Author's notes:
Let's get the legalities out of the way. I don't own the rights to any of the characters appearing in this story, this story is not intended for profit, yada yada yada.
I'd also like to add something here. It won't do any good, but I'm going to say it for my sake. I'm not interested in hiring anyone to do art for this or any of my other stories. One or more people on FF have automated systems that detect new stories being published, then generate a PM to the author, making this offer to create art. On the off chance that you actually read the story that your system says you admire, please don't waste your time making the offer. The answer is going to be no.
Now that the legal issues and the downer are both taken care of, please enjoy my offering...
Prologue, September.
"Just keep trying Stoppable, you know you're never going to beat me!"
"Eleventh year is a charm," Ron retorted, trying another maneuver in cyberspace. "You've been beating me since we were sixteen, I'm due, I can feel it."
Felix's face, on the corner of the screen, split into a wide grin as he executed his own moves. Moments later, the two finished the level and again, Felix had the higher score.
"Ron, I've got something to talk about, and it's even more important to me than stomping you on the next level."
"Okay, that's sounding serious to the point of being distressing," Ron joked, but set his controller down. Rufus promptly picked it up and started, solo, on the next level.
"It is," Felix had a very large smile on his face, but it was clear that this was important to him. "You may get your chance to beat me before too much longer. I'm going to be busy in the near future."
"Oh, yet another promotion?" Ron asked. His friend's career had exploded in proportion to his intelligence so that at twenty-seven, the young man was handling responsibilities usually reserved for men in their forties...and handling them well.
"Well, a promotion, but not work related," Felix quipped, from across the miles. "Me and Zita finally had some luck. She's two months along so by this time next year, I'm going to be promoted to daddy."
"Well congratulations," Ron offered his heart-felt kudos. "It's about time."
"I'll still make our gaming sessions," Felix told him. "But I'm not going to be able to practice ahead of time. We've still got some work to get ready for the baby and while I'll admit that I'm pretty clever when it comes to making things, it flat-out takes me longer to get house maintenance done than someone with working legs."
"It's rougher than missing fingers," Ron agreed, holding up his left hand, which was missing two of the aforementioned digits. "If you need any help..."
"Hey, we're not there yet," Felix noted. "You've got your own responsibilities to meet and as much as we can get together in cyberspace, we're still over seven hundred miles away from each other." He smirked a bit. "Besides, there's another chore I have in mind for you."
"And that is?"
"We want you to be the godfather," Felix said, no trace of humor in his voice.
"It's an honor, not a chore," Ron insisted. "And I'm serious about helping with your house. I've got some vacation time built up and it's been too long since we've had a chance to hang in real life."
"I may wind up taking you up on it, if I'm running behind," Felix agreed. "I really like what you've done with your basement."
"Hey, you have to keep busy," Ron joked.
"Maybe too busy," Felix wasn't smiling any more.
"Is there something wrong?" Ron's humor had also evaporated.
"I don't know," Felix admitted. "I really like keeping caught up with you, but I worry about you. You have some work and workout friends that you hang out with a bit, but I'm not hearing about dating and a girlfriend."
"Gee mom, I swore I was talking to Felix," Ron offered, deadpan.
"She's not the only one who worries about you," Felix offered a grin. "Seriously my friend, I know that you're interested. You're in shape, have a good attitude and you have a good career going. It seems you should have found someone; or someone should have found you, by now."
"Some of us just don't have any luck in that part of their life," Ron admitted.
"I'm not saying that you didn't have some hard experiences," Felix told him. "But did it hurt that bad?"
"Bad enough," Ron admitted.
"You live in the same house with Kim and Tara," Felix reminded him. "How many guys from Middleton High would have called that heaven? How many still would?"
"Be careful what you wish for," Ron grumbled. "This isn't just heartbreak I'm talking about with these two. I've learned to not let my hormones ruin a good thing. Because the three of us all have good jobs, we can split the mortgage and have money left over. Life is good, but if I was to even try..."
"I didn't live the life you did," Felix interrupted. "But I can understand where you're coming from. Maybe it's time to change the subject."
