The Barrel House Series: Boxed Set: Bourbon Love Notes, Bourbon on the Rocks, Bourbon Nights, Bourbon Fireball

by Ryan, Shari J.

  “I’ll get your food prepared to go. No problem at all,” I hear.

  “Brett, I need you to look at me,” Melody demands.

  I try to do as she asks, but I look directly past her at the man sitting two tables away with a red and white shemagh around his neck. He reaches to the side of his right thigh, the side I don’t have visibility on. He’s going to attack.

  I don’t have a weapon. I have nothing but my hands to save us.

  The man twists his head to look at me as he releases a laugh.

  I slide out of the booth and rush toward him, pulling his arms behind his chair, securing them in one hand as I wrap my arm around his neck. He struggles to pull away from me, but pushes his chair back, forcing me to lose my footing. His arms are free, and he's pinning me to the ground at the shoulders. “What are you doing?” he asks.

  I’m breathing so hard I can’t muster a word. I’m sweating, shaking, debating whether to kick his knees to regain my position. “Why are you here?” I grunt.

  The man turns his head to look at the people he’s seated with. “I’m having dinner with my family. Why are you here?”

  The thoughts in my head clear and I realize I’m staring up at an innocent man holding me to the ground in a family-style restaurant. What if he’s just acting innocent?

  The man releases his hands from my shoulders and takes my hand, pulling me up to my feet and visually scans me from head to toe. “Marine,” he says.

  I’m wearing an old pair of camo pants I cut into shorts.

  Is my title derogatory to him or is he asking? I could be a threat. Therefore, he could be a threat.

  “Brett!” It’s the fourth time I’ve heard my name shouted in the last sixty seconds.

  I turn to face the table where I was seated. Melody has Parker facing the wall, and she’s staring at me with more horror than I’ve ever seen on anyone’s face.

  “I’m not here to hurt anybody. I live here in America. My family and I are traveling to Canada to visit Quebec. That is all.”

  My mouth is open, ready to speak, knowing an apology is the very least I can do. I was wrong. The entire restaurant now knows I was wrong. I attacked a man while he was eating his dinner.

  There are sirens echoing down the street. I am the enemy.

  I hold my hands up in defense, knowing the man will have all the power to hurt me if he pleases, but I can’t fight anymore. I shouldn’t have been fighting in the first place today.

  The local police walk into the restaurant, surveying the scene, taking note of me and the man I attacked. I’m sure they were warned of what happened. The police officer walking toward me looks familiar. I think I went to high school with him.

  “Is everything okay here?” the sergeant asks.

  “No,” I answer. “I attacked him for no reason.”

  The sergeant looks at me for a long minute and asks me to follow him outside as he tells his partner to collect the information from the man I attacked.

  The moment we’re outside, everything inside of me tightens to the point where I feel weak or like I might vomit. “Pearson?” The sergeant asks. “It’s me, Laren—Ted Laren. We—”

  “Yeah, I know. We were in school together. I didn’t recognize you with all your gear on,” I say, feeling more deflated with each word I speak.

  “What happened here?”

  “I thought he was reaching for a weapon. I—”

  “I heard you were deployed a couple times,” he follows. Small town problems. There aren’t many people who don't know about each other around here.

  “Yeah,” I answer.

  “My brother was over there, too. He got out after his four-year term. He struggles a lot.” I know what Ted is saying without any further explanation. His brother suffers from post-traumatic stress. We all do, for the most part. We just handle it differently. “Are you getting any help?”

  I shrug. Two hours ago, I would have said I don’t need help. I’m not exactly in the position to say that right now. “No.”

  Ted shakes his head. “However this turns out tonight, I need to advise you to find a counselor because if this happens again—”

  “I know.”

  “I’m going to go back in and see if the man wants to press assault charges. If so, I’m going to need to bring you down to the station. If not, consider yourself lucky this time.”

  I would press charges if I were him.

  I assaulted him.

  “My wife and daughter are still in the restaurant,” I tell Ted.

