guy who was supposed to set everything up didn’t bother to check the spot before we got here. I can pitch the shop if you guys are available right now for us to crash your day? Luke, he’s the new photographer Davie and Kev hired, is fine with classic cars rather than the sporty ones we were supposed to use. We just have to pitch it to the rep, and she’s already pissed off so I have to be solid before I talk to her.”

Austin considered for not at all.

“Yeah, come on over. We’ve got a few cars right now that would look pretty good in a calendar or a fashion mag. Want me to start calling owners?”

“Perfect, yes. Text me a couple shots of the parking lot, the shop front, and the cars you’re thinking of using, and I’ll call you back in fifteen minutes or less.”

“Okay,” he almost hung up and was turning toward where his dad was working at the front desk to call him over when he heard Jenny still talking on the line. “What was that?” he asked.

“I said: do you have a girlfriend right now?” she asked again, and then sighed. “I’m sick of hotels,” her voice dropped to the private conversation level he adored, “and I can stretch out my stay to three days before I have to be on a flight to London. Do you think you could talk your mom into making lasagna?”

“Nope. There’s no girlfriend for you to piss off. And mom will always make lasagna for you,” he was grinning like an idiot and didn’t care. “You still have a key for the house?”

“I do. Thanks, Cooper,” she sounded relieved. “I’ll see you after work if we’re not in your parking lot within the hour. A couple of the girls may want to crash in your living room if the option is there? Making our own breakfast is a total treat lately.”

“I’m really not going to argue with you on that,” he replied. The thought of having his house overrun with beachwear slash underwear models was not a bad one. She giggled, drawing his thoughts to having her hanging around the house…

“No perving on the merchandise,” she said, snickering, pulling his mind back to the conversation. “Talk to you after the pitch to let you know if they went for it. Oh, are all the cars classics?”

“Potentially a bit of both right now,” he replied. “I’ll start calling the owners and see what we can get permission to use. I’ll have a better idea when you call back.”

“Okay. I guess if all else fails that we can use your truck and some tools. Boys don’t care as long as the clothes are scarce, right?” she teased.

“I’m not going to answer that.”

Jenny was laughing when she hung up. Austin was still smiling when he lifted the receiver on his desk phone and started dialing the first owner after seeing that his dad was with a customer. He texted the stock photos of the shop front and parking area to Jenny as the phone was ringing. There was a gorgeous little coup that they were a day from finishing that begged to be in a calendar. Draping beautiful women on it wouldn’t hurt.

He was about to start calling the next owner after getting permission for the coup when his dad looked in the office.

“Jenny called? You’ve got that dumb grin again.”

Austin just nodded and hung up without finishing dialing.

“She and five of her girls are stuck for a Miami calendar location and she asked to use the shop. She’ll call back in a few minutes to let me know if they’re coming over,” his dad gave him the usual frown for all things surrounding Jenny. “It’ll be good PR, dad. We’ll do some placement logos and slogans, probably drum up more business,” Austin coaxed.

“Like we need more right now,” his dad scoffed. “I don’t like what she does to you, son,” it was the same starting line from the conversation they had after every call from Jenny lately.

“Yeah, well, neither do I,” Austin replied with his usual response as he reached for the phone to start calling again.

“Liar,” his dad accused, shaking his head and Austin grinned at his dad as the phone line started ringing in his ear.

True to her word, Jenny called him back fifteen minutes later and said the photographer wanted to know what the cars and the inside of the shop looked like. The publisher had left it up to Luke to make the decision, and he didn’t want to pack up and attempt switching locations last minute unless he had a good place to go to for real this time. Austin spent five minutes walking around clicking photos on his phone inside and out and texting them over. As an afterthought, he took photos up and down the street, showing the rest of the businesses that they shared this strip of road with and the ocean peeking through the buildings not far away. The small crew and the models showed up less than an hour later.

They decided to keep the shoot doubling up for some kind of brand name beach wear that needed a lot of imagination to be thought of as clothing. The first shots were the normal photos of beautiful cars and beautiful girls, and then the photographer started having fun with magazine poses while the girls drank water by the case in the afternoon heat.

The surf shop up the street offered boards and snorkel gear that got loaded into Austin’s truck, looking like three of the models were going out for an afternoon of fun. As the sun started to set, the little pub in the other direction that opened in the afternoon set up some tables outside to look like they had a patio, which made a great set for what looked like a post-beach location. Once the daylight failed, they all moved inside his dad’s shop and set up for more calendar pictures, this round of photos in lingerie while the girls posed and pretended using the tools.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to look at that creeper the same way again,” one of the mechanics quietly told Austin.

Austin’s dad showed up with complimentary pizza from the pub around nine, grumbling that nobody had thought to cater for the girls after the sandwiches wilted in the sun. The scantily clad ladies flocked to him as the smell of cheese and pepperoni drifted out of the front office. Austin’s mom, being about as far removed from a jealous type as was possible without being dead, laughed at her husband’s distress at suddenly being swarmed by ladies wearing little more than scraps of lace held together with strings. The photographer – laughing almost too hard to hold the camera steady – snapped some candid photos while they all took a fifteen minute break.

It was just after ten when they finally wrapped up and started packing up, the four hour delay in the start of the shoot running them four hours later than expected. The swimwear rep was happy, Luke was happy, and the girls didn’t have to wreck the rest of their schedules from delays or skip a pay cheque due to the shoot getting canceled. Austin helped load the van and made sure that the girls who were going back to the hotel all had taxis to get them there. The three girls – and Jenny – who were staying at his place tossed their suitcases into the back of his truck. Austin’s parents dropped off two of the girls, and Jenny and the third rode in the truck with him. Jenny sat in the middle of the bench seat, tucked half-way under Austin’s right arm. Just like old times.

CHAPTER 2

THEN

“AUSTIE! IT’S OUR anniversary!” she’d whined when he rolled away from her and reached for the phone beside the bed after glancing at the call display.

“It’s Cory, Lynn. You know he’s overseas right now. If he’s calling it’s important.”

“And I’m not?” she’d snarked at him as he’d turned his back to her to answer the call.

“Hey C, what’s up?” he’d asked his best friend since they’d been five years old.

He felt Lynn climb off the bed and heard her stomp into the on-suite bathroom and slam the door.

“My parents. They got killed. Car crash. A week ago. I just got word,” Cory’s voice was raw over the bad connection.

“Oh shit.”

Austin sat up and reached for his new prosthetic leg. He still had shorts on from working out earlier, so started the process of pulling it on over the stump that used to be his thigh.

“I can’t get a flight for another two days. Jenny… go get her. She was in the car. They discharged her from the hospital and dumped her in some foster house. The cop I talked to is going to call me back with the address, I’ll send it to you. He won’t give me the phone number for the house. I can’t get a hold of her. Her phone just goes straight to voicemail. They wouldn’t even keep her at the hospital until I got there. They put her in a fucking foster house!”

Austin was already off the bed and pulling on a clean shirt.

“I’m on my way out. It’ll take a couple hours but we’ll get there tonight. You off active?”

“Yeah. I’m grounded until my flight out.”

“Good,” Austin banged on the bathroom door. “Lynn, we have to go. Cory’s parents got killed and we need to go get Jenny. Cory can’t get home for a couple more days.”

“She must have grandparents,” was the clipped reply he got from behind the door. “Why the hell should we go?”

Austin froze in place. He sorted through his thoughts carefully before selecting the answer to her question.

“She doesn’t have grandparents. They’re all dead. It’s Jenny, Lynn: Cory’s sister. She was in the car when her parents got killed. She saw it happen and then got put in a foster house. We have to go get her. You know I’m not cleared to drive yet,” he spoke quietly and evenly.

Cory didn’t say anything. He’d had been around long before the three year relationship and had said quite a lot during the three years prior to tonight, and Austin had been getting closer to the realization that his friend was right. The bathroom door opened after a moment. Lynn looked up at him, perfect hair framing a perfect face on top of a perfect body indecently covered by shear lace.

“No, you can’t drive yet. So I guess you have to stay here because I’m not going,” she smiled a perfect smile.

Austin grew very, very still.

“Cooper, don’t,” Cory said quietly from the other end of the call. “Just go get Jenny, Austin, please.”

Austin stared down at his perfect fiancé from his six foot four vantage point and felt his bile rising. He turned on his heel and stalked out of the bedroom, grabbing his wallet and keys off the dresser on the way by.

“Text me the address once you get it,” he told Cory as he navigated the stairs down to the front door. “I’ll call you once I get there and have an update.”

“Coop, Austin, man, I…” Cory’s voice broke.

Austin pulled on his shoes and grabbed his jacket out of the closet.

“I’ve still got that spare key for your apartment. I’ll just take her there if she’s good to travel. I’ll get the keys for your parents’ place and go there if she’s not up for the trip to the base. You guys can figure out what you need to do after you’re back on native soil.”

“Thanks, Cooper.”

“I’ll call you soon.”

Austin hung up and dropped his phone in his jacket pocket. He glanced around the house, one hand resting on the front door. His uniform was still at his folks’ place. Everything else here was just stuff. It was all bought by Lynn’s dad anyway, and none of it was in Austin’s name.

“You leave right now and you can just keep going!” Lynn yelled at him from the top of the stairs. “I’m not going to compete with some friend and his kid sister for the rest of my life!”

“Nope,” he replied. “You’re not.”

He snapped the chain off his neck with a quick jerk and pulled the door open. He tossed her engagement present on the floor and walked out.

She was screaming at him from the porch as he walked over to his truck, a cherry-red vintage Chevy with a new racing engine that he and his dad had restored and modified during Austin’s rehab. His phone had beeped for the new text message, though, and he was too busy memorizing the address for Jenny’s foster house as he climbed in the truck to bother listening to Lynn ranting. The neighbors were staring curiously over the shrub fence from their small garden dinner-party. Lynn was basically naked and lit clearly in the porch light, fists and breasts swinging in the evening air, while Austin calmly started his truck and backed down the driveway. He smiled and waved at the party after he braked on the street before shifting into first, getting a few grins and waves in return, then drove away to go get Jenny.

Austin drove smart. He still wasn’t cleared to be driving and hadn’t been given his license back. So here he was, driving alone with no clearance and no license, going to pick up the kid that had been part of his life basically his whole life. Cory’s sister. She’d come up to stay with Cory at the base last summer because he’d been home, and they’d spent most of their time hanging out with Austin. It was like when they’d been kids, except Austin’s left leg was still somewhere hot and sandy and none of them were really kids anymore.

He felt like a creep thinking about it, but he still couldn’t get last summer out of his head. The last time he’d seen Jenny before then she’d been twelve, and back then Jenny was just tall and awkward, topped off with braces, glasses, and a shock of blonde hair. The start of a great figure was beginning to show up, but she’d still been the same little kid he’d always known. That had been the summer he and Cory had signed up for basic, and Cory had brought her to the movies as his date every Friday for the month before he and Austin shipped out. Back then, Austin’s then-girlfriend had liked his best friend (maybe a bit too much, in hind sight) and Jenny was just a fixture in their eighteen year old lives, his best friend’s kid sister. Then she showed up at the hospital last summer and the only familiar things were the glasses and the giant brown eyes behind them. The awkward and the braces were gone, the blonde had grown out, and the figure had shown up (even if it hadn’t filled out yet).

“Whoa,” was all he’d been able to manage saying once he finally got a look at sixteen-year-old her after she ran into the hospital room and yelled ‘Cooper!’ and pounced on the bed to hug him fiercely.

She’d beamed at him and done a slow spin so that he got a full circle viewing of a loose fitting tank top, tight shorts and tennis shoes. It had been a good view. Good enough that Lynn had dropped the magazine she’d been reading in a chair across the room for the past three hours and crossed over to stand beside the bed, holding Austin’s arm possessively.

“Okay, okay, enough fashion show,” Cory had stepped up and hugged his sister from behind.

She’d smiled up at him and stood on tip-toe to kiss his chin, long neck arching gracefully and legs flexing…

“Come on, Coop. Let’s go get lunch,” Jenny had thankfully interrupted his thoughts, looking at him critically from the enclosure of her brother’s arms. “Cory’s right that you’re too skinny from crappy hospital food.”

After that they’d visited him every day at the hospital, and then at the house, until she went home to go back to school. They’d gone shopping, out to movies, all worked out at the gym together for Austin’s rehab exercises. He’d even taken Jenny to his PTSD group support meetings when Cory was busy and she would’ve otherwise been trapped at her brother’s apartment by herself. His therapist had actually encouraged it because Austin was recovering ahead of schedule from the positive contact with childhood friends.

Lynn had hated them nearly on site the first time she’d met them three years ago. Cory was mystically immune to whatever charms she used on every other straight male in the world, and Lynn looked at Jenny like she was shit on one of Lynn’s Gucci shoes. It was flat-out jealousy on Lynn’s part, Austin knew that, but couldn’t do anything about it. Nothing he said made a difference – there wasn’t enough reassurance in the world – and it only took two days after they showed up that summer for Lynn to stop using Jenny’s name and just start calling her ‘jail-bait’.

At the end of the summer they’d all gone to a nearby water park. Lynn hadn’t spoken to Austin for the rest of the day after they gotten home, her silent treatment breaking only after Cory and Jenny stopped by on the way out of town the next morning so Jenny could say good-bye. He’d gotten a typical vice-grip hug and cheek kiss from her, but for the first time ever Cory’s eyes had hardened when it happened. The unwanted heat creeping south down Austin’s body from the innocent hug and kiss had died when it hit the knot coiling in his stomach from that glare.

Jenny had simply bounded down to the waiting car, waving over her shoulder and shouting good-byes, giving her brother and the friend whose life he’d saved a few minutes in private before they parted again. The glare had disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, and they bantered like normal on the front steps of the house, Lynn bristling at them through the window.

“You can do better you know,” Cory had said just before leaving, nodding toward where Lynn was sulking just inside the house.

“We’re engaged,” Austin had replied automatically.

Cory had looked over his shoulder at his car for a moment, watching Jenny sort through his CDs. Austin was trying hard to not see over Cory’s shoulder that she had let her hair down and was biting her bottom lip as she read the labels, and failed miserably when he didn’t notice immediately that Cory was watching him again. Man, he’d felt like a low-life. Twenty-two years old and ogling his best friend’s sixteen-year-old kid sister.

Cory seemed to read his mind, then dismissed it with a shrug that said that, in spite of being her brother, he was a guy and knew exactly what his sister looked like. At least it was Coop looking and not a creeper.

“I’ll be back in a few weeks.”

“Say hi to your folks from me.”

Cory had shaken his hand and then hugged him.

“You could do a lot better,” he said into Austin’s ear. “A five dollar inflatable sheep would be an improvement.”

Austin knew from the over-pronunciation that Cory’s lips were moving clearly enough that Lynn knew exactly what he said without hearing him. It had been a cool couple of weeks after Cory and Jenny had left, but at least not silent. Then Austin’s folks had showed up in their motor home towing the beat-up and rusted out Chevy on a trailer. The fall and winter had filled up with rehab and working on the truck, he and Lynn had gotten back to normal, and in the early spring, once all of his formal rehab was done, Austin’s folks had gone out to their new home in Miami. A few weeks after that Austin had been fitted for the new leg. Three days after getting the leg, Cory had called and Austin had walked out on his fiancé.

Credit where it was due, Cory thought to himself as he took the highway exit that in a few miles turned into the main street through the town where he grew up. Cory had been right all along about Lynn. Austin wondered if he’d feel bad once he had time to work out the full impact of leaving Lynn, but doubted it. And it wasn’t until he started seeing the first street lights of his home town up ahead that he remembered he hadn’t bothered to look back when he drove away. His mom would have said it was a sign to move on. She was probably right. His mom adored Jenny and Cory, but had only tolerated Lynn.

He followed the familiar streets to the address Cory had sent him. The house was tidy, and the street lights showed barn red siding and white trim with a stamp-sized yard in the front and a rickety picket fence. Toys that lived outside were lined up against the sides of the house in a way that said they were cared about, if only just enough.

