Courage of Us

by Brooke May

  They all groan.

  AEC stands for already ejaculated cum. What can I say? I’ve been around guys too much.

  “Shut her up, Duke.” Chase shakes his head, turning it enough to find something to keep his attention. His trademark sexy smile, as he calls it, lights up his face as he quickly stands and rights his hat. “I’ll talk to you later, guys. I see an ass with my name on it for the night.”

  “Go easy on her,” Decker yells after him.

  “Remember to wrap it before you stick it!” Holt adds.

  I have a hand over my mouth again before I can add to their banter. It’s difficult to control my body with Duke’s deep woodsy scent doing delightfully funny and wonderful things to me every time I inhale.

  I lick my lips, forgetting something is there …

  “Seriously, Patience?” Duke removes his hand and rubs it on my arm. “Will you three watch her so I can get us another round?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does she do tricks aside from stripping?”

  They sound bored, but they take this job almost too seriously. I tend to wander and occasionally get into fights.

  I watch as Duke disappears back to the keg; his fine ass jerking from side to side as he strides away. “So …” I look back at the remaining three. “Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard, eh?”

  “Yes.” They are like crazy mindreading triplets or some shit like that.

  Hive mind, that’s the right word.

  “Why not go into the same branch?” I wiggle into my seat, causing the hay to scratch my exposed thighs.

  “I want to fly,” Holt answers. “Pecker wants to work on ships, and Ryder is just fucking crazy and wants to go to the rough waters of Alaska.”

  “I want to save lives, asshole.” Ryder tosses a rock at him and misses.

  “Oh.” I purse my lips, and my eyes grow wider.

  Dear Lord, my two drinks are already going to my head.

  I can usually handle a lot more.

  “Hey, guys.” Twins Christina and Ruby Gates join our little party. It is a well-known fact that the twins get around, but as far as I know, they have only been with Chase. Yes, they shared him. Gross, cue my shivers of disgust.

  “Hey.” All three guys perk up, adjusting their hats and making their chests solid as the girls look each of them over.

  “Well, I’m out of here.” Standing, I wobble my way into the crowd, long forgotten after the appearance of the twin whores.

  Whatever.

  Walking around the side of the barn, I find the inside is deserted.

  Which makes it perfect for me.

  Suddenly, I want to crawl somewhere and take a nap. Ripping my hoodie off, I drop it by the door and take off to the ladder leading up to the hay loft. I barely get to the top when I’m surprised by a hand cupping my butt, stopping me from falling and pushing me up into my destination.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Eep!” I don’t find it as comfy as I thought. The first cutting hasn’t happened yet, so there’s just enough to conceal us. Crawling on my hands and knees, I turn around, finding Duke’s shadowed head popping up from the hole. He has one cup between his teeth and another on top of a bottle under his arm.

  “I want to take a nap.”

  “Patience—” Trailing off, he slams his body down, causing me to bounce a little and fear for the boards under us. “Let’s play a game. We haven’t been here long enough for you to be tired yet.”

  “Okay.” Crossing my legs, I take the offered cup. “How about never have I ever?”

  “Sounds good to me, though, I’m sure we’ve done everything.” His laughter is laced with something new, and the tiredness I was feeling is zapped. “Ladies first.”

  “Fine.” I really do have to think about this because we have done almost everything that instantly comes to mind. “Never have I ever changed a diaper.”

  He takes a drink and then fills his cup again.

  “My turn.” He grins. “Never have I ever broke into the livestock exhibit at the zoo and rode a goat.”

  “Damn you.” I down my drink and back and forth we go, each of us catching things we have done together, and things we haven’t.

  I’m completely shit-faced, which leads to my next major word vomit episode.

  “Never have I ever told the person I love the most that I love him.”

  Duke goes to lift his cup but drops it. “What?” His drunken gaze is dazzled as his head tilts, contemplating what I’m on to. I’m completely serious. For all I know, this summer could change everything—between Greg and me, between Duke and me—and I don’t want to go another moment without telling him how I feel.

  Setting the cup down, I crawl over to him. Sitting back on my knees, I cup his face. “I’m in love with you, Duke. I have for a long time.”

  I don’t wait for his reply. I only see the bob of his Adam’s apple before I lean in and seal my lips to his. The velvety yet rough texture of his lips has me moaning, catching him off guard. I lose myself and my heart to this handsome man I cherish above all others.

  Chapter One

  Patience

  FRIENDSHIPS DON’T LAST.

  No matter how close you were with a person, time and distance will separate you from them until you’re strangers again.

  When I graduated high school, I knew that summer would be completely different from all the others, but the morning I woke up in Chase’s hay loft, it had already been flipped too much.

  I slept with my best friend. I was slightly drunk, and I had no clue how much he had to drink. I wasn’t able to ask Duke or deal with the repercussions of our wild night together because he was gone. A simple note saying he was sorry and not to hate him was waiting for me.

  It’s been seven years, and I still have no clue what he meant by that because I haven’t seen him since.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I continue to stare at the empty vessel that blankly gazes back at me.

  “You’re a failure.”

  “I should have never listened to everything my parents told me to do when it came to you.”