"With pleasure," Ron agreed. He pulled the webcam from the screen to give Felix a feel of what else he had accomplished. "Here's the latest view of the back yard," Ron told his friend, pointing the camera out of the window. "We're supposed to have our first freeze this weekend, so the garden I put in this spring isn't going to last much longer. Still, it gave us some fresh food over the Summer, so I'm going to re-plant it next Spring."
"You're giving me ideas with my own yard," Felix told him. "Continue the tour."
"Over by the fence, I've dug out a patch and put in slate," Ron continued, now directing the camera to the stone surface. "This is going to be my woodpile. I have the chainsaw and I've found some areas in the nearby forest where I can collect dead wood."
"Which suggests that you've made some modifications to the house to actually make use of firewood," Felix mentioned.
"Right you are," Ron chuckled and wondered if he would have ever been so foolish as to collect firewood without a fireplace to burn it in. "Anyway," he directed the camera to a wall. "Here's the fireplace. I got it used and refurbished it. I finished with the chimney last weekend and did a test burn last night. It was just scrap wood, but the smoke went where it was supposed to, so it should cut our heating bills this winter."
"Nice," Felix noted. "Continue."
"My kitchenette is the same as the last time I gave you the tour," Ron told him, pointing the camera at the stove, sink and small cupboards. "The proper kitchen is upstairs and we usually eat together there, but when either Kim or Tara wants some privacy, I can make meals down here."
"Speaking of privacy, I put in a two way doorbell," Ron continued, now filming the door that led upstairs. "I have a bell I can ring to warn the girls I would like to come up, and a bell they can ring if they want to come down."
"A good feature, what else?"
"Only a plan for the future," He walked out of the door and pointed the camera to a point near a window. "I've looked into the plumbing and power and if I can get a good price for a hot tub, I might just put one in about here. I can set up a privacy fence around it and it won't only be a good thing to soak sore muscles, it will really add to the home's value."
"Are you sure you're thinking of sore muscles and property values," Felix smirked from the screen. "Or are you trying to see your housemates in swimsuits...or less?"
"You just don't give up, do you?" Ron shook his head.
"Okay, it was a bad joke," Felix admitted. "Anything else to show off?"
"Not really," Ron turned the camera back to himself and shrugged. "With the house being a split level, I really have the run of the basement and I don't have to go through the main level. That means Kim and Tara don't really have to interact with me unless they want to."
"And do they want to very often?" Felix asked.
"It was hot over the Summer, and a basement is always cooler than the upper floors," Ron said. "One or both usually liked to chill down here...literally and figuratively...with me in the evenings."
"Are you sure that it's only to keep cool?" Felix asked. "You might not be willing to take a chance, but one of them might want something more than a roommate."
"Not going to happen," Ron said, now serious. "Or, in Kim's case, it isn't about to happen again."
"I still wish..." Felix's next statement was interrupted by the sound of feet walking across the floor above Ron.
"Someone's home," Ron told him, then paused and listened to the footsteps. "It's Kim."
"Then I'm going to sign off," Felix announced.
"You can at least say hi," Ron told him.
"I don't like what she did to my friend, back during college," Felix told him. "And since I don't live anywhere near her, it's easy for me to avoid her. Anyway, until next time."
"Until next time," Ron agreed. "And pass my congratulations on to Zita,"
"Will do, signing off." The small square that showed Felix's face went blank and seconds later, the doorbell that Ron had told him about rang.
"C'mon down!" Ron yelled, which resulted in a light tread on the stairs. Moments later Kim walked in, carrying a couple of takeout bags.
"I knew you would be gaming with Felix," she told him. "Tara's working a late shift and I didn't want to subject anyone to my cooking, so I thought I'd pick up some Chinese."
"Sounds good to me," he told her, while he pulled some plates and silverware out of his cupboards. Rufus scampered over to the counter, making sure he would get his share while Kim unpacked what she had picked up. "By the way, Zita and Felix are expecting."
"That's wonderful!" She gushed, scooping some of her meal onto a plate while Ron did the same for himself and Rufus.
They had been living in the same house for over a year, so she knew his taste in Chinese food. Minutes later, the three of them were seated; her on the couch and he and Rufus in a comfortable chair, with a show they all enjoyed on the screen.
