Chapter 180 - New House
*May your walls know joy; may every room hold laughter and every window open to great possibility. – Maryanne Radmacher Hershey*
“Reese!” Cooper called from the front room of the main house. “Reese!” he called again, moving deeper into the house and heading for the laundry room just off the open concept kitchen. “Damn it, Reese!”
“I keep telling you, call me JD. Reese is my dad.” He replied as he screwed in the last anchor for the shelves above where the washer and dryer will go. “I’m not used to answering to it, yet.”
“Yet?” Cooper chuckled as he propped his shoulder against the door frame. “You act like you haven’t had the name your whole life.”
He was a few inches taller than JD and had short dark blonde hair and pale green eyes. Having been a linebacker in high school, he was bulkier than JD was. The deep tan of his skin and dark lines of his tattoos only seemed to emphasize his muscles. Today he wore jean shorts and a dark gray tight Under Armor T-shirt.
“I haven’t. In fact, I’ve had it for less than a year.” JD grabbed the white floating shelf and slid it onto the base. “He’s actually my stepfather, but he’s a hell of an improvement over the bio father.”
Stepping back, he looked at the three floating white shelves against the bright blue wall. It wasn’t quite turquoise, but it had a slight green tint in the blue. The other walls in the room were a bright white and all had light pink trim. It went well with the beachy theme of the entire house.
Even more than the décor, JD felt proud of the work that he had done. Reese had taught him some with small projects around the houses. And he had worked for the construction company between graduation and leaving for boot camp. Reese had sent him to various job sites, telling the foreman of each site to make sure that his son got a crash course in adulting.
Smirking, JD heard Reese’s words float through his mind. *“I’m going to be disappointed if my own child has to call on the trades and not be able to fix bare basic adult shit. Please don’t disappoint me.”*
None of Reese’s employees wanted to disappoint him. Neither did JD.
“What?” Cooper asked as he looked at his friend in shock.
JD nodded as he grabbed his T-shirt from the hook on the wall next to him. Pulling on the black cotton, he tucked it into the khaki shorts he was wearing. “Furniture is going to be here tomorrow, but the appliances will be here in about two hours. You want to grab something to eat?”
“Really? You just drop a bomb like that and then you’re like, I’m hungry.”
“I *am* hungry.” JD said as he pushed the other man out of the doorway. “And my girl is going to be here in less than a week.”
“I can’t wait to meet this girl of yours.” Cooper grinned as he followed JD back through the house that he had just crossed. “Why are you working on this house?”
“My dad bought it.”
“Real dad or new dad?”
Chuckling, JD opened the door to the pickup next to Cooper’s little sports car. As he was starting the engine with the push start, Cooper got into the passenger seat.
“The *new* dad is what I consider the *real* dad. Bio dad sucks and isn’t even nice enough to swallow.”
Cooper choked on his own spit in the shock of the statement. “The fuck, man?” he demanded as the pickup was turned around and pulled out of the long driveway.
“I don’t even know if he knows how many kids he has. There’s the three of us, the one he has with Summer, and I think another half dozen or so that he has with former girlfriends.”
JD stopped at the intersection and waited for the other driver to pass before turning down the road and headed to a little café that he had discovered while working on the house. Cooper was surprised at his tone, there was no hatred, just simple indifference. And maybe even a little sadness.
“You don’t like the bio dad?”
“I have a very low opinion of him. But the kids, they are victims of his ego and uncontrollable sex drive. Which also includes a drive to control.”
Cooper shuddered. “I don’t even want to think about my parents’ sex life and you’re talking about it like it’s normal.”
JD laughed as he waited for a break in traffic to turn into the parking lot. “Bad news, buddy. It is normal. You don’t want to know how many therapy sessions I had about that.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Cooper laughed, “I’m learning way too much about you. Therapy?”
“Yeah.” JD waved at the older man pulling out of the diner parking lot as he pulled in. “My sister was nearly killed by her husband. I found out that my dad was abusive to my mom.” He slid into a parking spot and put the pickup in park as he stared at the diner window.
“I watched my bio father tear my mom to shreds verbally and then talk about how the only reason he married my mom was to get *legitimate sons*. That’s all I ever was to him. Then he insulted my brother and my sister. Then he admitted that he basically sold my sister, because that’s all she was good for.”
Turning to look at his friend, he confessed his deepest secret. “I didn’t want to be like them. I nearly forced myself on Dean because I was angry at what two other men did to the women in my life. I was angry and had all this rage and energy pent up inside me. And then …” he let out a deep sigh.
“Shit, man. I didn’t think you’d be like that.”
JD shook his head. “I stopped, just barely. And then all that rage and energy was gone, and shame replaced them. I was mad, mad at them and then pissed at myself. My sister-in-law is a therapist and she had me work with one of her coworkers. I spent nearly a year in therapy.”
Sighing, he leaned back against the corner of the seat and the door. “Dean lost her mom just before my birthday. She was emotional, upset, grieving.”
“Well yeah. She just lost her mom.”
“She was sixteen, and now she was an orphan.”
“Dude. How old is your girlfriend?”
“Seventeen.”
“You’re playing with fire.” Cooper pointed at JD’s chest. “Chief finds out, he’ll have your ass.”
“Chief knows. Reese was a Seabee with him.”
“Seriously? How the hell does that change anything?”
“Reese is my girlfriend’s uncle and guardian. I met her through him.”
“Let me get this straight, you’re basically dating your stepsister.”
“No.” JD grinned as he shook his head. “Basically, I’m going to marry my stepsister.” Shifting, he opened the door. “This place has an awesome patty melt.”
“What the hell is up with you dropping bombs like this and then be all about the damn food?” the other man asked as he also got out of the pickup and followed JD inside.
JD was laughing at his friend as they went through the door. A cute little blonde with legs for days and a rack that was making Cooper drool, smiled at them.
“Hey, JD. You want your regular?” she asked, giving the newcomer an appraising look from head to toe and back again. Approving of what she saw, she grinned at him and gave him hope with her wink.
“Please, ma’am.” He replied as he sat down at his regular table. “Wipe the drool off your chin.”
“Fuck, man.” Cooper absently ran his hand across his mouth. “And you’re not even tempted by that?”
“Not a bit.” He admitted as two glasses of water were placed on the table. “Gayle, this is my friend, Cooper. Cooper, this is Gayle the sweetest woman you’ll ever meet in this place. Surpassed *only* by her grandma.”
“You know, Mimi is right. You are a sweet talker. When do I get to meet your girl?”
“Next weekend.”
“Can’t wait. What can I get you, hun?”
“He swears by your patty melt. I’ll have one of those.”
“Fries or onion rings?”
He looked at JD who shrugged. “I get a mix order.”
“We’ll do that too.”
She grinned and wrote on her notepad before pulling off the ticket and placing it in front of Cooper. With a confused look, he picked it up and looked at it as she walked away.
*Tonight, 8PM. Dress nice and take me to dinner – Gayle*
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