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Dee looks over with confusion, not understanding why he is so bent out of shape over an outfit

"Seriously, G, you need to get fucking laid" I laugh at hihten hiskiddingnaked, and you expectover at Dee he says, "At least one of you decided to wear so"

I look back over at Dee with her short black dress and tits still breaking the laws of gravity and don’t understand how he thinks she is less naked thanis a better

Whatever, I don’t have the patience for this shit Not tonight

"Get over it, Greg, seriously I do not need a fucking dad tonight You knohat I need, ood ti a little bitch because you have soht find this look attractive I don’t care, and don’t have time for your shit"

I throw rab the bottle of tequila fro the burn it takes down the back ofat me with un to be, especially noith the added shit froood place with their worry, I just don’t want any part of it If anything, Brandon has effectively helpedit in my face yesterday Literally My birthday weekend, also known as the day I lost the last piece of love I had ever known

"So, Greg," Dee starts, trying to steer our ain?"

"My boys, fro his eyes lined withdown at my shot, still after all this tih my body at the mention of the Marines

God, Ime closely He knows about my past, so he knohat that one little word does to h I think he has just as big of a proble about those days He never has told us why he was discharged I knoas injured, I just don’t kno I figure he will talk if he wants to

I glance over at Dee, who is giving es the subject Weour stuff and heading off to Greg’s truck Both Dee and I have a nice healthy buzz going on

We are all pretty silent during our thirtyjust outside of the city has its perks sorown up an hour fro at the rest stop and Dee pulling out a state e smile and toldwe had hoped it would be for two friends starting over

I hadn’t been back home to Dale since I left at seventeen, too many memories I wasn’t ready to revisit Most of those memories are happy ones My parents and our life before they were taken froer When I left, at the ti behind Now thatleft there He had already left, so as the point now?

Shaking myself off, I quickly pushed the painful memories back into the box in o there’ I have worked hard to beat the past, and at thirty years old, I finally feel the ‘healthiest’ I have ever been I don’t feel the fear daily I surround ativity doesn’t own a place of my soul anymore The pain is still there, just not as sharp as it once was I a there

I see the street Carnal is on up ahead and the line already out the door and down the sidewalk Well Iz, I thought, tiht

Chapter 4

Club Carnal is located just inside of Atlanta, in an old converted warehouse It’s been the club to go to since it opened four years ago and Dee and I have enjoyed it a time or two since we moved to town It’s a classy club, dress code and all of that, valet standing at the curb and a line that is never less than a hundred people

Another benefit of co, he knows people, everyone it see kid playing dress up as a valet After helping Dee and e burly uard at the door and shakes his hand They do that weirdback a few times at Dee and et anything he wanted

As alk down the dark hallway leading into the hts are di with the beat I ignore it all and head straight for the bar It takes Dee and Greg a minute before they realize I have left their sides for my one woman mission to beco a blacked out, stu drunk