He was in a comfortable home, in a comfortable room, eating dinner with a beautiful young woman, who he was on...reasonably good...terms with. Their other roommate was also a stunning young woman, who he got along with quite well. He had a good job that he liked, and friends both in and away from work. Except for a minor hiccup with Kim, several months ago, he got along very well with his housemates.
This should have been the best possible situation for a young man.
"Be careful what you wish for," he wished he could somehow let his teenage self know.
But of course, as a teen or even an early twenty-something, would he have even listened?
Chapter One: After Halloween
"So, even though the weather was cold, we actually had more trick-or-treaters show up than we did last year," Ron told his friend, as they completed yet another level.
"That's odd," Felix commented. "I wouldn't see you as one who keeps track of the number of kids who came by."
"It wasn't me," Ron admitted.
"Oh, Kim?" Felix asked. "She always was one to be in control and now, since she works in law enforcement, she's probably gotten used to keeping accurate records."
"It wasn't her, either," Ron told him.
"Oh, Tara?" Felix paused. "I didn't know her all that well but now that she's working in the medical industry, I guess she's used to keeping track of things, as well."
"It wasn't Tara," Ron corrected him.
"Then who...oh," Felix suddenly realized who was keeping track of visitors. "Rufus, does it really make that much difference how many kids show up each year?"
Rufus grumbled a response that Ron was pretty sure that Felix wouldn't be able to understand.
"The little guy makes a good point," Ron told his distant friend. "He says that it's a good idea to trend how many kids are going to show up, so we don't run out of candy and we don't have too much left over."
"You know, candy can be put in a deep freeze for a year," Felix pointed out.
"Yeah, but we buy good candy," Ron answered. "Which means I've been stuck in a house for the last week, with a lot of good candy."
"I think I see your point," Felix chuckled. "A little rough on the waistline?"
"There's times I wish I was still a teenager," Ron groaned.
"So, you were saying that you've been collecting firewood," the other young man changed the topic.
"Yeah, I have the start of a good woodpile," Ron answered him. "It's about a half-hour drive to where I can collect it. This weekend will be my third trip to actually collect. I went up there a few times, back in September, to scout out what I wanted to get."
He couldn't help but frown, thinking of the company he had on a couple of trips.
"Something wrong?" Felix asked, making it clear that he had noted Ron's expression. "Was it rough going?"
"No," Ron answered. "The woods were beautiful and we didn't run into any problems at all."
"Okay, by 'we' do you mean you and Rufus?"
"No," Ron said again. "The little guy doesn't like being out with the predators."
"So, who was with you?"
"Tara," Ron grumbled.
"I take it she wasn't pleasant company?"
"The opposite," Ron groaned. "She was the perfect companion; happy, friendly and enjoyed herself in the woods."
"I'm not seeing the problem," Felix admitted.
"You don't understand," Ron sighed. "There was just a little chill in the air. Now, if you take a pretty woman and put her in a flannel shirt, she becomes stunning. Then, if you put her in a pickup truck, she becomes irresistible."
"Still not seeing the problem, Stoppable," Felix actually chuckled. "You're a single guy who spent a few days in the woods with a beautiful, single, charming young woman who seems to like you? That's not a bad way to spend the time."
"Again, my friend, you don't understand," Ron replied. "I've got a good situation here. I like my life. I've got a good job and the housing situation is excellent. I get along with my housemates and we have separation from each other when we want it. Now, what if I'm getting the wrong idea about Tara and I say something and she doesn't feel that way. If it offends her, I could be out of here."
"Ron, we're not teens anymore," Felix told him. "Even if she doesn't feel that way, as long as you're not a jerk about it when you say something, do you really think she's going to be that offended?"
"Well, what if I'm right and she does feel that way?" Ron demanded.
"Again, we're in the territory that I'm not seeing the issue," Felix admitted. "That would mean that you have a beautiful, single, intelligent, charming woman, with her life together and happens to be about your age, that wants you. I'm just not seeing the downside."
