“You have no fucking idea. I just want peace. A place to call my own,” he said, sighing wistfully.
“Come on, Darling. Tell it like it is. You just want privacy so you can bang any chick you want without JD’s boner creeping you out,” Aberlour responded with a snort.
There was a loud cheer as Marcus defeated Carlos, yet again, at arm wrestling, and Carlos downed another tequila shot. Yeah, no, at the pace they were tossing back shots, they’d be in no shape to move anything come morning except their breakfast—right back up.
“You keep thinking that,” Oliver muttered, then polished off Aberlour’s beer. When he looked back towards JD, there was a sad little smile tugging at his lips. One that Aberlour found impossible to reason through in his buzzed condition, so he let it go.
“Am I officially an adult, now?” Oliver asked, sounding bemused. They were sitting on the bottom step of Oliver’s new house.
“Guess so,” Aberlour agreed, leaning back, putting both of his elbows on the third step for support. “Look at you, Darling, all grown up and shit.”
They’d just finished moving all of Oliver’s furniture inside his house. It was nice stuff, too. Not the mismatched castoffs Aberlour had found at a charity shop that “decorated” his shithole of an apartment. Instead, Oli had leather couches, oak tables, and antique Chesterfields. His mother’s housewarming present was her old furniture. Oliver had bitched about it at first. Not about it being second hand, but about accepting his mother’s help with anything at any time. In the end, since it was free and too well made to pass up, he’d swallowed his pride and taken it.
“No more living with JD’s farts,” Oliver said, content. There was an edge of sadness there too, though neither of them remarked on it.
“Can’t believe Ghost volunteered to room with him,” Abe replied with a scoff.
“Just wait until taco night,” Oliver replied.
There weren’t too many options for guys like them. They could live in the barracks, usually with roommates, or they could fork over a nice chunk of change to live in one of the houses on base. Those places were usually reserved for married couples,but Aberlour had pulled a few strings and found Oli this little gem. It had become available at just the right time, too. While Oli and JD got along like a house on fire, living together had gotten to be just a little too much. Oli needed space.
Aberlour had found him space.
“Your folks coming down to see the place?” Abe asked after a minute. The front door was still open. From here they had a great view of the other houses on the street. Oli’s house was the last house at the end, perpendicular to the cul-de-sac, which meant he had a clear view of everyone’s front yard. It was a nosy Nelly’s dream.
“Hell no,” Oliver replied, shaking his head. The furniture had been delivered by a moving company. Aberlour knew it hadn’t come with a note or a phone call. Rather, all Louise Darling had bothered to say to her youngest son was delivered through a short text instructing him to give the driver a sizeable tip.
Aberlour would have offered his sympathies, but he knew they wouldn’t be welcomed.
“I was promised pizza,” he said instead.
“And beer,” Oli nodded, clapping his hands together.
“Call the other dimwits while I call in the order? Now that we’re done, they’ll probably be free to hang,” Oliver said, rolling his eyes as he stood up.
They were being dramatic for fun. The truth was, there hadn’t been enough furniture on the truck to justify calling in Team Specter. Oli and Abe had been fine on their own.
He still snorted in approval as he opened their group chat.
“Oli’s buying pizza,” was the only thing he texted to the team before he pocketed the phone and followed Oli back into the house. If that wasn’t enough to get them out here, then nothing would.
He walked into the open floorplan kitchen and Oliver handed him a beer.
“To adulthood,” Oliver said with a smile. Abe took it with a snort but knocked his own bottle against Oli’s.
“To your independence, Darling.”
“Never thought I’d get here,” Oli said, shaking his head before chugging half of his beer.
“What? Living in a two-bedroom, military base house, next to jarheads and idiots wasn’t your childhood dream?” Abe teased.
“No—I meant—I never thought I’d be able to break free of their ironclad control. I used to dream I’d just run away, change my name even,” Oliver said, shaking his head in disbelief. He looked around, seemingly in awe of his little house.
“You’re so fucking dramatic,” Abe said without any real bite.
“Comes with the Darling name.”
Aberlour couldn’t refute that. The little he’d seen of Oliver’s parents gave Abe the impression that they were little more than stereotypical, eccentric aristocrats. Then again, that had been the first impression he’d gotten from Oliver himself. Uptight, rich, full of himself. There were still shadows of that impression hovering over him at times, but Aberlour knew them by their proper names now: weapon—armor. They were shields he put up, nothing more.