  “I’ll see them out,” he says. He makes a gesture to his cruiser and another police steps out. “Wait with him while I go back inside.”

  The other police officer is older, overweight, and disinterested in standing here babysitting. It’s obvious by his stance and his arms crossed over his chest. I decide it’s best not to say anything. Instead, I stare out into the darkness of the night, wondering how this happened. Why? I've been away from Afghanistan for nine years. What the hell is wrong with me?

  I wait for about ten minutes before Melody and Parker step out of the restaurant with Ted. Melody has been crying, and Parker looks traumatized. It’s my fault. I hurt the two people I love more than anything in the world because I’m so unbelievably screwed up inside.

  Ted stands between Melody, Parker, and me, facing my direction. “He’s not pressing charges. He said you aren’t the first to do this to him and it’s a fact he lives with while maintaining his culture and faith in another country. He said he hopes you’ll see they aren’t all bad people.”

  It would have been easier if he threw a punch or wanted to press charges. I wouldn’t feel as disgusting as I do now. I’m going to be released without a penalty after assaulting an innocent man.

  “I need to get a copy of your license in case we need to contact you for any further comments or questions,” Ted says.

  I reach into my back pocket, retrieving my wallet, swiveling through my cards, my military ID and license. “Here.”

  “Give me a minute,” he says making his way over to the cruiser.

  Melody is staring at me with a look I can’t decipher. I don’t know if it’s shame, fear, disappointment, or all of the above. What if she hates me now? She sees what I’m capable of. What if she thinks I’d hurt her if I lose my ability to see clearly again?

  I signed my life away. I thought

  I signed my life away. I thought I got it back when I was discharged from the Marines, but I see now, it was a forever commitment.

  24

  Melody must feel like she’s looking at a stranger in the house. We’re both sitting on the couch, facing each other, but I have said very little because Parker is brushing her teeth and getting ready for bed.

  “I’ll be right back. I’m going to go check on Parker,” I say.

  I catch her as she is stepping out of the bathroom across the hall from her bedroom. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she says. “Are you okay?”

  “I will be.” I hope I’m not telling her a lie.

  “Does Melody know about the bad dreams you used to have? Or about that time at the parade in town?”

  I shake my head, feeling as though I’m scolded by a parent rather than my nine-year-old. “I’ll talk to her in a few minutes.”

  “Grandma told you to see a doctor. I heard her. Why won’t you?”

  “It’s hard to explain,” I say.

  “Dad, please. This isn’t your fault.” Parker doesn’t understand what she’s saying. At least, I don’t think she does. I’m afraid to know what she’s learned or read about. I’m afraid she's using Google for reasons other than her homework. Her mother died overseas. I have to assume she wonders about more than she lets on.

  “I was wrong tonight. I’ll go see a doctor, okay?”

  “I want to go with you.”

  “Let’s talk about this more tomorrow. Are you sure you don’t want any more of your grilled cheese?” Parker ate her to-go food in the car on the
way home, but she only had a few bites.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I love you,” I say.

  “I love you too, Dad. I’m just going to say goodnight to Mel.”

  Parker stops at the stairwell, and I hear her say goodnight to Melody, receiving her “Sweet Dreams, sweetie,” in return.

  I tuck Parker in, kiss her forehead, and make my way back downstairs to face a conversation I have dreaded for a very long time.

  Melody looks distraught, stiff, unsure, and pale. “Can I start with an apology?” I ask.

  “No,” she says.

  “I knowI have some explaining to do.”

  Melody tilts her head to the side and studies me with intensity. “Brett, do you think I married a man I know nothing about?”

  I wasn’t expecting the conversation to begin this way. I hate that I feel as though I should answer her question with a yes.

  “I don’t know how to answer your question.”

  Melody presses her lips together and shakes her head. “When we watch the news, and someone is bleeding on the side of the road, you turn white. Your eyes open wide. You stare through the TV as if it's glass. I ask you if you’re okay, and you don’t respond.”

  “What?” I don’t know what she’s referring to.

