Run To You

pulled from hangers.
    “Why do you stay?” he asked her.
    She gave a very slight lift of one shoulder, as if a full shrug would be just too much effort. “Where would I go?”
    He wanted her to get up. To do something, but she just stared at the toes of his shoes. “Where is he?” he asked, as angry at her as he was at his father.
    “With Joyce.”
    “The neighbor?” The one who wore her clothes too tight and her hair several shades too blond? The neighbor that everyone knew had a lot of “boyfriends”? His mother was ten times more attractive and had twenty times the class.
    She nodded, and Beau was out of the house and pounding on the next door before he even thought of what he would do if his father answered. Those few moments he stood on that porch, the warm California sun heating his already hot face, seemed to drag on forever. He raised a hand to knock once more when the door opened and Joyce stood in the darker entrance. Her hair a tangled mess, a silky robe hanging off one shoulder, she looked her part. And as Beau stood there, staring at the neighborhood bike, a desperate part of him hoped like hell his father wasn’t in this woman’s house.
    “Where’s my father?”
    She pushed the door open farther as his father walked up behind her, pulling his brown T-shirt over his head. “What do you need?” There was no shame or guilt. He looked more annoyed than anything.
    “How can you do this to my mother?”
    “She shouldn’t have sent you over here.”
    “She didn’t.” He looked into his father’s eyes. Cool gray and so much like his own. “Why do you hurt her like this?”
    “A man needs more than one woman can give him. Someday you’ll understand.”
    “What? That cheating on my wife is okay?”
    “It’s what men do. You’ll do it, too.”
    No. He’d seen the devastation in his mother’s eyes too many times to ever cause a person he loved that much pain. He shook his head. “No, I won’t.
    His father smiled as if he knew better. “You and your brother are just like me.”
    “I’m not like you,” he’d protested, and then he’d set out to prove it. The next day he’d walked into a recruiter’s office and enlisted in the Marines.
    An enlisted man.
    The Marines.
    The old man had been pissed . His mother worried that he’d made a rash decision out of anger. His brother had been in shock, but Beau had never regretted it. Out from beneath the shadow of his father, he’d thrived in the corps. He’d been his own man. Discovered a freedom from his last name. An independence from impossible expectations that his brother would never know in the teams. No matter that Blake was twice the SEAL that their father had ever been.
    Until that morning eight months ago, he’d thought that he was nothing like the old man. Yeah, he loved a good adrenaline rush. He loved clandestine missions and a well-placed bullet. And yeah, he’d had sex with a lot of different women all over the world. He’d had a few relationships along the way, but he’d never been married. Didn’t have a family to devastate. Didn’t have to look in the face of a wife and kids and see their disgust because once again he’d had meaningless sex with a meaningless woman.
    He’d only had his own face to look at, and he’d never felt disgust at the man looking back at him. Not until that morning eight months ago. Maybe it was age. Maybe it was settling into civilian life. Maybe it was his mother harping about family. Whatever it was, he wanted more. More than meaningless sex with meaningless women.
    He knew a lot of men didn’t understand why that meant celibacy. His brother didn’t understand. Hell, Beau didn’t think he understood completely, but he didn’t believe in half measures. When he committed to something, he went all the way. The next time he had sex, it would be with the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life loving. A woman who was mature. Calm. Secure in her own skin. Stable. Not overly romantic, because he wasn’t a romantic guy. At his age, he expected she’d have a couple of kids. He liked kids. He expected to add a few more.
    A woman who liked sex so he wouldn’t have to go without sex ever again. He’d read that the longer a person went without, the easier it got. He didn’t find that to be the case. Perhaps he didn’t think about sex as much as he used to, but when he did, the urges were as strong. He’d just learned a few tricks to take his mind off his urges. To rewrite the