Austin idled to a stop in the driveway. He hadn’t recognized the address, but he knew the house and the couple who ran it. This had been where he lived for the eight good months before his parents had adopted him, right before his life turned from what he’d thought was normal into plain amazing. He’d been living here when he met Cory Reaper at Kindergarten, his first real friend, and that was the same year that Cory’s dad had married Julia. Austin got to go to the wedding because the couple that ran this house were close friends to both Cory’s dad and Julia, Cory’s new step-mom, and that’s where he’d met Lindsay and Tyler Jefferies. The next year he was adopted and changed his name to Austin Jefferies, about three months before Jenny was born.

He turned off the truck and climbed out. The place looked like Tony and May were still running it with that same divine balance of patience, love, and hard work that saved so many kids from fading away in the system. He hoped the luck he’d had here was still holding as he climbed the stairs to the front porch.

The light flicked on and the door opened before he had a chance to knock. Tony, a small, dark-haired man with a quick smile and a large heart, stood just inside the screen.

“Something I can help you with, son?” he asked in his surprisingly deep voice and Austin felt a smile tug at his lips.

“It’s Austin, sir. Austin Jefferies.”

Tony blinked in surprise then broke into a wide grin.

“Austin Jefferies! Well I’ll be! May! Put on the kettle, it’s Ozzy!” he fought open the always sticky lock on the screen then threw the storm door wide. “Come in, come in. Don’t stand there like a stranger. What’re you doing here at this time of night?”

Austin tried to fit into the small entrance and realized that he didn’t while Tony was still there. Tony chuckled and stepped back into the kitchen.

“I remember this place being bigger,” Austin chuckled.

“I remember you being smaller,” May smiled up at him as she bustled past Tony and caught Austin in a hug. “It’s good to see you, Ozzy. How’re your folks? They like their new place out in Florida?” she asked.

“They’re good. Mom loves the beaches and dad loves the cars. His new shop is doing really well with all the classics out there. Business is picking up now.”

May finally released him and bustled back into the kitchen. He never understood how such a skinny woman could bustle, but she could and she did. Tony ushered Austin into the kitchen after May, parking the younger man in a chair at the kitchen table before grabbing the ever-present plate of cookies off the counter and sitting opposite.

“It was such a blow when we heard about your leg. I trust you’re back up to full steam now, seems how you walked up the porch steps?” Tony asked, pushing the cookies closer to Austin as May dropped a couple bags of caffeine free tea into the pot before settling at the table and waiting for the kettle to boil.

“As steamed up as I can be. Got my new leg a few days ago,” he turned slightly in the chair and stretched out the composite length between his shoe and his shorts.

Tony leaned down and looked close at the knee, then poked a finger at the ankle.

“They make good joints on them now,” he said, nodding approvingly. “My dad’s fake leg was just a couple sticks with a hinge. Good for kicking small boys’ butts, but not for much else,” he said with a wink, sitting back as May patted Austin’s hand.

“You’ll have a better life for that being a good leg again,” she said. “It’s not much of a disability anymore, one leg. And it’ll keep you from the ache of getting older in that knee, that’s for sure.”

Austin marveled at their ability to immediately make him feel proud of something he alternated between hating and loathing. Suddenly it was just part of him and it was okay. Just like his parents could do, and exactly the opposite of Lynn.

Tony tapped the side of his nose in the old familiar way and grew serious.

“You’re here to look in on Jennifer Reaper. Dollars to dachshunds.”

“Yes, sir,” Austin replied. “Cory called me. He can’t get back for a couple days so he asked if I could come.”

“Those idiots up at the hospital,” May fumed quietly. “Those young fool doctors wanted to put Jenny in the psych ward up there because she didn’t start talking to their brain workers just after waking up. Poor girl hasn’t said a word since the accident. I was a friend to Julia for twenty-seven years, and there was no way I was letting something that stupid happen. Julia’s girl going through all that trauma then getting shoved into a small town psych ward. And what would that have done to Cory when he came back? I straightened them out quick.”

“I was more worried what Cory would do to the hospital,” Tony added. “Jenny’s sleeping right now. May and I were just finishing rounds before going to bed when you drove up. With that fancy truck, we thought you might be one of the other girls’ boyfriends coming to stir up trouble.”

The kettle started to hum and May got up and turned it off before it could get up to a whistle. She poured the water into the waiting pot as she spoke.

“It’s a tragedy what Jenny’s going through. It was some kind of a high-speed chase. Killed both people in the other car too, but at least that meant there was a Trooper right there. He got Jennifer out before the cars went up in flames and emergency crews got there fast as they could. The Trooper – Sam Gordon, do you remember him? He was a couple years older than you boys in school – stopped by this afternoon to look in on her. He was still fairly shook up, poor man. He feels just terrible.”

“She’s pretty banged up, you should know,” Tony signed heavily. “Bruises from head to toe and both legs broken badly up above the knees. They pinned her back together, but it’s going to be a long recovery – you’ll understand that. She’ll hold May’s hand, though, which is more than them idiots at the hospital got. So we know she’ll come back when her mind is ready. Right now she just needs a safe place and some good food. We have that here better than any hospital.”

May sat back down in her chair, setting the teapot and three cups on the table.

“It’s good you’re here, Ozzy. It’s good you came,” she took his hand and squeezed his fingers. “You’ve been an extra brother since she was born and you’ve been where she’s at now, so you can help her find the road back.”

CHAPTER 3

THEN

AUSTIN WENT OUT and sat in his truck. Tony had made up the couch for him to sleep on after having tea and then had gone to join May in bed. Austin started to do the time difference math in his head before figuring it didn’t really matter right now because Cory was waiting for him to call. He punched the speed dial and put the phone to his ear.

“Cooper?” Cory answered immediately.

“Hey C. I’m here at the house with Jenny.”

“How is she? Is she okay? They didn’t put her in some shit-hole, did they?”

“She’s okay, she’s sleeping. We’re at Tony and May’s. May forced Jenny’s release so the doctors at the hospital couldn’t put her in the psych ward.”

“The psych ward?!” Cory shouted.

“It’s good now. It sounds like May ripped the whole hospital staff a new one on the way in and another on the way out. The nurses haven’t even called to check on Jenny, and usually they do for shit like this. May being a retired nurse, though, I’d say they’ll all stay clear now,” Austin waited a beat for his friend to process the information before he continued. “I’m staying here tonight. We’ll see how Jenny is in the morning and if she’s doing okay we’ll head over to your parents’ place. If not, I’ll just stay here with her until she can be moved. Tony needs some help with fixing up the back fence, anyway. And there’s a couple new girls here that have boyfriends stirring up problems for Tony that he thinks I can encourage to go away by hanging around for a few days,” Cory still didn’t say anything, so Austin continued. “I’ll call you in the morning, once Jenny’s awake, then you can talk to her. Her phone got smashed up in the crash and she doesn’t have a replacement yet. That’s why you just kept getting direct to voice mail. She’s pretty fucked up – both femurs broken and her head hasn’t come back yet. She isn’t talking, but she’s starting to respond when May holds her hand. I’ll get her a new phone tomorrow when I’m in town grabbing some clothes so you can call her direct.”

Cory remained silent. Austin knew it was because Cory was always silent when things went bad. He was a thinker. It was part of what made him brilliant at what he did. Austin just waited for his friend to work it all through.

“I pulled some strings got a flight 24 hours earlier. I should be departing at 1600 tomorrow your time. I called in a favor so I’ve got a base car once I’m on home soil.”

“That sounds good. I’ll let everyone know to expect you. May’s got a foam mattress we can throw on the floor. You can bunk here if we can’t move Jenny.”

The phone line grew silent again for a long moment. Austin noticed that Cory didn’t mention anything about the injury list he’d rattled off about Jenny, but didn’t press it. Cory talked about things when he wanted to or needed to, and only to the people he wanted to talk to about things.

“So Lynn didn’t come?” the question was cautious.

“Nope,” Austin leaned back and sighed toward the roof of the truck. “You were right about her. I don’t know why it took me so long to see it.”

Cory snorted a short and humorless laugh.

“Probably the lack of blood getting above your waist. The brain needs oxygen sometimes, too, Coop.”

“Yeah, you can tell me you told me so as much as you want once you get here. I’ll call in the morning. You call when you touch down on this side of the puddle.”

“Take care of Jenny for me, Cooper. Tell her I’m coming home.”

“Tell her yourself in the a.m. when we call. I’m going to go get some shut-eye.”

“Thanks, Austin. Just… thanks.”

Austin knew Cory was white knuckled holding the phone. That was the only reason he would have used Austin’s real name. He wished he had something to say that could make it better, but knew there wasn’t anything that could help. So he just said something familiar.

“G’night, Drunk Tank.”

“Blow me, Cheap Date.”

The line clicked over to a dial tone as Cory disconnected. Austin swallowed hard and flipped his phone closed. Some decent shut-eye and one of May’s breakfasts would put his head on straight. He doubted he’d get both in the next twelve hours, but at least there’d be thick bacon and strong coffee. It was great to have a place to sleep, but the couch looked like the same one that had been there when he lived here. It had been thread-bare and pointy-springed back then and he couldn’t make himself believe it had improved with age. Hopefully the military really had given him the ability to sleep anywhere.

He locked up the truck and went back in, closing and locking the door behind him. Then he quietly went through the entire main floor, performing his own rounds, before lying down for what was left of the night. The couch was still horrible, but it was horizontal. It didn’t take him long to fall asleep.

∞

Jenny woke up to the two other girls in the house twittering in the hall outside her half-open door. She caught snippets of breathless conversation interspersed with giggles. It was about a boy. Tall, coffee colored hair and milk chocolate skin, long eye lashes, square jaw, broad shoulders, and strong arms. Jenny wondered what their reaction was going to be when Cory got here.

Thinking about her brother brought the nightmares back. Every time she slept since the crash, the nightmares showed up. Always repeating the crash. Always the same result of people she loved being dead. Sometimes Cory was in them, as the cop or in the back seat with her, and sometimes Cory and Cooper were driving the other car. A few times Lynn had driven the other car and Cory and Cooper had been sitting in the front instead of her parents. Those ones ended with her dad as the cop and her mom the one giving her the blanket, but then Cory and Cooper were dead.

She knew from Cooper’s PTSD meetings that the nightmares were normal, but it didn’t really make them better or easier to deal with. Kind of like the pain from the physical injuries.

May shooed the girls away and brought in Jenny’s breakfast on a tray: scrambled eggs, hash browns, orange juice, and coffee. Two pieces of crisp bacon were on a small plate on the side. There was ice on the top of the orange juice, and the rest was hot enough to still sizzle.

With ease from practice, May maneuvered Jenny out of bed and into the waiting wheelchair with minimal pain increase. They trundled across the hall to the bathroom and May performed the standard morning rituals, talking softly the whole time about what she was doing so that Jenny didn’t get startled. Looking in the mirror, Jenny saw the same haunted eyes as some of the wheelchair guys at Cooper’s PTSD meetings staring out of her own face.

Then, with brushed hair and clean clothes not even ten minutes later, they trundled back across the hall to the waiting breakfast. Jenny ate mechanically. Everything tasted great, and was the perfect temperature for eating, and she wanted to enjoy it but just couldn’t seem to. She couldn’t seem to do anything. May carefully forked small mouthfuls for her like feeding a baby, and Jenny chewed and swallowed. She finished the breakfast and May maneuvered her back into bed, propping her up with pillows and turning on the small TV. She left the remote under Jenny’s hand and bustled out with the dirty dishes on the tray.

The TV droned on and on, set to the Weather Station. After a few minutes, Jenny lifted her eyes from the heavy casts on her legs and stared at the screen, watching the motion more than the images. She heard the different set of footsteps coming up the steps and down the hall toward her room but instead going into the bathroom. Her thoughts filed the sounds away as most likely belonging to the new boy that the girls had been twittering about.

The bathroom door closed quietly and then locked. May yelled up the stairs for the girls to hurry up – they had summer classes – as the water turned on in the shower. Jenny watched the moving lines that told her a storm was coming onto the west coast.

∞

Austin dried off and dressed, feeling a bit like a giant in the house he’d lived in as a small kid. He kept bumping into things.

May called out that she was taking the giggling teen girls to their classes. Tony had already gotten the two younger boys outside after they’d stared across the table at Austin for the whole of breakfast. The plan was to let Austin have some private time in an empty house to first talk to Jenny, and then to be able to call Cory without interruption.

Austin hung up the towel he’d used over the curtain bar and dressed, then sat on the closed toilet seat to pull on his leg. He did a quick check in the mirror, mostly to brace himself for whatever was going to happen with Jenny, and unlocked the door to quietly walk across the hall.

Jenny was watching the Weather Station, her hand resting on the remote but not holding it. Her eyes were slow to respond to the shifting images on the screen. She looked like some of the guys in his PTSD group before he’d left the Veteran’s Hospital. She was bruised and swollen, and the casts on her legs started just below her hips and ended just above her toes. Austin sat in the chair beside the bed and waited for Jenny’s head to slowly turn toward him. It was more than she’d managed to do yet, based on what May had summarized for him this morning.

“Hey, Scoots,” Austin smiled as he used her old nickname and then picked up her hand, feeling her fingers squeeze onto his. “You look like shit. Cory’s going to be here probably tomorrow. We’re going to have to see if we can get you looking presentable, huh? Best not to keep wearing May’s clothes, anyway. You’re too tall for her stuff. I’ve got to go buy some new clothes for me today, so I can stop by and get some things from your room if you want? I have to get you a new phone, too. Cory’s been trying to call and just keeps getting voicemail.”

Something was working hard behind her eyes as he prattled. Her breathing was getting deeper, and she was blinking more. He quickly switched how he was holding her hand so that she could grasp his fingers easier and her grip tightened. He brushed some of the stray hair off her forehead, just like he always had when they were kids and he visited when she was sick. A single tear leaked out of each of her eyes, and suddenly he knew what was coming. May said the Trooper told her Jenny hadn’t made a sound at the accident scene, and she hadn’t said anything at the hospital or at the house.

Austin cradled the side of her face in his free hand.

“It’s ok now,” he said gently. “Cory’s coming. I’m here. Let it out.”

There was a high-pitched whine that started each time she exhaled, growing louder with each breath. Austin dropped to his knee beside the bed and – as gently as he could – hugged the kid sister that Cory had shared with him.

“I’m here, Jenny,” he told her. “Cory’s coming soon.”

Then there was nothing else to do but wait for the screaming to stop.

CHAPTER 4

THEN

JENNY STOOD AT the top of the stairs, shaking with rage and tears streaming down her face. Cooper was physically blocking her from going any closer to the first step and Cory was about ten feet away from them and closing in fast.

“You’re not cleared for stairs yet!” Cory roared at her, well past yelling.

“I just wanted to –”

“NO!” his arm wrapped around her waist and lifted her kicking and flailing into the air. “You hit me with one of those crutches and I’m taking them and you’re going back in the wheelchair,” he growled.

She dropped one and grabbed the other with both hands so that she could get a better swing. Cooper locked his hand around the crutch she was lining up to hit her brother with, stopping her before she could even get the motion started. She screamed wordlessly and jerked on the crutch futily until she dissolved into impotent sobbing. Cory scooped up her legs and carried her over to the nearest bench as Cooper picked up her tossed crutch and then limped after them.

The lecture was one she was sick of hearing and she argued with him the whole way through. He wanted her to stick to the planned recovery schedule, and she wanted to stop being a gimp. At this point, the two were mutually exclusive. Cory snatched up the crutches and stormed off in the direction of his apartment, the threat of the detested wheelchair becoming a promise when the argument had degraded into a verbal brawl.

Cooper tried to be a voice of reason and Jenny turned on him next. He fought her down until she was sobbing and sullen, having run out of logic for how crappy recovery was when she was arguing with someone who’d already been through it. He pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head, making her cry harder because she was being horrible and knew it and he was still taking care of her. Cory was just as gentle with her when he got back, even though she could see that he was still pissed, and that got her crying all over again. At the apartment, she rolled to her bedroom and shoved herself out of the wheelchair and onto her bed without saying a word to either of them.

“You okay?” Cooper’s voice was quiet as he talked to Cory, but the apartment was small.

“Yeah,” Cory replied with a heavy sigh. “No. I don’t… fuck, I don’t know.”

They both fell silent so Jenny put her headphones on.

“I can’t…” Cory swallowed hard. “What if she falls? What if I’m not there and she falls?”