  “You took my life from me.”

  “You’re to blame for everything bad that has happened to me, Patience.”

  “You’re useless.”

  “You lose one baby and can’t give me another? What kind of woman are you?”

  Every single word Greg ever said to me left a gaping wound in my heart that has only grown more and more.

  It’s my fault. I was so lost that I thought I was doing the right thing by him. I lost my best friend, and even though I keep in touch still with my other friends, it isn’t the same. I gave myself to Greg because I didn’t know what else to do. I had no purpose like the others did.

  And I lost who I was in the process.

  Is it my fault that Greg messed up his own life by drinking and partying instead of conditioning and taking care of himself for the football field?

  I certainly never thought it was my fault I couldn’t get pregnant again.

  I do, however, believe I am the reason I lost my baby. Not his.

  Dragging my tired, nearly dead eyes up, I stare at the reflection harder. The woman looking back at me looks nothing like the Patience LaClare I knew ten years ago. Now, she is drawn out and exhausted from the life she has lived with a man who did nothing but drag her down.

  My once shiny ash blond hair is limp, and looks like complete shit as it hangs down, framing my hollowed-out face. My bathroom is dark and shaded behind me, setting the mood for my inner struggle. It is slowly taking everything out of me.

  When did this become me?

  When did I lose the Patience I once was? The girl who lacked a filter, who was always ready to have fun and get in trouble, and who was there for the ones she loved?

  It’s because I was left behind.

  They left me.

  All of them left me alone without a true friend in this world.

  I
t’s my own fault for not trying to make other friends, but once I lost my guys, I lost the will to try to let anyone else in.

  I’m an idiot.

  I put myself on a deserted island where I didn’t let anyone new in but allowed the ones who were already there to hurt me.

  Outside of my parents and Greg, I didn’t have any friends. Sure, I had parts of them, but I didn’t have them.

  Chase.

  Decker.

  Holt.

  Ryder.

  Duke.

  Every guy who meant something to me left, but Duke’s disappearance hurt the worst. At least with the others, I was given the chance to say a proper goodbye before they left, and they have kept in touch with me just as they promised. I often get letters, either written or emailed, from them along with pictures. I’ve even seen them from time to time. I’m glad I still have my brothers even if they aren’t here anymore.

  All but Duke.

  He vanished from my life right after I confessed everything to him. After having the passion we had, everything I thought we had shared in that night was wrong. I thought he had panicked and ran away because I bombarded him with too much. I was worried I had messed up our friendship.

  It wasn’t until I pulled Chase out of bed to give me a ride home that I learned where Duke had disappeared to.

  He joined the Marines and never told me. He didn’t trust me enough to share something that major with me, his best friend. He didn’t think I was strong enough to support him, to wait for him to finish with boot camp, and then take me with him.

  I would have fully supported him, just as I do with all my friends.

  That’s what I had always hoped for; Duke would take me wherever he would go after high school, but instead, he didn’t want me. Just as Greg never really wanted me.

  Tears flooded my eyes the entire ride back to my house. I felt bad for Chase because he didn’t know how to handle my emotional turmoil. My mom knew what was going on the second I was out of the truck. I had sobbed into her chest, barely having the opportunity to process what was going on with Duke when Greg surprised us by pulling up and taking me into his arms to cheer me up.

  I thought he cared and was consoling me because my best friend left me. It was a shock to see him that supportive, but it wasn’t the biggest surprise he had for me. Once he managed to help me calm down, and my tears were temporarily dried, he asked me to move to Alabama with him.

  “That’s how I fucked up my life,” I mumble to myself. My voice doesn’t even sound or feel as light as it once did. Since the moment my head quit spinning, and I said yes to Greg, my life changed and not in a good way.

  Duke never called, never came home, never tried to contact me or to let me know he was still alive. If it wasn’t for his mom, I wouldn’t even know anything about Duke’s life anymore. I try not to make a point of asking her how he is because if he didn’t care enough to tell me anything, then I shouldn’t care.

  But I do.

  I’ve always cared when it comes to him.

  I had plans with my life, plans I had hoped to include Duke in, but none of that happened for me.

  I left for Alabama. I struggled through my own schooling, especially to pay for it, and ended up in the culinary program.

  Even in college, things started to fall apart around Greg and me. I should have seen it then and broken off our relationship to do my own thing. But I didn’t. I was stupid and so desperate to have someone to love that I put blinders on and accepted the so-called love Greg gave me as what I wanted.

  I didn’t want it, though.

  I didn’t want a rushed marriage once I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t want the loveless marriage that followed after he blew his knee out at a football game and ended his career and scholarship. After that, he was around more and far angrier than I had ever seen him, yet I did nothing.

  He cheated and partied, sometimes coming back to our apartment with other women.

  He experimented with drugs that further ruined the remaining scholarships he had after his injury.

  He would get drunk and verbally abuse me. Thankfully, it never manifested into anything physical.

  He destroyed the strong woman I once was and left me as the shell I now am trying to piece back together.

  The only joy in my life is the little café I now run inside my family’s grocery store after I finally came home. While Greg didn’t even attempt to use his degree in business, I used my newly educated skills to best my own abilities in the kitchen.