  “At night, when you’re in a deep sleep, you shout to take cover. You make comments that you’re out of ammo. You sometimes call out for backup.”

  I know I used to have nightmares, but I don’t think I’ve had any in a long time. None that she would be aware of, anyway. “When?”

  “At least once a week,” she says without skipping a beat. I rub your back until the nightmare goes away and I choose not to bring it up in the morning fearing that it will spark whatever memory you were living through in the middle of the night. “Last year, during the fourth of July celebration, someone was shooting off fireworks down the street. For the next ten minutes, you were breathing heavily and sweating in silence.

  “Then there was the time when a pair of headlights on a dark icy road nearly forced you into a tree. You were out of it for five minutes, and I thought you were hurt, but you were lost inside your head.”

  “I—”

  “I know you have to sit in the seat facing the door whenever we’re in a restaurant. I know if someone whistles in a strange way, you duck and spin around. I know you’re afraid to be alone in a dark room. I know you can’t watch war movies. I know you walk away from a conversation when someone says they’re thinking about enlisting. I see the way you look in every car window when we are on a highway.”

  “Why the hell are you even with me?” I ask, my voice broken, croaking with the pain seething through me.

  Melody’s bottom lip quivers. “I knew all of this within the first six months we were together, Brett. I’ve asked questions, and you have changed the subject. I know it isn’t because you want to keep me away from that part of your life. It’s because it’s too painful for you to speak about. Me supporting you is silently being next to you when you don’t think you need me. I love you even with the shattered pieces in your heart that you carry around like fresh wounds.”

  “I went too far tonight.”

  Melody sniffles and nods with agreement. “You did. And we will talk to someone together.”

  “Like marriage counseling?” I ask, terrified of her answer after only being married for six short months.

  “No,” she says, her face screwed into a look of offense. “Like I’m going to be by your side, quietly, and be however much you need or however little you need. If I sit in the waiting room, I sit in the waiting room. If I sit beside you and hold your hand, so be it. You said no one was there for you when Abby died. It’s not fair, Brett. It’s not. I can’t turn back time, but I can make things right going forward. No matter what it is you are dealing with, I will be there right next to you without judgment, with no grudges or disappointment. That’s the least I can do for the man I love—for the man who has been beside me at my lowest moments over the last couple of years, holding me up and giving me strength.”

  I don’t remember the last time I cried. It might have been when Abby died. But hearing every word Melody just said to me, knowing it’s everything I have ever needed anyone to tell me, tears fill my eyes because a love like this … it’s beyond any form of perfection; it’s surreal and almost undeserving.

  “I had to kill six people while I was over there. I’ve never told anyone that.”

  I wait for her face to contort with disgust, but her expression doesn’t change at all. “And you’re alive because of it.”

  “I’m a murderer.”

  “No, Brett, you’re a hero who sacrificed his life to protect his country.”

  “Please don’t call me a hero. Please. I might lose faith in humanity if I see myself that way.”

  “Okay,” Melody says, reaching her hand over to mine. “I know more about PTSD than you think I do. I have done more research than I care to explain, and it wasn’t out of fear. It was because I love you so much that I want to do whatever I can to support you, if and when you need that kind of support. I also know that everyone experiences PTSD differently, and there is no telltale sign of any one person’s symptoms. PTSD won’t go away, which is why I want to embrace the reality of what you live with, so you will know that you are never alone.”

  My gaze falls to my bouncing knees. “I’m sorry for anything I said to you tonight that sounded rash.”

  Melody pushes herself up on the couch and scoots next to me before pulling herself onto my lap and wrapping her body around mine. She places her hands on my cheeks and kisses me so gently her lips tickle mine, forcing me to smile the way she knows I can’t control.

  “I wanted to go out to dinner tonight for a reason,” she says.

  She pulls back and stares into my eyes. “What reason?” I ask.

  Melody doesn’t respond. Instead, she wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me harder. “Take me to bed,” she whispers into my mouth.

  I’m not sure I understand why we would go out for dinner so I could take her to bed later, but she knows I wouldn’t argue with a command like that.

