Breathless Awakening (The Breathless Series) (4 page)

“Tuck, shut the fuck up. I know you’re tired and you probably still have your panties in a wad from last night, but get over it. If you want me to stay here and pack shit up, fine, I will. That means you get to go find some food for breakfast and it is coming out of your pocket.”

Jeremy wrapped his arm around Tuck’s shoulder and pulled him over to help him. “Food, did you say something about food? Don’t mind my cuddle bunny here–go get the food. We’ll pack things up and get things done around here.”

As I was walking out the door, I heard Tuck turning on Jeremy. “Cuddle bunny? Really, what the hell?”

“Chill. He’s going to get food, and he’s paying. Get your lazy ass to work before I find another woman to kick your ass like Cailyn did at the wedding last night.”

As I wandered around a corner, I decided to find food the same way any guy finds a good place to eat. I followed my nose. I could smell the bacon long before I saw it, but eventually I was able to find the Kerrymuir Diner. When I walked through the door, I felt like I had gone back in time about fifty years. The jukebox still had vinyl in it, and it took nickels!

An older woman flew around from table to table, refilling coffee. Out of nowhere, she walked up to me and gave me a very motherly hug. “Zane, it’s so good to see you. I didn’t think you were staying in town after the wedding. Is everything ok?”

“Umm, excuse me, do I know you?”

“Where are my manners? I’m sorry, Zane, I’m Cindy. Luke has told me so much about you. I didn’t get to introduce myself at the wedding yesterday and didn’t get to stay after the ceremony. Is everything alright?”

“Yes, ma’am, everything is fine. Mr. Donnelly planned to surprise Luke and Cailyn when they get back from the honeymoon with a house. The guys and I stayed in town to help move everything so they don’t have to worry about it when they get back.”

“That was so sweet of him and you boys too. Where are the other boys? Are they coming? Here, have a seat and let me get you some coffee while you wait for them. I bet you are all tired this early.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“Cindy, call me Cindy. There is no need for all that prim and proper stuff with me. I’ve done my best to be as much of a mother as I can for your brother and I’m happy to let you take his place today.”

“Yes, ma’am, I mean Cindy. The guys are finishing packing what Luke didn’t plan to put in storage. I was hoping that you all had a to‐go menu that I could look at.”

She reached over to put the coffee pot down, handed me a menu, and then was back to filling coffee for the person sitting in the booth next to me. “Oh, ok. Well, here, you have a seat and let me know what you want. I’ll get you some coffee while you wait for the food though.”

“Thank you, Cindy, you’re a sweetheart.” She smiled as she seemed almost to ignore what I was ordering. I was sure that she was taking it all in with everything else going on around her. I didn’t see any other waitresses, and it was just her this morning with a full crowd.

While I waited for the food, Cindy was nice enough to bring me a cup of coffee and the morning paper. I glanced through it and sipped my coffee. I hadn’t heard back from Ryan so I figured I had better call him.

“Ryan, where the fuck are you?” … “What? She actually let you go home with her? Wow!” … “The girls are supposed to be cleaning the new place this morning, are you going to ride with her?” … “Alright, we’ll see you when we get there.”

Before I knew it, Cindy brought me the bag of food. “I threw some plastic utensils and napkins in there for you. I figured they will probably have everything packed away before you get back there.”

“I hope you’re right, but you don’t know these guys like I do. I’m just hoping the place is still standing when I get there. Thanks for everything.”

“Anytime. Why don’t you stop in sometime if you are in town visiting Luke?”

I was glad that Luke’s place wasn’t that far. The bag felt like it had twice as much food as what I ordered, but that was probably just me being tired. Five hours of sleep was going to make for a very long day with all the physical work we had to do. I heard nothing as I walked up to the door. That couldn’t be good. Please don’t let there be blood.

Terry

“Aileen, I told you that I don’t want you hurting yourself today. You can sit back and supervise. Make sure the girls are cleaning everything the way you want. We all know you are compulsive and you would love to go behind them and clean it again, but there is no reason you should have to do that. This will give you a chance to walk around and make sure they are cleaning to your standards.”

