Page 7 of Never Going to Care

“Mine,” he growled and then before anyone in the room could take a breath, Landon hauled Piper over his shoulder and stalked out of my office.

Piper raised her head and gave me a blinding smile as she flipped me off while hanging over his shoulder. I barked out a laugh, amused as fuck with their antics. Landon deserves to be happy. He closed himself off for two years after he hired Piper even though the rest of us could clearly see how much he cared for her. It was in his eyes, in the way he tracked her every movement, even in the way he held himself away from her.

As my brother stole his woman away, a feeling lingered around me, one I couldn’t brush away or ignore. It was a feeling of yearning, of want. It made me think about Celeste. I wasn’t willing to look too deeply into the feeling or why.

Hell, it’s days later and I’m still not willing to analyze why I can’t seem to forget about her. I’ve almost convinced myself she’s lingering in my mind because I haven’t gotten laid in so damn long. Almost, but not quite. She’s gotten under my skin with the way she was willing to stand up to me even though she’s tiny and wouldn’t be able to reach my shoulders without a stepladder; a perk of being 6’3”.

My knock reverberates while I lower my hand and I don’t have to wait long for the door to swing open to reveal my mom wearing an apron and a frown of disapproval. She tuts, just as I knew she would, before she hauls me into the house and gives me a hug. She might be small, just like Piper, Celeste and the rest of my sisters, and I might be 35, but her hugs pack a fucking punch and I’m not too old to admit it.

They’re comfort, knowing and acceptance wrapped up in one simple action which she’s more than willing to dole out to anyone in need. Her hugs were one of the things I missed the most while I was training and deployed. It’s one of the things which brought me home, hoping they could help put my scattered pieces back together again.

“Mihijo,” she sighs as she herds me toward the kitchen where I can hear the voices of my family layering themselves in a soundtrack of home, “what have I told you about knocking?”

“Ma,” I hook an arm around her shoulders and kiss her temple, “I don’t live here anymore. I’m not going to walk in like I own the place.”

She sighs, but it’s halfhearted, at best. “This will always be your home,” the conviction in her voice grounds me in the here and now, anchoring me in the past, the memories of growing up, and the love she gave us even when there wasn’t nearly enough of anything else to go around.

It was one of the reasons I decided to join up and serve instead of going to college. I wasn’t going to be a burden to my family. I needed to make something of myself and make sure my sisters, who were all always smarter than me anyway, had more opportunities. Not being a drain on my family was the first step in making sure it happened.

I’ve done what I set out to do even though there are ghosts of my past following me around because of my time as a SEAL. It had to be done and if I had to go back and do it again, I wouldn’t make a different decision. I would do my best to minimize the loss I’ve seen, but the wheel of time only moves forward so I deal.

Kind of.

When we step into the kitchen, I can’t help but smile at the sight which greets me. My sisters are chatting all at once as if they don’t spend every day together at their bakery and our dad stands to the side with a smile on his face. He’s like me in so many ways. He stays quiet, but you can see the way he basks in the love of his family.

He’s not as grumpy or growly as I am, but he didn’t go the military route when he was younger. He could have, but then he met mom and fell in love. He wasn’t going to leave her. I don’t blame him considering my past.

I thought I loved my high school girlfriend, Maria. She was everything to me, but it didn’t keep me from joining up and heading out to boot camp. Maybe if I had stayed, I wouldn’t have gotten the oh so cliché Dear John letter I did when I was out on my first deployment.

Talk about a mindfuck from thousands of miles away.

It’s not even like I could blame her. I was asking a lot of a woman I wasn’t married to, and we were both so young. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t bitter as fuck about it for a long damn time. I threw myself into the job and enjoying any shore leave I had. I spent quite a bit of time…diversifying my sexual partners.

It wasn’t the healthiest of ways to deal with things, I realize now, but, again, that damn wheel of time.

Maria is now happily married with a few kids. I’ve seen her around the neighborhood a few times when I’ve visited my parents. It was awkward as fuck, but I’m happy she’s happy. It doesn’t sting like it did at first and now I’m pretty sure I wasn’t even in love with her in the first place.

It became crystal clear when I watched Landon and Piper find their way, as messy and full of struggle and denial as it was. I never looked at Maria the way Landon looks at Piper. It wasn’t meant to be, I can admit it now, but the experience pushed me closer to prickly and I’m not sure there’s any coming back from the man I’ve become.

Do I even want to?

My head fills with a vision of Celeste smiling and happy with a little girl wrapped around her legs with the same raven hair as her mama and the brown eyes I inherited from my mom. When my breath hitches, I cover it by clearing my throat. My mom can scent these kinds of things like a damn bloodhound and I’m not going to give her any ammunition.

Nope. She’d never let it go. Celeste shines so brightly, even while glaring at me, and deserves someone more emotionally available than I am.

My sisters turn toward me with big smiles on their faces and then they surround me with hugs, talking over each other. I let out a chuckle and wrap them up in my arms. We’ve always been a close family and it hasn’t changed, no matter the death count on my head or the miles I put between us, I knew this was what was waiting for me at home.

This is enough.

It’ll have to be.

I look around the room before teasing my middle sister, Justice, “Where’s Corbin?”

She rolls her eyes and huffs out a breath. They’ve been best friends for almost their whole lives and it’s not often that we get Justice here for family dinner night without Corbin right next to her. He’s like a little brother I never wanted and can’t seem to shake.

“He has a date,” she chirps brightly.

I search her face for anything she’s hiding, but nothing is there. I swear there’s more between them, but both will deny it vehemently and I gave up asking a long time ago. Mom hasn’t though which annoys Justice to no fucking end. It’s amusing as hell.

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