Embrace The Suck (A Stepbrother Special Forces Novel)

by Kenzie, Sophia

  “Trust me.” I pleaded, grabbing her shoulders and bringing her into my chest. “Please,” I whispered into her hair. “Just trust me.”

  And then something changed. Her body stiffened and her face hardened.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No.” I argued.

  She paled, unyielding. “I want him to look me in the eyes and tell me that he tried to ruin my life.”

  I could have fought her. I could have explained that I didn’t want her connected to this at all, but I knew it would be a lost cause. She was determined to seek her own justice, and I couldn’t deny her that. In reality, she might even come in handy.

  “The doctor will be with you shortly.” The nurse offered after taking all my vitals. It was just Hannah and I left in the room; my three comrades had taken their places for our mission.

  “Well, well, well,” Danny unsurprisingly emerged in the doorway after only a few short moments. “Look who we have here.”

  Hannah’s hand clenched mine. I squeezed her back, hoping she knew that she was safe. I had it all under control.

  “I don’t believe you’re my doctor today.” I casually addressed.

  “I’m not.” Danny agreed. “Just thought I’d say ‘hi’ to my favorite patient and the girl who broke my heart.”

  Hannah spat. “I did not break your heart. You don’t have a heart to break.”

  “Ouch.” Danny retaliated, not at all hurt by her accusation. “I didn’t know you had such a strong hatred of me.”

  Although she was a tad too emotional, I had a feeling she was about to crack him. And so, I inconspicuously sent the ‘go’ text.

  “After what you did to Charlie? You tried to kill him!” She tried to stand up to face him, but my hand in her lap held her down.

  “I believe I did warn you something would happen if you left me. Can I really be blamed?” Danny flashed his toothy grin at me. “You get it, right?”

  Hannah got him started. Now, it was my turn.

  “I have to say, Doc: I’m impressed. You truly are a worthy adversary. I can’t even be mad. The way you managed to switch out the blanks in Amanda’s gun with real bullets with no one the wiser? I have to know…” I egged him on, stroking his ego. “How did you do it?”

  I saw a brief stall of hesitation, but it quickly passed, as I knew it would when dealing with an psychopathic egomaniac, and after peeking out of the door to make sure we were alone, he leaned up against the bed, ready to tell his little secret. “It’s actually pretty funny.” He said. “I wasn’t sure it was going to work.” He loved every second of the sound of his voice telling this story. He let on that he casually struck up a conversation with his old friend, the infirmary doctor, who, after a few drinks, told him the layout of the exercise. It wasn’t confidential, after all, as the Special Forces likes to make their training exercises known to the public. It’s not necessary to hide how America’s soldiers are trained to fight for their country. But the infirmary doc let Danny in on specifics. All he knew was that someone on our team was tasked with taking down one of the other team’s trainers, and Amanda was tasked with taking down me at close range. He actually referred to her as “the red head”, but Danny had a good feeling that he meant Amanda. From there, it was too simple. Danny knew exactly how to seamlessly break into the home of Amanda’s aunt and uncle, for he had done it so many times before. He then traded out Amanda’s box of blanks for live ammunition.

  “I actually took out the blanks and replaced them with the live ammo, so the box would still say ‘blanks’.” He snickered. “The only thing that could have foiled my plan was if Amanda had realized that the projectile was on the end of the bullets. But,” He was so proud of himself, “I knew she was nervous, and those nerves are what stopped her from realizing such a small difference in the two types of bullets.”

  “Genius.” I shook my head, honestly a little impressed. The man had guts.

  “It’s sad this chick got in the way.” Danny motioned to Hannah. “I think you and I could have gotten along.”

  “Another time and another place, my friend.” I nodded at him.

  I only had to hold his stare for a second, for in the next instant, my team, along with my father and the Chief of Medicine for the hospital tore into the room.

  “What the fuck?” Danny stood, obviously alarmed at their intrusion.

