Nobody

Lazy Day

The bed was comfortable, laying on it on my back for a change, ashtray on my stomach and without any clothing. I was just staring at the ceiling, thinking.

Why was sex with Miss Mary-Beth so exciting? Was it the adultery? Was it the fact that she was relatively inexperienced? Maybe because she wasn't Prudence and that made her new and different after all these years?

I sighed, blowing smoke toward the ceiling.

I'd picked that habit up quick again. Like no time had passed.

When I'd been burning hot during my nervous breakdown I'd gotten back into eskrima too. Now that I was allowed to exercise again, I was seriously thinking about starting from the beginning and working my way up. That meant I'd need to see if I could buy a training dummy and some rattan sticks.

I sighed, exhaling slowly.

The odd thing is, once I'd gone on to take over my own site I hadn't really kept going with the eskrima. Miranda had been put on Tony's crew, which meant I really had nobody to push me to improve my skills. I'd been all right at it, nothing like Heather or Foster. Jesus, Foster. He'd been amazing at it to the point where the only people that really pushed him was Miranda and Heather. I hadn't even been as good as Tony. When his leg was blown out. And his shoulder. And his left eye.

Once I got out of the military, I hadn't bothered with a single kata.

Until I heated up and into a meltdown.

I put out the cigarette and lit another thinking about it.

I wasn't planning on fighting, and I wasn't going to try to be competitive, but doing eskrima to stay in shape might be all right. It wasn't a thing John Bomber did, but it did sound like something that Sam English would do just to stay in shape.

My recovery had given me some time, unintended, to create my new persona.

Sam English was outed as being a Silver Star and Purple Hearth winner. Thanks for that, Gary. It had gotten around, thanks to my license plates and gossip, that I was permanently disabled. Everyone had found out I'd rebuilt an entire house, mostly by myself, in a little over a week. I was friendly, had a Texan accent, and had a tendency to be somewhat formal with the ladies of the tonw.

I sighed, reflected on what I'd put forward to everyone.

So, Sam English was a bit of a homebody. A hard worker who had a tendency to throw himself fully into a project and was capable of high levels of dedication to a project or goal.

The Silver Star silently attested to that.

The odd thing was, is I was entirely free to do what I wanted.

Which is something I wasn't used to.

When I'd been John Bomber every day was arranged for weeks in advance. Where I would be going, how I would be getting there, who I wanted to meet and greet, what I would be wearing. Hell, even what I was going to eat was scheduled and planned out.

Was that's why I was enjoying cooking and just sitting around?

I tried to think of any hobbies I had.

Two cigarettes later and I realized I couldn't think of a single hobby I had.

Jesus, had I put that much of myself into increasing the Bomber Family Legacy?

I play a lot of video games

Miss Lily-Rylee had made it sound like she would be on the computer or on the game console every waking hour if she had her way.