Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
With this conversation, the puzzle of Mabel was falling into place.
Self-sufficient.
Not only finding a multitude of ways to fill it but also enjoying time spent alone.
Even so.
Fuck that shit.
“I know you want to blow this off, May, but I’m not finding any of this funny.”
Her gaze turned hyper focused, and she replied, “I just don’t want you to think I’m strange. Or broken. Or…I don’t know, when I tell people my stories, they sometimes look at me like I’m something pathetic. Something to be pitied. When I’m not. Not at all.”
“Her name was Molly.”
Her gaze flickered and her body froze.
“Graduated college, enlisted in the Navy. Knew I wanted to be a SEAL well before I became a SEAL. Had a bud, his name was Teller. He got through BUD/S training, but the man was scared as shit of heights. He thought he could best it. He couldn’t. Washed out in parachute jump school.”
“What’s BUD/S?”
“Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training.”
“Right,” she mumbled.
Hutch kept going.
“I fell in love with Molly. Hard.”
She ran her top teeth over her bottom lip but that was all she did.
“She was it. The future. Babies. So sweet. Smart. Funny. Pretty.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Teller was a flirt.”
“Oh shit.” Another whisper.
“I knew that about him. I even saw him flirt with Molly. She’d smile her cute smile, find her excuse to get away from him and come right to me. Bottom line, I thought he was a brother, it was just how he was, and he wasn’t serious about it when it came to Molly.”
Mabel knew where this was going, so she didn’t say anything and just let him get it out.
“I was young, not immature, but not fully mature. Definitely not mature enough to notice important shit like the fact that Molly was not a woman who liked to be alone.”
“Oh, Hutch.” More whispering, and now she was stroking the side of his neck.
It felt good.
“She was on me a lot to get out of the Navy, even knowing a major goal in my life was not just to become a SEAL, but to be a SEAL. Hated it when I was away. I misidentified clingy as loving. And I got no judgement against people who need people. But if that’s how you are, you have no excuse to be with a man in the military who, at a moment’s notice, can be deployed.”
“You are very correct,” Mabel agreed.
He knew he was.
He was just glad she knew it too.
“Topping that, I didn’t know Misted Pines existed at the time, but I told her when I did get out, I’d be coming someplace like here, and not to live in town. To live like I’m doing. That was my plan, my goal, and yeah, you could even call it my dream. She’d nod and talk about how great that was, and then she’d say shit like, ‘Have you ever thought of living in Chicago? They have a lot of sports teams.’ Somehow, I didn’t read that shit. Somehow, I didn’t realize she heard me, she listened, but she wasn’t nodding her head to agree. She was nodding her head so I’d know she was listening, but she was also scheming. I know that’s a tough word, but there’s no way around it, no matter how gentle it was, she schemed in hopes of changing my mind.”
That made Mabel’s lips thin before she stated it plain.
“In other words, she might have been with the man she wanted to be with, but she knew you two didn’t work, and she hid that, hoping to get her way and make it work, even if she couldn’t have missed she was asking you to sacrifice things that were important to you.”
Christ.
Christ.
Yes.
That was it.
Stated plain.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
She huffed out an irritable breath.
Hutch had more, so he gave it to her.
“It wasn’t that she was scared of being alone. Had a phobia. Nothing had happened to her. It also wasn’t that she couldn’t entertain herself. It was just part of her personality. I get that it wasn’t a preference or a choice but a part of who she was. I also get she had friends, family close, so if she didn’t want to be alone, she could spend time with them. To this day, as much as I loved her, I didn’t feel it was my responsibility to provide that for her at all times. And it goes without saying, when I was gone, she didn’t have to fall on my friend’s dick.”
Even if she knew it was coming, Mabel appeared to be getting angry.
But Hutch kept going.
“So yeah…I was away, came back, but while I was away, I made my decision, and when I was out for a drink with another bud, I told him I was buying Molly a ring.”
“Dammit,” Mabel bit.
“He struggled with it, the whole fucked-up bro code, but in the end, he made the right decision. He told me. Both of them acted like nothing happened. Neither of those two had the balls to fess up to that shit. Someone else told me.”