Jenny turned up the music to drown out the rest of the conversation.

∞

The next morning was the same as every other day: wake up stupid early, stretches and exercises with Cory and Cooper, don’t fall in the shower, have chops busted by Cory for running late for school due to wanting to actually eat the breakfast that Cooper made up, grab backpack and argue with Cory over being allowed to join an after-hours school club – any after-hours school club – for the entire drive to the school, and then die of embarrassment because Cory has to walk with her to home room. The rest of the day was pretty normal, too, because the high school nearest the base was stocked full of other transient kids and there was a larger population of new kids than town kids. That basically meant that more than half the school was some level of train wreck, so it was easier to make friends.

Today got different when one of the town kids stopped to talk with her on his way out at the end of the day. One of the popular town kids. One who was really, really good looking. And who asked if Jenny wanted to maybe hang out during lunch tomorrow.

She was almost in a good mood for the first time since forever ago when Cooper picked her up, and the mood did nothing but improve as the days went on and Liam kept talking to her. Pretty soon it was weeks past and she didn’t even mind that Cory was bugging her about having a boyfriend as he helped her through her morning exercises while he was digging for details about exactly why she needed a new dress for the school dance that was coming up.

She’d been on cloud nine after the dance. Liam had kissed her and they’d made out a bit after sneaking away to one of the classrooms during the dance, but he’d been a total gentleman about it. After the dance they’d made out a lot more and she’d had to straighten up her dress as she heard Coop’s truck rumbling up the street. Cooper had been polite to Liam, like he was always polite to everyone, and only mentioned that she should fix her lipstick before Cory saw her once they were driving away. She’d panicked for a moment and dropped the visor on her side of the truck in an instant and he’d busted out laughing. Her lipstick had been fine, but he’d quite easily confirmed that she’d been doing stuff that had the potential to make it not fine. She punched him in the arm and he feigned that it hurt.

By Sunday night, Jenny was staring at the phone more often than she should be, and Cory was starting to frown about it. But she ignored it because Liam had games this weekend so it made sense that he didn’t have time to talk when she called and didn’t have time to call back. Then Monday started the same as normal right up until she sat down in home room. The rumors got back to her before the end of the first class: she was a nasty kisser, typical of an army brat; the scars on her legs were gross; she was a bad lay… it went on and on. And she’d never even had sex with him.

Somehow she managed to survive the week, and there were only a few passing comments from Cory and Cooper. Thankfully, Cory was scheduled out of town for the weekend. She made plans with her friends, bought fake IDs, and the same Friday she was cleared to get rid of the crutches she packed an overnight bag and got Cory to drop her off at Margaret’s house. They got glammed up and snuck out to meet up with three other girls and head to the nearest bar.

∞

Austin looked at the clock. It was only ten, and he was bored out of his mind. Cory was out for training until Tuesday, and Jenny was staying at friend’s place for the night, possibly for the weekend. He was alone in the apartment for the whole night for the first time since agreeing to move in and help. It had been months since he’d come to the understanding that he would never know if he was here to help Cory or help Jenny, but both assured him he was helping. Except tonight he wasn’t, and he didn’t know what to do.

The phone rang and he picked it up, expecting Jenny to be asking him to bring over something that she’d forgotten. Instead it was a couple of guys he’d been friends with before losing his leg that had stayed in touch and were home on leave. They were going for a beer and wanted to know if he wanted to meet up. They met at the pub on the base, and somewhere in the next couple of hours Austin found himself piled into a mini-van cab with his two friends and a five-lady bachelorette party and heading over to a nearby townie bar.

∞

Jenny froze in place. The guy who’d been nuzzling at her throat stopped after a delayed moment and gave her a questioning stare, then looked over his shoulder at where she was staring.

“You’ll want to be fucking off right about now,” Cooper said.

“Yeah, and who’s gonna make me?” Nick asked, his friends down the bar who’d been successfully picking up Jenny and her friends all suddenly taking an interest in the conversation. “You seem to be all by yourself,” he grinned, then added, “asshole townie,” under his breath.

Cooper cracked a small grin and shoved up the sleeve of his t-shirt, flashing his unit tattoo. Nick’s face changed considerably as he looked at it.

“No slight intended, but your girl ain’t acting like your girl, friend.”

“She ain’t my girl,” Cooper’s face straightened as Nick’s got confused, and then Coop leaned in close so he could speak directly to Nick without having to talk over the music. “She’s The Reaper’s underage baby sister,” he said, tapping a finger on his tattoo. “And those are her underage friends from high school.”

Nick pulled his hands back fast enough to knock his drink off the bar and send the heavy glass spinning across the floor.

“This is me, Nick, fucking off,” he said, quickly and loudly, as he stood up and inched past Cooper. “This is all of us fucking off!” he announced to his row of friends and pointed across the bar. They stood up, mostly just looking confused, but backed off from the girls they’d been chatting up. Nick turned back after a moment and bumped a fist into Cooper’s arm in a friendly way.

“I owe you for that one, friend,” he said.

Cooper just nodded and smiled, acknowledging the debt. Jenny heard Nick repeating her last name over and over as he and his friends walked away. They all went from looking confused to shocked to relieved as they sat at a booth across the dance floor, close to the bachelorette party that Austin had arrived with.

Austin called over the bartender and got the girls to hand over their fake IDs. The bartender wrote their actual birth dates on their cards in permanent marker and then posted them on the pegboard that was there for that purpose. Austin called for a cab and brought all five girls back to the apartment, then made each one phone their folks to pick them up. There were a lot of sullen glares in his direction down in the parking lot as, one by one, angry parents picked up angry daughters. Margaret’s parents, from where Jenny was supposed to have been for the night, dropped off Jenny’s overnight bag. Margaret’s dad pulled it from the trunk and handed it to Austin as the girl’s mom yelled from the front seat at their daughter in the back seat.

He was grateful for the slow elevator taking him back up to the eighth floor. Jenny was crying at the kitchen table when he came in and dropped her bag by the front door. He slammed the cordless phone on the table in front of her, making her jump and stare up at him, still sobbing.

“Call Cory,” was all he said.

Absolute dread choked off her sobs, and then she burst into wailing. She tried to spin up out of the chair, but he caught her arm and dropped her back into it.

“Call Cory,” he repeated, pointing at the phone.

Suddenly, whatever she’d been dealing with all week and wouldn’t talk to them about boiled over and she grabbed the phone and hurled it across the living room. It dented the drywall where it hit and the whole back popped off.

“Go to Hell!” she yelled at him. “You can go to Hell and Cory can go to Hell and –“

He jabbed a finger into the middle of her forehead, startling her. It was better than slapping her and had the same effect.

“Speaking of Hell, what the Hell were you doing back there?” he demanded.

“Wow,” she crossed her arms and glared up at him. “You need to date more if you have to ask.”

“Oh, I know what Nick was doing. I’m asking if you know what you were doing,” he glared back.

“That is none of your business,” she slammed her hands on the table top and shot up to her feet.

“That wasn’t high school, Jenny. Nick wasn’t some jock who maybe liked you. You were a piece of ass that he was going to get while he was on leave.”

“How do you know if he liked me or not?” her lip started to quiver. “He might’ve maybe liked me a lot.”

“Yeah, he stood up and took off like he was electrocuted because you were something special to him,” he crossed his arms and frowned at her.

“What do you… it wasn’t… go to Hell, Austin!” she started crying again. “I was just fine! It wasn’t like he was going to hurt me.”

“Really?” he asked. “Right. Because you’d known him for so long you know he wasn’t going to hurt you.”

“I can take care of myself, you know. It’s not like I’m a baby anymore.”

“Really?” he pointed at the tears on her face and then at the dent in the wall in the living room.

She lifted her jaw defiantly and something inside him snapped. He wrapped a hand around her arm and pulled her down the hall. She slapped at his hand and arm, yelling at him to let her go and demanding to know what he thought he was doing. He dragged her into his own room and threw her on the bed, following close behind so that when she rolled onto her back to yell up at him he was already positioned to kick her legs apart and pin her to the bed. He kissed her hard, pinning both her wrists over her head in one hand. He shoved his other hand up her dress and snapped her bra strap once against her skin like an elastic band, and then snapped the waistbands on her panties and tights the same way. She whimpered and just started crying, turning her face away and begging him to stop, that he was scaring her. He sighed and rested his forehead against her temple, pulling his hand out from inside her dress.

“Now imagine I’m some asshole you just met at the bar who doesn’t give a shit that you’re scared and crying because I just want to get laid,” he said quietly.

He let go of her wrists and she just pulled her elbows down so that she could cover her face with her hands while she cried. He shifted off of her, expecting her to bolt the moment he was clear, but instead she just lay there crying so he lay down with her, wrapped her up gently in his arms, and rubbed her back.

“Now tell me what’s been going on this past week that you thought going out tonight like that was a good idea,” he said.

It all came out between the sobs. She told him everything about the dance and the rumors and how bad it had gotten about the scars on her legs. It was the same story of shitty things that happened to at least one girl every year in every high school because she trusted the wrong guy with personal information when he said he liked her.

“I just wanted to be pretty again,” she finally said.

He pushed back to look at her: her face puffy and splotched from crying, her make-up smeared all over his arm and chest and her face, her dress pulled crooked and the supposedly hideous scars on both her legs showing up clearly as dimples in her tights by only the light from the kitchen down the hall. The corner of his mouth tilted up and he straightened her glasses before leaning forward to kiss her softly on the lips. She stared at him with full uncertainty when he leaned back and smiled down at her, looking her square in the eye.

“You’re beautiful, Jennifer.”

He actually saw her believe him, and that it mattered to her that he said it. She curled against his chest, the tears and sobs coming stronger before finally stopping. He rested his chin on the top of her head, feeling her heart beating.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he said.

“It’s okay,” she replied. “You kiss really nice, though, when you’re not being scary,” she added after a moment.

“Don’t tell Cory that,” he forced a chuckle.

He felt her smile, but she didn’t reply. After a few moments, he realized that she’d fallen asleep just after he’d spoken. A few moments after that, the look on her face when he’d called her beautiful floated up in his mind and he remembered back when she was six and crying because she thought her new glasses made her ugly. He’d called her beautiful back then too, meaning it with all his twelve year old self, and she’d looked at him the same way. The successive years in between, the moments and interactions that had been tying them together for their entire lives, crashed in on him like a semi.

Oh no, he thought. Please no. Not now.

He’d lain in bed back then, at twelve years old, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on his bedroom ceiling, and decided that he was going to grow up and marry Jennifer Reaper because she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever met. Back then he hadn’t wanted to have to wait to grow up because he loved her so much. The same feeling hit him a hundred fold by laying here with her on his bed, but not because it suddenly bloomed again after all these years, but because he couldn’t ignore it anymore. The feeling had been growing every day since then and he’d gotten really good at ignoring it so Cory didn’t think he was creeping on Jenny. Hell, he didn’t want to be creeping on Jenny. She was only turning eighteen next month, and he was already twenty-four. It wasn’t a huge age gap except that she was still in high school and he had a veteran’s pension.

Not right now, he begged his emotions. Just wait a couple more years. I just have to wait.

CHAPTER 5

THEN

JENNY WAS STILL in his arms when he woke up the next morning. She snored the way he imagined a gopher might: little snorts at the start and finishing up with a huff. He forced himself to ignore how she was sprawled across his chest and inched his hips away from where her knee was tucked over his thigh. Waking up with a hard-on was fairly normal in his world. Sharing that morning wood with Jennifer was… a thought he immediately squashed.

He remembered waking up at some point in the dark with his arm having gone to sleep and his stump aching. He’d unbuckled the cup on his prosthetic and shoved that off with one hand. Jenny hadn’t woken up at all when he’d tried to get her off his arm. She’d sat up, her eyes still closed, then climbed in under the half of the covers that he wasn’t lying on and curled back up against his side with her arm wrapped over his chest. At least her head wasn’t cutting off the circulation to his arm – which had turned into a mass of pins and needles from his bicep to the ends of his fingers. He’d tried once more to wake her up and she’d wrapped tighter around him. That was the point where he’d given up, taken her glasses off her nose and dropped them on his nightstand, and gone back to sleep.

She yawned and blinked on his first attempt to wake her up, squinting at his room and rubbing the makeup around her eyes into a lopsided racoon mask. She sat up and crossed her legs yoga-style, her arms reaching high as she stretched and yawned again, oblivious that he couldn’t stop staring at her. Didn’t she know that she was supposed to look slightly bad waking up? Lynn had always looked like Hell with her make-up that smeared after sleeping in her clothes. Jenny still just looked like Jenny, but in need of a shower… he squashed that thought a moment too late. Her hands dropped as she sighed and twisted her head to try and crack her neck.

“Hey now,” he sat up as her palms stroked across his chest. “You have to pay me if you’re going to start feeling me up.”

“Ha ha,” she said, not laughing. “Oh shit, did I squish my glasses?” she asked, her hands sliding off him at about his waist to feel where she’d been lying. He regained full cognitive function as she leaned forward to search by feel on his other side. “Cory’s going to be pissed if I broke this pair, too,” she muttered. He caught her shoulders and gently pushed her back from hovering over his lap.

“I put them on the night stand,” he informed her, guiding one of her hands with his own so that she could find them. She picked them up and sighed, then suddenly she twisted and he had a chest full of girl.

“I love you, Coop,” she said, her voice muffled against his shirt. He couldn’t help but smile, his gut sinking with the premonition that this would be the first of many times going forward for feeling this wordless when he had so many things he wanted to say. Instead, he kissed the top of her head and returned the hug. One of the hard corners of her glasses was digging into his chest about an inch above one of his nipples, so he focused on that pain rather than the rest of it. I just have to wait…

∞

Jenny stayed in the shower until she started to feel like she’d washed off most of the stupid. In a few days, everyone in school would know that she was not only gross, but also dumb as a rock for getting caught with a fake ID by one of her two overprotective older brothers – both of whom thought she was still a kid. She also knew that if she didn’t tell Cory about sneaking out to the bar, Cooper would. That would be so much worse than if she did it herself.

And she still had homework…

She turned up the hot water and washed her face again, using one of her sugar scrubs this time. Her right eye started burning as she started rinsing and she realized she was also too stupid to remember to keep her eyes closed tightly enough to not get soap in them. She finished rinsing, and then stood with her face in the spray and her right eye kinda open long enough that it stopped burning.

When she finally turned off the water and stepped out of the tub, the clothes she’d slept in were gone and a clean pair of her favorite slouchy sweat pants was sitting beside the sink on top of clean underwear, her oldest sports bra, woolly socks, and one of Cory’s old sweat shirts. She immediately felt like starting to cry again. She toweled off most of the water, twisted her hair up without bothering to brush it, moisturized enough that her skin had stopped feeling like it was going to start cracking, and got dressed.

She looked nearly as crappy as she felt.

She stopped just before opening the door and turned back to hang up the towel so she wouldn’t get yelled at – again – for leaving a mess in the bathroom. She was two steps into the hall when she turned back and shut off the bathroom light and fan so she wouldn’t get yelled at – again – for leaving them on.

“What are you…?” her voice trailed off when she walked into the kitchen. Cooper was at the stove making –

“Pancakes,” he threw a smile over his shoulder at her that made her feel better for a second, and then worse the moment he looked away because as if he returned the feelings that gave her butterflies in her stomach every time he smiled at her like that. “My mom says that anything bad with the world can be fixed with pancakes. This morning pancakes seemed like a good start.”

The cordless phone was sitting on the table in front of her when she sat down, the back of it back in place and held on with a strip of duct tape on each side, and her homework piled beside it. She opted for the lesser of two evils and slid the homework closer.

“That can wait,” Cooper loomed at her side for a minute and shoved her books back to where they’d been. “First: pancakes,” he stated, setting a full plate in front of her. “After pancakes we have some shopping to do, so eat fast,” he added as he crossed the kitchen. She paused in the act of shoveling the second forkful into her mouth when he glanced at her and grinned. She swallowed the first mouthful, hating that she had to stop eating to speak. Austin’s mom’s pancake recipe was not something a sane person waited to eat.

“What shopping?” she asked.

“I want to fix the wall today,” he nodded at the dent she’d made last night. “Actually, I want to supervise. You’re going to fix the wall.”

