Page 272 of Devil’s Disciples

He turned away, returning in a moment with two beers. He handed me one. After I accepted it, I tilted the neck of the bottle toward him. “Here’s to fast cars, battlefield miracles, and having something to believe in.”

He clanked his bottle against mine.

I took a drink and then raised my clenched fist. “For now, I’m going to believe in this brass bracelet.”

He gave a nod. “As long as you’ve got something to believe in.”

I began checking for coolant leaks. After enough time passed that I felt like I could change the subject, I did, deciding to speak about something we both had in common.

Abby.

“I’m grateful as hell that Abby came into my life,” I said. “I’ve been blind to what it’s like have someone care about me – other than family – and I haven’t had any family for thirteen years or so. Hard to put into words how much she means to me.”

He sipped his beer, and then silently studied me for a moment while I checked for leaks.

“You’ve got something to say, just say it,” I said without looking up. “Never been much for having a man stare at me and not speak.”

“She loves you,” he said. “But she’s scared to death to tell you. Don’t know if it’s my place to do so, but I guess I just did.”

I sprung upright, banging the back of my head on the hood when I did so. “Son of a bitch,” I shouted. “That hurt like hell.”

“Finding out she loves you?” He chuckled. “Or hitting your head?”

“Maybe both.” I rubbed the back of my head with the palm of my hand. “Did she tell you that?”

“More or less,” he said.

I’d felt like I loved Abby, but also feared telling her how I felt. Confiding my feelings wasn’t easy, especially when it came to love. One way to get tossed to the curb would be to tell her I loved her if she didn’t love me. More or less wasn’t much of an indication of love, though.

I looked at him as if he’d taken a liberty he shouldn’t have. “More or less?”

“We talked about you yesterday, at length,” he said. “She loves you. I thought she was going to tell you last night. It’s why I asked about your dinner.”

“Maybe she decided she doesn’t,” I said.

He took a long drink of his beer, and then lowered the bottle. “She’s scared to death of losing you. I know that.”

“I know how that feels. I can’t seem to convince myself I deserve her. I can tell you that much.”

“In my fifty some years on earth, I learned this,” he said. “When it comes to living life, we all get what we deserve. Nothing more, nothing less. If you don’t believe me, maybe you ought to have another look at that bracelet of yours.”

I glanced at my wrist. It was nothing more than a piece of brass with a word stamped into the face of the metal. But, for the time being, it was all I had. I studied the inscription. Abby may have deserved me, but I wasn’t convinced I deserved her. Not yet, at least. Before I could truly believe, I needed to tell her the truth.

The entire truth.

If she accepted me when I was done, our relationship was meant to be.

101

Abby

As a teen I was preached to about what types of boys to avoid. My parents weren’t overly strict, but they wanted me to succeed in whatever endeavors I chose. Success, in their eyes, couldn’t be achieved unless I selected the right man to be at my side.

If I chose the wrong man, I’d be destined for failure. Or, so they led me to believe. Nonetheless, I was attracted to bad boys. The kids who were always in trouble. The boys who fought after school. The hellions who were ostracized by everyone else in school for their actions or beliefs. The kids who wore black, sat alone in the lunch room, and wore a scowl from first period until the dismissal bell rang.

Those were the boys I liked.

No, no, and hell no was my father’s common response to my expressions of attraction to the opposite sex. As I grew older, I developed much more than a fascination with bad boys. They were my only desire. I blamed my attraction partially on my father’s insistence that I avoid those types, and, in part because he was a staunch pacifist.