  “Oh,” I laughed ready to fully take over from here, “Danny, I’d like you to meet Pierce. Give him a wave, Pierce.” Pierce waved with a nod. “Pierce is my Communications Sergeant. He rigged the intercom system to project out into the entire hospital what we were saying in here.” I let that settle with him for a second before continuing. “That’s Rollins, my Engineer Sergeant, he’s been following you around for the last two weeks to get an idea of your schedule and your weaknesses, and suggests that maybe you should consider a different porn site, as the one you’re using tends to come with viruses.” Rollins gave him a thumb’s up. “Right there is Dinkly. He’s my Medical Sergeant who just wanted to tag along, but I told him he could bring some lorazepam in case you needed to be sedated.” Dinkley reached into his pocket and grabbed a syringe. “And that’s my Dad. Wave, Dad.” Dad waved. “My Dad is a Command Sergeant Major for the Army, and he just so happened to request a meeting with your Chief of Medicine… You know who that is, so I don’t need to ask him to wave.” I lifted Hannah’s hand to my lips and gave her a light kiss. I knew this was all a bit of a shock to her, and I wanted to remind her that I was still thinking of her this entire time. “And I guess I’ll let the big boys take it from here.”

  All in all, not a bad mission. The good doctor got his medical license revoked, and was being put on trial for attempted murder.

  He wouldn’t be bothering us for a very long time.

  Oh, and my actual doctor approved me for physical activity. Hannah didn’t even know what she was in for. After all, she promised.

  Chapter Five

  Hannah

  In order to start the training for Medical Sergeant, I was required to have 250 hours of work in a hospital setting. Prior to getting recruited for the program, I had already attained 190 of those hours from volunteering during my four years at college. Being that I had four weeks off between the end of the assessment and the beginning of the Qualification Training, I decided to put in twenty hours each week, leaving the final week to be an actual vacation.

  As I had feared running into Danny at the hospital, I spent the first two weeks of my break working at a small urgent care, in the center of the even smaller city of Columbus, Georgia. It was fine, but not as woefully exciting as the emergency room at the major hospital. So, once Charlie and his team had taken down Danny, I decided to spend my last twenty hours back where I belonged: in the throws of triage. I knew one day I’d be old and tired, and it would all be too overwhelming, so I’d want something a little more low-key. But, I figured until that time, while I was still young, I might as well get some blood on my hands… literally.

  Twenty hours, five brand new pairs of scrubs, and another week later, and I was ready for that vacation.

  Charlie picked me up from my last shift at the hospital with a devilish grin plastered across his face.

  “Hey hottie.” I called to him across the entryway.

  “Hey beautiful.” He took my face in his hands and sunk his deep kiss upon my lips.

  “So,” I pulled away, searching his eyes for his secret, “what has got you looking all sinister and impish?”

  “Well,” he didn’t even try to keep me guessing. “You know how our parents are planning for their wedding?”

  Ugh, of course I knew. It was sickening, and all they talked about. Colors and dresses and tuxes and salmon and crab cakes… It was driving me crazy. I didn’t want anything to do with it, and yet my mother kept asking my opinion. And then she’d settle on the exact opposite of what I suggested, so obviously she either just wanted me to agree with her already-made choice, or she wanted to hear
herself talk. Both were viable probabilities when it came to her, but neither did I have the time or energy for.

  “What do you mean?” I allowed my face to play the fake emotion of shock. “They’ve been doing that without us knowing?” I teased. “How have they been so sneaky?”

  Charlie laughed before kissing my forehead. “I’m taking you away for the next week.”

  “Hold on.” With that, he definitely caught me off guard. “What?”

  “I’m taking you away. I’m tired of living with my father, and I can only assume you’re tired of living with your mother. The only great thing about that house is that you’re there. Therefore, I’ve decided to steal you and take you away.”

  I couldn’t help the flushing of my face. I was all too excited about our little adventure, and I didn’t even know where we were going.

