Love Me by Cheryl Holt Read Free Book Online

bad.
    Hopefully, if he’d learned nothing else in the army, he’d learned some pragmatism.  He’d learned to be content and satisfied and not so damned angry.
    “It’s Emily’s birthday next week,” Ken mentioned.
    “I know.”
    “She’d have been thirty.”
    “I know that, too.”
    She and Michael had been killed while Matt was overseas.  He hadn’t made it home for the funeral.
    “How come I wound up with you instead of her?”  Ken wasn’t being mean in posing the question.  It often plagued him when he was feeling low.  “I tried to be a good guy.  Why would the universe screw me over like that?”
    “Because you’re an unlucky S.O.B.”
    “I’m not unlucky,” Ken said.  “I got Jeremy out of the deal.”
    “Yes, you did, and don’t forget:  If it hadn’t been for my part in that fandango, you’d be alone—with just me for company.”
    “And for a whole decade, I had him all to myself, without your ugly face in the picture.”
    Footsteps sounded on the stairs, then Matt’s son, Jeremy, flew into the room.  He’d always been Emily’s boy—not Matt’s.  That’s what Ken called him and how he was viewed by everyone.  As if he’d sprung from nowhere with no father attached.  
    Matt wasn’t bitter over Ken’s machinations.  In light of how wild Matt had been when he was younger, Ken had been correct in ordering him away.  But they’d matured and changed.  Emily was gone, Ken was ill, and Matt had grown up.  They lumped along together, Ken, Matt, and Jeremy, and they were doing all right.
    Jeremy was a perpetual ball of energy and the center of their pathetic lives.  If Matt and Ken hadn’t had Jeremy to give them a purpose, Matt wasn’t sure what would have become of either of them.
    Jeremy was twelve, slender and wiry and dark-haired as Matt had been at that age, but he had Ken and Emily’s big green eyes.  To Matt’s unceasing delight, he was a great kid, with none of Matt’s swagger or penchant for violence.  He was all the things Matt had never had the chance to be:  smart, happy, driven to succeed.  A terrific athlete.  A popular student with high grades and tons of friends.
    It was thanks to Ken’s steadying influence, and Matt liked to think Jeremy was the boy Matt might have been if he’d drawn a better hand in life.
    “Hey dude,” Matt said.  “You’re running late this morning.”
    “What’s for breakfast?” Jeremy asked, his school backpack slung over his shoulder.
    “Donuts on the counter,” Ken said.
    “You know that’s an awful way to start the day,” Jeremy scolded.  “How many times do I have to tell you, Ken?”
    “Old habits, kid,” Ken snapped.  “Get over it.”
    Jeremy called them Matt and Ken, not Dad and Grandpa.  When Jeremy was a baby, Ken had been too vain to let himself be referred to as a grandfather, and Matt had never been around until the past year.  So he hadn’t earned the title of dad. He didn’t mind being called Matt.
    He’d come home from the army, battered and broken and with nowhere to go, and Ken had invited him to live with them.  Matt had arrived, believing charity was being extended, but it had instantly been apparent that Ken, with his deteriorating health, needed Matt more than Matt needed Ken.
    “I can make you some eggs and toast,” Matt offered.
    “I can’t wait that long,” Jeremy replied.  He grabbed a fistful of donuts and sprinted off, racing down the street to the school that was two blocks away.
    Matt followed him out onto the porch. 
    “Hey!” he shouted.
    “What?”  Jeremy halted and glanced over his shoulder.
    “Do you want me to pick you up after school?”
    “I have baseball practice.  I’ll walk.”
    He took off again, and Matt stood in the quiet, proud and amazed that he’d produced such a boy.  He watched until Jeremy disappeared around the corner, then he went inside. 
    As he entered the kitchen, Ken had just taken a hit from his inhaler.  He didn’t like