1-year ago...
"EDDIE!" Shirley screamed at the top of her lungs.
"Honey, please stop yelling. You're scaring the other patients." Eddie pleaded.
He was sitting on an inflatable doughnut. He shifted uncomfortably trying to keep the weight off his right butt cheek. Scratch quick draw in an elevator off his list of things to do. The gun had discharged and bounced off the steel wall and lodged itself in his hind end.
"Ok Mr. Gazarra, you're free to go home now." The doctor's head peaked around the curtain.
Eddie winced in pain as he stood. His wife grabbed his jacket and a few other things they took out of his pockets. He followed them and accepted the painkillers the doctor offered him. Shirley cut angry looks at him every few steps, but remained silent until they reached the car.
"Why were you playing with you're gun like that? Don't you know there dangerous?" She screeched and opened the door for him.
"Honey, I know that. I've killed people with this gun. Stop treating me like you do Mikey." He placed the doughnut on the seat in front of him and squished into the seat of the Sedan.
The Gazarra's had three small boys. Stephanie Plum had learned long ago not to underestimate them. Their names were Mark, Anthony and Michael. Mike was 8, Mark was 12, and Anthony, the baby, was 3. Speaking of the boys..."Where are the kids?" Eddie asked
"Staying with Helen." She was very angry with her husband.
"Shirley, I shouldn't have been screwing with my gun." He said, making a very promising puppy face. "My and the boys got bored, and the gun discharged. Nothing was my fault. It wasn't even my gun!"
"If you were bored, you could have counted the clouds or talked football." She said, turning into the Burg. "Promise me you won't do that again."
"Promise." Eddie said.
The sun had set long ago, but her boys were still in the small front yard of the Plum's house tossing a foam dog ball at each others head. The car stoped and both parents steped out.
"DADDY!" Anthony screamed at the top of his lungs and crossed the yard at top speed.
He leaped at Eddie and grabbed at the back of his pants. Anthony managed to grab a hold of the bandage holding the stitches together. Eddie screamed in pain and everyone fell silent.
"Careful Buddy. That's where I was hit." He said, gingerly rubbing his butt and shooing his child off.
"Say thank you to Aunt Helen and Uncle Frank guys. Load up!" Shirley pushed the boys into the house.
They returned after a full round of hugs and crawled into the back seat. Eddie had already seated himself and had fallen asleep, his head propped on the window.
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Current Time
"Ed?" Shirley whispered as Eddie opened his eyes.
The throbbing in his head and shoulder was terrible. Shirley was sitting in a plastic chair that had been moved beside the bed. She grasped his hand and leaned on his chest.
"Can I get any more morphine?" He asked.
"No. You can tell me why you broke your promise!" Shirley's face was beet red and if she kept frowning like that, she would need major Botox.
"Honey, I was chasing a dangerous fugitive. Steph was with me!" Eddie tried to sit up, and then realized he was strapped across the chest and knees to a hospital bed.
"You should have let someone else do it!"
"I can't! They don't pay me to let someone else do it!"
This was a full-blown argument. Eddie was again, in a hospital, in a room with two other men, both with gunshot wounds. The men had tattoos all over their body, and one was too drunk to realize he was shot. "Man you're in deep trouble." The sober man said from the peanut gallery.
"Shut up!" Eddie and Shirley yelled in unison.
"I thought my cousin was a bounty hunter. Why was she with you?" Shirley lowered her voice.
"The fugitive was FTA, and remember how she saw the devil guy? She recognized him and called it in. She decided she was still going to pursue him, even when I got there. I pulled in front of her, and then the SUV stopped. Shots were fired, and they drove off. Thank the lord Stephanie was there too." Eddie's voice was full of remorse.
And he had broken one of the most important promises of his life. Right up they're next to his conformation and wedding vows. He'd gotten shot again; this time was not as lucky as last. Last time, he did a lot of shoe shining to get his wife to talk to him again. Lord only knows what he'd have to do to make it up.
"You have a lot of butt kissing to do." She said, unlaced their fingers and left.
The doctor cranked the knob on the morphine and Eddie passed out.
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Three little voices wafted in the distance. Eddie opened his eyes and looked around the room. Michael and Anthony were standing by the drunk man, now angry with a hangover, admiring his old drug wounds and colorful tattoos of half naked, big-busted women. Mark had taken a seat where his mother had sat the night before.
Eddie had to admire how grown up Mark had gotten. Now a sophomore in high school and on the verge of getting his permit, he looked like his father. Michael wasn't far behind him, in his first year in junior high and little Anthony just started kindergarten.
"Hey pop, how you feeling?" Mark asked.