"What happens when it goes south?" Ron groaned. "What happens when she finds someone better than me? That makes it worse than if I'm wrong about her. Once we've taken that step and it goes sour, I'm definitely out of here and I don't want to risk that."
"What makes..."
"Someone just got home," Ron interrupted, hearing steps above him. "And this is kind of a personal conversation."
"Okay," Felix agreed. "But we are taking this up again."
"That's fine," Ron sighed. "It helps to talk..."
The two way doorbell rang, interrupting him.
"C'mon down!" Ron shouted.
Felix just looked on from the screen, although a sudden, determined look made Ron a little nervous.
The stairway door opened, letting Kim through.
"Hey Ron, I thought you were playing with Felix tonight...oh!" She noticed the man in question on the screen.
"Hey Felix," she greeted him.
"Kim," Felix nodded in response.
"I didn't mean to interrupt your gaming," the redhead told the other three. "I'll just leave..."
"Actually, you showed up at the perfect time," Felix interrupted her. "I've got a couple of questions about Ron."
"Ask away," Kim instructed the distant man, dropping onto the couch.
"First of all, does he have any sort of a dating life?" Felix asked. "He's a little evasive about it with me."
"He's evasive about it with me, too," Kim offered the present blonde an arch look. "I know that he's been on a couple of dates, but if he's had anything resembling a steady girlfriend, I don't know about it."
"Okay, second question," Felix asked. "Does your roommate, Tara, seem to be interested in him?"
"Yes," Kim said, while Ron studiously avoided eye contact with either Felix, Kim or Rufus.
"Great, third question," Felix continued. "Why doesn't he do anything about it?"
"I told you..." Ron tried to explain.
"He hasn't said," Kim interrupted. "And as luck would have it, I was planning on talking to him about it."
"Well, since you're right there, with him, I'll turn this over to you," Felix nodded towards the redhead. "Ron, until next time..."
Felix cut the connection before Ron could protest.
"Thank you for your discretion and protecting my privacy," he grumbled to his friend, who he knew couldn't hear him.
"Well," Kim asked Ron. "Why don't we talk about this?"
"Gee, mom!" Ron's sarcasm was almost palpable. "You're not only a master of disguise, you're a master of technology! I swore I was playing video games with Felix a minute ago, and I could swear that I'm talking to Kim now. Instead, it must be you, because who else would be so concerned about my social life?"
"Friends of yours who care about you," Kim told him. "Friends of yours who want to see you happy."
"And I can't be happy without a girlfriend?" Ron demanded.
"No," Kim answered. "I...I mean, no, you can be happy without a girlfriend but we just think you'd be happier if you had one." She paused a moment. "The right one."
Ron only scowled at her.
"I know you're interested in women!" Kim almost yelled. "I know you've gone on a few dates. I've seen you look at Tara...just like I've seen her looking at you! What's so wrong with the two of you quitting this denial and giving it a try? The tension in this house is getting terrible!"
"Because I have too much to lose," Ron told her. "I don't want to screw this living situation up...but whenever I'm around Tara...it's so hard to remember how fast it could go wrong...and how wrong it could go."
"Why do you think it would go bad?" Kim asked.
"Because it always does," he grumbled.
"If this is about me breaking up with you after high school..." she began.
"It is," he confirmed. "And it's about my other girlfriends. You must have known."
"Actually, no," she told him. "I asked Wade to keep an eye on your social life for me, but he refused. He said that he wouldn't spy on you and that if I wanted to know how you were doing in that regard, I'd have to ask you, myself." She dropped her gaze for a moment, before looking at him again. "I never had the nerve to ask you, but now I think I should. How did your romantic life play out after I let you go?"
"Is it really that important?" He asked.
"If it's keeping you from trying for a romantic relationship with Tara, I'd say it's important," Kim answered. "The two of you are really on the same page, so to speak, so if your past is messing up a possibility with her, it's probably going to be messing up your possibilities with anybody." She paused a moment. "Besides, you never did really let me have it, verbally, for breaking up with you. Maybe talking about it, and tearing into me for making a very dumb move, will make you feel better."
"It's all water under the bridge," he sighed. "But maybe getting another perspective will help."
