“Ah, your woman is she? The last time I was here, Miss Rose was a free agent, in fact I was thinking of asking her out,” he told me, leaning back and rubbing his stomach with the hand that Ranger hadn’t claimed. “I think she liked me you know.”
“Doubtful seeing as how I was in her bed last night,” I muttered, refusing to rise to what he was saying – the big fat shit. “But if you need any help – with the area above your ass,” I growled, remembering exactly how far the injury extended, “then she’ll help.”
Grinning widely now, he mused, “But what if my butt boo-boo needs to be looked at by the nurse? And can I make her wear a naughty nursey outfit when she does it?”
The mental image of Rose in a naughty nurse outfit had me stiffening slightly, and it took everything I had to keep in the groan that automatically accompanied it. I was going to get her one of those, take a thousand photos, and then strip her out of it slowly. And there I went making plans that came naturally to me – sadly thanks to my brother being an asshole, though.
“If you don’t stop, you’ll be at the hospital getting a team of surgeons to remove your head from your colon, and then they can look at your butt boo-boo.”
That made him burst out laughing, throwing his head back and letting it all out. With what he’d gone through, it was great to see him doing that, and part of the worry I had for him settled. If he had PTSD from it, or if he was struggling with civilian life, I’d make sure I got him through it. The fact that he could laugh and joke like he was now made me hopeful that he’d be ok. It was going to be baby steps.
“So, roomy,” he said once he’d stopped laughing, rubbing his hands together. “Coffee o’clock?”
“It’s always coffee o’clock, bro. And seeing as how you’re a man of leisure now, have at it,” I gestured to the kitchen before leaning down to undo my boots. Typically, I was a no shoes in the house type of guy, but I’d been so frigging tired when I’d come in that I’d forgotten to take them off. Deciding that my uniform needed to go, too, I yelled as I passed the kitchen door, “Just taking this shit off and getting comfortable stuff on. Remember, no sugar in mine, just a dash of creamer.”
It was pertinent to remind him about how I took my coffee seeing as how he and Dad had four sugars in theirs, Cat had two in hers, and Mom had one. It was disgusting and probably why I was vehemently anti anything sweet in mine. The only coffee I’d turn down was one with sugar in it, but could my family ever remember that? Could they hell. Let me tell you, when you hate sweet coffee, that discovery mouthful is enough to make you want to puke. No matter what you do, the sugary coffee taste stays around for a while and totally ruins the coffee you drink after it. So hell yeah I was going to remind him each time he made me one.
Once I was done getting changed, and I had put everything away, I went back through and sat back down where I’d been before just as Garrett brought two travel mugs through. “No sugar, just creamer,” he confirmed as he handed me mine.
“Why these?” I asked holding my travel cup up.
“Couldn’t find the normal ones, plus it’s habit now. You pour, you add, you stir, you leave and drink it on your way,” Garrett shrugged. “By the way, great selection of those pod things, but I just grabbed the ones nearest me. I wasn’t sure if you had them organized that way for preference reasons or not.”
“That’s what I do,” I snickered. “I love having a selection, but I rarely purposely pick one.”
Opening the little mouth spout, I took a mouthful of it, pausing when the sweet taste hit me. It was an automatic gag reflex for me, and it took everything I had not to just spit it out across my living room. Getting up, I ran to the kitchen and spat it out, then turned the faucet on full blast, closing my eyes on reflex when it splashed up into my face, and reached for a spoon to scrape my tongue.
“What the hell are you doing?” my brother asked behind me.
“Sugar,” I gagged again, and stuck my head under the water to try to rinse the taste out.
“Did you get a pod with sugar in it, because I didn’t add any?”
Thanks to the spoon and the water, I had the worst of it out of my mouth within a couple of minutes, but it still meant the subsequent coffee wouldn’t taste right. Turning to glare at my brother as I wiped my face with the back of my hand, I snapped, “You tried to poison me.”