I'm Only Here for the Beard Read online

  “Is that a motorcycle club?”

  He nodded.

  “We have a few of those around where I lived,” I muttered darkly.

  Not to mention that PD had ridden a bike and had nearly joined a motorcycle club of his own. The only thing that’d stopped him from doing it was that he didn’t want to leave Kilgore to join.

  “Most do,” he said. “Motorcycle clubs are becoming a lot more popular ever since that show came out on TV. Most are legit. Some are just a bunch of dumbasses on motorcycles with bad attitudes who don’t know the law of the land.”

  “And what is the law of the land?” I asked, sitting silently as he pulled into the bay of the station and shut the medic off.

  He grinned. A full blown, teeth showing smile that would’ve knocked my socks off if I didn’t have boots holding them on.

  “That there is always someone bigger and badder than you are.”

  Then he got out and walked inside, leaving me in the seat of the medic trying not to lose my composure.

  The man, with his killer grin and dark soul, had the potential to bring me to my knees…and that wasn’t a good thing.

  I couldn’t do another heartbreak.

  Not now. Not ten years from now. Not ever.

  And I needed to remember that.

  Chapter 3

  Someone asked me if I believed in soulmates, and I told them I couldn’t even find my keys. What makes them think I could find my soulmate?

  -Sean’s secret thoughts

  Sean

  It’d been three whole weeks since I’d been partnered with Naomi, and three whole weeks had gone by where I went to bed at night thinking about her rather than Ellen.

  There were good things about this and bad.

  The good: I didn’t wake up with my heart hurting anymore. I didn’t go to bed wondering whether Ellen was sleeping with her arms around some other man. I didn’t see Ellen and think that I was wronged. I could go into my clubhouse and look at Jessie James and not want to punch him in the face.

  The bad: I was replacing Ellen with Naomi. I had a permanent hard on for a woman who made it clear she wanted nothing more than friendship. I was going into work with more eagerness to see her than the actual job I was about to perform. Oh, and let’s not forget the best one yet. I was falling hard.

  Love didn’t agree with me. I always, and I do mean always, got burned.

  If it was possible for a six foot four-and-a-half-inch ex-marine to suffer, I suffered.

  “Do you need anything from inside?” Naomi asked as she hopped out of the medic and turned to look at me.

  I looked down at her, clenched my teeth, and then nodded my head. “My usual.”

  She snickered, backed up, and closed the door.

  I watched her walk away.

  My eyes were on her ass.

  The way it swayed with each step she took.

  “Hey,” I said to myself. “This is not a good idea. One of these days she’s going to do the same damn thing as the rest of them do.”

  Which was leave me or break my heart.

  And if I was being honest with myself, I was getting damn tired of it.

  The phone in my pocket rang, and I answered it while watching Naomi walk into the bathroom and shut the door.

  She did that a lot. Went to the bathroom. She was supremely self-conscious about it, too. She didn’t like going at the station. Only did it where it was public and nobody would be able to single her out.

  Though, I suppose that was a fairly normal thing.

  Women were self-conscious. My sister was very ill at ease about what she let the men in her life know. Such as the act of using the restroom. She freaked out when we mentioned it in front of her, and God forbid you ever mention the fact that anything she did in there, stunk.

  Though, as I liked to point out to her, everyone had to shit. Everyone.

  But whatever. If Naomi wanted to act like she didn’t poop, then whatever. She could be hiding worse things, like cancer or the fact that she was a drug dealer.

  I settled into a chair and prepared to wait.

  ***

  Naomi

  “Hey!” I called through the bathroom door. “Are you going to be much longer?”

  Silence.

  “Sean!” I knocked again. “You’ve literally been in there for thirty minutes. I have to pee.”

  Nothing.

  I rolled my eyes up to the roof and stared at it for a few long seconds before I walked away.

  The man had a bathroom problem.

  A serious one that kept him in there for over forty-five minutes a damn day, and most of the time it happened to be right when I had to pee like a motherfucker.

  And with there being only one bathroom in the station, I was shit out of luck until he was done with his toilet time.

  “Son of a biscuit eater,” I grumbled as I walked to the living room and stared out the window with worried eyes.

  I had to change my bag. I normally would do it while we were out in case someone happened to see it in the trash, but I didn’t have much of a choice at this point. It was either change it or walk around with my shit slapping against my stomach.

  Something I still wasn’t used to even after months of having to deal with the shit. Literally.

  And oh, my God. The stoma squeaks were the worst!

  I’d managed to keep them secret, or quiet, by placing my crossed arms lightly over the stoma (the hole that led to my colon from the outside) but they were getting more frequent and louder by the day.

  I’d even gone as far as to call my doctor back home and ask him what I should do about them, and the devil had laughed. Laughed!

  With nothing else to do, I walked into my bedroom, tucked my shirt and undershirt up underneath my armpits, and gathered my supplies.

  Once I was situated with all my supplies on my bed, I opened the plastic bag I planned to stuff my shit bag into, and got to work.

