Page 72 of His Bittersweet Regret

Jimmy laughed at me. “No, you would have had deployments, time apart, and the possibility of coming home injured, with PTSD, or not at all on your shoulders. You can’t trade one set of problems and think there won’t be another set waiting for you. I’d guess you should have already figured that out by now. You went looking for the greener grass and found that you had the best lawn out there before you stomped all over it.”

“Thanks for the recap. Where were you a year ago before I stupidly agreed with Brix and Bas?”

“That was dumb on your part. Of all your brothers, those were the two you chose to listen to? No wonder Opal wants nothing to do with them, and as little as possible to do with you.”

And there went another hammer to the nuts.

“Did she look happy?” I asked, almost afraid to know the answer.

Jimmy nodded. “Seemed to be, until she noticed us standing there watching them. She had been laughing and having a good time playing mini golf.”

I scoffed at that. “She always wanted to do that, but I thought it was stupid.”

“Maybe you should have thought more about what would make her happy, rather than yourself.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that.”

“A bit too late though, huh?”

“Any more salt you want to rub in my wounds, or should we take a trip to the store next time Austin wakes up?”

“Calm down, little brother,” Jimmy ordered in his polite way. “Just want to make sure you never fuck up so epically again.”

“Trust me, that won’t ever be a problem.”

“So, how do you plan on bringing women home when it looks like a shrine to your lost relationship in here?”

The sigh I heaved out was almost answer enough, but when Jimmy’s stare became unrelenting, I finally capitulated. “I don’t plan on bringing any women back here.”

“You just going to give up on dating?”

“No, I guess not. I’m not ready right now.”

“What about when you are?”

“There will never be another woman, who I’m not related to or who isn’t Opal, that will walk through that door.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yep. If I ever have a chance to get her back, I’m going to take it, and the last thing I need is for this house to have memories of someone else being here. I already told you about all the other shit Opal went through. She’s already had enough of having the women I’ve dated being shoved in her face, and at the worst times.”

“I get it, but it seems like she moved on already. She’s got the entire night without a kid. Do you think she’ll grant you the same respect, and not take Joe to her place, when their night winds down?”

I laughed. “She doesn’t even have a bed at her place.”

“Well, then I guess they’ll end up at his.”

I stood, fury riding me hard as I thought about Joe putting his hands on my woman. I picked up a lamp and got ready to chuck the thing across the room when Jimmy stood and caught my hand before I could release it.

“Did you really try to give her this house?”

I nodded, my anger still rode me hard as we talked.

“She might have accepted. I felt like she was going to, at least thinking about it, but then we walked in and the pictures were everywhere thanks to Mom trying to be helpful.” I explained to him why the pictures were a big deal and my brother simply hung his head.

“Man, when you screw shit up, you go all out.”

“That’s the damn truth.”

---