Page 75 of Justice for Radar

“Where’s our fresh beer?” Atlas called and Radar called back, “Alright, alright! Hold your fuckin’ horses.”

I smiled, over abundance of peopling and drained reserves aside – I was enjoying this and everyone’s company immensely.

Some of those reserves came back as we all settled in and started the movie. Radar had me fetched up against him and Atlas pulled my legs up into his lap and settled in with us. La Croix was on Atlas’s other side and Collier took up the recliner. I turned into a puddle of goo when Atlas began to rub my feet and Atlas the back of my head and neck.

If I were a cat I would purr, but pretty quickly it would become all I could do just to stay awake. The relaxation was real and I felt every inch the spoiled princess.

The movie was engrossing, I mean, I’d lived here for a number of years and I’d even been to the Alamo a few times now. Once with my parents, once with Rodney’s parents, and now with the men surrounding me in my living room. I mean, I knew the story, the history, and how it ended but the movie? I don’t know what it was about movies and films. Maybe it was the actors, maybe it was the stirring music that moved my soul but this one? This movie got me right in the feels.

I wept, La Croix reaching in front of him to the box of tissues on the coffee table and passing them wordlessly over Atlas to me. I laughed the sound breaking on a bubbling little sob and pulled some.

“Sorry, I’m ridiculous, I know,” I said, and the guys chuckled but made no comment.

“Okay, Beautiful,” Atlas said as the credits began to roll. He patted my ankles twice and I shifted my feet off of him so he could get up.

“Yo, bud. You going up?” Radar asked.

“Uh, yeah. We got an early ride tomorrow,” he seemed to remind Radar.

“That we do, wanna do me a solid?”

“What’s that?”

“Get a bath started for me and my woman. We’ll be up in a sec but she needs some alone time and both of us need to relax some for sleep.”

“Sure, bro. No problem.”

I looked from Atlas to Radar and back to Atlas dumbfounded and like I was some spectator at a tennis match.

“Thank you, my man,” Radar declared.

“You guys good for one more night?” he asked La Croix and Collier.

“Fuck yeah, man. We do need to fuck off by tomorrow or early the day after tomorrow, though. Sick leave from the day jobs gonna run out.”

“What the fuck do you guys even do?” Radar asked. “I don’t think I ever asked you.”

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” La Croix rumbled and Collier laughed.

“We work the docks, ain’t nothin’ glamorous about it.”

I stared at La Croix… mystified. He was always so serious and only ever really talked to me. Getting by with as few words as possible with even Collier who he’d come with so they had to be, I don’t know iffriendswas quite the right word butsomething… I mean, I don’t think it completely ended with them just being a part of the same club, that that was as far as things went.

Truthfully, the big, scary, tattooed man was a conundrum but by the same token he was very sweet. I didn’t think that he was always that way, though. I mean his default was scary for a reason…

“Come on, baby,” Radar murmured and his voice soothed the soul.

I was a bit of a turtle on her back at this angle and La Croix reached out a tattooed hand. I grasped it and leveraged myself up into more of a sitting position.

“Thanks,” I murmured and he gave me a nod but let go my hand quickly.

Radar helped me to my feet and towed me gently upstairs with a light grasp on my fingertips.

I could hear the rush of bathwater as we entered the bedroom. Atlas was sitting up in bed already, scanning his phone and scrolling.

“Thanks man,” Radar said again, and Atlas looked up and smiled at us both.

“You try to relax,” he ordered me mock-sternly and I laughed a little. He was growing on me. In the beginning he was a sort of strong personality and his interest a little… intense. To the point that it’d tripped a few wires in my brain and made me want to shy away more – not less. But he’d sort of evened out and the more time I spent around him I realized he was just a bit of an acquired taste at least where I was concerned but it was a taste that I was quite growing to enjoy. The possibilities whispering seductively in the back of my mind.

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