"Okay, start from when I told you that we should start seeing other people," Kim flinched when she said it, remembering the sitch from roughly a decade previous.
"Okay, setting the scene," Ron answered. He paused a moment, collecting his thoughts. "I wasn't quite as dumb as I seemed back then. I knew that when your girlfriend tells you that you should start seeing other people, she's already seeing other people."
Kim wanted to protest but couldn't. In this case, it was the truth, or at least close enough to it.
"Well, she might not be actually seeing him yet," Ron continued. "But at the very least, she's got her eye on someone. Anyway, you were in your college and I was in mine. Coach Roughman wasn't all that happy with me; he thought that the missions we went on in high school were just a big publicity stunt, but he didn't want to give up on the skill."
Ron snorted a bitter laugh. "Maybe it was good luck on my part that I had a coach that had it out for me when you sent me on my way. Between him telling me I couldn't ride your coattails, and the grief I was getting when the tabloids started showing you with your new guy, I decided to prove that I was more than just a sidekick."
"You took football seriously," Kim finished for him. "I knew that you started as a true freshman. That's rare."
"It wasn't just football," he added. "I decided to hit the classes hard, and found out that I had an interest, and a talent, for mechanical engineering." He heaved a sigh. "I also did something dumb; I decided I needed to find a girlfriend to prove that I could get one."
"Bad experience?" Kim asked.
"Not at first," he admitted. "Let's change the names to protect the not-so-innocent and refer to her as Fred. At any major university, you're going to find a couple of young, attractive women who base a chunk of their self-worth on the guy they can land. Fred was a version of Bonnie; insanely hot, she knew it, and expected the best. A running back who managed to start as a freshman was good enough for her. Idiot me, I was so wrapped up in her that I didn't notice how much of a cast-iron bitch she was to almost everyone else. I was scorching opposing defenses, getting good grades in something I liked, and I had a smoking hot girlfriend willing to go to great lengths to keep me. I was on the top of the world."
"Then came the injury," Kim guessed.
"Actually, something came before the injury," he corrected her. "It's not news to you but I'll say it anyway; when you broke up with me, I quit going on the missions...at least at first. According to Dr. Director, you continued but had a couple of bad results, so she asked me to assist again."
"Which I appreciated," Kim told him. "We were still a good team."
"And because I had Fred waiting for me when I got back, I didn't feel like some whipped loser," he nodded, then offered a bitter smile. "Maybe it was me playing Fred a little, whenever I came back from a mission with a hot redhead, she made sure I understood what I had to come back to. I guess it doesn't matter. You see there was a problem with the missions. Coach Roughman told me that if I continued the missions, I would violate the terms of my scholarship; something about activities that entailed excessive risk of injury."
"I wondered why you ducked away so fast whenever someone showed up to thank us for helping them," Kim admitted.
"I needed to keep it secret," he confirmed. "And I was able to, until that incident in the Summer, right before football started my sophomore year."
"I didn't think your injury was serious," she protested. "Okay, it was going to have you in rehab for a few weeks, but you made a full recovery...right?"
"Full recovery, yes," Ron grumbled. "Six weeks of rehab...which kept me away from pre-season workouts...and Coach found out how I got injured. I was promptly dropped from the team...and lost my scholarship."
"Ron, I'm so sorry!" Kim gasped. "Why didn't you say something?"
"And prove that I really couldn't do anything without you?" He asked. "No, even if you could have managed something, I didn't want it." He sighed at a painful memory. "I was tempted to ask for help, but pride wouldn't let me. I had some hope of getting back on the team...and on scholarship...if I behaved but I didn't have the money to stay at college without the scholarship, so I joined ROTC."
"I knew you joined the Army, obviously," she said. "But I didn't know the details."
"Well, Fred broke it off with me," Ron continued the story, as if he didn't hear her. "She was the most affectionate woman on the planet when I was the starting running back and looking at a lucrative NFL contract in a few years. When I was an engineering student looking at a second lieutenant's salary in a few years, she treated me just like she treated everyone else." Ron paused a moment. "Okay, she treated me a little worse than she treated everyone else. She went to Coach Roughman and told him how long I had been helping you on the missions, knowing that I was violating my scholarship agreement well before I got hurt. Coach got the word around the NCAA. Every program knew that I had knowingly violated my scholarship conditions, so nobody was about to invest the time and a precious scholarship on me. Any chance that the program, or any other one in the country, would give me another chance was out the window. That's when I finally realized how horrible of a person that she really was."
