Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
My voice was quiet when I replied, “Yeah.”
More sweet when he repeated my, “Yeah.”
Man, I had to get us out of this sweet or I’d have an orgasm just talking to the guy.
“Everything go okay getting Homer and the General to the camp?” I asked.
“Nope,” he answered.
Oh shit.
“What happened?”
“The General twisted Cap up in a big way.”
Cap used to be in the Army, so I could see this. I’d never been in the Army, and he twisted me up.
“Something I’ve learned since I started this gig, Turner,” I began. “I don’t have the skills to deal with the myriad of issues they face. It sucks and sometimes it kills, but you gotta treat them like humans and turn the rest off.”
“We don’t operate that way, Jess,” Eric replied. “No way Cap was going to sit on his hands about the General. But meeting Mary kicked it over the edge.”
“Mary?”
“Mary. She’s an eighty-two-year-old great grandma who’s been on the streets about a month because she was kicked out of her apartment for not being able to make rent. She has a small retirement, and social security, it just didn’t stretch that far. She’s also got a finely honed stubborn streak and didn’t tell her kids her situation was fucked.”
I was stunned. “She’d rather live on the street than tell her children she was being evicted?”
“She doesn’t want to be a burden. The impression is, none of them are rolling in it, and they got mouths to feed. If they also had to look after her, things that are tight would get out of hand.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Cap and Mace are looking into veterans’ services to see if we can get the General into a facility that will help bring him back to himself. Cap’s also gonna get in touch with Scott and Louise to see if they can find accommodations for Mary.”
Scott and Louise, Luna’s parents, worked together at a non-profit that dealt with affordable housing and unhoused initiatives.
I’d been keeping them in my back pocket, obviously not ready to share what I was doing. But when I found Jeff, I was going to go to them and see if they could help me get him set up someplace where he didn’t have to deal with Mom and Dad, and he didn’t have to feel like a drain on me and his buds.
Eric kept talking.
“In the meantime, we gotta get Mary and her cat off the street. She risks exposure in the winter, but if she makes it through, a summer in Phoenix might end her. The men are gonna get her in a long-term hotel until something more permanent can be arranged.”
Right, the things Eric was saying were giving me that gooey feeling again, and that feeling was bad, because it felt really freaking good.
“How’re you doin’ with all this?” he asked.
“I have hope for the first time in months that my brother is okay,” I answered.
“Right,” he said, sensing I wasn’t done.
Because I wasn’t. “But he didn’t finish his pipefitter training. He’s not a warrior. He’s not a shadow soldier. When he’s experiencing an episode, he isolates himself. He gets confused easily. Once he holes up somewhere, sometimes he gets so stuck in his head, he gets so listless, he doesn’t even eat. When he talks, he doesn’t make a lot of sense. And if it’s really bad, he has hallucinations. In other words, I don’t even know what this Street Warrior thing is, but I know Jeff’s got no business being one.”
“We’ll figure it out, and we’ll get him some help,” Eric assured.
I wanted to be assured, but something was creeping up inside.
I knew what that something was, and I could not be in a conversation with Eric when I gave it free reign. When that happened, I had to be alone.
Because it never failed to devastate me.
“Jess?” Eric called.
I needed a second.
Actually, I needed to get off the phone so I could deal.
Before I could do that, Eric said, “Two questions.”
“What?” I whispered.
“Two questions. You start. Whatever you ask, I have to answer, no bullshit, no evading. Then I get two, and the same.”
Oh God.
I really wanted my two questions.
And I was terrified of his.
“Deal?” he pressed.
“Okay,” I said.
See?
I really wanted my two questions.
“Hit me,” he invited.
“Why didn’t you ever get married?” I asked something, in all his hotness, and coolness, that had been bugging me since I met him.
“Who told you I’ve never been married?” he answered.
Uh…
“No one,” I said. “I just assumed.”
“I was married for six years to a woman I met in LA. Her name’s Savannah. She was the executive chef at a hot-shit restaurant. She wanted to start her own, and I backed that play. She loved what she did and she was really good at it. I just had no idea what kind of time it would require of her, which was pretty much every hour she was awake.”