“Shaky Jakey, Papa’s here!” she squealed as she ran to the house.
“Everything’s fine. Savior needs a little help, though. Will you send Shaker out here?”
“Of course. Is there anything else I can do?” she asked.
“He needs something to eat and will probably need a change of clothes.”
“No problem. Let me get Jacob, and then I’ll make him something to eat,” Keegan said.
A few minutes later, I heard Shaker and Ranger talking quietly. Then, the passenger side door was yanked open. “Holy shit, I think I could get drunk just from the fumes coming off you,” Shaker said and made a show of waving his hand in front of his face. “Can you walk?”
“Not sure,” I grumbled. I managed to get to my feet and followed him to his garage.
“Welcome to my man cave. You can have a seat after you change clothes,” he said with a laugh.
I looked down and noticed the splatters of vomit on my shirt and jeans. Without giving it much thought, I ripped my shirt over my head and dropped my jeans to the floor. “I’m not going to stay upright much longer,” I confessed and dropped onto the sofa.
Keegan opened the door to the garage and gasped. “Why is he naked?”
“He’s not naked. Did you need something?”
“Uh, Ranger said Kellan needed something to eat. I brought him a sandwich and some chips. Does he need some clothes, too?” she asked.
“He’s right here. Clothes or a blanket would be great. It’s freezing in here,” I said and rubbed my arms.
Keegan returned a few minutes later with some drawstring pants and a T-shirt for me to wear. She’d also brought me a blanket. “Thank you,” I said.
“Any time. I’ll be inside if you need anything,” she replied, though it was directed at her husband.
Shaker sat down in a recliner across from me and crossed his arms over his chest. “You want to tell me what in the hell is going on?”
I shook my head. “Want to? No. But I guess I have to.”
“You don’t have to tell me shit if you don’t want to, but I’m guessing Ranger brought you here because he thought I could help.”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “You remember hearing about the cop that died when his patrol car was hit two years ago?”
“Yeah, if I remember correctly, they said the driver fell asleep.”
“I was the driver,” I said flatly.
Shaker sucked in a sharp breath. “Fuck, man. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
I snorted. “It’s not something I enjoy talking about.”
“Yeah, I get that. I’ve been through something similar,” he said. “When I was deployed, my unit was assigned a certain area to patrol. We’d been there for over two weeks with little to no activity. Then, one night, this car came by and circled the area a few times. We reported it and received the order to take them out. Since I was a sniper, that job fell on me. I didn’t hesitate to kill both men in the car.” He paused and rubbed the back of his neck. “Hours later, when we searched the car, we found two eighteen-year-old boys with a trunkful of fruit. We never figured out what they were doing, but it looked like they were innocent. And they were dead because of me.”
“I’m sorry that happened, man, but it’s not the same. You didn’t have a choice; you had to follow the command you were given.”
He nodded. “Yeah, just like you don’t have a choice when your body falls asleep.”
I sat up and opened my mouth to argue, but he continued, “If sleeping was a voluntary action, the world wouldn’t be full of people with insomnia. You can’t tell me you’ve never tried to fall asleep and couldn’t or tried to stay awake and couldn’t.”
Well, shit. I’d never thought about it like that, but it still didn’t change anything.
“I fucked his wife,” I blurted.
Shaker’s eyes widened, and he made a faint choking noise. “You what?”
