Page 7

N AVY

After leaving Dali at my sister’s, I hadn’t slept well at all and was up before dawn. After I checked the programs I’d written, I read the messages I’d received from Hammer and Preacher about what they’d found while sorting through the results I’d shared with them.

They were just as shocked as I was about the amount of men in my area with tattooed fingers, and I chuckled when Preacher started one of his replies with “Back in my day . . .” I didn’t have to give him shit because Hammer beat me to it.

The majority of the ensuing messages were the men arguing with each other even though they could have walked out to their porches and just yelled back and forth.

I yawned as I checked the dogs’ bowls and then gave them some attention before I went to shower and get my day started. Now that I’d managed to make it an hour without thinking of her, I let my mind wander to the gorgeous woman she’d become.

Even though Dali and my sister looked like complete opposites, they were like two peas in a pod.

The girls spent so much time together as children that our parents became friends with hers, which meant that she was at our house as much as Corrie was at hers.

Since I was eight years older than Corrie, we didn’t bicker like siblings who were closer in age.

Instead, Corrie, and then Dali, became my cheering section at sporting events or anything else I happened to be doing.

After I left for boot camp, my parents told me that the girls moped around as if they’d lost their best friend, so once I graduated and was sent to my duty station, I made sure to send them postcards and trinkets every chance I got.

By the time I got out of the Navy and came home for college, the girls had flown through their preteen years and moved onto becoming rebellious teenagers who thought they were invincible.

But our lives changed drastically when Corrie made the mistake of trusting a stranger.

My parents had to handle it by themselves since I was incarcerated, so they cracked down on Corrie to make sure she was safe while getting her the therapy she needed to get past the brainwashing and terror of the kidnapping that bastard had put her through.

I knew that Dali had been by my sister through it all, even when Corrie started to rebel again.

When Corrie got pregnant, Dali rose to the occasion and took the place of the deadbeat who took off at the first sign of responsibility.

My parents couldn’t sing her praises loud enough.

I still had all the pictures I had gotten from my parents while I was in prison, including one that showed a beaming Dali holding my niece just minutes after she was born.

It was through those pictures that I started to see Dalisay in a new light as the beautiful young woman she’d become instead of the cute kid who’d followed me around all those years ago.

Once she went off to OTS, her contact with Corrie became more sporadic, but they still managed to keep in touch through email and letters. Corrie worked extra shifts at the bar to save up so she and Antonia could travel to see Dali wherever she was stationed.

I’d kept up with Dali’s time in the Navy through tidbits I picked up from my sister and our parents and occasional visits from Dali’s parents. The pride they had in their daughter was obvious.

Through it all, I never mentioned that I thought about her all the time, and she showed up in my dreams almost every night.

There was something about her that had always seemed to call to my soul.

When I saw her last night, that call was no longer a gentle beckoning as much as it was an intense awakening of my senses.

I wasn’t sure how to act around Dali now, which was funny since we were both adults.

Last night had thrown me for a loop. Her vulnerability had been palpable, first in sleep and then through the drunken tears that came when she woke up and told me why she’d been drinking.

If I was being honest with myself, the chain of events had solidified my feelings for her as much more than old family friends, and I had veered off into salacious thoughts and dreams.

And not for the first time, as I stood under the shower and thought of her, I stroked my cock and wondered what things might be like if I ever had the chance to tell her how I felt.

I was out of breath and weak in the knees by the time my soapy hand had given me relief.

I kept remembering how she’d looked last night after I helped her get settled into my sister’s guest bed, but the real torture came from the memories of the wickedly naughty things she’d said to try to convince me to stay.

◆◆◆

I pulled up in front of Three Sheets to find the front door propped open. When I saw Dad hauling out a trash can full of wood scraps, I jumped off my bike and jogged over in time to help him dump it into the heavy-duty steel dumpster he’d rented for the week.

“What’s all this?” I asked.

“I’m expanding the pantry in the kitchen,” Dad explained, a bit out of breath. “What are you doing here so early?”

