Law & Beard

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  Gave that bitch a wedding. Bitches love weddings.

  Rafe

  The first time I saw her, she said she was sorry I only had one ball.

  The second time was a year later, bloody and bruised. She said she was sorry that my face looked like someone had taken a bat to it.

  The third, I’d arrived with information that the Freebirds organization might want to hear, and I had earned myself a kinda-sorta-job that would solidify our relationship for years to come. She’d been having a sleepover with her friends. Seven fifteen-year-old girls. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  The fourth, a year after the last time, I’d walked in and felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. Because between the previous visit and that visit, she’d shed her baby fat and had bloomed into a beautiful young woman that I’d hardly recognized.

  The fifth and sixth times had been over the course of the next five years. From the day that I’d felt that kick to the gut, I’d done my level best to stay away. If I had to go over to the Free compound, I went in the dead of night, visited with the boys and left. But, she’d caught me leaving both times—and both of those times she had been even prettier than she was the last time.

  The seventh time was two years after that when I had been coming home from a spec ops mission. I was dressed in my camo BTUs just like all the other soldiers who were returning home. I wasn’t actually a soldier. Not anymore, at least. I’d been there, working amongst other soldiers, trying to do an operation that required me to be in the ‘military.’ To find out who the hell was the contact point behind a rash of stolen military paraphernalia.

  She’d been standing there, smiling and waving, welcoming soldiers home.

  It’d been the turning point for me.

  No longer was she underage. No longer was I going to hide.

  I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I couldn’t, and I should have.

  But, the heart works in mysterious ways.

  I didn’t get to choose who I loved. Who I wanted.

  And, had things not turned south? Well, we might’ve both gotten what we wanted.

  The hardest part of all, though, was forgetting she ever existed in the first place.

  Oh, and that one night we spent together.