Maybe Don't Wanna by Lani Lynn Vale

Author:Lani Lynn Vale [Vale, Lani Lynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Boys wake up with a boner. Girls wake up with an attitude.

-Fact of Life

Kayla

Overall, I’d had a pretty spectacular day.

That spectacular day took a downward spiral with about an hour left in Parker’s workday when we passed the house where the latest victim to the Lampshade Serial Killer had been murdered.

Since this serial killer had now gained national attention due to the number of victims, there was way more than just the local news crews in attendance. Now, there were so many that they lined both sides of the streets and even curled around to the side streets.

The mob of reporters and cameras outside the house, behind the police line, was insane. There had to be at least two hundred, if not more.

I shivered in my seat, and my good mood instantly fled.

“I don’t know what it is about this that’s freaking me out so badly,” I told him. “But it’s all I can see. I thought that I could handle that life…but with one look at that man—how his body was mutilated—my conceptions were proved false. I just…I can’t get over this.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Yeah, why?” he repeated.

I thought about that for a long moment, and the more I thought about it, the harder it was to say the words.

He allowed me to sit in silence as I tried to get out the words, and it wasn’t until we were pulling into the parking lot of our apartment complex an hour later that I finally released them.

“In his pictures…he looked like my dad.”

Parker shut the truck off, then released his seat belt.

The moment he did, I started to cry.

“I know it’s not rational. I never really even knew my father.” I drew in a deep breath. “But the way that Max, James, Gabe, Sam, Elliott, and Jack talk about him…I feel like I knew him. And I have some of our earlier videos. They’re all grainy, but for my eighteenth birthday, Cheyenne and Shiloh had them all digitally recreated. There are five twelve-to-fifteen-minute videos, and I watch them all the time.” I made this sound in my throat that had him releasing my seat belt and pulling me to him. “I feel like I know him.”

“Baby, you do know him,” he told me, holding me tight and allowing me to cry into his shoulder. “In that Wreaths Across America thing that I do, they want you to say the veteran’s name. They say that you die twice. Once when you leave this earth, and once when your name is spoken for the last time.”

My breathing hitched.

“I’ve lost a lot of friends. I’ve lost a mom. I’ve lost a sister. A nephew. But I talk about them. Always. Because they deserve to be spoken about. People need to know that this world lost some great people. And I need that reassurance, the reminder of their love.”

I blew out a breath against his neck, then threaded my arms around his back and clung to him.

His arms around me tightened, and I inhaled deeply, taking in his scent to help calm myself down.

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