Page 103 of You Can Make Me
My rock-star buddy Ryan Wells found a Depression-Era musician and fell hard and fast.
My best pal on the force, Walter Muse, spent his life searching for a missing folk singer, only to find him forty years later and discover they were soul mates.
I met my beloved at a party for my other best pal, Gene, and had the mother of all bi-awakenings. He rocked my world. Then I fucked up. He ghosted me, and then showed up in the middle of a crisis and nearly got himself killed. I spent months nursing him back to health until we were able to get out of our own way and fall back in love.
We had a fresh start to make a new life together.
Then I died.
Well, mostly. My heart stopped a couple times. All of my woo-woo grumbles weren’t enough to save me from a whopper of woo-woo what-the-fuckery. The carnival took me in, turned the clock back, healed my battered body, and returned me to Cooper as an earlier version of myself.Guess it really did have some type of fountain of youth and vitality
Served me and my non-believing ass right.
The guys had Retired Detective Dennis Hamilton declared deceased, and since I’d changed my will after my second divorce, all of my benefits were divided equally between Walter’s kids, Stacia and Steffan Muse. Good old Uncle Denny for the win.
The carnival sent me back with new identification that read Denton Harris, husband of investigative journalist Cooper Harris, aged twenty-two.
Yeah, you read that right. Cooper was the cradle-robber now.
Why so young, you ask?
Apparently, twenty-two was the age I’d been when my buddies and I were exposed to some nasty shit while serving abroad in the Marine Corps, and the carnival, in its infinite power, did a few laps around the interdimensional mulberrybush, and I popped out just before my body was contaminated, making sure Cooper and I had everything we needed for a nice, long, healthy life together.
Because the carnival had plans for us.
Turns out telling Errante Ame that you’ll do anything to have your true love once more means he’s gonna hold you to that.
Those closest to us knew the truth, but to the rest of the world, Cooper and I met at a rock show in Vegas and had been inseparable ever since.
Cooper came in cradling a very unhappy Miranda in his arms.
“Will you take her? She always settles down best for you. I changed her already. I’ll go get her bottle.”
He slid the six-month-old beauty into my arms, and she immediately quit wailing, her cries settling down to hiccups and whimpers.
“Daddy Denny? Why is Baby Randa so sad always?”
I put an arm around Miles and brought him close to my side. He played gently with her little toes and got that little worry crease between his brows.
“Your sister had a really rough time before she came to live with us. It’s our job to give her all the love we possibly can so we can heal that struggle she went through. Do you think you can help us do that?”
Miles beamed. “Of course I can, Daddy Denny. I’m full to bursting with love. I has so much inside me, Grandma Deb says so all the time!”
“She knows her stuff. She raised Daddy Coopy, so she knows all about kids who are bursting with love.”
“Daddy Coopy is bursting with love, too?”
I rubbed at Miles’s mile-high fiery hair and gave him a kiss right on top. We could cut his hair every week, and five minutes later it would be sticking up just like the Heat Miser’s.
“What is Daddy Coopy bursting with?” Cooper came in with a bottle for Miranda and a cup of coffee for me.
I wiggled my eyebrows at him as he handed me the mug, and he narrowed his eyes at me. I knew exactly what he was bursting with, since I hadn’t had a chance to take care of him. I would later, and he knew it.
“You behave,” he said, kissing my lips.
I grinned at him as he backed away from the bed, looking flustered.
“You got this? If I’m going to make it to my lecture this morning, I need to get in the shower.”