“Terry, I’m fine! I feel much better than I did yesterday. You act like it wasn’t a minor accident; it isn’t like I was hit on my side of the car. The impact threw me into the door as the curtain airbags were coming out. I will be bruised up for a while, but I will be fine.”

“I’m sure you will be fine, in a few days or weeks, but the doctor told you to use that arm as little as possible for a while, and yeah you are bruised up. Bruised ribs are not something to play with. I don’t need you aggravating it by scrubbing things or carrying boxes. If you were fine, you wouldn’t be cradling your arm close to your side, and barely moving it at that. Please, just take it easy.”

“You wouldn’t let me help get my only daughter ready for her wedding yesterday. Now you don’t want to let me do my share to get her moved into her first home? What can I do Terry? She is my daughter too! I’m not useless.” I wasn’t sure if Aileen was going to cry or strangle me. Maybe both. I could hear the teakettle whistle as the steam rolled out of her ears.

“I can’t argue that with you. I know how bad this has to hurt, but I don’t want you hurting more in a couple weeks. Cailyn wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself over this; it’s just not worth it. There are plenty of other ways to be of use. I’ll call Megan, have her swing by, and pick you up. I have to go get the moving truck and head to Luke’s to meet the guys. Hopefully they have most of the stuff ready to be loaded up, but it was a pretty late night.”

Walking over to grab my keys from beside Aileen, I reached out to pull her into me for a hug. She winced slightly as my hand went around her and brushed against her side. I couldn’t help but feel a little upset that we were finally getting the house all to ourselves, but we still couldn’t have a little more fun around there until Aileen was feeling better. I kissed the top of her head as I turned to leave, seeing her glare at me with a façade of anger before she winked at me.

As I walked in the door, I saw the guys sitting around eating breakfast. “Taking a break already? What kind of help are you guys? Didn’t I feed you last night? Here you go, Breck, I didn’t get a chance to give this back to you last night.”

I tried to hand him his flask, but he held up another one and tipped it my way before taking a drink from it. “Don’t worry about it, Terry, I’ve got more where that came from. You may need it some time.”

Was he really drinking already? He seemed like a good guy, but I was starting to wonder if he had a problem. Every time I saw him, he was having a drink. Just his size alone told me that he had to have some kind of tolerance. He didn’t seem to get tipsy at the reception, but there was only so much alcohol that a man should drink. I needed to have to talk with Zane later and see what was going on, because I hated to see such a young man go through something like this and I would do whatever I could to help him out.

“So, do you all have enough for an old man to get something to eat too? Megan is supposed to be picking up some food for the new house, but I’m guessing it will be fruit and bagels or something. I want some of that bacon.”

Zane stood up and grabbed his plate. “Here you go, sir, have a seat and dig in. I’m not sure why but the diner down the street gave me almost double what I ordered. Of course looking at what these guys left, you wouldn’t think that, but there is still plenty for you. I’m going to get back to packing.”

A few moments later, Breck and I walked into the bedroom as Zane and Tucker were flipping the mattress and box spring off the frame of the bed. “Well, I guess now I know how he kept himself satisfied while waiting for my little girl.”

Zane, who couldn’t see around the box spring, stepped to the side to see the stash of magazines and videos hiding under the bed. “Sir, I’m sorry we didn’t check under there and get it boxed up before you got here and that you had to see that. I’ll box it up and get rid of it.”

“Son, don’t you worry about it. I’ve been his age before and I can only imagine what it was like having a beautiful woman and no help with his issues. Let’s get them boxed up, but I don’t think he is going to need them anytime soon since he will have his hands full for a while. I may borrow them for a bit.”

“Terry, did you just say you were going to borrow your son‐in‐laws porn stash? I wish you were my father‐in‐law. You are one cool old man.” Breck tried to take another drink and realized his flask was empty. He shook it around before walking out of the room. We heard the fridge open before he shouted, “Anybody else want a beer?”

I turned to Zane with a worried look on my face. Zane shrugged and then said, “Breck, it’s still early man. Let’s get some work done and drink later.”

