Chuck pulled back far enough to wipe his mouth off on his shoulder. “Yeah—that’s what I was trying to tell you. How did you know?”
Suddenly Dan was tucking himself into his pants and reaching for the remote control. “Chuck—man—look! You blew up his fucking toilet!”
Chuck gave a little whimper of dissatisfaction—it had been his turn for the blowjob next, and he was hard, dammit! He’d been concentrating on the blowjob, and the TV was white noise in the background. What was the big deal now?
Then he registered Dan’s horrified fascination and turned to look at the screen.
There stood the hated jock frat house, Sigma Eta Phi… except it was bursting out at the seams—literally. It sat crooked on its foundations, the windows broken from the strain, and a sort of pink foam was oozing out of one window. There were ambulances, firetrucks, and one very dazed-looking Kyle Miller being taken away from the scene with his clothing in tatters and what looked to be second-degree burns on his ass.
Chuck sucked air in through his teeth. “Wow. That did not turn out like I thought it would.”
Dan turned to him in disbelief. “Chuck, seriously? Are you kidding me? You destroyed the frat house! You could have killed somebody! Do you know how bad this is?”
“Well, it says no fatalities, so, uhm, not as bad as it could be?” He gave a mean chuckle. “Think Miller’s balls got a little crispy? Think it’ll keep him from beating on the next girl who says no?”
Dan bent his head and massaged the back of his neck. “Chuck, you have got to fucking disappear, man. I mean, off the map. Canada or something. They are going to put you in prison for this much collateral damage.”
Chuck was going to ask Dan how he knew Chuck would go to prison, when the reporter said, “Police are looking for this man in connection to what appears to be a horrible prank gone wrong.” The picture they flashed was from Chuck’s freshman year in high school, when he was all ears, teeth, and elbows, so not even his mother would recognize him, but still.
Chuck sucked air through his teeth. “You know, I’m telling you right now, prison does not work for me.”
Dan gave a persecuted groan and tilted his head back so he now addressed the heavens. “How about the Iraqi desert, Chuck? How’s that work for you? Because I could get you to boot camp in a week. All you gotta do is pack up and lay low.”
Chuck thought about it. “Yeah, can I blow shit up there?” His stomach was pretty tingly from seeing his handiwork on television. He wondered what it would be like to see that in person.
Dan gave him a long-suffering look. “Yeah, Chuck. I’ve got a buddy who recruits for the army. I’m pretty sure we can find a spot in munitions and transport for you in Iraq.”
Chuck grinned at him. “Righteous! Want me to finish that blowjob now?” He shuddered. “I gotta tell you, I might go off in my pants just from the buzz of blowing up the frat house. That is some hot shit right there.”
Dan—who wasn’t a bad-looking guy, with dark hair and hazel eyes and a sort of wistful smile one didn’t usually associate with the military—stared at Chuck in disbelief.
Chuck grinned easily, hoping for the best.
Dan shrugged and looked at the television, then looked at his watch, then looked at the pillow on the ground by his feet, and then looked at Chuck’s grinning face again.
He undid the button on his khakis.
“Fantastic!” Chuck said, sinking to his knees with all the enthusiasm of a kid with an ice cream.
Or a Good Luck Chuck getting himself some luck.
Three years and two months later
THE BAR in Cleveland was tacky—worn veneer, uncomfortable wooden booths, mashed red-felt carpet, vinyl stools that were held together with duct tape and ass juice, and shutters over the windows that stayed closed even in the middle of the day.
Which was good, because Chuck needed to drink and think and the reminder of time passing was only going to stress him out.
Iraq had been fun. Now, most people didn’t see it that way, but Chuck had been put in charge of munitions and had put that two-quarters of a chemical engineering degree to good use. He’d also learned to drive pretty much everything—truck, Jeep, tank, motorcycle, small plane—to the point that if anybody had to transport a fuckton of something that would go boom if it got shaken or stirred, Chuck was the guy to call. He’d almost re-upped, because it felt like he had found his calling, but there was that whole following-orders thing.
Chuck really sucked at it.
He took all his tests and did all his drills and shot endless rounds into the desert target range, and he was pretty fucking good at all of it. But when his CO told him to stand up straighter, he put his hands in his pockets and slouched. He probably would have spent his entire stint in the brig, but dammit, people kept needing his skill set.
All his CO’s hated him like poison—including the guy who had been assigned when he’d gotten his papers asking if he’d wanted to re-up. Nope—with this guy, Chuck would spend all his time in the brig. It had definitely been time to clear out.
Unfortunately, he’d been sleeping off his jetlag in a shitty hotel in Cleveland when he’d gotten word that his parents, who’d told him he could live at home for a month or two while he got his civilian legs back underneath him and found a job, had been killed in a car accident.
He’d arrived at the old homestead in time for the funeral after-party—and to see his sister get the thirty-day notice of foreclosure on his parents’ home.
Daphne was living there too, waiting for her divorce to come through and trying to raise her infant son, Dougie, on her own. Chuck, jetlagged and sad, had walked into the house and been confronted by his sister, grief-stricken and desperate, falling apart in front of his parents’ entire neighborhood association, while their older brother, Kevin, told her to suck it up and learn how to work for a living.
Chuck was pretty sure he hadn’t broken Kevin’s jaw, but that was only because he pulled the punch at the last second.
He wouldn’t exactly say he’d matured in the desert, but being in charge of all that firepower had made him cognizant of how to use power so one did not blow up one’s teammates. That restraint had bled into other areas of his life, and he was reasonably grateful it had saved his brother’s life that morning.
Or at least his jaw.
After Kevin had gotten up and stormed out, Chuck and Daphne had had a long conversation about how much she needed to keep the house afloat, and how much their parents’ insurance was, and what her living expenses had been to date.
Chuck had hugged her and left—mostly because there were mutters among the neighborhood mourners and extended family about calling the cops. But before he’d left, he’d promised her that he’d find a way to drum up the money.
He didn’t have a plan. He didn’t have any resources. All he had was a hotel room with pretty much everything he possessed in the world and this bar right here, which served him a beer once every forty-five minutes, the perfect interval in which to help him think.
After a couple of hours, the one thing—one thing—he knew beyond all certainty, was that the only way to get enough money to keep Daphne and her kid from getting evicted from their parents’ house was probably illegal.