"Bad relationship," Kim concluded. "And a vindictive ex."
"And a lesson, although it took me a few years to understand it," Ron answered. "I had been completely blinded by my hormones. She was hot and putting out; and that turned my brain off. Maybe that injury was a blessing in disguise."
"Anything else on the relationship front?" Kim asked.
"Not during college," he answered, looking upward as he searched his memories. "At least nothing worth mentioning. I had a few dates and some short term stuff...but you know college; when you're hitting the books and don't have a place of your own, there's only so serious that you can get. Besides, I don't have a model's looks and I'm not put together like the typical athlete. The only real claim to fame I had was that I went on missions with you, but you canceled the missions after I got hurt and didn't start them again when I recovered."
"If you had wanted to keep up the missions, I would have, after you were healed up," Kim protested.
"Dodging death-rays and angry super-villains just to get an in with the girls isn't a good idea," he informed her. "Even in my idiot teenage years, I could grasp that."
"So, graduation and then service?" Kim prompted.
"Yep," he answered. "Got my degree...with honors, I'd like to add. Swore my oath right there on the stage that I accepted the degree." He shook his head. "I'll admit that I didn't put in the enthusiasm to my service that I really should have...at least at first. I was hoping that I could get a branch that would make use of my education, but whomever did the branch assignments must have seen 'engineer' on my degree and assigned me to the Corps of Engineers." He laughed again. "I knew guys who had electrical engineering degrees, who would have been better suited to the Signal Corps or Air Defense Artillery, who wound up in the Corps of Engineers. I always pictured the branch assignment people coming across someone with a chemical engineering degree and being stymied by it. The paper says engineer, so he has to go to the Engineers...but the paper also says chemical, so he has to go to the Chemical Corps. Maybe that's where the Infantry guys come from."
"So, you became an Army Engineer," Kim brought him back onto the topic at hand.
"Yeah, and not one of the heavy guys, either. You'd think that I would have wound up handling the really heavy equipment; the graders and big dozers. Nope, I wound up a combat engineer. Still, I learned some hard lessons...the kind of lessons that stick with you."
"I'm assuming that these are the kind of lessons that make you reluctant to date Tara?" Kim asked him.
"Most of them were about life," he answered. "About putting in your best effort and looking out for people, but yeah, there were a few relationship lessons, as well. Let's start out by saying that military service isn't really good for young guys trying to find a steady girlfriend. The pay isn't great and the hours are brutal. It doesn't help that around any Army Base, there's plenty of young, single men for every young, single woman in the area."
"So, the gold-diggers move in?" Kim asked.
"It was military pay, so gold-digger probably isn't the right term," Ron shrugged. "Copper-digger? Tin-digger? Anyway, the sergeants try to warn the younger men, but they...and me at the time...tend to be idiots where that's concerned."
"I'm guessing that you were an idiot?" Kim prompted him.
"Yeah, but I lucked out," he told her. "Again, let's protect the not-so-innocent by calling her George. A little background; most bases don't have enough housing for unmarried lieutenants, so we tend to get together, rent apartments or houses, pool our allotment for quarters and come out money ahead. That's what I did, rooming with two other lieutenants. Anyway, George worked at a mom-and-pop sandwich shop not far from where I was living. I was in the habit of stopping there and grabbing something cheap when I didn't feel like cooking...which turned out to be quite a bit."
He offered a sad smile to his companion. "Even back then, I wasn't so dumb that I didn't recognize when the girl at the counter flirted a little to get better tips; it wasn't until she started to strike up conversations with me that I realized that she might be interested in me. Well, I struck up my own conversations and eventually asked her out. We did the dinner-and-a-movie thing and since both my roommates were in the field that evening, we wound up back at my place. Nature took its course, but I had the precautions in place."
