Recruit by Jonathan Brazee (the best ebook reader for android .txt) 📕

off the ring road and onto the surface streets, flipping the hover to auto.  Within minutes, they pulled into Elysium Hills, the subdivision where Lysa and Barret had bought a house the year before.  Ryck had been to their previous home, and he thought it had been rather nice.  But with two kids, Lysa told him they needed someplace bigger, and Barret wanted to be in the capital city.

Bigger was an understatement, Ryck thought as Joshua pulled in front of a, well, a mansion.  There was no other way to describe it.  Easily twice as large as Barret’s old home, it had all the architectural extras currently in fashion.  The front yard was stately, with two huge trees of some sort as the main features.  The water tax on those two trees alone would cost a huge chunk of Ryck’s corporal’s salary.  From one tree, a rope swing hung, out of place in the new construction, but a nice touch.  Above the side wall, Ryck could see the tops of what looked like a jungle gym.  This wasn’t Barret’s old bachelor pad.  This was a family home.

“Here you go, my man,” Joshua said as he pulled up.

“You coming in?”

“Nah, this is family time.  Do your duty.  We’re all getting together on I-Day to watch the fireworks, so I’ll see you then.  Don’t worry, we’ll have some time together, just you and me,” Joshua told him.

Ryck took his pack, watched Joshua pull out, and walked up to the front door.  Before he reached it, the door opened, and Lysa ran out, colliding with him in a hug.

“Little brother, it’s so good to see you.  Come in, come in!”

“Uncle Ryck, Uncle Ryck, come here,” a little voice said from behind Lysa.

Ryck had spoken with Kylee on the cam, but this was the first time he’d seen her in the flesh.  She reached around Lysa to take his hand.

“Kylee!  What did I tell you!  Give Uncle Ryck a chance to breathe first.  He’ll see your room later,” Lysa told her daughter.  Lysa took Ryck’s hand and led him into the house.  Barret was waiting there, a beer in his hand that Ryck gratefully took, giving his pack to Barret in exchange.

“You look good, there, Ryck.  I don’t know what all those ribbons mean on your chest exactly, but your friend Joshua says they are pretty important.  I know the girls want you to stay in your uniform, but I bet you’d like to get into something more comfortable,” Barret said.

Ryck was towed to his room by Kylee as she pulled on his arm.  He managed to get into the room alone and changed into shorts and a 2/9 t-shirt.  As he opened the door, Kylee was waiting, and grabbing his arm, she dragged him back into the living room.  Barret was sitting down, another little girl peeking out from behind his chair.

“Hi, Camyle,” Ryck said to his youngest niece.

The two-year-old retreated back a little further behind her father’s chair.

“Don’t worry about her.  She’s a little shy, but she’ll warm up to you,” Lysa told him.

The next few hours were pure domesticity.  Lysa cooked up some katsudon and yakisoba, Barret talked about the job he was offering Ryck, sports, and asked about Ryck’s military operations, Kylee dragged him to her room for an introduction to over 30 stuffed animals, and Camyle even said a few words to him.

Ryck didn’t have much time alone with Lysa.  He managed to catch her while she was making the noodles for the yakisoba.  She had flour on her forehead as she kneaded the dough.  She was different.  Not just the weight, which had crept on during the last four years.  This woman was not the woman who left the house in skin-tight dresses for a night in the bars and night-spots.  This was a woman who was at home.

“You look happy,” Ryck told her, knowing it was true.

“Like this?” she said with a laugh, brushing the hair back off her forehead, leaving more flour.

“Yeah, just like that.”

“You’re right.  I am happy.  I’m not sure I deserve it, but I thank God every day for my two little girls, my husband.  The only thing I am missing is you.  If you take Barret’s job offer, then that would complete me.  Of course, then I’ll be bugging you to find a wife and give me some nieces and nephews.”

“And I’m happy for you, big sister.  Really, I am.”

Dinner was great, and the conversation was surprisingly interesting, even when initiated by a three-year-old.  Three-and-a-half, that was, as Kylee took pains to remind everyone.  Ryck had to watch his language a bit as some choice phrases and words almost leaked out.  Little girls should not be faced with the same language as salty Marines and sailors.

To his surprise, Ryck was tired, and he went to bed early.  He had to show up at his high school the next day to receive an award.  He’d have liked to skip it, but he got three extra days of free leave for what the Marines considered a recruiting trip.  In the afternoon, he promised he’d visit Barret at his office to check out the position being offered.

He had never been in Lysa and Barret’s house before, and never in the guest bedroom.  But as he lay down, with the little-girl shrieks of laughter coming from downstairs, it was feeling much more like home than he would have imagined.