One good thing about being shot and having surgery, even though I’m sure a good field dressing and some scotch would have fixed me right up, is that I can definitely get used to having Trace dote on me afterward.
If this is her idea of doting and making me relax…I’m definitely not complaining. Really, who doesn’t like having a blow—
“Yoo-hoo! Are you decent in there, kids? I brought breakfast!”
I hear Trace groan and dive beneath the sheet a second before my nosy-ass mother comes waltzing through the door to deliver me a breakfast fit for a king.
Thank God, because as much as I adore my girl, she cannot cook a frozen dinner without burning it to a crisp.
Ma, of course, is cooing and loving this as Trace peeks from beneath the sheet and spots her just standing there grinning.
“Good morning, Tracy dear. Did you sleep well?”
“Er, yeah. Hi.”
“Oh, good, good. Here, dear, Mama made you some eggs, bacon, and hash browns to fuel up nicely for the long day ahead. And for you, my dearest son, I made a nice bowl of hearty oatmeal. Don’t rush to get up. The rest of us understand that you need this time together to rest and recover from yesterday’s ordeal.”
She’s almost running out of the room and I know why. Ma is never one to overlook a happy, momentous occasion like me and Trace getting back together, so she’ll try her best to be happy and peppy, but with Roman gone and what Wyatt probably told them last night, I can just think what poor Ma must be feeling.
Wait. Did Ma really make me oatmeal?
The giggle I get when Trace places the oatmeal in front of me and I grimace makes it worth it when the nasty, gloopy mess hits my tongue and starts congealing immediately.
“Don’t like oatmeal?”
“No. I told you that the first time you made it for breakfast and tried to feed me half a pot of the stuff.”
“But I thought that was just because I was so bad at making it.”
The need to laugh is strong because my Trace is truly the world’s worst cook. Her oatmeal was solid enough to tar the driveway, and just getting a spoonful to dissolve in my mouth took at least two minutes of actual chewing. But she always makes everything with so much enthusiasm and love that I couldn’t bring myself to criticize her.
She found out the next day that I hate the gloopy mess and stopped making it, though to be honest, at least I could eat that in an hour. Her eggs and bacon were like eating ass from a campfire.
“Babe, your oatmeal sucked, I ain’t going to lie to you, but I really do not like the stuff,” I admit, staring the stuff down as if it will disappear with a look.
“Here. Eat mine. I actually do like oatmeal.” She giggles, taking my bowl and swapping it out for her eggs and bacon feast.
“You’re the perfect woman, you know that?” I ask, groaning when the taste hits my tongue.
Now my ma, that woman knows her way around a kitchen, and I’m not afraid to admit it to Trace. Some women just have different talents, and Trace is better at…other things.
We eat in silence, sitting side by side. For a few minutes I can almost pretend that we’re an old married couple just enjoying one of many breakfasts we’ve already shared.
I like this. I really like this, and for the first time in a long time I can see myself being this guy who wakes up beside his woman, enjoying the start of another glorious day.
But I can’t do this if I’m still serving. I know it because odds are that I’ll be home for a week at a time, if I’m lucky, and then it’ll be a short stay before shipping out to another distant locale and doing the same things all over again.
There won’t be easy, lazy mornings relaxing in bed and just enjoying the silence. After weeks away and knowing I’ll be gone soon, I’ll spend all my time on and in her and she deserves more than that.
“Hey, Trace?”
“Hhmmm?” she mumbles around a spoon of gloop as I put the tray on the floor beside the bed and turn to her.
“Do you think you would have married me if I’d asked you four years ago?” I ask, knowing the answer but still needing to hear it.
Trace swallows audibly and gets rid of her bowl before turning to me with a sad smile.
“Yes. I would have, because at that point in my life, all I wanted was you.”
Okay good. So I won’t need to throw myself off a bridge or anything, I think sardonically as I settle in on my good side and just stare at all that beauty that is now mine.
“Would you have been happy with that, though? No career, me always going away for work? We’d probably have a kid by now, and you would probably be raising him or her alone when I go off.”
That gets her attention and she shifts closer with a frown and a huff that lets me know she is not impressed with me right now.