Begin Again Read Free

truck , he walked over to his brother and sat down. “What’s up?”
    He and Dustin were twins, only fraternal , but they looked like they could be identical. Dustin was his best friend and had been their whole lives. Since Dustin became a father, he was all about dishing out advice that wasn’t asked for, but Dylan would humor him.
    “Nothing . My house has been invaded by wedding shit today, so I thought I’d come see if you wanted to have breakfast before we head to the office. You with Cassie last night?” Dustin knew about their arrangement. He didn’t get it or why, but it wasn’t really his business, so Dylan didn’t care.
    “ Yep. That all right with you?”
    “Don’t be an ass. I just don’t see why you don’t try dating; hell, date Cassie. You guys are together all of the time, so you might as well make it official.”
    “I don’t have time to date and Cassie and I tried dating. We’re better off as friends who just like to fuck each other. We both agreed that if either of us met someone we’d break it off, but I see it happening to her long before it happens to me, which is perfect.”
    Dustin shook his head with what looked like disbelief. The guy was all about love and happily ever after’s these days. Of course that’s because Saturday Dustin was marrying the love of his life and the mother of their daughter. Dylan was happy for him and loved Stacy to death, and little Violet, their one-year-old was the most gorgeous little girl next to his sister Bellamy’s little girl, Carrington.
    Dylan found it comical that Dustin and Luke both had daughters. It certainly served his former-slut brother right. The guy was already threatening to start buying guns to have on hand when boys started sniffing around Violet. Their mom said it was karma. They were getting what was coming to them.
    “Okay, forget I mentioned it. Go shower and then we’ll grab some breakfast. Don’t forget that we have final fittings for the tuxes tomorrow afternoon, too.”
    Dylan nodded and went inside to shower.
    After breakfast Dylan rode with his brother to their offices. Together with Luke, the three men ran the construction company that their fathers’ started, as both men retired last year. Dylan didn’t have the college degree like his brother or Luke, so he ran and managed the crews on the sites. He wasn’t above getting his hands dirty with the rest of his men and had learned a lot over the past year.
    He still sometimes wondered if he’d made a mistake getting out of the Marine Corp when he did, because if he would’ve stayed in, then in ten or so years he could’ve retired. There was no point thinking about that now. He was happy with where he was at in his life. When he’d first come home two years ago he’d been in bad shape. Just the mental drain of being deployed, and then there was her ; he didn’t even say her name anymore because it still caused him to feel empty and alone. In a moment of weakness, Dylan had told Cassie about her . She was such a cool woman that she offered to try and help find her, but Dylan had turned her down.
    Dylan fucked up that whole situation . Never being able to find her was his punishment for lying to her about his name and leaving without saying goodbye. He’d been dealing with it ever since.
    “Dylan?” His brother was snapping his fingers in front of his face. “Where’d you go?”
    “Nowhere . Just thinking.” Dylan avoided his brother’s questioning gaze.
    Dustin wasn’t stupid ; he probably knew exactly where Dylan’s head was at. He knew all about her , but no more thoughts of that.
    He left his brother staring after him and went inside to his office, which was the size of a broom closet, but at least he didn’t spend a lot of time there. Usually at the start of a job he stayed behind to make sure the permits were good and everything else was set up: equipment, supplies and the licenses of his workers were all up to date. His phone buzzed on his desk.