“I didn’t get much sleep last night, so I thought I’d get a jump on things.” I looked around and then back to my dad before I tilted my head and asked, “Are you doing the work?”

During his time in the service, Dad had been injured in an electrical accident on ship that still affected his heart to this day.

That was also the explanation as to why he was missing his pinky and ring finger on his right hand - that’s where the flow of electricity exited after it scrambled his heart’s electrical system.

For a man who didn’t take any dietary precautions and considered a walk around the bar to fill his beer from the tap a form of cardio, he was in surprisingly good shape - that is, other than the heart problems that had given him fits since his thirties.

However, he was nearing seventy, and Corrie and I had been watching him closely since we lost Mom. Unfortunately, we couldn’t motivate him to take care of himself like she had, although we tried to as often as possible without pissing him off too much.

Dad scoffed at my notion that he would be handling the woodworking and said, “If we want shelves that are level and steady, I am not the guy for the job.”

I laughed before I said, “I could probably do it.”

“No need. I went to the VA yesterday and got a list of contractors who could use some work. The crew has been hard at work since seven this morning, and they’ll be here again tomorrow. My guess is we’ll be open by this weekend.”

“Really?” I asked in shock.

After some discussion, Dad had agreed to close the bar for a week, but after I found out about the improvements he wanted to make on top of dealing with the cleanup after those assholes busted up the bar, I thought it would end up taking closer to two weeks, if not three.

However, Dad didn’t like to close the bar for any reason.

He knew that there were people who depended on Three Sheets to get them out of the house.

Veterans frequented the bar because they knew they could always find someone to talk to there who could relate to their time in the service, and it provided a safe environment where they could be themselves.

Every year, we lost a few regulars to old age, illness, and sometimes even suicide, but we also gained new regulars too. They brought in fresh conversations, bonding the older guys and the newer ones - something Dad insisted was good for both.

Three Sheets wasn’t just a bar; it was a community. When it was closed, there were people adrift and alone, and Dad felt the weight of that.

“The new water heater has already been installed and inspected, and the plumber is inside now, hooking the new fryers and oven up to the gas lines while another guy replaces the vent hood.”

“Damn. You hired quite a crew.”

“I’m not fucking around, son. I’m ready to sit my lazy ass down and enjoy a beer, but I can’t do that while there’s work to be done, so I found people that could do it better and faster than us.”

“Do you happen to have an electrician in the bunch?” I asked.

“Possibly. What do you have in mind?”

“I’d like to have a few more outlets installed and get the wiring done for a new camera system.”

“A new one?”

“We need to upgrade so that we can make out more details and won’t have to play a guessing game about who I need to find if this ever happens again.”

“You’re not gonna let the cops take care of this, are you?”

“Hell no.”

“Will you do me one favor?”

“Of course.”

“Get my wedding ring back,” Dad said sadly as he looked at his hand. “I feel naked without it.”

“When I find out who has it, I’m going to take their hand for stealing it.”

“That’s my boy,” Dad said before he slapped me on the shoulder. “Let’s go inside and get in everyone’s way while you tell me what you’ve got planned.”

“Did Corrie tell you that Dalisay would be housesitting for them?” I asked.

“No, she didn’t mention it, but I’m glad to hear the girl finally got to come home.”

“Did she leave the Navy?”

“You didn’t hear what happened?” Dad asked.

He barked out a laugh before he said, “Well, the look on your face answered that question. She was injured on ship a few months ago when a cable holding a stack of beams snapped. Dalisay happened to be on deck with some visiting officers and officials, giving them one of those bullshit tours where they strut around like royalty and . . .” When I burst out laughing because I knew exactly what he was talking about, Dad shook his head and continued.

“Anyway, Dali pushed the others out of the way and took the brunt of it. Damn near killed the girl. She broke all of her ribs, cracked her sternum, and fucked up her collarbone and shoulder. It took her months to recover, and all she got for her troubles was a pink slip and a few medals.”

“That sucks,” I muttered.