  After trying to decide whether or not to use reusable bags, I decided on the smaller disposable bags since I didn’t have time to clean the bags out, and I felt confident in my decision, even though they were on the costly side.

  Also, I’d gotten more efficient at changing it over the past few months, and I even developed a little system to get the job done but I still managed to get shit dripping down my stomach despite my trying not to.

  It took me ten minutes to change my bag, and when I was done, I looked at the Ziploc, wondering what in the hell I was supposed to do with it now.

  The point of the Ziploc bag was to contain the smell, but that didn’t mean that some didn’t leak through despite my efforts.

  That meant the kitchen trash was out.

  The bathroom was out, too, since I hadn’t heard the bathroom door open since I’d been in here.

  So, with confidence that Sean would be in the shitter for another five minutes, at least, (yes I’d timed him) I opened my door, peeked out, and made a mad dash for the front door.

  There was a dumpster there that would be a perfect spot to throw my trash into.

  And it would’ve been great, too, had I not opened the door and ran smack dab into Sean’s muscular chest.

  It felt like hitting a brick wall.

  “Fuck!” I whined, trying to disentangle myself from Sean—who’d caught me before I’d gone sprawling out on the pavement.

  My hands were up by his head, the bag of poo thrown over his shoulder like a fucking shoulder bag.

  And I was about to cry.

  I was touching the man with my poop!

  Of course, it was in a bag, but still! I was touching him with it.

  Embarrassment surged through me and it took everything I had not to wrench out of his arms.

  I didn’t.

  If I had, he would’ve seen what was in my hands, and that would’ve been awkward.

  Instead, I made the hard decision to stay in his arms, and hope he didn�
�t look over his shoulder.

  “Where did you come from?” I bit my lip.

  His eyes went down to my mouth, then up to my eyes, and then back again.

  “I was looking for you,” he said. “Was wondering if you wanted to go eat.”

  I released my lip and his eyes returned to mine.

  “Yeah,” I said breathlessly. “What’s that?”

  I pointed to the station with one hand.

  When he turned, I threw my bag as far as I could get it, watching it land at the back of the medic.

  He frowned at me once he returned my stare.

  “What was what?”

  He looked over his shoulder, scanning for what he’d heard land after I’d thrown it, and saw nothing.

  Thank God.

  “I swear I saw something,” I lied. “Where do you want to go eat?”

  Please don’t say Taco Bell. Please don’t say Taco Bell.

  “Taco Bell,” he said. “It’s either that, or Rudy’s. And we’ve had Rudy’s three times this last week.”

  I frowned.

  We had.

  But when it was either Rudy’s or Taco Bell, I chose Rudy’s every time.

  But I was beginning to think that Sean wasn’t under the same mindset.

  “Don’t we have to stay within our district?” I asked hopefully.

  Taco Bell was about a quarter of a mile out of our district, and we weren’t technically allowed to go there.

  I secretly hated the other two stations because they had all the food in their districts, leaving Stupid Taco Hell and Rudy Doody’s in ours.

  And since I was a firm believer in sleeping as long as possible in the morning, I rarely, if ever, had time to make my lunch in the morning before I was expected to leave at oh, dark thirty.

  “No,” he answered. “I called Bill to make sure it was okay. As long as we eat in the medic, we should be fine. And I’ll go in afterward to get us a refill for the road.”

  Resigned now, I reluctantly pulled out of his arms, feeling the loss of warmth almost instantly.

  Shivering at the remembered warmth, I turned on my heels and started walking in the direction of my room, vaguely realizing that the light was on in the bathroom, but the door cracked clearly showing me that Sean was no longer in there.

  “You could’ve at least turned the light off,” I called over my shoulder at him.

  He grinned unrepentantly and walked to the bathroom, retrieving his phone off the counter and his wallet off the floor as I retrieved my own phone off my bed and returned my supplies to my duffel bag and zipped it up.

  “What was all that?” he wondered.

  I turned to find him standing in the entranceway to my room, watching me zip the final length of zipper.

  “Uhhh,” I hesitated. “Papers I was going over.”

  His eyes lit up.

  “I know medical supplies when I see them,” he drawled. “I’ve been a paramedic for ten years now, and I was an EMT in the Marines for a few years, too.”

  So he realized I was lying to him.

  Nice.

  What do I say now?

  He must’ve realized that I didn’t want to say anything, though, and let me out of it.

  “If you don’t want to tell me, don’t tell me,” he drawled.

  I bit my lip.

  “I don’t want to tell you.”

  His grin got wider. “Fine. Let’s go eat.”

  “Let’s,” I scrambled up and shoved my phone into my pocket as I headed for the door.

  I snatched my purse along the way, which happened to have an emergency stash of supplies needed for stoma care, my Kindle, a few chargers, and my wallet.

  “You should really fear for your back’s health when you carry that thing around,” Sean said as he held open the door.

  My mouth tipped up into a grin.

  “Yeah,” I asked. “I’ll have to file that under my ‘I don’t care’ tab. It has a lot of shit in it I need.”

  “You haven’t read that Kindle once,” he said. “I can see it in there, too. It’s that new Oasis one. Do you like it?”

