Joke’s on You by Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,5

on the weekends.

At this point, we should really just consider moving in with each other.

But I still hadn’t offered that option up as a possibility, because then that would mean that I’d have to see Dillan every day since they lived together, and I didn’t think that I could handle that.

It was hard being around Dillan because it was literally like looking into the eyes of someone that hated you.

Not that I could blame her.

Before I’d slept with Delanie, I’d wanted Dillan.

Hell, the only thing that I could rationalize about why I’d slept with Delanie at all was because, in my inebriated state, she looked exactly like her.

Which technically wasn’t hard to do seeing as, just like Bourne and I, Delanie and Dillan were identical twins.

If you didn’t know them, you really wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.

Just like it was nearly impossible for Bourne and me to be told apart.

So yeah, my drunk, stupid self had taken one look at drunk Delanie, saw that she gave me the time of day, and that was the end of that.

The end of my old life as I knew it.

“Daddy, you don’t cut my crusts like anybody else,” Asa supplied helpfully.

One last hoorah the night before I deployed had turned into this life. A life where my kid complained about the way I cut off crust from his sandwiches.

“Well, son,” I said as I shoved his peanut butter and jelly sandwich into the Ziplock bag. “You can either take it or leave it. I’d much rather be giving you lunch money to eat at the school every day, yet you refuse to eat the school lunch.”

Asa grimaced. “It tastes like crap.”

For a five-year-old, Asa had such a colorful vocabulary. Where his height was much smaller than average, his intelligence was not. When Asa had started school, he’d started in pre-K. Within days, they’d realized that pre-K was too little of a challenge for him, so they’d moved him into kindergarten. Even that hadn’t been a challenge. However, since it was his first year, we’d kept him in kindergarten so that he could learn and get used to school.

This year, when he was to go into first grade, he bypassed it altogether and went into second.

Yes, my five-year-old was in second grade.

Hence the reason he was bullied by all the other kids for being so small.

Asa was smart as a whip, quick of mind, and could really make you feel as if you were insignificant with how smart he was.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure how the hell I’d ended up with such a smart kid, and sometimes it was intimidating because I literally only had a high school education. Asa was bound for bigger and better things.

“I can cut them off,” Asa suggested.

I snorted out a laugh.

“The last time I allowed you to cut off the crusts of your sandwich, you cut off half the sandwich, too,” I told him. “And then you asked for another sandwich.”

Asa grinned, and I couldn’t stop myself from ruffling his hair.

“Ready?” I asked as I packed his lunch into his lunch kit.

He’d gone from the cute little lunch kit with Captain America on it to a plain black one. It broke my heart every time I had to put food in it because I realized that my baby wasn’t really a baby anymore.

He was in second grade for Christ’s sake.

“Are you working today?” he asked as I picked up my gun belt.

I shook my head. “I have meetings all day. And some mandatory training time at the practice gym.”

“The strip club?” Asa asked, interest on his face.

I rolled my eyes.

Asa loved going there because he got to run wild and nobody stopped him.

Also, usually when he was there, his papa showed. And Asa was all about his papa.

My father, better known as Papa for the last five years, loved Asa. At times, I thought, more than his own kids—i.e., me.

“Papa is out of town, remember?” I said. “And, if you’re good, we’ll go there this weekend. No more fighting, remember, Asa?”

Asa sighed.

“Fine.” He paused, a gleam coming into his eye. “Can we stop by Aunt Dillan’s store?”

I rolled my eyes. “If we go there, you’re not getting a donut. You need to eat healthier than I’m letting you eat lately.”

Asa rolled his eyes. “It’s not my fault that you don’t know how to cook.”

That was true.

I didn’t know how to cook. I couldn’t even scramble eggs without somehow fucking them up.

Needless to say, we’d gone to Dillan’s