"We had a few dates," Ron continued. "And she was starting to hint that we should move things along and get our own place, when my battalion got deployed. We exchanged emails for the first few weeks that I was gone, but then she quit responding, so I quit emailing. I had a lot more to think about than a maybe girlfriend back home. It was sometime after that that a booby-trap took off a chunk of my left hand...and got me transferred back to the States."
"I swung by the sandwich shop, my first day back," he continued. "She wasn't working, so I asked the folks there if they knew what had become of her. Well, it turns out that a few weeks after I shipped out, she took up with a Captain and moved in with him. Two months after that, she was pregnant and quit her job." Ron shook his head. "Less than half a year after she said she wanted to move in with me and she'd be waiting for me when I came back, she was with someone else and pregnant."
"Okay, another bad experience," Kim concluded.
"Well, the Army really didn't know what to do with me at that time,' he continued his tale. "I only had a few months left on my enlistment and I wasn't interested in re-enlisting. Putting me in charge of another platoon would be a waste of time, so the S-1 put me to work helping with the flood of men dealing with divorces while deployed. Boy, did I get an education."
"Don't get me wrong, not every soldier is an angel," he told her. "Some are abusive assholes, some are drunks; these are the guys who should have the book thrown at them. The problem is, the courts treated all of the men like they were already proven guilty. Any complaint that a wife made, the courts believed. If she said that he was violent and he denied it, the courts assumed that he was abusive, even if she didn't have any bruises or medical treatment records. I even saw one judge find a man in contempt because he didn't make his court date, while he was deployed overseas."
"That's illegal!" Kim gasped.
"Are YOU going to tell a judge what she can't do in her own courtroom?" He shook his head. "The JAG people were working on his case when I left the service but according to them, once a court finds against a man...and a soldier...the higher courts are reluctant to overturn it."
"You know most of the rest," he then told her. "I finished my commitment. Most employers have a positive attitude towards an honorable discharge, and Mickman's Mechanics wasn't an exception. Wade must have thought that this wasn't private, personal information, so he let you know that I was interviewing in your city, and you offered the basement for me to live, if I wound up here. So, I'm here but I'm not the boy I was back in college. Now you have an idea why."
"I'm sensing a that you're going to tie this story together by saying why you won't give Tara a chance," Kim noted.
"Your senses are accurate," he offered her a tight grin. "There's an old saying about learning from the misfortunes of others. I saw what other men went through and did a couple of things. The first thing I promised myself was that if I dated in the future, I'd make sure to stay in my league and circumstance. You left me because you were out of my league and found a better option. Fred left me because she was out of my league and found a better option. George was in my league but she was surrounded by better options. Let's face it, I'm not some guy who's going to turn heads on the street. That's one of the reasons that I won't date Tara. She's surrounded by guys who have a lot more to offer her than I do, so if I were to give it a try with her, it's only a matter of time before someone better comes along and she'll set me aside and take up with her new guy. I don't need that kind of heartbreak again."
"Back to the rules you talked about just before you dated Zita?" She asked. "I thought you learned your lesson."
"I learned harsher lessons after high school," he answered. "We aren't teenagers anymore, a breakup has more consequences than a few days of moping around."
"Anything else?" Kim asked.
"Another promise, and another reason I won't date Tara," he told her. "The vulgar term is 'don't...well...defecate where you eat'. The translation is 'don't let your hormones screw up your livelihood, your living situation, or something else that you really need."
"And you think dating Tara would mess up your living situation?" Kim asked him.
"Not dating Tara," he corrected. "The breakup. You and Tara have your names on the lease, I don't. Now, imagine that I date Tara and she finds someone else. Do you really think that her new boyfriend is going to accept her ex living in her basement? The answer is no and I can't blame him. I'm going to be out of here and it's only a question of how nasty the 'get out and stay out' message is going to be and how much time I'll have to find something else. I've got a good thing here, I'm not going to mess it up by letting my sex drive dictate my actions."
"Are you finished?" She asked him.