She stared at him, putting the question on her face so that she didn’t have to put it into words. Seriously, who talked this much when there were pancakes?

“You broke it, you fix it,” he shrugged. “You also have to look around town to see who’s hiring,” he added, flipping the pancakes in the pan. “You don’t make wages, which means that was Cory’s money you used to buy the fake ID. You’re going to owe me for the spackle, paint, and tools we’ll need for fixing the wall, and you owe Cory a new phone,” he pointed at the broken cordless with the spatula. “And, after I talked to Cory on the phone while you were in the shower, your cell phone bill is now your expense as of today. He’s not paying for it if you think that it’s okay to lie to us.”

“Oh,” Jenny replied, shoving the syrup around on her plate with her fork, suddenly not completely interested in eating.

“Flip side,” Cooper pulled her attention back to him and he flipped the pancake out of, and caught it back into, the pan. He smiled at her. “Pancakes.”

CHAPTER 6

LATER

JENNY STRETCHED AND reached for her phone.

“Hey, Cory,” she yawned into her cell and snuggled back into the blankets.

“Oh come on. It’s after nine there and you’re still in bed?”

“Ha ha,” she said. “London called at five this morning and delayed for three days because of a movie getting filmed in the same place so I’m planning on staying at Coop’s for the weekend. I’ll let him know when he gets home.”

Her big brother was quiet for a second, then snickered.

“Sleeping in the spare bed?” he asked.

“Nope. On the floor in the bathroom. I like the smell of linoleum,” she yawned again as Cory burst out laughing.

As was their daily ritual, they chatted about not much and a few important things, and then traded insults for almost half an hour before hanging up. Cory made a few more of his usual snide comments in regards to Cooper having a crush on her – yeah, right – and she told him to be careful because she still wanted him to be around to buy her something expensive for Christmas this year. He promised he would be around for a while but – with her annual income – that she’s the one who owed him something expensive. She was still giggling when he disconnected the call.

Jenny slid out of bed and padded on bare feet over to the bathroom. Her lengthy morning routine left her stomach growling. She’d gotten Chelsea and Mia out to their flights yesterday morning, Lisa last night, and now it was Friday and she loved the thought of a few days off. She even turned off her phone after the regular morning call with Cory, and didn’t turn it back on until she’d had breakfast, two cups of coffee, and started laundry.

The phone calls that left messages could all be safely ignored until after lunch. She turned off her phone again and poured a third cup of coffee. Curling up on the sofa in an old tee-shirt and some shorts she’d stolen out of Coop’s dresser, she sat down with her tablet to answer emails and texts while she waited for her clothes to be done in the washer. Once her flights were changed and the necessary schedule alterations were done for herself, she answered all the urgent needs of the models she was the agent for, including having to turn her phone back on and make a few scathing phone calls. Some clients hired such creeps.

She called Davie and let him know the rundown of the agencies she’d had to call. Best for him to know now, because one of them was a new group that he and Kev had been looking at working with, and she didn’t want Davie and Kev to get burned. He demanded to know when she was going to be back in Los Angeles, he missed her and loved her, and Kev just kissed into the phone as he was passing by when Davie told him to say ‘hello.’ She hung up with a promise to call them back as soon as her schedule hiccups got sorted out, but should be home in two weeks. She swore she wasn’t going to miss their anniversary party this year.

The day’s mandatory business concluded in the early afternoon, she switched her clothes into the dryer and grabbed a snack then turned on the TV. She found an old black and white film playing, but she missed the name of it and fell asleep before it came back up.

Jenny woke up as the front door opened and closed. She stretched and knocked her glasses off the arm of the sofa. They clattered down to the laminate floor below.

“Jenny?” Coop’s voice sounded surprised.

“On the sofa,” she replied, yawning.

“Shit. You’re late for your flight,” his footsteps were quick as he went down the hall to the spare room where she’d been sleeping.

Jenny turned off the TV, and then slid off the sofa and squinted around the side of it. Her glasses had, of course, bounced all the way to the back wall underneath the end table. She was reaching for them when Cooper came back down the hall and strode into the living room.

“You’re not even packed yet!” he exclaimed.

His steps came to a sudden stop just inside the living room behind her. Jenny could picture him in her head, arms crossed over his chest, the same exasperated expression as Cory whenever she was running late for school when she was living with them while she finished high-school – which was every morning – and it made her grin as she settled her glasses back on her face.

“London got delayed three days,” she said, standing up and turning around, then laughing out loud when she looked at him. He looked exactly like she knew he would. “I pushed my flight back to Monday.”

He scowled at her, just like when she was seventeen, and grabbed her phone off the coffee table. He guessed her screen lock code in two tries.

“Battery is over seventy percent,” he said, then opened her messages and started scrolling through. “And nothing sent to me today to let me know plans had changed.”

Jenny rolled her eyes and plucked her phone out of his hand.

“It’s not like I was planning to sleep for the whole afternoon,” she changed the lock code on her phone and set it back on the coffee table by her tablet. “Actually I was planning on making dinner to surprise you, but I guess that’s a total bust now,” she yawned and stretched.

“I ordered pizza in the driveway,” Cooper stated, still looking unimpressed with her.

“Extra ham and extra cheese?” she asked, hopefully.

“You can have leftover lasagna,” he said, finally cracking a grin and shaking his head.

“I can totally have leftover lasagna,” she confirmed, remembering it tasted even better as leftovers, warmed up in the oven so the edges were extra crispy. His mom made the best lasagna, and there was still a massive piece in the fridge from the other day.

“I’ll go warm it up,” he said, mumbling under his breath something about ‘one-woman modeling agency’ and ‘completely irresponsible’ as he walked into the kitchen.

Jenny grinned to herself and followed him out of the living room, but went down the hall to grab her laundry rather than veering into the kitchen behind him. The stuff she’d hung around the room was mostly dry, and everything in the dryer was wrinkled beyond recognition. She was tossing clothes from the washer into the dryer on top of the wrinkled stuff when Cooper leaned on the door frame.

“Did you want ice tea?” he asked, pointedly not looking around at the bras and underwear she’d hung up all over the small room.

“Sure,” she agreed, closing the dryer door and turning it on.

When she straightened up, his eyes slowly traveled up from her hips to face, and he was frowning again.

“I thought I told you last time you were here to stay out of my dresser.”

“The time before that, too,” she said, beaming up at him.

“Jenny,” he said, glancing up at the ceiling, his usual start to a lecture or tirade.

“I just wanted to do laundry,” she scoffed. “It’s not like I packed to stay here for a week.”

“You could’ve done one load today and another tomorrow. That’s not the point,” he stayed blocking the door when she tried to leave the room. “I shouldn’t have to tell you to stay out of my dresser every time you’re here.”

“Since when is it such a big deal?” she asked, crossing her arms and stepping back to lean her hip against the dryer. “I still wear Cory’s shirts and shorts when I stay with him, too.”

“I’m not Cory,” he stated, scowling down at her.

“Right, my bad.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Jenny bit her lip to stop the next words that threatened to fall out of her mouth. Cory might imagine some returned attraction so that he could goad her, but throwing a life-long crush onto the laundry room floor when Coop was already pissed at her wasn’t going to help calm down the situation right now. At best, it would just make the weekend really, really awkward, and then neatly eliminate being able to stay here whenever she got sick of being stuck in hotels and couldn’t get home to LA.

“It means I’m tired and I expected to have laundry done by now,” she said instead.

“Just,” he sighed then glanced over his shoulder when the oven beeped, signaling that it was up to temperature. “Just stay out of my dresser, okay?”

CHAPTER 7

THEN

JENNY SAT THERE and stared at the phone, willing it to ring. Austin was making some toast and coffee for her, easily finding what he needed in the familiar kitchen even though he hadn’t been living there for the past couple of years. Jenny stood up, the chair scraping on the linoleum making Coop look over his shoulder, and he caught her as she crashed into him. He held her tightly as she sobbed, every worst case scenario rolling through her mind leaving her nearly broken in half.

“It’ll be okay,” he promised, trying to get her back over to the chair where she’d been sitting.

She’d been lying on the floor of the apartment kitchen, clutching the cordless phone and holding it in the charger, when he’d gotten here half an hour ago. It had been two days since she’d gotten the first call, the one that Cory had gone missing, and he’d gotten the call this morning from one of the base counselors that she was in this state. He’d flown up on the first flight from Miami and let himself into the apartment with the key set he still kept.

He’d gotten the counselor to go sit in the living room and gotten Jenny into the shower. It looked like she’d been lying there since getting the first call, and she was a mess. He got her washed up and left her standing under the warm spray and then cleaned up the kitchen. The counselor tried to talk to him, but he told the guy that unless he was willing to help with the cleaning he could just stay in the living room until Austin was ready to deal with him. With the kitchen cleaned up, Austin went back to the bathroom and got Jenny out of the shower, dried off, and into clean clothes: Cory’s sweats and tee shirt hung on her much smaller frame.

“Just stay here, okay?” he coaxed her back onto the chair in the kitchen. “You’ll watch the phone for me?” he asked gently. She just nodded, her eyes still leaking, and turned back to stare at the cordless sitting in the middle of the table.

He spread a thin layer of peanut butter on the toast, the way she liked eating it, and poured half a cup of coffee for her. He set the plate and mug between her and the phone and pulled a chair close enough that, sitting beside her, she could rest against him without leaning too badly. She was shaking something awful when she reached for the toast, so he picked up a piece and – her hand resting on his wrist – fed her whatever small bites she would take.

The counselor tried to start running through his standard list of questions and statements. Austin simply told the guy which psychologist on base already had her file, and that Austin would be calling the doctor in the morning to start setting up appointments. The counselor quickly took point and set up a plan for talking to the doctor himself before going home for the night, collected what pertinent information he could, and assured Austin that Jenny’s doctor would be calling in the morning. Austin scheduled a specific time so that Jenny would know why the phone was ringing and not believe it was Cory. Once she’d eaten and finished the half cup of coffee, Austin got two glasses of water into her and took her to her room.

“No!” she cried out as he set her on the bed. “The phone!”

“I’ll answer it,” he tried to sooth her.

“The phone!” she lurched off the bed and ran back to the kitchen.

Austin followed at his normal pace, almost without a limp now, and rounded into the kitchen to find her back on the floor and curled around the phone and charger. He pried the phone out of her hands and got her back on her feet. This time he led her past her room and into Cory’s. He put the cordless from beside Cory’s bed in her hands and then lay down with her on her brother’s bed. She held the phone like a life-line and slowly drifted to sleep.

A couple hours later, the expected beep sounded from his back pocket. He pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open, careful not to wake Jenny up, and with a couple button presses read the single letter in the message. Taking advantage of the phone’s little screen being on, he looked around her and saw the light reflecting off her eyes. She didn’t even look angry when she squinted up at him and away from the small screen.

“Is he okay?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he swallowed hard, not sure how to explain anything.

“My cell broke. He can’t text to this phone,” she held up the cordless.

“No,” Austin admitted. She dropped the handset, then took Austin’s phone out of his hand and flipped it closed. She didn’t move away, just closed her eyes and lay back down using his arm as a pillow again, clutching the cell phone to her chest. Austin wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

The next morning had been the worst interrogation he’d ever been subjected to. Jenny refused to eat until he’d answered every question, and she’d just sat there in silence as he tried to sound normal while setting up her first appointment with her regular doctor. His cell phone had beeped while he was on the call with the doctor, and Jenny had copied the button presses to get to the single letter message from her brother. She held out the cell phone so Austin could see the screen, her eyes blank as she stared at him through the thick lenses of her glasses, and he gave her a ‘thumbs up’ while trying to write down the time that he had to have Jenny to her doctor tomorrow. She closed the phone and, wrapping both hands around it, went back to staring at a spot about ten inches in front of her face. As soon as he hung up, she started asking more questions.

Finally at around noon he was able to coax her into eating. He couldn’t tell if she was livid, terrified, or still in shock as she finished the meal, but at least she’d eaten everything. She wouldn’t give him his cell phone back, he didn’t ask for it, and then sat there in silence as he cleaned up the dishes.

“Why did you leave?” her voice was the same trembling quiet it had been all morning.

“What?” Austin asked, hoping he’d misheard her over the water he was filling the sink with.

“Why did you leave?” she asked again, her eyes boring into him when he turned and looked across the kitchen at her.

“You graduated, started working and modeling. Cory went back on active. My folks needed help at the shop,” he shrugged, replying with the same lies he’d been telling himself for the two years since he’d left. She turned back and stared at his cell phone in her hands.

“I need a cell phone,” she told her hands.

“Keep that one,” he offered. She nodded and just kept staring at the cell.

“Are you going to leave again?”

He crossed the kitchen at sat at the table with her. She didn’t pull her hands away when he wrapped his around hers, but she still didn’t look up.

“Once we know Cory’s safe, but not until we get the official call. I’ll stay until he gets home if you want,” he assured her.

“What if he’s not safe?” fresh tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes. “What if that’s not the call we get?”

“I’ll stay until he gets home,” he promised. He pulled her into his arms and held her as she cried. Her question was the big one in his mind right now, too, but he wasn’t brave enough to try and say it out loud in case it came true.

He stayed with Jenny for the next week, making sure she ate and got to her appointments, confirming every check-in that Cory sent meant that he was still okay. The first night after telling her that her brother had gone missing on purpose, that he was doing some mercenary work, Austin had tucked her into her own bed and then gone to lie down in Cory’s. Not even five minutes later, Jenny had crawled into Cory’s bed with him and curled up against his chest. The next night she hadn’t even bothered pretending to go lie down in her own room, in spite of him arguing with her to do so.

At the end of the week, six hours after the final check-in on the cell phone, the apartment phone started ringing. Jenny listened patiently as Cory ran through the required statements that he had to say so that there wouldn’t be a lot of questions from anyone around him right now. She replied with a lot of the needed things that she had to say as well.

“Austin gave me his cell phone,” she stated quietly before hanging up, and only silence replied. “He gave it to me when he got here last week because mine broke.”

“Did he get a new one?” Cory finally asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“But I can reach you at his number?” Cory sounded relieved. “You have Coop’s phone now?”

“Yes,” she repeated.

“That’s good, baby sister,” she could hear him smiling and his voice hitched a bit. “I like being able to talk to you any time. You keep it with you from now on, okay?”

“I will,” she answered.

“I’m not coming home for a couple more weeks,” he said.

“Okay.”

“I’m going to call you every morning, okay, before you go to work. I’m going to call every day so I can talk to you.”

“I love you,” she stated, tears rolling down her cheeks again.

“I love you, too,” his voice hitched. “I have to go, though. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she held on to the handset until the tone for it being off the hook started, and then she set it back on the charger. “He’s okay,” she announced to the kitchen.

She stood up and swept across the room. The same as the first day he’d gotten here a week ago, she slammed into Austin crying. This time she was laughing too, though, and when her knees buckled it was out of sheer exhaustion, little food, and next to no sleep for the past week. Austin helped her down to her room and tucked her in to bed, hoping she could get a little rest now, and then crashed out on the sofa to watch TV. After a few minutes, she came back down the short hall wrapped in her quilt and, completely ignoring his protests and arguments, curled up under his arm and promptly fell asleep.

CHAPTER 8

THEN

AUSTIN WAVED GOOD-BYE to his folks, yelling more thanks for bringing his truck up on the trailer as they drove out of the parking lot. His mom hadn’t said a thing, but she was full of smiles that he was sticking around the apartment until Cory was home – the date of which had been delayed to a month from the two weeks Cory had told Jenny. Austin wasn’t sure if he was completely crazy or stupid, but having Jenny’s arm wrapped around his waist as she yelled and waved her own good-byes was making it difficult to care about thinking.

“Come on,” he dropped his hand and his arm fell perfectly across her shoulders. “I’ll drop you off at your shoot and then you only have to bus it to work after.”

“Sounds good to me,” she threw her backpack in the truck box and hopped in the passenger side. Austin grinned when he climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. His parents had filled the gas tank before hauling the truck here.

In the week since Cory had surfaced, one of the civilians that he’d rescued had come home and gotten in touch with Jenny. Her dad lived near the base and was one of the top tattoo artists in the state, with a three-year waiting list, and Cory had paved the way for Jenny to skip the line. Her first appointment with him was tomorrow afternoon.