"Been better." Eddie felt closer to Mark than he had with any other friend on the planet.
Mark handed Eddie a glass of water and three pills, each the diameter of a dime and the color of dog vomit. "The doctor told me to give these to you."
Eddie swallowed them with a little difficulty. All the medication and the tubing that had been pushed down his thought had made it swollen and sore.
"Mom's really ticked off at you."
"I know. Any clue how to fix that?"
"Flowers for starters."
A man had to be desperate to get advice on marriage from his teenage son. It brought a smile to Eddie's face.
"You guys ready to go?" Shirley called as she entered the room.
The boys tore away from the half-dead man (or, that's at least what he smelled like) and gave their dad a kiss and walked out, discussing guns and tattoos. Shirley walked over, kissed Eddie lightly on the nose and followed her sons.
Damn! Eddie brought his hand up and hit himself on the forehead.
"Edward Gazarra?" A small female nurse came in.
"Yeah?"
"You can go home now." She handed him his clothing, all washed and folded.
He pulled the curtain and changed. He did his best to fold the thin little blankets and layer the gown on top. He said good-bye and wished his roomies the best of luck and left. As he passed the gift shop, he saw a bouquet of flowers that made him stop in his trackes. To many, it probably wasn't much, but the arrangement had light orange roses and white carnations. The same flowers they had at their wedding.
After buying the flowers, a small box of chocolates and super-pain killers, he was ready to rock and roll. He swung by the cop shop to tell his boss he wasn't going to work for a few days, but he was just fine. He rented Ghostbusters, American Wedding and a kiddie flick he was sure his children had never seen before.
He did a few small errands, avoiding the house. He wanted everything to be perfect. Nothing says you're truly sorry than being perfect. At a quarter till three, every possible chore had been taken care of. He got a replacement lightbulb for the garage light, a few supplies to fix the squeeky stair in their two story house. He got a box of bullets and had a super saftey put on his colt. He would be better off to shoot himself dead then to have one of the chilren accidently shoot the door or something. The bus for the elementary school drove by, and Eddie looked at all the cheerful faces.
He followed the bus and pulled to the curb a few houses away from his own. Up the street, Mark walked home with the little freshman neighbor boy. He broke out in a run when he saw his dad.
"What's up? I thought you were still in Wound Care?" Mark had a worried frown streached across his face.
"Was. Now, do you think these flowers would work?" He asked, pulling a pearl white victorian vase filled with the flowers he got.
Mark's face lit up. The boy was smart enough to know his mother would fall over dead at the sight. He walked around the front of the car and offered the neighbor a ride four houses. The kid found this extremely funny and declined the offer. He said it wasn't that much trouble to walk twelve yards.
"Mom, I'm home. I have a friend over, can he stay?" Mark asked when he let himself through the door.
"Sure. Do you kids want a snack?" Shirley bustled into the room and then stoped.
Eddie was standing in the middle of the foyer, balancing the flowers in ont hand, and holding everything else behind his back. Mark side steped around his father, snickering, wheeling his younger brother out of the room.
"Eddie." Shirley looked shocked at first, then upset, and then overjoyed.
Eddie flashed the biggest smile the stitches in his face would allow him.
"I'm....Eddie you..." She struggled to get her words out
"You're happy?"Eddie questioned, taking a step toward his confounded wife.
"Not yet." She walked the short distance and kissed him. Mark returned and took the flowers and the Blockbuster bag from his dad and left them alone again.
Eddie kissed Shirley again, running his hands up and down her sides. She glanced at her watch. Mike was due home in a few minutes. His big brother would let him in. They made their way up to the bedroom and you know the way the story goes from there.
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They rolled out of bed about an hour later, both on the same page. Eddie made another promise, one more specific. "I wont get shot at while off call." He whispered in her ear.
"Fine." She said, untwisting herself from the sheets to get dressed and start dinner.
"Satisfied?" Eddie asked, eyeballing the spot where his wife would have been.
"I don't want you shot period." She said, pulling a pair of Eddie's sweatpants out of the drawer and tossing them at him playfully.
"Your insatisable." He chuckled and dressed.
He wandered down stairs, stepping on the squeaky step twice. It squeaked each time. "Time to fix you!" Eddie growled and looked up. Mark had a Home Depot bag in one hand and Eddie's keys hanging off one finger. He winked at his father and the both opened the boxes to begin fixing the steps.
!-Thats then end. This is my first challenge so excuse if I messed up. I say that alot, but I know I have somewhere in this short story. Hope you liked it enough for me to continue.-Esentrik0-!
Previous Reviews:
REF: Cute
:)
You got the whining part pretty right!