  “Where are we going?” I didn’t need a surprise.

  “Fishing.” He chimed like a kindergarten boy.

  It seemed strange, and not the slightest bit romantic. “Fishing?” I had never even been fishing.

  “I told you that when I got out of the hospital, I was going to take you fishing. And as I reminded you the other night…” he winked, too proud of himself, “a promise is a promise.”

  Yes, he surely did remind me of that the other night… and wouldn’t stop beaming that pride all over his face since.

  I hadn’t even remembered we spoke about fishing until he brought up our past conversation. It was such an ‘in passing’ conversation while we were in the ambulance, being rushed to the hospital. Then, when he was still in the hospital after being shot, I was so tired, and I honestly doubted he’d even remember. I barely did. Well, I guess it goes to show that I shouldn’t doubt Charlie.

  We were going fishing.

  Chapter Six

  Charlie

  There was a spot in northern Alabama called Little River Canyon, about a three-hour drive north of us. I had been once, when I was a kid, back when my mom was still alive, and fell in love with it. She had taken me there, just the two of us, to teach me how to camp. Funny that it was my mother who taught me how to camp when my father was the decorated Special Forces Sergeant, but that was just the way my childhood unfolded. She had been there, and he hadn’t. And because that special place had reminded me so much of her, after she died, I couldn’t bring myself to go back. It was sacred to me. But oddly enough, when I was trying to think of a place to take Hannah for the week, it was the first and only site to pop into my mind.

  Maybe it was finally time to see the place with fresh eyes.

  I told Hannah I’d handle gathering the gear if she wanted to handle gathering the food. While I would have liked to handle everything together, time was of the essence, and luckily, Hannah wasn’t the type of girl who needed me to hold her hand through everything. We went our separate ways- her to the grocery store and me to the local outdoorsman shop- but were back home for dinner, with a rekindled sense of excitement.

  “What has you two so wound up?” My father asked as we sat down for dinner.

  I took her hand in mine under the table. “I’m taking Hannah camping in the morning.”

  Though no one outwardly spoke of it, if it hadn’t been before, I think it was now blatantly obvious that Hannah and I were sleeping together. We joked about it, wondering if our parents were really that daft, but concluded that it was impossible to think otherwise. Sure, I didn’t just go around grabbing her chest in front of them, but there were plenty of looks and laughs, and no one could really be blind to our chemistry. I was just surprised that, knowing them, neither of our parents felt the need to bring it up in passing over the past three weeks, but as we were both adults, I guess the “sex talks” were a little outdated.

  My father looked at my oddly, trying to digest this new information. “Camping, Charlie?”

  Hannah’s mom sighed with slight sadness. “I thought we were having fun planning the wedding.”

  She certainly thought wrong, but I wasn’t about to say that aloud.

  Hannah squeezed my hand and took a breath, offering to take over. “Ma, I think you’re doing pretty great without me. It’s… Well…” She was struggling, afraid to hurt her mom’s feelings.

  So my dad jumped in, finally putting the pieces together for himself. “Laura, I think it’s been a lot on the kids. They could use a break. After all,” he chuckled and winked at me, “I did force them to live with us for three weeks.”

  It was a little fucked up that my father was such a good wing man, but at that point, I was willing to take what I could get. It’s not like they could tell us ‘no’; I just didn’t want Hannah to spend our whole trip feeling guilty.

  After dinner, and after assuring our parents that we were taking all the right equipment and precautions, and that Hannah knew exactly what to do if one of the holes in my chest decided to open back up, we stole a bottle of wine from the cabinet and snuck upstairs to pack.

  I teased Hannah as she went through her closet full of slacks and cargo shorts. “Where are all your girl clothes?”

  She threw a balled up shirt at me in retaliation. “When do I ever get to be a girl? I’m either on base or in the hospital. Not much time left for ball gowns and high heels.”

