Mark (Mallick Brothers 3)

Sunday dinner.

No excuses.

All five of us, all in our thirties, and our asses still were scared of what a woman like Helen Mallick would do to us if we didn't show. Scared enough that none of us ever attempted it. Also, what red-blooded man would turn down a home cooked meal?

I went into the bar for a few, bullshitting with Ryan over the books, and getting the ever-elongating "honey-do" list for the woman's shelter that I was convinced was built on an ancient Native burial ground or something because the goddamn place was cursed. Something was always fucking breaking. And I was always the one the work was pawned off onto, being the best with home improvement shit like that.

Then I took myself out into the back lot, admiring my new baby as I walked up to her. Brand fucking new pickup with titanium body, a sparkling black pearl paint job, and every single bell and whistle the dealership could con me into.

What can I say, I am a sucker for bells and whistles.

Backup camera? Check. Satellite radio? Check. Butt warmers and coolers? Check and check. You name it, I had it.

But I spent a lot of time in my truck. Within a year, it would be scratched and dinged and busted all to shit thanks to the constant loading and unloading of tools, the tendency I had to use my personal vehicle to pull trees out of the ground instead of one of my landscaping trucks, and all matter of crap that happened when you were a truck guy because you used your truck, not just liked the look of it.

So I enjoyed the pristine look for the short period of time that it lasted.

I was barely in the seat before my phone was buzzing in the cupholder. "Yeah, Ma?"

"Sticker books, dishwasher detergent, and wee-wee pads for that new dog of your brother's."

So yeah, my mother did shit like that, calling and demanding things. That being said, she also was the type to drop off baked goods when she was in a good mood, so the occasional errand wasn't a big deal.

"Got it."

"Six," she said, hanging up without waiting for a response.

My plans for a beer in front of my TV would have to wait since the only place I could find that odd assortment of items was a goddamn box store where I was bound to get lost for three and a half hours and come out not only with those three things, but about three-hundred dollars worth of other shit that I probably didn't need.

The last time I hit a box store, I somehow ended up with three bag's worth of As-Seen-On-TV items that had been cluttering up my closet ever since. Why the fuck I ever thought I would need a zucchini noodle maker was beyond me.

They pumped drugs through their fucking ventilation systems, I swear.

But at least I could get another case of beer and maybe something to make for dinner.

One hour later, I was elbow-deep inside a discount DVD bin. Why? That was a good question. Literally every single DVD in the damn thing was available for streaming which meant I wouldn't even have to get off the couch to watch the damn thing which, as we all know, is the goddamn dream. Those were hard days those 'get up to put a movie in' days.

Finally shaking myself out of the box-store stupor I was in, I put back the copy of Bad Boys 2 and made my way out of the belly of the beast and back toward the registers.

Even at mid-day, literally twenty minutes from school-let-out which was when I did all my shopping in the hopes of avoiding the crush, it was relatively busy; full of poor souls who lost track of the hour, day, week, and their life as a whole thanks to the vortex of stark fluorescent lights and an endless maze of aisles.

I followed the lights for the check-out, promising to empty my wallet of a good three-hundred bucks for shit I didn't need, when it happened.

The lights cut out.

And being that it was March and that meant there were no AC-drains on electric lines like we occasionally got in the summer, there were no storms going on, and stores like this had a whole-store generator back-ups for this kinda shit, I stopped short.

Maybe there was no actual, concrete reason for me to feel this way, but there was an unmistakable tightening in my gut, like there usually was before a fight broke out inside Chaz's or I was about to do a job for Pops. But there it was regardless. My body was preparing for something.

Feeling a bit like a sitting duck in the middle of the main path, I pushed my cart down an aisle, walking quietly toward the back of it toward the wall, standing beside the end-cap, and waiting for some sign, any sign that my body wasn't being ridiculous.