Also during the past week, Austin had gotten Jenny back to work, back to her photo shoots, and back working on her correspondence classes. He hadn’t managed to get her back in her own bed at night yet, but the cuddles were getting really ingrained into his mornings. That was likely why it had been so easy for her to talk him into sticking to his promise for sticking around until Cory got home despite Cory getting delayed.

He confirmed her schedule on the drive, dropped her off, then went over to the nearest big box store to pick up more shorts, shirts, underwear, socks, soap, shampoo, and shaving cream. He’d gotten the random stuff out of his old room – which had been turned into a spare room and junk storage – and was now his room again until Cory got home. Austin still wasn’t planning to stay past picking up Cory from the airport, but he was starting to feel like a jerk for hoping his best friend got delayed again.

He got up to the apartment and cleaned up Cory’s room after having his folks sleep in there last night, and then started laundry. He hated wearing stuff straight from stores – you never knew who had been trying it on before you did. He found a random movie on TV to watch while he was thinking about what to have for lunch. Then his new cell phone rang. Friends he’d told that he was in town were skipping work in favor of a patio afternoon, and that sounded perfect.

∞

Jenny was still smiling as she texted Cooper on her walk to work. She had another shoot set up for after her shift from working this one – but for a full page ad! – and was almost too excited to remember the route to the crappy cashier job she’d had since high school. He replied after a few minutes that the new plan worked fine, he was out with friends. He sent another text the same time she got to work that he would pay for a cab if the bus schedule didn’t line up, he was drinking. Her stomach flipped a bit that he was really sticking around and she breezed through her five-hour shift without caring that most customers were grumpy jerks in check-out lines.

The second photo shoot was only a couple of hours long, aiming for sunset lighting, and Jenny ate take-out at the venue. The photographer was named David and he was so much fun to work with that they ended up going a half-hour over because he wanted to play with angles to see if he could work around the scars on her legs without having to edit the prints. At the end of the day, the swimsuit company’s rep let her keep the bikini. Mostly because he was a leering creep and she looked really good in it, but Jenny didn’t really care because it was a gorgeous little number for the lake this weekend, especially now that Coop had his truck and they would be able to drive there.

She pulled her jeans and tee-shirt on over the bikini, making sure to wiggle a little extra and jiggle appropriately in the right places so the leering creep wouldn’t change his mind about letting her keep the bikini. She was checking over the bus schedule she kept in her purse when David, the photographer, came out and started packing his stuff into his van. After not much coercion on his part, and a lot more laughing from both of them, Jenny climbed in with him and gave him the directions to the base. He talked the whole way about his coworker-turned-new-boyfriend, and then got her contact info so he could call her directly when – he actually said ‘when’ – he wanted her for another shoot. She told him about the tattoo appointment, and ended up inviting him as he wanted to help pick neutral colors and good designs for scar coverage in future photos.

Jenny was nearly floating she was so happy. She didn’t even bother to wait for the elevator, instead running up the stairs to the fifth-floor apartment. Austin had texted not long ago that he was home and eating all the leftovers his mom had made them, and his mom’s leftover lasagna was not something that she wanted to miss after only having crappy take-out. Bad music from whatever radio station Coop was listening to today filled the apartment as completely as the smells of hot lasagna and fresh garlic toast.

“I just had the best day ever!” she announced as she slammed the door and dropped her backpack. “I’m starving!” she added when Coop grinned around the corner into the kitchen at her. Ignoring the butterflies that left her breathless when he smiled like that, she hustled into the kitchen and over to the oven. Two massive chunks of lasagna were already piping hot and crispy-edged. Cooper’s arms snaked around her from behind and he pulled her back from the oven before she could open the door and take out the plate with the biggest piece for herself.

“So why was today so awesome?” he asked, right into her ear and making her fight not to shiver. Austin was just sober enough to recognize that he was excessively horny due to the afternoon’s alcohol removing his inhibitions for him, and drunk enough to be happy about it now that Jenny was tight against him. She pantomimed through the appropriate defenses that he’d taught her to get out of the hold. “Not bad, but even drunk I can tell your reaction time sucks,” he opened another beer and watched her grab the plates out of the oven.

“I hit it off with David, the photographer from this morning, and he asked me – me specifically – to do the shoot after work,” she set the plates on the table and looked around for the garlic toast, spotting it on the counter. “He bumped another model for me, and he asked for my contact info when he gave me a ride home because he wants to work with me again! He’s going to meet up with me at the tattoo appointment so that he can help pick something that photos well.” She grabbed forks and the garlic toast and sat down at the table as she set it all down.

“Congratulations,” Coop tipped his beer in a toast as he sat in the other chair. Jenny had already nearly burned her mouth on the first bite before he even picked up his fork. She gushed out both sessions around mouthfuls of the late dinner, still laughing at the jokes from the evening shoot as she told the stories. Austin decided that he was a dumbass for not coming back sooner and telling her that he was in love with her, and had been for most of his life.

“But none of that even gets close to the best part,” she said, clearing the plates off and setting the half-piece that Cooper hadn’t finished into the fridge as he finished the beer he’d had with dinner and opened another.

“It gets better?” he asked, sitting back and mocking sarcastic awe up at her.

“It really does!” she matched his tone and they both laughed. “I was actually going to save the better part as a surprise, but I can’t wait: I got to keep the swimsuit!” she beamed a smile at him and clapped her hands a few times. “It’s at least a three hundred dollar designer original, and the company rep told me to keep it because he enjoyed ogling my merchandise so much,” she struck a pose that flattered her merchandise not at all and giggled when Coop gave her a disappointed once-over.

“You got to keep a designer swimsuit and I’m looking at jeans and a tee-shirt?” he scoffed into his beer.

“I wasn’t about to saunter across the base in a bikini,” she rolled her eyes. “I’m really pretty,” she paused to burp and push her glasses up her nose, “And I’d get attacked or something.”

“You’re likely right,” he nodded, standing up and leaving his beer on the table. “Yet I’m still disappointed with the current view.”

“I guess you’ll have to drive me to the lake this weekend,” she smiled at him hopefully.

“Maybe,” he said, crossing the kitchen to stand in front of her. “But I’m disappointed right now,” he tugged at the hem of her shirt and, when she didn’t immediately pull it out of his fingers, lifted it past the top of her jeans. Jenny laughed when he leaned back and assessed her stomach as if she was a car part. “It’s definitely a two-piece,” he muttered. She gasped a little and held her breath, biting her lip, when he switched from holding her shirt to sliding his hands up her ribs. “Put your arms up,” he grinned. “I want to see what a designer bikini looks like on a live swimsuit model.”

She hesitated for a moment, heart racing, and then lifted her hands over her head. Her shirt slid off and he tossed it across the kitchen. He leaned back and admired the view.

“What do you think?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

“It looks good so far,” his said, his hands closing on her hips. “I can see why the creep let you keep the top, however,” he hooked his fingers into the waistband of her jeans and slid his hands to the front to pop the button and open the zipper. “I still need to see the rest of it.”

She jumped and her hands dropped to slap the counter he had her pinned against as he shoved his hands around the back of her jeans and squeezed her ass. She gasped and whimpered in the back of her throat, her whole body breaking out in goose-pimples, as he slid her jeans off her hips. He dropped with the jeans, pausing to inspect the top and bottom pieces of the swimsuit closely enough that she shuddered when he blew on her skin.

Austin took his time standing back up, tracing his fingers from her ankles to her waist. Jenny curled her fingers into his shirt and pulled herself against him, pushing up to her toes so that she could kiss him. Instead of returning it, he chuckled and shifted back. Shit… she let him go, grateful he was probably not going to remember that she’d just made a complete fool out of herself when he woke up tomorrow.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” she blurted out the apology to the spot on the floor she was looking at. After a couple of moments of prolonged silence, she looked up. He was standing half-way across the kitchen, staring at her as if…

“You are so beautiful,” he stated, almost talking only to himself.

“So… you like the bikini?” she asked, trying to pose so she looked pretty and failing because she was having a hard time breathing and balancing at the same time when he was staring like that.

“Fuck the bikini,” he scoffed and then peeled of his shirt. He stepped close and pinned her back against the counter, his arms wrapping around her. His hand buried into her hair and locked her head in place so that he could kiss her until her knees buckled.

CHAPTER 9

THEN

JENNY WOKE UP, Austin beside her and still snoring, and smiled to herself as she snuggled a bit closer to him. Her whole body ached and they’d used all the condoms he’d brought into the bedroom. She didn’t know if her legs were going to work to get to the bathroom, and was currently just grateful that she didn’t have the typical burning need to pee that she usually woke up with. She just hoped that when he woke up, he would remember everything. It had been years since he’d been drunk, that she knew of, and she was trying hard to figure out if she should feel like she’d taken advantage of him as he stopped snoring and flexed into a full-body stretch.

Then again, if the same opportunity came up, she’d totally take advantage as many times as she could. That was an easy decision to make as he cuddled, kissed, and caressed through the motions of waking up before he fell asleep again. She reached over and found her glasses on the bedside table, and actually managed to get her fingers to cooperate with operating the simultaneous button presses required to turn off her work alarm clock without setting it off. She didn’t have to wake up for another twenty minutes, but it seemed like she was going to need the extra time just to wobble through her normal routine. She did her morning yoga in Coop’s room – wearing his tee shirt and shorts from yesterday – so that she wasn’t working around the clutter of her own bedroom floor, impressed with herself that she could balance, and finished up in her normal twenty minutes. That meant an extra twenty minutes in the shower. She took a step toward the door and the shirt pulled tight across her front.

“I don’t remember giving you permission to wear that,” Coop grinned up at her when she looked back at where he was pinching the hem of the tee shirt in his fingers. “Or those,” he added, hooking the fingers of his other hand into the waistband of the shorts. He sat up as he pulled her backwards toward the bed, the blanket and sheet sliding until he was almost completely uncovered.

“I didn’t think you’d mind,” she shrugged, trying not to look at the garbage can that had all the used condoms when he stopped her before she could climb onto the bed.

“I do mind, though,” he said, his gaze looking where hers was trying not to go. “And I’m offended enough that you’re going to have to take it off. Right now.”

He enjoyed the adorable amount of uncertainty that came off her in a wave as long as he could stand it – about half a second – and then yanked her onto the bed and out of the shorts in two smooth motions. She only exclaimed in surprise once, and then muttered a bit of encouragement when he nuzzled at her neck and took his time getting his hand up from her ankle to her thigh after dropping the boxers. His head was floating, she wasn’t arguing with his hands, and his shirt was teasing him by staying part way to her knees while she writhed inside it.

The box of condoms from the kitchen was empty on his nightstand, the few left when he’d grabbed it last night getting used up between then and now. Well, now… that made for a tantalizing dilemma, he pondered.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, noticing he was almost distracted.

“No more condoms,” he stopped teasing her long enough to show her the empty box before dropping it in the garbage.

“Oh,” she looked disappointed.

“You want to have a round riding bareback?” he asked, shifting her to straddle his lap. He could actually watch her pupils dilate. “I’m not good at pulling out,” he stated. She licked her lips and leaned into him.

“That’s okay,” she agreed.

∞

Jenny rushed through the shower now that she was running ten minutes late. The part of her mind that was still thinking reminded her that it was garbage pickup day while she was cramming a protein bar in her mouth and pretending it was a healthy and hearty breakfast. She raced through the apartment, collecting from all the bins, grinning that Austin was snoring and still sprawled across the bed as she ducked out to the main hallway and locked the apartment before hurrying out to catch the bus for work.

The seven hour shift flew by and she stepped off the bus outside the tattoo parlor just as David pulled into the parking lot. The artist, Mark, gave her a full hour consultation, David made great suggestions, and she got to meet Mark’s daughter (who was still enthralled with Cory). Jenny actually squealed in the middle of the parlor when the artist said he would do the work for free, and he’d only laughed at her and hugged her and asked her to thank Cory again for getting his little girl home. Her plan from yesterday for going to the beach was completely ruined when Mark offered his usual days off that weekend to complete both legs, and suddenly Jenny was so happy she was crying on David’s shoulder as the photographer hugged her and laughed.

Even crazier, Austin seemed fine on the phone when she called to let him know the great news. There were no weird questions. He had to remember at least something and was still comfortable talking to her so…

“What is it?” David asked, drawing out each word in the question. His grin was absolutely full of mischief when she couldn’t stop smiling even though now she was blushing madly. “That’s the same dumb grin I had all last night after I got home and Kevin told me he’d booked matching flights to Paris so we’d be there together.”

Jenny turned her smile back to her phone and just held it up so he could see the contact screen and Austin’s name and photo. The thumbnail sized picture wasn’t great, but it wasn’t like any photo of Coop ever looked bad.

“Oo-oh,” David smiled at her phone, knowing generally who Austin was from having her babble about him all yesterday. “I’m taking you out for dinner,” he stated. “We’re going to celebrate our great days by having a quick dinner together and then going home to… celebrate.”

Jenny laughed at the emphasis and eyebrow wiggle he put on the last word as he gunned the engine. At some point over the half hour dinner at a cheap diner where they both ordered one of the all-day breakfasts, Jennifer realized that she’d just made a friend. A good one, who wanted to help her with her career without getting in her pants, thought her correspondence classes were brilliant, and could still make her laugh. She hadn’t had a real friend in ages because her work and classes and modeling took all her time and she’d declined so many outings from her friends from high school that they’d stopped calling over a year ago. David scribbled his phone numbers and email on the back of the dinner receipt just after parking on the street outside the gate to the base, then stole her phone for long enough to take a selfie for her contacts list.

She just couldn’t stop being happy as she walked across the base, waving at David after he honked before pulling away, and then whistling to herself all the way to the apartment block.

∞

Austin looked around the apartment again for any clue as to what had happened last night. He didn’t even know when he’d gotten home… things got fuzzy when he skipped lunch in favor of continuing to have beers with his friends and… at least his truck wasn’t in the parking lot. He hadn’t been drinking and driving.

He’d been drinking and doing something, though. He’d woken up alone, but had been feeling smugly sated despite being more than a little hung over. He’d showered and gotten dressed, but nothing seemed too far out of the ordinary. On a worried hunch he’d checked the kitchen drawer and found out the usual box of condoms was completely gone. There weren’t any clues on his phone. Jenny’s stuff was more scattered around the apartment than usual, but the wrapper from one of her protein bars was sitting on the kitchen table and half her bathroom bottles of stuff were open around the sink, so that just meant she’d been in a rush after sleeping in this morning. That happened at least three out of four times she had to go to work.

There hadn’t been anything weird as they’d talked on the phone when she’d called about an hour ago, except that he could hear another guy talking to her in the background while she was on the phone. He tried to tell himself his reaction of wanting to break the phone in his hand after hanging up with her was just leftover overprotectiveness from years of looking out for her, but had zero success on that front. Just like right now he was trying to tell himself that she was late coming home because of the bus schedules without any success, and that he should stop watching out the windows facing the gate she always came through on her way home.

Over an hour after she’d called, he watched her walking across the base toward the block of apartments. She was whistling in between smiling – beaming – and getting more than the usual stares after passing everyone else who was walking… or had been driving past her. A couple of new faces on the base even tried to talk to her before someone higher ranking clued them in to keep marching. She didn’t look worried about coming home.

Austin breathed out a sigh of relief. Whatever had happened last night, he’d been discrete enough that Jenny didn’t seem out of sorts about it. He greeted her like normal, got a hug just for standing there because she was still so happy about the tattoos, made up a quick dinner for himself and bugged her for eating the last of the lasagna even though she said she’d already eaten, and deflected a couple of questions that she hedged about what he’d been up to last night.

Jenny kicked herself at least a dozen times while Coop was cleaning up after dinner that she should fess up about last night, but she wanted him to be okay with it. Actually, she wanted him to be more than okay with it. The fact that he was relieved to be just hanging out like usual, after being strung out a bit when she’d first gotten home, kept changing her mind about talking to him. She wanted him to be as excited as she was about being something more than whatever strange sibling thing they had right now. He really wasn’t interested, though, when she’d thrown out a couple leading questions while they’d been eating.

“Why don’t you pick the movie for tonight?” Coop suggested as he dried off the last plate.

