Mixed Up with a Marine

Chapter 1-1

1

Braxton Whitmore had never seen so many bras in one place in his life. And he’d been to Victoria’s Secret a time or two. His gaze snagged on one particularly heinous neon orange brassiere, one of many being used as ornamentation along the perimeter of the dingy cinder block walls. Its cups were large enough to fit his entire head. In a combat helmet.

“You have got to be shitting me. This is your inheritance?”

Jonah Ferguson moved past Brax into the bar proper. “In all its horrifying glory. Told y’all you had to see it to believe it.”

Holt Steele, the remaining member of their trio, crossed thick arms over his chest. “I see it, but I’m not sure I believe it. Your dad actually owned this place?”

“For near to twenty years. Picked it over my mama, my sister, and me.” If that still bothered Jonah, his matter-of-fact tone didn’t betray it. “Don’t know why the hell he left it to us when he couldn’t be bothered to give a s**t while he was living, but Sam and Griff are being all newlywed and getting ready for the baby, and she doesn’t want anything to do with the place. She’d happily burn it to the ground.”

“I’m not sure she’s got the wrong idea,” Brax muttered, moving further into the dimly lit bar. Were the windows actually spray painted? The whole effect made him feel like he was back in a war zone, but he shuddered to think what direct sunlight might reveal about the place.

“It’s an eyesore for sure, but if we can clean it up, make it less terrifying, we’d get more profit off the sale. And be more likely to actually find a buyer.”

Brax took another disgusted look around, noting the designations carved directly into the door frames above the restrooms—Poles and Holes. Classy. “Didn’t realize you were that much of an optimist.”

“You gotta have some imagination,” Jonah insisted. “Look past the filth. Basically, everything in here can go. We strip out the gross, do some demolition, clean everything that needs cleaning, that gives us a blank canvas.”

Holt arched a skeptical brow. “You got a dump truck load of fairy dust out back? Because it’s gonna take more than demo and cleaning to make this a blank canvas worth a damn.”

Tuning out Jonah’s retort, Brax mentally stripped the place down. New flooring, sheetrock walls over the cinderblock, new ceiling, and better lighting would go a long way to improving the place. But that was all window dressing. No way in hell was that the extent of necessary renovations. He strode across the cracked concrete floors, deliberately not giving consideration to what the stains might be. A quick peek into the men’s room showed a trough and a single stall housing an avocado green toilet. An outdoor water spigot served as a faucet over a cracked and rusty sink. The women’s side was hardly better.

“Bathrooms need total gutting.” And possibly dynamite.

He headed behind the long, scarred bar and through the swinging door into what passed for the kitchen. The space was long and narrow—a health code violation from one end to the other. A door to one side opened into what had probably been a storage room. A few empty liquor boxes lay abandoned in a corner beside another door that led, presumably, to the delivery entrance. The actual cooking area was made up of a range so caked in grease it would likely go up in flames if anybody dared to turn it on. Beside that stretched a single, warped steel table, garnished with a few dead roach carcasses and rat droppings. A deep commercial sink sat next to that, adjacent to a dishwasher Brax recognized as a model that had been ancient back when he’d done his stint as a busboy in high school.

He shoved back out into the main bar. “Kitchen needs gutting, too. Jesus, how long has it been since the place closed down?”

“Lonnie died eight months ago. We let his bartender keep running it for another six before pulling the plug.”

“Ten bucks says somebody was paying off a health inspector. That’s way more than two months’ worth of nasty back there.”

Jonah started to take down one of the rickety chairs stacked on tables, then evidently thought better of it. “Look, it’s a shithole. I know it. I just want to make it less of one. If that’s just cleaning and fresh paint, fine. But it’s a project. We need a project, at least while we figure out what we all want to do now we’re done up in Syracuse.”

They lapsed into silence, considering.

Even before he’d joined the Marine Corps, Brax hadn’t been a guy to just sit. He’d spent most of the year since he separated from the military at an experimental therapy program working through PTSD and anxiety. It was where he’d met Jonah, a former SEAL, and Holt, an Army Ranger. They’d all worked through their s**t and been trained as master bakers in the process. Who knew baking worked as therapy? Dr. Audrey Graham, apparently. She was the genius behind the program, of which the three of them were part of the first group of graduates.

Brax enjoyed baking—which had been a hell of a surprise to him—but, at the end of the day, he was still a Marine. He was used to being extremely physical. This place was going to take a fuckton of work, one way or the other. Hard, disgusting work. He wasn’t under any delusion that they’d turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, but there was something appealing about the prospect of doing something visibly productive. Maybe spending a few weeks working on this place was exactly what they all needed while they figured out what the hell they wanted to do with their lives now that they were all civilians again.

He shrugged. “Hell, why not? It’s not like I’ve got anything better to be doing right now. Holt?”

“Long as I get to swing a sledgehammer.”

Jonah grinned. “I expect that can be arranged. C’mon. Let’s head on over to my mom’s place. She’s so excited I brought you along with me, she’s beside herself. Prepare to be spoiled.”

Holt headed for the door. “I could go for some spoiling.”

Brax didn’t even know what to do with that. Of the three of them, he was the most alone. Jonah had his mom and sister, and a brother-in-law Brax had served with in the Marines. Holt had a sister somewhere or other. Brax had no one. No family. No wife. Not anymore.

As he trailed his friends out of the bar, temper kindled. Why the hell was he even thinking of Mia? It had been nearly ten years. She’d left. She’d made her choice. He’d moved on with his life. So why the hell couldn’t he get her out of his head?

It was Griff’s fault. The two of them had bonded in the field over their complicated feelings about their ex-wives. But unlike Brax, Griff had been the one to end things with Sam after they’d impulsively married in Vegas at twenty-two. He’d always planned to go back for her, after turning himself into the man he thought she deserved. Brax had stood up for Griff as informal best man at their second Vegas wedding a few months back.

And damn if it hadn’t stirred up all the old feelings. He’d become a Marine to escape all that s**t. The betrayal and, damn it, the longing. Because he’d never been able to get over Mia. For so many years, she’d been his everything. And then she’d left, with no explanation. Bailing on their marriage. On him. There was no reason to think that just because his friend had found a second chance, there was the remotest of possibilities for one of his own.

He didn’t want a second chance. He didn’t want a woman, period. After Mia, he’d basically sworn off relationships or any sort of entanglement, keeping himself in one war zone after another so he didn’t have to think about the life he’d never have. Without that outlet, he needed a new distraction.

Maybe a few weeks of hard, sweaty labor would be just enough to clear this s**t out of his head so he could figure out what came next.