  With the help of my family and the community, I was able to slowly become aware of rediscovering who I was.

  And I’m damn proud of what I’ve created.

  I’ve managed to become the best baker in Centennial, Montana. It wasn’t hard with a population of eight thousand, but it’s something I’ve built on my own, and it has been a great escape for me.

  I was okay with everything until the past few months hit me, and I realized I may never be a mother. Even though I have dreamed about it since I lost my baby, I don’t want to focus on that dream at the moment. I need to get my own life together and freed before I try to move on with anything else. If I can’t fix myself, how can I take care of another life who would depend on me?

  With a huge inhale, I let the long exhale go as I look back down at the scissors resting in my hand. The bleak porcelain sink in the blurred background is the perfect example of the clean slate I’m looking for.

  Am I really tempted to do this? Do I really want to take this into my own hands and do something I may regret?

  Looking back up, I don’t see the woman I want to be, nor I don’t see the light I once had in my eyes. The tiniest fraction of light in the depths of my amber eyes is still hidden in there, but it’s in danger of going out completely if I don’t change now.

  I won’t let him take that last little part away.

  I won’t let anyone or anything take that little part away from me.

  I am going to let it grow and flourish once more. I’m going to bring back that light and create a happier future for myself.

  I’ve been lost for far too long. Ever since I lost my baby, I have been drifting in the fog of misery that losing him brought to me.

  But he isn’t to blame for the life I have led, only myself.

  “It’s all changing now.” Lifting the scissors, I hold them with both hands to open them in front of my face.

  “This is my life.” Closing my eyes, I make the first cut to take it all back.

  Chapter Two

  Duke

  COME ON, MOM, PICK UP.

  Anxiously, I drum my fingers against the tiny ass desk I’ve parked myself at in the call center. I feel like a fucking sardine in this miniature space command deemed good enough to be the place where we can go to make personal calls.

  There is no space.

  I’ve rarely used this room or any others like it.

  The only way to have room is to kick my feet up on the desk. Glancing down at the dirt floor below me, I feel a ping of icy dread cutting up my gut.

  That’s where Rio would have rested while I did this.

  No, don’t think of that now, Duke.

  I need to focus on not feeling lost without my partner or how tiny this room is.

  A pitiful, humorless laugh huffs out of me. No space in the goddamn desert. What a fucking joke. The phone continues to ring twice more as I lean back in my seat and gaze out the makeshift door to see who else is waiting in line to make a call. I thought I would be done by now; it isn’t like my mom not to answer me when I call.

  Come on, Mom.

  I can’t damn my mother for stepping away from the house to get some work done. I know she helps Dad separate the herds of cattle at the ranch and is more than likely cleaning up her garden before the winter frost finally hits.

  And she never carries her cell phone with her.

  But fuck, I actually need to speak to her, and she isn’t around—

  “Hello? Duke? Duke, is tha
t you?” Gasping for breath, she is flustered and continues to call my name down the line. I have to pull the phone away from my ear as she gets louder.

  “Mom. Mom. Mom. Mother.” Sighing, I pinch the bridge of my nose and finally shout in the phone. “Mary!”

  “Sweet Lord, Duke. There is no need to shout.”

  “You didn’t give me much of a choice,” I grumble. “I don’t have a whole lot of time.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetheart. I was out in the garden.”

  Just as I thought.

  “It’s okay, Mom.” My voice melts, softening for her.

  “How is everything going over there? I haven’t received any emails from you in a couple of weeks.”

  “I’ve been pretty busy, but I won’t be for much longer.”

  “Why? What’s going on? Did you get hurt? Why didn’t someone call me?” Unleashing her built-up worry, she cries into the phone.

  “Cool your jets, woman.” I laugh. “I’m coming home for good this time.” Not that I have really been home at all in the past several years.

  “What?” Her panic gives way to a disbelieving whisper.

  “I’m coming home for good, Mom.” The ridiculous smile on my face ebbs into my voice. “Your boy is going to be back on US soil for longer than a few days or a couple of weeks.”

  “Oh, thank you, God.” Her soft voice cracks and breaks with the joy as she says her thanks. “I’ve prayed every day for your safety, Duke. And now you are coming home where I know you will be safest.”

  I know she firmly believes that, but I can’t grasp that concept. Being medically discharged from the Marines wasn’t the way I wanted to leave the service, but I wasn’t given much of a choice. I don’t want to burden her with my reasoning, though. I already have a game plan on how I’m going to get back to the old Duke she and everyone else back home knows well.

  “I still have a couple of weeks to finish up here, Mom, but then I’ll be on a plane headed home.” With all the overwhelming joy that floods me at the thought of finally leaving this sandbox for good and getting home in time to see the end of the fall mountain colors before the snow comes, I’m not as happy as I thought I would be.

  I have loved my life as a soldier and especially being a Marine. I’ve seen some amazing things from traveling around the world, but I’ve seen some pretty horrific ones as well. I’ve gained a new brotherhood outside of my friends back home, and I’ve lost friends, comrades, and most of all, I’ve lost the one person I never thought I would ever lose.