“Homework,” she pointed at the books on the table. He checked the clock and smiled at her the way that killed her ability to say no to anything he suggested after.

“Fine,” he agreed. “But I’m only giving you two hours and then I’m making popcorn.”

“Works for me,” she replied, before her brain had even noticed she was talking.

He put the plate away, hung up the towel, and then was out of the kitchen and into the living room. The TV flared to life as she opened up what she had to get done tonight and she heard the channels skipping until he found something to watch. After about a half hour, she could hear the weights clinking around and had to force herself to concentrate on getting her assignment done. Thankfully she tried to stay ahead of the class in all her classes, something that was easier said than done now that she’d missed a week.

It was two hours to the minute when he came back into the kitchen, freshly showered after working out for over an hour, and tore open a new box of microwave popcorn. By some miracle, she’d finished the assignment notes for one class and gotten some of the next chapter reading done in one of the other classes when Austin swooped over her and pulled the pen out of her hand. He folded the books over on each other so she didn’t need to use bookmarks.

“Movie. Your pick. Go,” he ordered, ushering her up out of the chair and toward the sofa as the popcorn started to pop.

“Don’t forget drinks,” she called over her shoulder.

“Water bottles are on the table out there already,” he answered, flashing that smile at her again.

She found the classic movie channel and sat down with a happy sigh. They were playing one of her favorite, sappy, black and white films.

“This one again?” Austin asked, plunking a bowl of popcorn in her lap as he sat down beside her with a bowl of his own.

“I like this one,” she said around a mouthful of popcorn, pretending to be offended.

“It just makes you cry,” he replied, putting his popcorn on the table and making sure his crutches were in easy reach.

“So? I thought guys liked comforting girls,” she pouted at him.

“Of course,” he agreed, pulling off his prosthetic and sleeve so that he could enjoy the evening in full comfort. “I just don’t like the wet shirt because you always run out of tissues.”

“I’m not going to rub snot on my own shirt,” she shrugged, grabbing the blanket off the back of the sofa and tucking herself under his arm before he was completely settled.

“Now I can’t reach my popcorn,” he said, and then shoved her away for long enough to grab the snack off the table before letting her snuggle back under his arm.

Half way through the movie, she pulled her legs up and cuddled a little closer against his side, enjoying way too much how great he smelled right now. His arm, which had been draped on the back of the sofa, closed around her and his fingers hooked in behind her knee. His thumb absently rubbed on her leg through the blanket for the rest of the film. Jenny watched the motion on the TV screen without seeing the movie. When the credits rolled, she’d made the decision to wrap up getting her tattoos done and healed up by modeling how her legs looked just for Austin… wearing just that bikini the designer rep had let her keep.

CHAPTER 10

LATER

AUSTIN SAT DOWN with his pizza and tried to ignore the underwear model bending over the oven in his kitchen, his old squad tee shirt and a pair of work-out shorts he should’ve thrown out months ago the only thing she was wearing. Jenny announced that the reheated lasagna was still cold in the middle, sighing as she did before turning to eye up his pizza, and he mentally braced that she was going to be leaning over the oven at least once more.

“I’ll flash you for a piece of pizza?” she joked as she straightened up and closed the oven.

“I’ve seen tits before, and after going through my dresser you can wait for your supper,” he replied, grinning before taking the first bite. “This tastes so good,” he said around the mouthful. She scowled at him and rolled her eyes before chuckling.

“I wish I was one of those models that ate half an apple and was stuffed,” she lamented, plunking into another chair and draping her arms and head across the kitchen table dramatically.

“Models like that actually exist?” he asked. He’d only seen the ones that, in packs, could devour a buffet.

“The stereotypes say they do, and stereotypes are never wrong,” she grinned, her glasses crooked because one edge had caught on her arm.

“Those same stereotypes dictate that you should be haughty and rude and only ever wear perfectly fashionable outfits,” he gave her choice of clothing a once over that ended at her crooked glasses and folded over ponytail that left the ends of her hair sticking up over her head like some kind of parrot.

“I am fashionable,” she sat up and smoothed the tee shirt against her stomach and pinned it to her hips with her hands, accentuating all the assets that ensured she had a personal eight month back-log of bookings. He tried not to choke on the pizza he was attempting to swallow. “Sorry,” she laughed, “I probably shouldn’t do this while you’re eating,” she said, then tucked half her bottom lip between her teeth and glared at him with bedroom eyes.

“Especially because once the cops talk to Cory, they’ll know you only killed me for the rest of the pizza,” he said, between mouthfuls of iced tea and coughing.

“You mean ‘I was hungry’ isn’t a viable defense in court?” she stared at him, suddenly high-school-sweetheart innocent and sexy librarian all in one.

“Not when you have luke-warm lasagna in the oven,” he countered. She sighed, pushing her figure to its fullest and stretching his shirt to the limits of the old seams. “Sorry, wasn’t eating that time,” he grinned at her. “But thanks for the show.”

“Can’t blame a girl for trying,” she eyed up the pizza and he closed the box. “Kill joy,” she accused, finally releasing his tee shirt.

“You could’ve just used the microwave like a normal person,” he started eating again.

“But I like the edges all crunchy and a little burnt,” she complained. “It tastes better.”

“Then you’ll just have to keep waiting,” he shrugged. “Sucks to be you. Stay out of my dresser and maybe I’ll share my pizza with you.”

“See, you say that now,” she shook her finger at him like she was chastising him as she pushed back her chair a bit. “But you’ll be mad at me the next time I’m here and you have a girlfriend and you bring her home for dinner after work and I’m sleeping naked on your couch.”

She shifted in her chair and his fake leg twitched.

“What are you doing?” he leaned back to look down just as her big toe found the clips for the fastener straps that held the socket tight around his stump.

“You keep saying ‘dresser,’” she said, her eyes narrowing. “You’re not mad at me for the clothes, but about going through your dresser.”

He was a second too late at knocking her foot away and she unclicked both quick-release buckles at once. She spun up fast and shot out of the kitchen.

“Jenny!” he called after her, having to stop and re-tighten and lock his leg, swearing under his breath at the safety features on his prosthetic having a quick release.

“Is it your porn stash? Or embarrassing photos of you with your old girlfriends?” her voice called out as the first drawer she grabbed banged open.

“Damn it, Jennifer,” he hustled down the hall, hoping she’d start at the top and work down like a normal human.

“A jewelry box?” she held up the cliché black velvet case with gold trim, the bottom drawer of his dresser wide open and half his clothes from it on the floor around her, as he reached the door.

“Can you not…” his voice trailed off as she triumphantly opened the lid. There wasn’t a swear word strong enough for how bad his gut twisted as the grin slipped off her face and was replaced by pure hurt.

“You bought this?” her voice was quiet. Any words he might have said jammed in his throat at the look on her face while she stared at that damn ring. “I even called you from the airport and… and you’d already bought it for that chick who called you while we were having lunch. And you couldn’t even tell me and I called you crying that it had been sold?” she snapped the lid shut and looked up at him, new tears already on her cheeks. “Even knowing I’d stopped back at the store before going home to pack and you didn’t have the balls to tell me?”

He was already shaking his head for ‘no,’ trying to find the words to explain anything, as she climbed to her feet. The shock at finding that ring in his dresser, the one that was nearly an exact match for her mom’s engagement ring that had been destroyed in the crash, was quickly spinning off into anger. Jenny was almost bristling when she squared off with him.

“How could you?” she whispered. “How could you?!” she screamed and threw the box at him. He let it fall after bouncing off his chest because she was following close behind and aiming to run past him.

“I didn’t do that,” he said, catching her arms and letting her momentum drag them both spinning into the hall. “That’s not what happened,” he argued.

“Let go of me, Austin,” she shoved at him, tears streaming down her face, and he held on.

“I didn’t buy it for her, that’s not what happened,” he struggled to hold onto the girl he’d trained to get out of every hold he knew. “I didn’t buy it for her! I bought it for you!” he finally shouted. She slipped out of his hands and staggered back.

“I called you –”

“From the airport,” he finished. “You got the call while we were having a celebration lunch, remember? And you grabbed your stuff out of the truck and hopped a cab for the airport while I was talking to whatever her name was.”

“Rita,” Jenny said after a moment.

“Who cares?” he replied. “You left. The contract with Davie and Kev in Paris and career launching opportunities. Remember all that?”

“That was six years ago,” she stared at him in utter bafflement. “That’s six Christmas’s and six birthdays – fuck, seven birthdays – and you couldn’t even be bothered to wrap it up once?”

“I didn’t buy it to just…” he shrugged and looked away from her, scanning the floor for where the box had bounced. It was close to his real foot.

“To just what?” she asked as he bent to pick it up and then checked to make sure the ring was still inside.

“It doesn’t matter,” he snapped the lid closed and turned away, walking back into his room and the middle of the mess in front of his dresser.

CHAPTER 11

THEN

AUSTIN GRINNED AT Jenny across the table. She was nearly half done wolfing down the restaurant serving of pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausages, on top of already having two cups of orange juice and a coffee while they were waiting for the food to come out. A couple ladies at the next table over were glaring at her over their fruit bowls and plain toast.

“You’re allowed to taste the food before you swallow it,” he joked at her.

“It hits my tongue, so I can taste it fine,” she opened her mouth to show him the half eaten glob right before she swallowed.

“I’m trying to eat, here,” he scoffed at her.

“You’re ex-military. That probably looked better than half of what you ate in training,” she shot back between giggling and starting her third orange juice.

“Where are you even putting all of that,” he made a show of looking under the table. She made it worth it by leaning back as far as the booth allowed, lifting up her shirt, and stroking her fingers over her perfectly flat stomach.

“Right here,” she was grinning at him when he sat back up straight. That only lasted until he picked up his fork, though. She was already eating again.

“There’s still over an hour before I have to drop you off,” he reminded her. “You have time to chew.”

“You eat your food and leave me alone,” she stabbed her knife in his general direction. A few minutes later her phone rang and Austin listened in to her side of the now daily phone call with Cory. He managed to get ahead of her at eating while she was talking, finding out that she wanted to go window shopping on the street they were eating on when she told her brother. Basically she wanted to do some walking before the minimum eight hours of lying down she would be doing for her first tattoo session today. Austin didn’t mind that plan at all. By the time he sat down again from paying the bill for both their meals, she was in a food high and sipping her coffee, half a piece of bacon and a burnt end of a sausage the only evidence that there had been a full meal when the plate was set in front of her.

“So when were you going to let me know you wanted to go window shopping?” he asked, sliding into his side of the booth.

“Right about now so that you were in a good mood after eating when I asked,” she smiled over her coffee cup. Austin was glad he was already sitting down. He would’ve tripped if he’d still been trying to walk when she looked at him like that.

“I’m ready to go when you are,” he smiled back at her. She thumped the cup onto the table and grabbed her purse, pulling the strap over her head as she stood up so it was slung across her body.

“Then get your ass up and let’s go.”

They strolled up the sidewalk for a few blocks, enjoying the good weather, and popping in and out of the shops that were open. Jenny glanced at the window of a closed jewelry store and cut off in mid-sentence, stopping to stare at the display.

“What is it?” Austin asked as he came back to where she was frozen. Her hand was shaking as she pointed at one of the engagement rings.

“It’s just like my mom’s,” her voice was shaking. “I didn’t know Dad spent that much, though,” she tried to make a joke out of the moment.

“Why wouldn’t he? Your mom was awesome,” Austin wrapped an arm around her and she smiled up at him gratefully before burying her face in his shoulder and hugging him tightly.

He kissed the top of her head, the easiest plan in the world pulling together in his mind. His pension paid for living expenses while he was here, living at Cory’s. His salary at his dad’s shop paid his mortgage and bills, which left his pension usually as extra investment funds and splurge money when he wanted to do something fun. He could afford that ring if he spaced it out over three payments. He noted when the shop opened, thankfully after she was due for her tattoo, and gently pulled her along as he turned to start back toward the truck.

“Come on,” he coaxed her off his chest, but kept her snugged under his arm. “Let’s get you over to Mark so he can vandalize your body.”

The comment got the laugh Austin needed after knowing that she’d started to cry a bit. They discussed whether or not she had everything she was going to need for the day: course books, laptop, note book, snacks, a novel and a couple magazines, and four water bottles. Mark had promised that he would order pizza for lunch. Austin packed Jenny into his truck and got her to the parlor on time, triple-checked to make sure she had her phone, and then drove straight back to the jewelry store.

∞

Jenny did as much school work as she could, based on the positions that she needed to lie in and what she could do while in those positions, and read both the magazines when she was done with thinking hard. Between that, conversations with Lindsay, Mark’s daughter, and the times that she just didn’t want to do anything but watch her scars slowly disappearing under the beautiful designs, the eight hours flew past. Mark even let her leave her stuff overnight so that she didn’t have to pack the books and laptop back and forth.

Cooper picked her up right on time and they went straight home – per Mark’s instructions for tattoo care – and Jenny spent half the night after dinner sitting at the kitchen table, crying, because she was just happy. Coop laughed at her and hugged her enough times that she actually did end up getting snot on his shirt. David called and demanded she text him photos of the leg that was done. Then he called back after getting the first picture and demanded a photo of Austin, Kevin’s voice in the background that he needed proof that David’s new model had a suitably attractive partner. Jenny laughingly obliged, although Cooper looked less than impressed that she was sending his picture to a photographer.

Once she’d managed to quit crying, Austin tucked her into the blanket on the couch and they watched his favorite movie from a DVD, sharing chips from the same bag. Then they went to bed, she snuggled up tight to his chest and sighed happily, and he played with her hair as she fell asleep.

∞

The next day was perfect again. Morning snuggles went over the line into groping but, instead of apologizing like usual once he was completely awake, Coop said that he wasn’t saying sorry anymore and if she didn’t like getting felt up then she had to start sleeping in her own room. Then he was already making pancakes when she got out of the shower. David sent her too many selfies from the airport while she was at the tattoo parlor, and she replied with progress photos on the second leg in between homework and more pizza. When Cooper picked her up, she was only wearing shorts – something she hadn’t done out in public since the crash.

She talked Cooper into taking a couple of pin-up pose photos with her phone at the front desk, and then some with Mark’s digital camera that he promised to email to her later that night – making sure to get the parlor logo in all of them. She was ahead on her homework again, not that far but at least not trying to catch up, and she didn’t have to work tomorrow because she’d switched her shift with one of the other cashiers. She had a perfect plan to sit at home with hurting skin and watch movies all day.

Dinner was just spaghetti noodles with a jar of sauce and some reheated, frozen meatballs out of a box. It didn’t matter, though, because it was what she’d wanted to have. She made it, it tasted just like it was supposed to, and she and Coop ate all of it. He had plans for the next day to do some parts shopping for his folks, so having a movie buddy was out, but he promised to be home by six so she promised to have dinner ready. She made him pick the first movie, and the comedy set a good tone for the new action flick that she’d been wanting to watch.

He’d already changed into his usual shorts, tee shirt and crutches that he wore in the evenings, his prosthetic stowed for the night, when she was microwaving popcorn for the second movie. Jenny definitely bit her lip about it, but came out from the bathroom in just her pajamas. Cooper gave her the once-over glance that she was hoping for, the one where she could almost feel the look as a physical touch.

“Well now, look at you getting all confident and cocky with new legs,” he grinned at her from the sofa. She arched her arms over her head and did a mock ballerina spin in slow motion. He slapped her in the ass with a throw pillow. “Sit down and watch the damn movie. You picked it,” he laughed at her as she flopped onto the sofa beside him.

She snuggled up under his arm and sighed happily as she grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. Austin settled with his arm around her and his hand on her waist rather than hooking her leg again (he already had four tattoos so knew exactly how her legs were feeling right now). Fifteen minutes into the movie, the hinge on her glasses was digging into his pec and he could feel his shirt starting to get wet around the same place that the corner of her mouth was sitting. He grinned down and looked around the top of her head to confirm she really was that hard asleep already before he pulled her glasses off. For a minute, Austin debated waking her up and turning in for an early night, and then he just turned the volume down on the movie and pulled the blanket off the back of the sofa to tuck around her.