  I stood up, wrapping my fingers around her hips. “I let you be a girl every night.” And then I nipped at her neck. “And every morning too.”

  She giggled, letting her body press back into mine. “Yes, but you don’t let me wear clothes, now do you?”

  She had a point. She had a very good point. Though, I wouldn’t hate bringing some high heels into the picture. I flashed back to our first night together when she left her heels, and only her heels, on while I took her from behind in that bar bathroom.

  Fuck, I was hard again.

  “Plus,” she added, bringing me back to the here and now, “why would I need girl clothes if we’re going camping?”

  It was funny. I had honestly thought of taking her somewhere fancy- maybe New York City. I thought we could stay at the Plaza Hotel and ride around Central Park in a horse and carriage, and maybe stroll down Fifth Avenue and hit up all the fancy shops. But… that didn’t seem like us. I’m not saying we couldn’t have fun doing those things, and I’m sure at one time in the future we would, but for our first trip together, I wanted to do something that made sense for us. Sure, camping was nothing new to me. I spent most of my twenties in a tent, actually, so it would seem I’d want to try something else. But with her… camping was the thing that made sense. I wanted to explore the outdoors with her. Or maybe I wanted to explore her in the outdoors?

  Yeah… It was most likely the second option that weighed more heavily on my decision. Plus, I really wanted to watch her bathe in the stream.

  “You’re right.” I smiled. “No girl clothes necessary. But,” I warned, eyeing her open dresser. “You better have a bikini hiding away in one of these drawers.”

  She winked at me. “We’ll see.”

  We woke up early the next morning; both excited to start our vacation. After the appropriate amount of sex…

  “I think that was the appropriate amount of sex.” I let my body collapse on top of hers.

  “Appropriate? What does that mean?” She bit my shoulder, making me jump up.

  “Ouch!”

  “I’m glad I hurt you.” She scrunched her face up.

  I lifted myself onto my arms, staring into her eyes. “I just mean that I feel that you are properly fucked, and I am now ready to take you into the woods and appropriately fuck you more.”

  She grabbed the pillow and swiped me across the face.

  That turned into a five-minute pillow fight, which led to another romp in the sheets.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered as she dangled her breasts over my face, “was that not appropriate?”

  Oh dear God, the woman was wild. Every day she managed to surprise me. And every day, I loved her more and more. What had she done to me?

  An hou
r into our car ride, Hannah pulled out her phone. “Do you squeeze the toothpaste tube? Or roll it?”

  I almost choked on my own spit. “What?”

  She smiled at me with her big, doll eyes before explaining. “It’s a book of questions. So answer me.”

  “Umm…” I had to think about it.

  “What are you contemplating?” She practically yelled at me. “This shouldn’t be that difficult.”

  “Squeeze.” I bounced back, looking at her still a little cock-eyed.

  She nodded, taking in my answer. “I squeeze too. But,” her brow furrowed as she thought deeper, “don’t you think it works better to roll it? I mean, you’re definitely going to get more out that way.”

  “Yeah, sure, but it’s about immediate satisfaction when you brush your teeth. Think about it. It’s only in the morning or night, both times when you’re very tired. Who wants to think deep thoughts about the practicality of squeezing or rolling toothpaste? It’s much easier to squeeze, and then to frustratingly bitch about it when the tube is almost empty.”

  “Right.” She agreed, but offered up her counter argument almost immediately. “But if you know that there will come a day when you will want to scream because the toothpaste just isn’t coming out the way it needs to, shouldn’t you want to avoid that one day of anger by preemptively working through the tube?” She bit her bottom lip, still working through the question. “It’s an interesting question really. Are you the type of person that will put in an undeterminable amount of lazy days knowing that it will culminate in one day of pure frustration, or are you the type of person who will put in a little bit of effort every day so that you never need to experience that flush of frustration? It it’s purest form, we’re discussing whether we’re prograstinators.”