  Her hands slide up my shirt, and her fingernails drag down the core of my body. “Okay, okay. Go upstairs,” I tell her.

  Melody has the devil in her eye as she slides off my lap. “You need to stand up and follow me,” she says.

  I do as she demands, following her quietly up the stairs. I’m thankful that we moved Parker’s bed to the other side of her bedroom, so she doesn’t notice when we come upstairs together.

  We walk into our room, and my heart thuds for a quick moment before Melody’s hands are sweeping up beneath my shirt again. “I think it was you who once told me that distractions are the best way to switch our thoughts,” she says.

  I want to tell her I’m not sure if any distraction in the world will make me forget about what happened tonight, but I’m willing to try for her. She unbuckles the belt on my pants, pulling them down to my ankles as she kneels in front of me.

  I close my eyes, blocking out what the darkness usually holds and I replace it with the sensations of Melody’s mouth, bringing my mind to a place of pleasure. I weave my fingers through her hair as I press my head into the wall, trying not to move, breathe too hard, or make a sound. She’s good at this—turning me on, making me weak in the knees, but I can only take so much before I need to be closer. I lift her hands and pull her to her feet. I step out of my pants, and I spin her around until her back is against the wall. I pin her hands above her head so that I can reach all the right spots on her neck and collarbone. I claim her mouth, being more forceful than I can control, but she enjoys it when I lose the ability to maintain composure. I lift her shirt and pull it off, sliding my hand down the front of her pants until her knees buckle.

  I lift her and carry her to our bed. Her arms are around my neck. Our lips are tangled in a frenzied motion as if we’re searching for air in the wrong places. She gui
des me inside of her, and I hold her against me with one arm. I use the headboard for support with my other arm. I take her in, devouring her, feeling every single movement and twitch in her body as her breath skates off the base of my neck. “Yes,” she cries out in a whisper.

  “Shhh,” I remind her.

  We’ve worked very hard to remain quiet during our nightly sexcapades. It’s mostly her who loses control over the words and sounds she releases when she’s close. I hold her harder when I feel the need to scream. I focus on the way her skin feels like silk against my hand and the way her hair feathers along my arm—the way her thigh squeezes against my waist as if she might fall if she holds on any looser. The friction between us mixes with sweat when her nails dig into my shoulder blades, and her mouth falls open with a soundless scream. Her body jerks against mine, and I respond with a similar motion, going, going, and going until I’m too weak to hold us up. I fall to her side and curl my body around hers. I embrace her as if she’s a part of me.

  “You wanted to have dinner at a restaurant so you could take advantage of me later?” I ask.

  Melody turns to her side and traces a circle around the eagle, globe, and anchor Marine emblem tattooed on my chest. “No,” she says.

  “I think I’m confused.”

  “Do you remember a conversation we had a couple of months ago—we were lying here just like this?”

  I think back, realizing I am a lucky son of a bitch to have a wife who enjoys sex at least four times a week. “I—ah—there have been a lot of times,” I say with a soft laugh.

  “There have been a lot of times, which means I don’t know how pregnant I am, but I am most definitely pregnant. I was going to tell you at dinner tonight.”

  My lungs feel like they’re collapsing. I can’t breathe, but tears return for the second time in one night after going years without losing control of my emotions. “Wait—you’re—”

  “We’re having a baby,” she says.

  After wiping my tears away with the back of my arm I smile as I stare into Melody’s eyes. She might think she knows every deep dark thought that goes through my head, but one thing I feared the most was something I never talked about. I’ve been afraid that I wouldn’t be able to have a child because of the amount of crap I endured overseas. I hoped. I know a lot of the men that served alongside mer have gone on to have families, but the living conditions were so bad and I didn’t know what I was ingesting. I was tossed around from the rumblings of nearby grenades and wondered if parts of me had been injured. I didn’t know, and it’s been a fear of mine, a silent fear. I thought maybe that’s why I was given Parker. “We’re having a baby,” I repeat in a whisper, placing my hand on her stomach.