It hit him as the movie was wrapping up that this was – quite possibly – going to be life, now. He had two payments left on the ring, the last one to pay it off was coming up in just under five weeks, and Cory was now going to be home just under four weeks from today. Austin was confident he could get Jenny to see him as more than just another older brother in the coming weeks, he would be able to tell Cory his plan in person, and then when he asked Jenny… it seemed the lesser of the options that she would say no. Her correspondence classes were wrapping up in the next month or so on her two-year course – he had to remind her to look into challenging some of the courses that she was just going through the motions for, maybe she could wrap up sooner – and he’d just bought the house in Miami. She loved the modeling career she was building, and Miami had good opportunities. Besides, with the internet, cell phones, and airplanes, she’d probably be able to live anywhere and still have a great career.

He wasn’t into the travel and glamorous world of celebrity life, especially the grit and hard work part of it that people outside the industry didn’t see, but he really liked the idea of being her home base. Movie nights and morning cuddles, crazy phone calls to each other to just vent about their days, Christmases with his folks and Jenny eating all the leftovers by the end of the night…. Somewhere in there, Jenny wanted to finish her Business Degree. That meant university. Maybe they could even work it out for kids to fit into that life, too – she was already juggling two jobs and staying ahead on full-time correspondence. Austin would keep the nine-to-five job at his dad’s shop, he liked working there too much not to, and they’d figure out Jenny’s career and education as they went.

Austin turned off the TV as the movie credits gave way to commercials and then just smiled at the quiet living room. He couldn’t even pretend there wouldn’t be bad days, but the imagining of picking up Jenny at the airport, one or two kids running up to the gate ahead of him and calling her ‘mom,’ one or two people stopping them on the way to the car to ask her for autographs, and that silly smile on her face that someone recognized her… getting the kids to bed late and falling asleep together on the sofa when they tried to watch a movie once the house was quiet. Yeah, good days like that would blow away any of the bad ones.

“Come on, slobber monster. Time for bed.”

He rubbed her back to wake her up slow. She complained wordlessly and just shifted how she was lying, her arms sliding around his waist and squeezing tight, and then her whole body relaxed again.

“Sorry, wrong answer,” he chuckled, nudging her closer to awake. “I want to get some sleep too.” He stole a kiss while she was still befuddled, stretching it for a second until she kissed him back. “Come on, let’s go to bed,” he murmured. She smiled, still dazedly half-asleep, as he got her glasses into place so that she wouldn’t trip getting from the living room to the bedroom.

Her bare feet padded down the hall ahead of him and he turned off lights as they cleared the rooms. He ducked into the bathroom to relieve his bladder and then bantered with her about sticking to one side of the bed because she’d crawled in closest to the wall so he wouldn’t have to climb over her. Not a bad argument to have, considering it meant he got to settle his point by having her climb over him. She’d also opted to keep sleeping in his room after he’d told her he was going to keep feeling her up every morning.

CHAPTER 12

THEN

AUSTIN GLANCED AT his phone and silenced it. He’d been doing great sourcing some parts for his folks that they’d had a hard time finding, Jenny’s tattoos were healing up great, and they were celebrating with lunch out that she’d been able to challenge all of her classes – in a couple cases she’d inquired just in time for getting into the early exams – and had finished writing her last final an hour ago. Also this morning, his dad had called to let him know that the shop had done well enough that everyone was getting a half-year bonus and that worked out to an extra pay cheque, so Austin had already gone over to the jewelry store and spent it. The ring was in the glove box in his truck three and a half weeks ahead of schedule.

“Who was it?” Jenny pointed at his phone.

“Rita,” he shrugged. He’d met with her twice for coffee – not even dinner, and definitely nothing physical – and she was getting worse about calling and texting rather than going away. He thought he’d been pretty clear by flat-out telling her he wasn’t interested days before he’d flown up here while Cory was M.I.A, but she kept calling. Jenny snorted out a laugh. This wasn’t the first time Austin had gotten random dates that wouldn’t go away, and she never failed to find all of them hilarious.

“She loves you. You’re just going to have to deal with it by flying home and marrying her,” she stated, her tone flat but her whole body trying not to break out with the laughter dancing in her eyes. He snorted a laugh, realizing that he wasn’t just going to ask his best friend’s sister to marry him. He was actually asking his best friend, and she was amazing.

“Cory will be home in a couple weeks,” Austin shrugged, frowning at the text message notification that beeped up at him. “I can ship him to Miami for her to obsess over. He’s prettier than me.”

“He’s got enough women here obsessing over him,” she snickered into her pasta. “Serves you both right,” she said, pausing as she chewed and swallowed the next bite. “Both of you being as smart, funny, financially stable, and good looking as you are, but staying single? You’re terrible teases for all straight women.”

“Says the funny, single, underwear model that just finished her correspondence courses two months early,” he shot back at her.

“True,” she loaded her fork again, and then stopped to grin at him. “But I’m not partial to straight women.”

He laughed and then turned to glance down as his phone beeped again. Against any common sense, he checked the latest messages as Jenny pulled out her phone and smiled at her latest message. He felt what was becoming a familiar stab of jealousy as she focused back on her lunch. She was smiling at her phone a lot, and pretty well all the messages were from her photographer friend, David. He looked through Rita’s six messages since he’d last checked his phone a couple hours ago and decided to put the foul feelings in the center of his chest to good use: he was better at being mean to everyone when he was angry about one thing.

“I’ve got to call her,” he said, twisting in his chair so that he could stand up. Jenny looked surprised, but only for a moment.

“Oh, uh, okay,” she said as he stood up. He looked like it was something serious as he walked away. Jenny tried to brush it off that he was interrupting their celebration lunch to call another woman – long distance – but it chipped at the edges of her confidence. She tried to not feel ‘friend-zoned’ and failed at it miserably.

Cooper did have a lot of women watching him, all the time, just like Cory did. Being around these two was like being stuck in a constant shadow. A warm, safe shadow that usually smelled great, but to think that Coop didn’t have options for who to date whenever he wanted to have a date was naïve at best. Aside from morning cuddles, which only happened because she was there before he was completely awake, she was still just his surrogate baby sister.

Her phone dinged again as Coop put his to his ear. She looked down and… squealed until she could control it.

HE SAID YES!! CALL ME!!

Ignoring that everyone in the restaurant was staring at her, she quickly punched the call button. David babbled about his sudden engagement, Kevin babbling over top of him as they both tried to talk into the phone at the same time, and Jenny trying to congratulate them as all three of them talked over each other.

“Okay, enough of that,” David interrupted all of them with a laugh. “I was going to call you on Wednesday but I’ll just tell you now. I told you before that Kevin and I were working together, but we were looking at going out on our own, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” Jenny replied.

“We got extra funding yesterday!”

Jenny squealed again, not having any words with how happy their good news was making her.

“Right?!” Kevin yelled into the phone.

“I’m so happy for you!” she finally managed to pull words out of the squealing.

“Everything was already set up and going forward anyway, it just would’ve been a lot harder starting from scratch, but we incorporated this morning and –”

“And my gorgeous fiancé pulled a cold interview out of his magic hat with a big client this afternoon,” Kevin interrupted, boasting.

“So I need to know when you’re finished your classes, and if you’ll sign on with us when you’re done, because I already sold the tattoo pin-up poses you emailed to me as you being one of my full-time models and I don’t want to beg but I will,” David prattled, and then waited. He was holding his breath, but Jenny couldn’t talk yet. Kevin rattled off the name of the client, and that they were going to call three other models that they wanted to work with and wanted Jenny to know that she would be leading a really great team. David added that she was their first pick and they wanted to build their name around her, and of course part of their plan was to get her set up as an agent so they had a pool to pull from and they knew she wanted to keep going with her Business Degree, so it was a perfect fit. Then Kevin asked if her passport was up to date, and told her that she’d have to be ready to travel because they wanted her in Paris with them as soon as possible to get started.

Jenny looked over at where Coop was still talking to Rita. He was smiling across the restaurant at her, the same confused grin as everyone else that was looking at her with because of how excited she was.

“I wrote my last final this morning,” she said, into the phone. “And Cory took me to Cyprus last summer so my passport is current.”

“I know you can’t see me but I’m on my knees begging,” David pleaded.

“He’s only ever done that for sex!” Kevin blurted out, laughing.

Jenny looked over at Cooper again; he was still on the phone. Kevin yelled the starting salary from nearby the phone, but not talking directly into it anymore, as he started listing off online flights to Paris. David talked over top of the yelled dates and times, assuring her that they both wanted to help her with her own agency business plan – her being independent once she was established would help them as well.

“I’ll come,” Jenny said.

“She said yes!” David yelled, the phone away from his mouth, and Kevin and he both whooped. “Get her here before she can change her mind,” David ordered, bringing the phone back so he could just talk.

“There’s a direct from there to here that leaves at seven tonight?” Kevin asked.

“That’s in only five hours,” Jenny could barely find her voice.

“Then it’s perfect,” David was beaming, she could hear it.

“I’ll pick you up here at the gate so you’re not stuck looking for a cab, you’ll of course stay with us, and our company will pay the flight – oh, seat sale because it’s last minute!” Kevin called out.

Jenny looked over at Austin. He was still on the phone and not looking her way anymore.

“I have to pack,” she said into the phone. “I have to pack!” she said it again, realizing what was going on and thunderstruck. Her dream career had just exploded into full-time reality. “I have to pack!” she laughed and dug into her purse.

“She said yes!” David was almost squealing. “Book it! Book it!”

“I am,” Kevin replied.

“Book it faster!”

“I’m going as quickly as the website,” Kevin was trying to sound testy, but he was laughing too much.

“What do I have to pack?” she asked, pulling a twenty and a ten out of her wallet and handing it to the waitress that had been serving them, then gesturing that Coop would pay for whatever was left over as she stood up, listening to David’s quick list of required clothing and toiletries and then that if she didn’t have, or forgot, or needed more of something then that was just an excuse to go shopping.

“Wait, what’s going –?” Coop held out a hand as she was hurrying past him.

“I’ll call you, promise! It’s all good news!” she called back, beaming a smile at him and then rushing outside to grab her backpack out of the back of the truck. She hopped into a cab that just dropped someone off and gave the driver the address and directions to the apartment.

“It’s booked!” Kevin yelled over David’s planning spree, laying out the next four years that his and Kevin’s business plan had covered.

“Oh – stop here!” Jenny suddenly told the driver. “Please wait, I’ll just be right back.”

David and Kevin hung up the call with her as she was climbing out of the cab. She darted into the jewelry shop that she’d seen that ring in the other day, almost threw up the lunch she’d eaten when they told her it had been sold and picked up that morning, and somehow managed to trip her way back out to get back in the cab.

Kevin texted her their company credit card information to pay for the cab ride. She managed to hold it together in the car, paid with the info from her phone, asked the driver to come back in two hours to pick her up for the airport, and then ran upstairs to the apartment before she cried. She kicked herself for wasting time blubbering, she should’ve known such a beautiful ring wouldn’t have lasted, and then hurried down the hall to Cory’s room and where they kept the stash of bags and suitcases under his bed.

She pulled together what she hoped was everything she needed and piled it up in the middle of her bed, then packed all of it tightly into the suitcase she’d picked. It all fit with a little room to spare, so she rolled up one of Cory’s small duffels around a soft-sided overnight bag and filled the leftover space with extra luggage. Best to be prepared.

She called her bank to let them know she was traveling so they didn’t suspend her cards by accident, and to get the exchange rate for currency in France so she knew about how much available cash she would have when she got there. To Paris. In France!

She called her crappy cashier job and quit, apologizing for the short notice. Then she lugged the suitcase out to the kitchen and packed her backpack with everything she figured she would need at the airport and during the flight, confirmed three times that her passport was in the front pocket, and printed off the emailed copy of the plane ticket. For today. To Paris!

She powered off the laptop and tucked it into her backpack, too, and hauled everything over to the front door. Then came back into the kitchen and grabbed the almost forgotten laptop power cable and her phone charger, and a protein bar to eat in the cab to the airport. For her flight. To France!

She locked the door from the inside, left her keys on the little side table just inside the door, made sure her suitcase and backpack were both in the hall with her (and that her passport was in the front pocket of the backpack with the plane ticket). She stopped herself from closing the door just in time to reach in and grab her purse, crammed it into her backpack as well, and then closed the door. David had said anything she forgot was an excuse to go shopping. With her. In Paris!

CHAPTER 13

THEN

AUSTIN STARED AT the coffee table and made sure that he had the inventory that he needed for when Cory showed up. The phone call yesterday had been pretty clipped. Cory was pretty pissed. To be honest, Austin was looking forward to Cory getting here. At least tomorrow he’d have a reason for not getting out of bed. Hopefully it wasn’t a hospital bed, but that could be okay, too. Then he’d have a reason for a few days at least.

He finished off his second beer and cracked open a third. The ring that had been burning a hole in his pocket the day he bought it was a cold rock that stared back at him from on top of the plane tickets to Los Angeles on top of the cooler. He’d actually gone to the airport the day before yesterday, and then bailed on the flight when he was in line to board. He just couldn’t do it.

The same as he hadn’t been able to say anything when she’d called from the airport six months ago with the great news about the contract after running out on their lunch. Her awesome career was taking off at the same pace as the plane she was on out of the country.

The worst part was not being able to not be happy for her.

His phone had finally gotten sick of getting thrown every couple of days after she would call and the reception had gotten spotty. That’s when the bad call had come in. She’d been so fucking excited. He didn’t even remember what he’d said, just that he’d smashed his phone for good after that and had to go buy another one the next day.

He’d bought a plane ticket to Los Angeles to be there for when she was going to fly in, but hadn’t been able to make himself leave work. The second flight had been the last one if he’d wanted to actually get there for the wedding yesterday, and he just couldn’t make himself get on the plane. And he still couldn’t stop being happy for her.

When Cory had called late last night, he’d said she’d been crying about Austin not coming to LA. That’s why Cory was flying out to Miami today and had texted about an hour ago that he was on the ground and already had Austin’s address. He’d promised when they were eleven years old that if Cooper ever made Jenny cry, Cory would whoop his ass.

Austin had left the front door unlocked, the outside light on, and hadn’t bothered to park his truck in the garage.

Austin knew his parents were worried about him, but he’d talked to his therapist from back during PTSD – who the Hell else could he call, it wasn’t like he’d advertised that he was going to propose to her – and they’d found out about that. Mostly they were just being perfect and supportive, the same as always. Somehow, that was better and worse. Better because he wasn’t alone; worse because he was.

He heard a car stop in the driveway and the engine turn off. A few moments later the door to it thumped closed, and after that a second door closed. Austin counted off the seconds until the front door to the house opened and closed. Cory sighed, and Austin could feel the glare boring into the back of his head.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Cory opened the conversation, emphasizing his point by dropping his duffel and locking the deadbolt on the front door.

“How was the wedding?” Austin asked, trying to finish the beer in one go now that – as everyone military who knew Cory called him – The Reaper was here.

“Fun, mostly,” Cory answered. Austin could hear him taking off his coat. “So where the fuck were you?” he demanded, hanging his coat in the front closet.

Austin stared at the third of the beer that he hadn’t been able to chug, not having any way of answering. Where would he even start? And at this point, did any of it even matter?

Cory came into the room and glared hard at Austin, then at everything on the table. He’d known Austin’s phone was glitching out, but Austin hadn’t been able to tell Cory why. He hadn’t figured out the words to tell anyone why.

Cory sighed after coming to the only conclusion that the stuff on the table could actually mean, picked up the velvet box and snapped it shut, and dumped the plane tickets on the floor when he opened the cooler to find a six pack of the beer that he liked. He set the small box back on the table beside the cooler as he sat down in the chair and opened a beer. He took a long drink before he rested the beer on the arm of the chair and just stared at Austin.

“You are, without a doubt, the dumbest fucking grunt that ever breathed,” Cory stated, surprisingly calm.

Austin finally looked over at him. Cory was blond and blue-eyed, maybe an inch or two taller than Austin, and being in active military – with a few mercenary missions under his belt now – kept him fitter than most people. He was also the male version of Jenny’s good looks, without anything soft about him to make him look gentle. Needless to say, he was an intimidating guy when he took a mind to be. Right now he was trying not to spill his beer as he dug something out of the back pocket of his jeans without the hassle of standing up again.