"Nothing to do with Tara, in particular." He answered. "I did a little of my own research and some snooping on social media, while still in the service. I checked up on Fred and found out that she married a guy who made it in the NBA, had a kid and divorced him. In almost all of the divorces in the battalion, there were kids involved and the ex-wives were using them to demand everything that the men had, in alimony and child support. Kids are a complication that I don't need. Before I left the service, I had a vasectomy."
Kim couldn't stop herself from gasping.
"If I have that moment of weakness," Ron explained. "If I have that moment where I'm lonely, or horny, or for some other reason think it's true love, at least there's one complication that won't happen. I understand that this can be a put-off for someone thinking of starting a family and since we're all in our late 20's, that's a real consideration."
"Can it be reversed?" Kim asked.
He looked at her for several long, tense seconds before answering.
"Is it any of your business?" He finally asked, struggling to keep his voice steady.
"Only as a concerned friend," Kim tried to assure him. "Someone your age willingly taking away his ability to reproduce just seems...extreme."
"Not when you've seen what I have," Ron told her. "I'm just making sure that I won't have to live what I've seen."
"If Tara or Monique told me they had their tubes tied, I would have reacted the same way," she told him.
Again, he looked at her for a long moment before relaxing a bit, nodding and saying, "okay, but I'm not saying if there's a way around it. You threw away any say you have about my reproductive capability a long time ago."
"I don't think you're giving yourself, or Tara, enough credit," Kim offered, looking like she was fighting back an angry retort. "She isn't just interested in you because you're available now and can be replaced when a better model shows up. This isn't just some teenage hormone lust drive or a dry spell making her settle. She's developed a connection to you, she likes being with you and you seem to enjoy her company. It's not so much a case that she wants to take it to the next step as it's a reasonable progression. She wants to add the romantic aspect to the friendship."
"You think it doesn't appeal to me?" He shook his head. "When we're working together to make a meal, don't you think I want to give her a quick embrace while we brush by each other? When she goes along with me to meet up with my friends, we go bowling, or throw darts or shoot pool. When we're standing next to each other, waiting for someone else to take their turn, I have to remind myself to not put my arm around her...because it seems like such the right thing to do. When we go out to the forest to hike and scout firewood, when we stop on a ridge to appreciate the view, it's everything I can do to not stand right behind her and hold her while we look out over the scenery. I can only imagine how it would feel if she would lean back into me and just be happy that I was holding her."
"Do you really think that she doesn't want the same thing?" Kim asked.
"At the moment, yes," he answered. "But how long would it last? Like I said, there's too much risk."
"Why are you convinced that it will fall apart for the two of you?" Kim was slack-jawed with amazement at his attitude. "Do you really think that she's going to just drop you if someone else comes along? This...attraction...she has towards you has been building for over a year! Do you really think she's going to break it off with you as soon as some hot guy walks into her life?"
Ron stared at her for a full minute before getting up, grabbing his shoes, then sitting back down to put them on.
"What's wrong?" Kim demanded.
"You can't see it?" He glared at her and only became more irritated when he realized that she honestly didn't see it.
"I've done this before," he growled, while pulling on his shoes. "I had the close friend and we were close friends for over twelve years. We did everything together and got on each others' nerves at times but in the end, we were closer than brother and sister when we finally took the plunge and tried romance."
He looked up from his feet. Her horrified expression told him that she understood it now and there was no need to finish the rant. However, his temper was up and he was in the mood to bore in for verbal blood.
"When we took that step...it was the happiest I've ever been," he explained. "I was sure it would last forever, because we had been together so long. It lasted a little over a year and a half. Less than three months after we headed different directions for college, after we promised each other we would always be together...you found someone better!"
"I really should thank you for that," he growled, standing up and grabbing his coat. "Even when that damned booby-trap blasted off half my hand, it didn't hurt anywhere near as bad as when I found out that my dream-girl, who I would have died for, loved me a hell of a lot less than I loved her."
"Where are you going?" She asked, as he opened the door.
"Somewhere, nowhere, anywhere," he answered, pausing while Rufus scampered up his leg and into his pocket. "I just need to get out and clear my head."
A/N:
Thanks for reading. Big thanks to Joe Stoppinghem, for his beta reading. Until Chapter 2, best wishes.
Daccu65