Over the next thirty minutes, we got the rest of Luke’s belongings boxed up. I gave Aileen a call, letting her know that we were headed to the house in a bit while the guys started carrying things out to the truck. The girls were already there cleaning, but I could tell Aileen was not in a good mood. Megan must have had the same conversation with her that I had.

Chapter Four

Cailyn

Really, why is there such a line this early in the morning? You would think there wouldn’t be many people flying out so early on a Sunday. Are we ever going to get through security?”

“It will be ok Cailyn, just relax. We are on our way to Costa Rica; don’t go stressing yourself out now. Just you, me, and the beach. How are you feeling? Did the Ibuprofen help any?”

“Yea, I’m starting to feel a little better. My head is still pounding, but at least the aching is starting to die down a little. I don’t know if it is the Ibuprofen or being up and moving some… Come on, I’ve got a honeymoon to start!”

“Babe, calm down. Don’t go drawing more attention to yourself. You don’t need them pulling you to the side for additional screening. Why don’t you tell me about that dream you had.”

“Drawing more attention to myself? What do you mean by that? Oh, I guess you are referring to me looking like a crack whore because you let me fall back asleep and didn’t give me enough time to get ready. And do you want to talk about my dream here? In the middle of the security line?” I looked around at who was standing near us. Thankfully, there were no young children too close, but in front of us there was this cute elderly couple. I hoped that Luke and I would be that cute when we were older. I guessed that if I kept it down a little they wouldn’t be able to hear much of the conversation anyway.

Behind us were some college kids. They were so engrossed in their music and games on their tablets that they didn’t even know there were other people in the world right now. I guessed it was safe to talk about. “Well, it all started with me making you dinner. You had just started a new job, and I wanted to make sure you could come home and relax. At least that is what I wanted you to think. We had a very nice dinner before I asked you to dance with me.”

“Cailyn, babe, you wanted me to relax, but then you asked me to dance with you? You know I hate dancing, how is that going to relax me?”

“I don’t know, maybe because it lets you put your hands on me, stare into my beautiful eyes, and hold me close? It was my dream, not yours, and you asked about it so shut up and listen.” My head was still killing me. Why did he have to be so difficult?

“So after we danced for a while I got down on my knees and sucked your beautiful cock. The dream was nice, but last night, mmm, last night was so much better.”

“Really, you just got down on your knees and sucked me off right there? Wow that is a pretty good dream.”

Finally, we were at the security checkpoint. As I walked through the metal detector, nothing happened. I reached over to get my carry on from the conveyor and the security guy gave me a look. “Ma’am, we are going to have to ask you to step over to the side please.”

“See, babe, I told you not to cause a scene earlier.” Luke winked at me as if he was trying to be silly, but I just wanted to smack that smirk off his face.

I could tell that he was trying to make light of the situation, but he had a look of worry painted on his face. Of course, I’m not sure if he was worried for the guards or me. With the mood I was in, I was liable to go off on them, end up in jail, and miss my honeymoon. “Shut it, Luke.” I couldn’t understand why they pulled me to the side. “What is this about? I don’t have anything on me; the metal detector didn’t go off. Why did you pull me over here? Is this some random check or something?”

“No, ma’am, this is not a random screening. We need to wand you again and then we will need to search your bag.”

“What the fuck? I’m on my way to my honeymoon, what do you think I have?”

“Ma’am, please calm down.” He ran the wand over me as another guard pulled my bag over to a side table. She started to unzip it and looked through the bag. She smiled a little before zipping the bag up and handing it to me. “Ma’am, you may want to remove the batteries from the device to avoid complications in the future. Have a nice flight.”

Remove the batteries? Device? What the hell was she talking about? I grabbed my bag and gave them a little smirk before storming off to Luke.

“What was all that about? Is everything ok?”

Throwing my bags into his arms I said, “Here, hold this.” I unzipped the bag and moved a few things on top before seeing a massive vibrator that I had never seen before. My cheeks began to feel warm as I started to blush. Quickly I zipped up the bag, yanked it out of his arms, and almost ran to the bathroom. I could hear Luke behind me trying to figure out what was going on, but I just needed to get somewhere private so I could figure out how this got in my bag.