“Before I prove myself as stupid as you, I’m going to make sure I have this straight,” Cory settled again, a folded flyer in his hand, tucked into his palm so that Austin couldn’t see what was on it. “That’s the ring Jenny was crying about for a couple weeks?”

Austin nodded and took another long swallow of his beer.

“So, you’re the asshole who bought it or did you steal it?”

“Bought it,” Austin admitted.

“Then she flew out and you progressively did that whenever she called you,” Cory pointed with his beer at the pieces of Austin’s old phone that were in a baggie beside the cooler. “And that’s why your reception went to shit while living in Miami.”

“Yeah,” Austin confirmed, staring at his own beer again.

“You got your new phone right around when she told me about the wedding. So that happened when she told you?” Cory asked, pointing at the busted phone with his beer again.

“Right again,” Austin confirmed, taking another drink.

“But your reception sucked, so the phone call you got was…?” Cory’s voice trailed off and left the question hanging. Austin stared at his friend, but Cory just kept waiting for him to reply. Austin finally sighed and stared at his beer. That was easier than trying to hold Cory’s full attention.

“Did she at least look nice when you gave her away?” he asked the drink in his hand.

“So, after that phone call, you still bought those?” Cory ignored the question and tapped the plane tickets on the floor with his foot. “One had you flying out last week and the other,” he shoved them around a bit with the toe of his shoe so he could read it, “had you flying out so that you would’ve been there yesterday morning.”

“Yeah,” Austin agreed and finished his beer.

“You also did some anger management property replacement before you left my apartment,” Cory noted, alluding to the new TV and DVD player that Austin had to buy him after throwing the weight stand into the previous ones. Austin had just told him that he’d been mad and it was an accident. “Total coincidence that was in the same week Jenny called me after landing in Paris.”

Austin scoffed and swapped his empty beer for a full one from the cooler on the floor beside his foot in front of the sofa.

“Where’s your fake leg?” Cory asked once Austin had opened his fourth beer and was sitting back again.

“I already put it away,” Austin stated.

“Worried I was going to break it? Or worried that I’d beat you with it?” Cory cracked a grin before taking another drink.

“Yes,” Austin replied to both questions with the single word.

“Why would I break the prosthetic when you have a real one right there?” Cory asked, his tone leaving it open for Austin to pick if he wanted to take it as rhetorical or not. “Are you talking to anyone about this? Or just taking it out on electronics?”

“I called Doc Billinstren a couple times,” Austin stated. Cory nodded around his beer as he was taking a drink, recognizing the name.

“What about your folks?” Cory asked the obvious. Austin chugged half his beer in one drink. “That’s a solid ‘no’ if I’ve ever seen one. Do you want me to tell them? I expect they’re worried.”

“No,” Austin answered. His parents knowing somehow added a level of shame into the whole mess. Cory sighed and looked around the living room.

“Where are your crutches?” he asked, and then took a long drink as he looked around the living room again.

“Broom closet in the kitchen,” Austin finally admitted when Cory was looking at him again. Cory snorted a laugh and shook his head, then finished his beer and set the empty on the table.

“You just put everything away and hopped over here to wait,” Cory stated, wiping the condensation on his hand from the bottle onto his jeans as he stood up.

He looked around to get his bearings in the unfamiliar house and then walked over to the kitchen. Austin heard the pantry door open and then close, and then the broom closet door opened. His aluminum crutches rattled together as Cory picked them up. The closet door closed and Cory walked back into the living room to drop the crutches on the sofa beside Austin.

“You know, I always knew you weren’t the brightest bulb in the box,” Cory said, pausing to burp as he leaned on the back of the sofa so that he could talk directly to Austin. “I mean, you’re intelligent. But you’re a fucking idiot, too.”

Austin looked at his friend, waiting for the first punch now that Cory was done his beer.

“You really think I carried what was left of your ass for fifty yards – under enemy fire – just to beat you now because you’re too dumb to propose to the woman you’re in love with?”

Austin turned back to stare at the beer in his hand and somehow ended up staring at the velvet box on the coffee table. Whatever flyer Cory had been holding dropped as Cory stood up straight, hitting Austin in the chest and tumbling down to his lap.

“Get your head out of your ass. Call my sister and apologize for not being at the wedding,” Cory ordered, walking over to the front door. “This is my third time zone in four days. I’m going to bed,” he announced, picking up his duffel from by the front door before walking down the hall. Austin listened to lights click on and off as Cory looked at each room before going in to where Austin had set up a spare bed for him and closing the door.

Austin finished his beer before working up the nerve to look at what Cory had thrown into his lap. Austin stared at the wedding itinerary for a long time, thankfully alone for dealing with the crushing humiliation. He finally leaned forward and set the itinerary for David and Kevin’s wedding, which noted Jennifer Reaper as David’s best man, on the coffee table.

“FUCK!” Austin yelled at nobody, realizing when it exploded inside the TV screen that he’d launched the empty bottle he’d been holding. At least he’d been smart enough to unplug everything in expectation of being the object getting hurled and not wanting to get electrocuted.

The door to the spare room slammed open and Cory burst into the hall. Austin leaned over his lap and laced his fingers behind his head. It was a prone pose, military submission, in case he’d triggered Cory. It was also a handy way of folding up in preparation of puking over being so very, very stupid for six months and having all your dumb crash in on you at once after not having dinner and pouring four beers down your throat in quick succession.

Cory was walking normally when he came into the living room to survey the damage.

“You unplugged everything before I got here?” Cory asked from over by what was left of the TV.

“Yeah,” Austin answered, not moving.

“That’s seriously paranoid, dude.”

“Yeah.”

Cory moved around the living room and Austin heard his empties clink as Cory put them on the coffee table. The cooler lid opened for a second, then closed, and Cory chuckled as he moved the crutches so that he could sit down.

“I see you’re still living up to be called ‘Cheap Date,’” Cory said once he was settled.

“Fuck off, Drunk Tank.”

Cory laughed and slapped Austin on the back a couple times and then left his hand there. Technically they were comforting pats, but Cory wasn’t really in his element being comforting. Austin sat up enough to rest his elbows on thighs and let his hands hang.

“That’s about time. I thought you were waiting for me to take you prisoner,” Cory left his hand on the back of Austin’s shoulder.

“I fucked up everything,” Austin admitted.

“Only if you don’t bother trying to fix it. Call her,” Cory offered. He slapped Austin on the back again and stood up, his steps taking him around the sofa and then pausing as he leaned on the back again. “Word of advice, though: don’t call her while you’re drunk. G’night.”

The door to the spare room closed again after a few seconds. Austin sat back and stared at his ruined TV, empathizing with it more than he probably should. It was an awesome representation of the molotov cocktail he’d firebombed his attempted relationship with Jenny with, at least. He sighed and leaned forward to pick up his crutches off the floor where Cory had left them, and then went down the hall to his bedroom. Might as well have the rest of the melt-down privately, he figured, and closed the door.

CHAPTER 14

LATER

“WHAT IF IT does matter?” she asked, her voice small.

He was half way through refolding and putting away the shirts she’d dumped on the floor. When he glanced at her, she was framed in the doorway to his bedroom and backlit from the kitchen lights. Everything about her looked uncertain and fidgety. He wanted to say the right thing and – this time – end up waking up tomorrow with her in his arms, but nothing in his head sounded good enough. As usual. Lots of words, and not a single thing to say. He went back to folding and putting away shirts.

Her footsteps padded into his bedroom and she picked up the jewelry box from where he’d set it on top of his dresser. He could actually feel her staring at the side of his head as she knelt down to sit beside him, her ass resting on her feet like at the start of her morning yoga routine. He made a point of not looking at her.

“Coop?” she asked in the same small voice.

He grabbed the few remaining shirts off the floor and stuffed them in the drawer. The whole dresser shook when he slammed the drawer closed.

“Austin?” she asked, her hand settling on the inside of his elbow.

“What do you want me to say?” he didn’t move from holding the drawer shut, and she didn’t give him any answer. “I didn’t buy it to give it to you. I bought it for you,” he finally admitted. “But you left.”

“I came back,” she told him. He scoffed a laugh and shook off her hand.

“Yeah,” he agreed and then stood up. “You came back after David’s wedding.”

“Oh,” she replied. He hadn’t ever come up with a good excuse for missing the wedding, and never got up the nerve to give her the reason. Eventually the awkwardness had gone away between them and they’d gone back to whatever it was they’d always been.

He wanted to walk out. At the very minimum he wanted to go for a long drive and not come home until she was sleeping… or had left to go stay at a hotel. To do any of that, though, he either had to kick Jenny out of the way or climb over the bed.

“Why did you leave that first time? When Cory went back on active you just picked up and left,” she wrapped both hands around velvet box, not looking up and not otherwise moving when she asked.

I couldn’t trust myself around you anymore and you weren’t even old enough to vote, the honest answer rolled through his mind and stopped at his throat.

“It doesn’t matter,” he finally said. “Can you get out of the way, please? I don’t want to… I don’t want to be here right now.”

She stood up but stayed planted in front of him in the same place that she’d been sitting. After a few seconds, she hesitantly set the box back on the corner of his dresser and then turned and walked out of his room. The oven chimed for being turned off, but he didn’t hear her take the lasagna out. He stared at the velvet box for longer than he needed to, the same thing he always did whenever he had it out of the drawer.

He needed a beer.

She was sitting at the table when he walked past, staring at a spot somewhere half-way between herself and the floor. He grabbed his truck keys and made sure to lock the door on the way out like he always did whenever she was there alone. He made it as far as sitting in the truck with the keys in the ignition and his seatbelt on. He even managed to push the clutch to the floor and hold on to the keys as if he was going to start the engine, lying to himself that he could stay at his parents’ place for tonight.

He pulled the keys out of the ignition, took off his seatbelt, and leaned forward to rest his head on the steering wheel. If he drove away right now, best case for the rest of his life meant he would be seeing her whenever he visited with Cory and it lined up with her visiting with her brother. If he went back inside right now, that might be the worst case. He stared at the mileage on the odometer and tried to convince himself that maybe she wasn’t already packing, and that he might not completely fuck this up. Again.

∞

Jennifer listened to the front door click shut. She huffed a single laugh when the deadbolt slid into place, just like Coop always did when she was here alone because he’d never got past her teenage worry that where she was living would get broken into.

Her mind was racing in circles, most of them around and around the ring on his dresser. Was there any possible way that she could have screwed up her personal life any worse than by being such an asshole tonight? Probably not, the obvious answer over-rode the rest of the anxiety for a few seconds.

She heard the door close on Austin’s truck. The finality behind the sound shattering the hope that he would just come back and they’d argue and awkwardly apologize and eat their dinner over forced conversation and watch an old movie like they seemed to always do. That everything would be okay by tomorrow morning and he would make pancakes.

The tears started by themselves and she knocked her glasses off when she tried to wipe them away. She pulled her feet up onto the seat of the chair as the glasses clattered across the tiled floor, multiple clatters letting her know that the lens had fallen out again, and wrapped her arms around her legs. She didn’t bother trying to cry pretty. It wasn’t like there was anyone around to see.

She was sobbing too hard to hear the truck door closing again, or to hear the front door unlock, open, and then quietly click closed. Austin’s footsteps into the kitchen were her first clues that she’d fucked up again and was a mess rather than being someone calm and awesome that he’d want to talk with rationally. She uncurled from the chair and slammed into his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist before he could push her away.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed into his shirt. “I shouldn’t have gone through your things tonight and I shouldn’t have taken your clothes this morning. I’m so sorry. Please don’t be mad anymore.”

She was going to say more, but his arms closed around her tightly and he kissed the top of her head before resting his cheek where he’d kissed. She cried harder for a few minutes, more from total relief that he was here than the self-inflicted total cock-up of her existence, and he just stood there and held on to her.

“I’m sorry I left,” he said once her sobbing stopped.

“No, you were right to,” she immediately replied. “I was being a complete dick tonight and –”

“I’m sorry I left when Cory went back on active,” he interrupted quietly. “I didn’t know what else to do. You were still a kid. After that night when I caught you and your friends at the bar… I couldn’t stay around you and pretend to be just like a brother anymore.”

Jennifer squeezed him tighter and tried to stop crying.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come to David’s wedding. I should’ve.  And I’m sorry for the fourteen plane tickets I bought and didn’t use to come see you over the past six years,” he sighed. “I’m sorry I keep making you cry.”

“You tried to come and see me fourteen times?” she asked, not wanting to move in case reality tried to break in and she found out this was all some kind of stress hallucination.

“I even made it to the airport gate two times before turning around and coming home,” he admitted.

“I’m sorry I left for Paris like I did, just taking off at lunch and heading straight to the airport,” she told him. “I should’ve at least talked to you first, or even asked you to come.”

“My dad needed me at the shop,” he replied, hugging her tighter for a second.

“And then your mom’s heart surgery,” she added quietly.

“And then that,” he agreed.

“I’m sorry, Austin, for everything,” she felt the tears starting up again. “After that first time Cory went M.I.A., and then I just…” she paused to sniffle and cough. “When you didn’t come to Davie and Kev’s wedding I knew… I mean I thought it was just me.”

“Just you?” he parroted. How long had she been feeling like this? The question spiraled in his head as she sniffled and nodded, not trusting that if she spoke more the words wouldn’t end in sobs.

“So where do we go from here?” she asked once she felt confident she could speak, terrified of getting the worst-case reply: nowhere.

“I guess that depends on you,” he tucked his fingers under her chin and lifted her head, leaning back a bit so that he could see her worried and slightly confused squint clearly. “Jennifer Reaper,” he swallowed hard. “Will you marry me?”

She stared up at him, eyes going wide with disbelief.

“Yes,” she laughed and cried at the same time. Austin held her close, kissing her until her knees buckled.

NOW

AUSTIN WAITED ON the picking-up side of the gates with the rest of the expectant crowd. Jenny had texted half an hour ago that she was cleared through customs, so it was the hike through the airport and probably a bathroom break that was making for the wait. She finally emerged from the sliding doors looking tired, rumpled, and overly pregnant.

“Mommy!” John yelled, bouncing in Austin’s arms and waving with both hands, making more people than just Jenny smile at him. Austin kept their exuberant two-year-old contained in his embrace, and managed to ensure he didn’t kick his mom in the tummy or jump onto her when she hugged him.

“I missed you,” she hugged him again and smiled up at Austin, encompassing both of them in the sentiment. Somebody nearby sniffed scornfully.

“I can’t believe you were flying that late in your pregnancy,” a woman in what looked like her mid-thirties blurted out, staring in horror at Jenny’s stomach. Jenny stared at her like she was a fouled diaper.

“I’m not pregnant, bitch,” Jenny shot back. An elderly lady on the other side of Austin who had been playing with John earlier while she waited for her husband and grandson muffled a laugh behind a cough and a tissue.

“How far along are you, dear?” the elderly lady asked once the thirty-something woman had awkwardly walked away.

“Four and a half months,” Jenny admitted.

“Oh my,” the elderly lady replied. “I hope that’s twins.”

“They are,” Jenny patted her stomach and smiled at the lady, who suddenly looked at Jenny’s face, and then at the billboard behind her, and then back to Jenny.

“That really is you!” she exclaimed, pointing at the perfume ad, making Jenny laugh and nod. “And here I thought you were trying to trick me,” she said, tickling John for a moment and making the little boy laugh. “You have a beautiful family,” she complimented, stepping away after seeing the men she was waiting for walking toward her. Jennifer looked back over her shoulder at the young man and his grandfather. Her gaze switched to appreciation and she caught the older woman’s attention by touching her sleeve.

“So do you,” Jenny complimented in return.

“Oh, I know,” the older lady grinned and winked. Austin wrapped his wife with his free arm and started steering her toward the baggage claim, John waving good-bye over his shoulder at his new friend.

“Please tell me your mom made lasagna?” Jenny asked as they got close to the turnstile.

“Of course,” Austin smiled at her and stole a kiss when she looked up.

“No!” John shouted, backing it up by swatting his dad in the head. “My mommy! Kiss!” he demanded, leaning forward suddenly enough that Austin and Jenny both had to catch him. Jenny provided the demanded kiss, and then about seventeen more that left John giggling madly. Austin stared at his family and remembered thinking about just this moment, years ago. This was so much better than he’d imagined.