  “Yes, I do.” I nodded my head. “It’s lightweight, compact, and has a hella good battery life.”

  I walked to the back of the medic, and would’ve picked up the baggie, but Sean started the medic up and put it into reverse before I could.

  I bit my lip, wondering if he’d see me take it to the trash or not, and decided to get it when we got home.

  I did manage to kick it to the side so it didn’t get run over, however.

  The moment I was in the passenger seat, I let my bag fall to the floor between my feet and tried not to stare at my trash that I’d left in the grass.

  Sean didn’t seem to notice, thank God, and backed out of the garage before shutting the door with practiced ease.

  “Do you ever let others drive if you’re not in the back?” I questioned him.

  He shrugged. “No.”

  My mouth twitched. “Did you get wet on the way to work today?”

  My eyes took in the gray skies that’d been pouring down water for the last six hours. It’d been raining when I’d woken up and now, four hours into my shift, it hadn’t let up once.

  The poor city, I’d heard, wasn’t very accepting of the rain due to a flood that’d hit Mooresville about a year ago. A flood that the people of Mooresville, Alabama were still trying to clean up after.

  Luckily, the rain wasn’t meant to continue much past the late evening hours, and it was supposed to dwindle down into drizzling rain—a paramedic’s worst nightmare—very shortly.

  “Yeah,” he grunted. “Though my leather covered me most of the way. I just had to change my pants—which I planned to do anyway.”

  “Gotcha. That must’ve been your first forty-five minutes in the bathroom this morning.”

  His eyes narrowed as he turned his head and glared at me.

  “I can’t help it. It takes as long as it takes.”

  My mouth twitched.

  “Hmm,” I murmured, reaching down for my phone as an idea hit me.

  “Hey, today I saw something on Facebook about a Squatty Potty,” I told him. “Have you heard about that?”

  “No,” he grunted. “Can’t say that I have.”

  My grin spreading, I pulled out my phone and started typing.

  “What are you doing?” he asked nervously.

  I batted my eyes at him, causing his own to narrow on my face.

  “There’s something weird going on with your eyes,” he said in a monotone voice. “Would you like me to check them out for you?”

  I stuck my tongue out at him and went back to my typing.

  “Google is my friend,” I informed him, and grinned as I typed into the search bar ‘things that help you be more comfortable on the toilet.’

  And there, one of the top results, was the Shark Tank invention ‘Squatty Potty.’

  I clicked on the first link which took me to Amazon, and started reading the description to him.

  “The Squatty Potty is a wonderful health aid for the entire family. The Squatty Potty helps you to eliminate faster and more completely by putting your body into a natural squatting position over your own toilet. Using the Squatty Potty during elimination will un-kink your rectum, taking your body from a continent mode to an elimination mode. This will speed up the elimination process therefore reducing the risk of toxic buildup of fecal matter left in your colon,” I stopped and turned my eyes to look at him. “That’s what you need.”

  He flipped me off and continued driving, heading straight for Taco Hell.

  “This is a different concept at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’ll become like second nature,” I continued. “What used to take forty long minutes, with butt tingling numbness about halfway through, now is a quick in and out process that you won’t have one single complaint about. Satisfaction guaranteed!”

 
He was shaking his head furiously, his cheeks becoming pink.

  “You buy that for me and I will literally kill you. I’ll bury your body in the woods outside my parents’ place, too,” he informed me.

  I bit my lip and started laughing inwardly as I clicked the ‘Add to cart’ option on my phone.

  In two quick pages of buttons and clicking, I had it shipped next day, and closed my phone.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied. “There’s your turn.”

  He glared at me, slowing down as he did.

  “I know how to drive,” he informed me.

  I shrugged.

  “You missed the turn last night. And the night before that,” I countered.

  He sighed.

  “Fuckin’ A, you’re worse than Ellen.”

  I narrowed my eyes on him. “Don’t compare me to someone you hate.”

  His mouth quirked. “Why not, Nay Nay?”

  I growled at him. “Do not call me Nay Nay, either.”

  He chuckled as he pulled into the lot of Taco Bell, then passed a spot only to back into it expertly.

  “Do you back in everywhere you go, even on your motorcycle?” I asked as he put the medic into park.

  He shrugged. “Depends on where I’m going. My house, no. I just pull into my carport. A restaurant, or the grocery store? Yes.”

  I pushed the door open and got out, heading straight for the door.

  I also prayed that I would manage to not have any negative reactions to my meal, but I knew that prayer was in vain. I just hoped we were at the station when it happened.

  Chapter 4

  You don’t have to be crazy to be my friend. I’ll train you.

  -Friend checklist

  Naomi

  We were on the way back to the station when the first squeak happened.

  I slammed my hands down, pressing my elbow into the stoma as the noises started to come randomly.

  “What was that?” Sean asked, looking over at me with confusion.

  They were definitely unusual sounds, especially if you hadn’t heard them before.

  At least they didn’t sound like farts.

  Which was, I guess, both a good and a bad thing.